NWADNUG: Northwest Arkansas Give Camp

The next Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group meeting will be held on December 14th, 2010 5:30 PM. Matt Hinze will be presenting Inversion Control in Action.



Remember his is how we figure out how much food to get so please help us make sure we have enough for everyone.

Announcements:
Northwest Arkansas GiveCamp - January 14-16, 2011 - More Info

Meeting Information

Title: Northwest Arkansas Give Camp

This meeting will be a discussion and planning for how we can be involved with the Northwest Arkansas Give Camp event being held in January. Please bring yourself and anyone at your company that would be interested.

Agenda

6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:15 PM - 8:10 PM - Give Camp Planning

Where
Technology 101
105 SE 22nd St, Suite #7
Bentonville, AR 72712

NWA DNUG: David Walker “Developing for Windows Phone 7 with Silverlight Tips &Tricks”

The next Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group meeting will be held on November 9th, 2010 6:00 PM.

Remember his is how we figure out how much food to get so please help us make sure we have enough for everyone.

Announcements:
Tulsa Techfest - November 12, 2010 - Open Call for Speakers - Registration
Northwest Arkansas GiveCamp - January 14-16, 2011 - More Info

Meeting Information

Title: Developing for Windows Phone 7 with Silverlight Tips &Tricks

In this session you will learn Tips & Tricks that you will find very useful in developing applications for the Windows Phone 7 device. From caching of data, objects, XML and images in IsolatedStorage to Databinding, Templating and more. You will leave with the tools that will tremendously speed up your time to market.

Presenter:

David Walker is an Senior Application Development Manager with Microsoft. He has over 15 years experience in application development with over 50% of that employed as a consultant. He has been an MCP since 2003, MCAD and MCSD since 2005, and was a Microsoft MVP - ASP/ASP.NET from July 2007 – July 2009. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was formerly a board member for INETA (Vice President, Speakers Bureau), President of the Tulsa Developers .NET users group, founder and President of the Tulsa SQL Server Group and Tulsa Java Developers, Vice President of the Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group. He has been the Chairman over the TulsaTechFest event which is going on its fifth consecutive year as the region’s largest technical training event. He also launched the very successful first annual NWA TechFest on July 8th 2010.

Agenda
6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:15 PM - 6:30 PM - Lightning Presentation
6:30 PM - 6:40 PM - Intermission - Presenter switch over
6:40 PM - 8:10 PM - Main Presentation
8:10 PM - 8:30 PM - Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where
Technology 101
105 SE 22nd St, Suite #7
Bentonville, AR 72712

Hope to see you there!

NWA DNUG: Jay Smith "Estimate Tasks with Planning Poker"

The next Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group meeting will be held on October 12th, 2010 5:30 PM. Jay Smith will be show everyone how to estimate tasks using Planning Poker.

Get your Ticket for the meeting here! Remember his is how we figure out how much food to get so please help us make sure we have enough for everyone.

Announcements:
Houston TechFest 2010 - October 9, 2010
Northwest Arkansas CodeCamp - October 23, 2010 - Registration Open
Tulsa Techfest - November 12, 2010 - Open Call for Speakers
Northwest Arkansas GiveCamp - January 14-16, 2011 - More Info

Northwest Arkansas Code Camp
The Northwest Arkansas CodeCamp is less than 20 days away. Registration is still pretty low so please help get the word out. There will be 6 tracks of sessions covering everything from mobile to ASP.NET development. Check out http://nwacodecamp.com/ to register and plesae forward this event information to anyone you feel would be interested.

This Months Meeting Information

Title: Planning Poker is a consensus-based estimation technique for estimating, mostly used to estimate effort or relative size of tasks in software development . It is a variation of the Wideband Delphi method. In this session you will learn not only what planning poker is but how to facilitate it with your team. Using Planning Poker to estimate task on your project is not only accurate its fun.

Presenter:
Jay Smith is an ASP .NET MVP and works for Tyson Foods, Inc. as a PMO Architect and Evangelist where he works with teams to test bed processes and technologies. Jay is also one of the founding members of the Northwest Arkansas .Net User’s Group and host of User Group Radio - The Community Leadership Podcast. Jay often presents to the community on various topics including Agile Software Development, Object Oriented Principles, and Application Architecture.

