Date: Thursday 7th June 2007
Time: 3:30 PM – 6:00 pm
Topic: Concurrent Programming and the Dynamic Language Runtime
Location: Level 2, QV1 Building
Cost: FREE
Presenter:Joel Pobar

We are pleased to be able to announce that whilst Joel is in the country, we have been able to get him to present for us on the 7th June.

For those who don't know, Joel is a former member of the CLR team and has a wealth of knowledge that most .NET developers would be envious of.

Following Joels presentation, we are also pleased to invite you along to a community dinner at Nine Mary's restaurant (Indian). The food will be a fixed cost of $20 per person but you will be expected to pay for drinks. If you are interested in attending this dinner you MUST rsvp to Alastair as soon as possible (before June 1st) so that we can secure a booking at the restaurant.

I encourage everybody to attend this session, and please pass the details along to as many people as possible.

 

Date: Thursday 3rd May 2007
Time: 5:30 PM
Topic: A look at the Expression Suite
Location: Excom Education - Level 2, 23 Barrack St, Perth
Cost: FREE
Presenter: Stephen Price

Fresh from Code Camp 2007 Stephen is going to demonstate the some of the latest offerings from Microsft.

Microsoft Expression is a suite of tools for professional designers building web and Windows client applications and rich media content

Stephen will briefly show Expression Web, but will mainly be focusing on Expression Blend. He will show how easily you can animate a 3D object created with with Zero lines of