Agenda
6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:15 PM - 6:30 PM - Lightning Presentation
6:30 PM - 6:40 PM - Intermission - Presenter switch over
6:40 PM - 8:10 PM - Main Presentation
8:10 PM - 8:30 PM - Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where
Technology 101
105 SE 22nd St, Suite #7
Bentonville, AR 72712

Hope to see you there!

NWA DNUG: Matt Hinze "Inversion Control In Action!"

The next Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group meeting will be held on September 14th, 2010 5:30 PM. Matt Hinze will be presenting Inversion Control in Action.

Announcements:

• Houston TechFest 2010 - October 9, 2010
• Northwest Arkansas CodeCamp - October 23, 2010 - Registration Open
• Tulsa Techfest - November 12, 2010 - Open Call for Speakers
• Northwest Arkansas GiveCamp - January 14-16, 2011 - More Info

Please help us get the word out for the Northwest Arkansas CodeCamp on October 23, 2010. This is going to be an awesome event. Many of the speakers that are going to be at the Tyson Development Conference will also be speaking at the CodeCamp. This years CodeCamp will be at the Tyson World Headquarters in Springdale, AR. This is a open to the public free tehnical conference. Please visit the Northwest Arkansas CodeCamp site to register to attend or to submit sessions.

This Months Meeting Information

Title: Inversion Control in Action!

Description:
Matt Hinze talks about inversion of control, object-oriented principles, software architecture and how to develop quality software very quickly. In this intermediate to advanced level talk, Matt presents the basics of IOC in C# and codes live several interesting usage patterns...

Agenda
6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:15 PM - 6:30 PM - Lightning Presentation
6:30 PM - 6:40 PM - Intermission - Presenter switch over
6:40 PM - 8:10 PM - Main Presentation
8:10 PM - 8:30 PM - Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where
Technology 101
105 SE 22nd St, Suite #7
Bentonville, AR 72712

Hope to see you there!

NWA DNUG: Dennis Bottjer "Stop Drowning In Technical Debt!"

The next Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group meeting will be held on August 10th, 2010 5:30 PM. Dennis Bottjer will be presenting on Stop Drowning In Technical Debt!

Announcements

Technology 101 has new location, so be sure to check out the new address!

In an effort to control our budget we are only going to plan food for those who have RSVP'd. If you RSVP before noon the day of the meeting you will have a printed name badge, extra ticket for drawings, and be guarnteed food. Please help keep the cost of our meetings down so we can keep providing top speakers for the group.

Main Presentation

Title: Stop Drowning In Technical Debt!

Description:
Technical Debt is a metaphor introduced by Ward Cunningham to describe the result of “Quick and Dirty” Software Design. Eventually, software projects will incur either accidental or strategic Technical Debt. What is the price of accumulating to much technical debt? How do we measure our Technical Debt? How do we pay down our Technical Debt? This session will provide the answers to these questions through a balance of presentation and real-world examples using various code analysis and metrics available within Visual Studio 2008

Presenter:
Dennis J. Bottjer is a solutions architect, consultant, teacher, blogger and speaker. As a three time Microsoft ASP.NET MVP, he specializes in SharePoint and Web Development. Dennis has over 12 years of industry experience with an emphasis on the Financial and Banking Sectors. As an associate for a Fortune 100 Financial Services Company, Dennis was a key contributor during the development of an underwriting system and fulfillment system. Dennis builds community by regularly participating in user groups and community events. He has been a user group president and is currently an INETA.org membership mentor. Dennis lives in Tulsa, OK with his wife Carrie, daughter Kate, son Will and three cats.

Agenda
6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:15 PM - 6:30 PM - Lightning Presentation
6:30 PM - 6:40 PM - Intermission - Presenter switch over
6:40 PM - 8:10 PM - Main Presentation
8:10 PM - 8:30 PM - Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where:
Technology 101
105 SE 22nd St, Suite #7
Bentonville, AR 72712

Arvest Ballpark Social Event Sept 1, 2010 6:45 PM

The Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group in partnership with Tyson Foods, Inc. and TEKSystems bring you A Night at Arvest Ballpark.  We have a limited number of free tickets for seats in the Tyson Foods Box for an evening watching the game and having fun.

There will be a drawing for an Xbox during the 7th inning stretch!

Event: A Night At Arvest Park

Game: Arkansas Naturals vs. Arkansas Travelers

When: Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Where: Arvest Park Tyson Box

Time: 6:45 PM (Game starts @ 7:00 PM)

To secure your free ticket please contact Megan Coger at mseba@teksystems.com.  This even is open to everyone and is a great opportunity for others to find out about the Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group and what we do. 

Tickets are available for the first 20 people who RSVP.

Tickets will be available for pick up at Will Call the day of the event.  You will need to present a photo i.d. to pick up your tickets.

Event Sponsors

Tyson Foods, Inc., founded in 1935 with headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas, is one of the world's largest processors and marketers of chicken, beef and pork, the second-largest food production company in the Fortune 500 and a member of the S&P 500. The company produces a wide variety of protein-based and prepared food products and is the recognized market leader in the retail and foodservice markets it serves. Tyson provides products and services to customers throughout the United States and more than 90 countries.

 

TEKsystems provides technology staffing and services, helping businesses deploy high-caliber IT and communications expertise under a range of delivery options including Staffing Services, Infrastructure and Application Services, Global Services, and Workforce Management Services. Ranked by Staffing Industry Analysts, Inc. as the nation's top IT staffing firm, we've become a billion-dollar services company by continually building on what we do best - blending superior client service with an unrivaled ability to source and manage IT and communications talent, resulting in successful technology executions.

Code Jam #1 - July 11th, 2010 12:00 PM to ?

The Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group is planning some awesome events for the coming year.  To be able to get these events of the ground we need to get together and work on the websites.  If you have some time pack up your laptop and join us on July 11th, from noon till whenever for an evening of fun and code where we will get started working on sites for the Northwest Arkansas Give Camp and Northwest Arkansas Community Camp events.

If you plan on showing up let me know by registering.

NWA DNUG: Building A Testable Data Layer – Todd Anglin

*** NEW LOCATION ****

Please make sure to note the new location for our monthly meetings

Technology 101
5211 Village Parkway Suite 1
Rogers, AR 72758 [MAP]

*** NEW LOCATION ****

Meeting Date: July 13, 2010
Meeting Location: Technology 101, 5211 Village Parkway, Suite 1, Rogers AR [MAP]
Meeting Time: 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Main Presentation

Title: Building A Testable Data Layer – Todd Anglin

Description:
All developers understand the theoretical value of unit testing, but with data driven LOB applications, figuring out how to create tests can be hard. In this session, learn how to build a data layer that can be tested. We will introduce data layer architecture practices and methodologies that make testing possible, and cover the basics of unit test mocking. You will also be guided through various types of testing, including unit, integration, and functional testing. Leave this session with the basics needed to start creating tests for application data layers, including those powered by LinqToSQL and OpenAccess ORM.

Presenter:
Todd Anglin is an active .NET community member, President of the North Houston .NET User Group, and Telerik's Chief Technical Evangelist. At Telerik, Todd is responsible for building Telerik's global community of developers and helping ensure Telerik's products serve the needs of .NET developers around the world. Before joining Telerik, Todd worked as a developer in a Fortune 200 financial services company supporting applications on a wide range of platforms and technologies, including Unix, Windows Server, Informix, Oracle, and SQL Server. He also an avid entrepreneur with previous experience running a small .NET software studio.

When:
6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:15 PM – 6:30 PM – Introductory Presentation 
6:30 PM – 6:40 PM – Social Time
6:40 PM – 8:10 PM – Main Presentation
8:10 PM – 8:30 PM – Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where:
Technology 101
5211 Village Parkway Suite 1
Rogers, AR 72758 [MAP]

Next Month: Stop Drowning in Technical Debt! by Dennis Botjer

NWA DNUG: Microsoft 2010 Product Team Tour

Special Meeting Time: June 1^st, 2010  Please update your calendars

Randy Walker has organized this awesome tour, this looks to be one highlights of the year.  You don’t want to miss it!

Special Meeting Time: June 1^st, 2010  Please update your calendars

When:
5:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM – Main Presentation
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM – Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where:
The Jones Center
922 East Emma Avenue
Springdale, AR 72764

Room: Oklahoma City Room (218)

NWA DNUG: Dennis Palmer - LINQ to XML and XML Literals in VB.NET

Main Presentation

Title: XML is Everywhere: LINQ to XML and XML Literals in VB.NET

Description:
These days it's getting rare to find a software application that does not use some form of XML. It's everywhere! Remember ages ago (back in 2001) when you wrote your xml parser?

Hopefully you 've been using XPath and the .NET classes inside the System.XML like XmlDocument and XmlNode for the last few years. But that's so 2003.

With the 3.5 release of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio 2008, there is a whole new way of working with XML.. Whether you're creating, editing or consuming XML, you need to know LINQ to XML and the XML Literals within Visual Basic. But don't take my work for it! Kathleen Dollard on Hanselminutes show #152 said, "If you code in any language and do not understand XML Literals in VB9, you're selling yourself short. Go learn about it... It's a really powerful mechanism."

We'll cover LINQ to XML, how to enable XML Intellisense, and using VB XML Literals for dynamically generating XML.

Demos will include:

• Data binding with LINQ to XML queries from the Twitter API.
• Windows Installer XML (WiX), which was the first Open Source project to come out of Microsoft.
• XML Literals View Engine for ASP.NET MVC.

While this technology was introduced with Visual Studio 2008, the code and demos will using Visual Studio 2010.

Presenter:

Dennis cut his coding teeth teaching himself BASIC on a TI 99/4a in the early 80's. In the late 90's he discovered Delphi where he worked with few record labels to put software on their music CD's. After 5 years of working with PHP and PHP MVC he discovered Microsoft .NET and C#. In his spare time, he is learning Python, Silverlight, iPhone development and returning to C# form some ASP .NET MVC projects.

Dennis was recognized as the 2nd runner up for the Inland Empire .NET User Group Most Valuable Member award for 2008-2009. In August 2009 he and his family relocated to Texas.

When:
5:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM – Main Presentation
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM – Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where:
The Jones Center
922 East Emma Avenue
Springdale, AR 72764

Room: Dallas Room (222)

RSVP:
Please RSVP: Please accept or decline

NWA DNUG: John Oswalt & Jeremy Sharp "The Microsoft Mix Download"

Main Presentation

Be sure to join us on April 13, 2010 for the John and Jeremy show. John Oswalt and Jeremy Sharp will be taking us on a awesome ride through some of the most talked about content that was presented recently at the Microsoft Mix conference in Las Vegas, NV.

Mark your calendars and get ready for the Microsoft Mix Download!

Title: The Microsoft Mix Download

Come hear a download of the latest Microsoft technology news that was announced at the Microsoft Mix 2010 Conference. Topics will include the latest updates on ASP.NET MVC 2, Open Data Protocol (OData), Visual Studio 2010, ASP.NET 4, Silverlight 4, and the new Windows Phone 7 Development.

Presenters:

John Oswalt is a Lead Developer/Analyst for Tyson Foods, Inc. based in Springdale, AR and a Microsoft Certified Professional in ASP.NET. He is currently the President of the Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group (@nwadnug). He has over 10 years experience in developing websites and applications. His passions for programming languages include ASP.NET, C#, HTML, CSS, VB.NET, SQL, JavaScript, and many others. He is the owner of a few different types of blogs on the internet (Technology – letsblogabout.net) and (Sports – www.callthehogs.com). You can also follow him on Twitter (@joswalt).

Jeremy Sharp is a graduate of the University of Arkansas in computer science, Jeremy has devoted his entire career to the development of Intranet, Internet and Extranet enterprise business applications for both large and small corporations. Over the last ten years he has worked in a variety of industries, including consumer products, health care, education and transportation. Jeremy's client list comprises many well-known local and national names, including Tyson Foods, Arkansas Occupational Health Care, North West Technical Institute and J.B. Hunt.

When:

5:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM – Main Presentation
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM – Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where:
The Jones Center
922 East Emma Avenue
Springdale, AR 72764

Room: Kansas Room (226)

NWA DNUG: Brian Sullivan "Introduction to Object-Relational Mapping with NHibernate"

Main Presentation

Title: Introduction to Object-Relational Mapping with NHibernate

Description:
Object-Relational Mappers (ORMs) have started to make their way into mainstream .NET development with the advent of LINQ-to-SQL and the Entity Framework from Microsoft. Before that, though, there was NHibernate. Based on the Java Hibernate project, NHibernate is one of the most mature .NET ORMs in the marketplace. The Fluent NHibernate project builds on this to make NHibernate a breeze to configure. In this presentation, Brian will discuss the pros and cons of ORMs in general, and demonstrate how NHibernate can take the pain out of writing your persistence layer.

Presenter:
Brian Sullivan is a developer for Falcon Applications, LLC in Shreveport, LA. He has been working with Microsoft technologies for about 5 years, and is interested in increasing the exposure of agile techniques and methodologies in the Microsoft developer community. He is a graduate of Harding University in Searcy, AR.

When:
5:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM – Main Presentation
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM – Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where:
The Jones Center 922
East Emma Avenue
Springdale, AR 72764

Room: Kansas Room (226)

NWA DNUG: Devlin Liles "Intro to Intermediate Generics"

Main Presentation

Title: Intro to Intermediate Generics

Description:
In this talk we start with the basic uses and details of generics, assuming no foreknowledge of generics. This will take us through what generics are, what they mean to the compiler, and how they can be leveraged. We will progress to more advanced uses and finish by writing a point of sale example using generics to save time and code. This will take us through writing our own generic functions, actions, predicates, and applying constraints to give type based member access inside the generics.

Presenter:
Devlin Liles a Programmer Analyst at Tyson Foods, Inc., leads the Tyson internal .NET user group (DEVLOOP), and is the chairman of the Tyson Development Conference, a 250 person .NET event in the fall. His current project is currently working on Smart device front ends for SAP.

Since 2007 he has been presenting on software development practices and tools to audiences around the Arkansas and Oklahoma area. He is a regular presenter at the Tyson .NET user group and is a regular presenter user groups and events.

When:
5:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM – Main Presentation
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM – Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where:
The Jones Center
922 East Emma Avenue
Springdale, AR 72764
Room: Kansas Room (226)

A Night at Fast Lane Entertainment

Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group, Northwest Arkansas SQL User Group and TekSystems have teamed up to have a social night. Mark your calendars for the fun evening full of socializing, bowling, and gaming. Feel free to bring a guest.

When: Wednesday, January 27th

Where: Cosmo Bowling Lanes @ Fast Lane Entertainment

Time: 6 PM - 8:30 PM

NWA DNUG: Chris Koenig "ugPDC: Best of PDC Tour" - Tuesday, Jan 12th

Main Presentation

Title: ugPDC: Best of PDC Tour

Description:
Join Developer Evangelist Chris Koenig for a whirlwind tour of the major announcements from PDC ’09. We’ll look at the changes and improvements to Windows Azure, new features introduced in Silverlight 4.0, and Visual Studio 2010/.NET 4.0.

Presenter:
Chris Koenig is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft, based in Dallas, TX. Prior to joining Microsoft, Chris worked as a Senior Architect on the Architecture Strategy Team for The Capital Group in San Antonio, and as an Architect, Developer and Development Team Lead for the global solution provider Avanade. As a consultant, Chris worked with a variety of clients from many vertical markets, ISVs and other solution providers on enterprise-class Windows and web-based applications. Today, Chris focuses on building, growing, and enhancing the developer communities in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas. Chris is a devoted husband and father of four awesome children who keep him very busy. In his spare time, Chris serves as Scoutmaster for his oldest son's Troop, and Committee Chair for his youngest sons' Pack. Chris also enjoys travelling, cooking, camping and playing guitar.

When:
5:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM – Main Presentation
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM – Closing and Prize give-a-ways


Where:
The Jones Center
922 East Emma Avenue
Springdale, AR 72764
Room 130 (Generations Room)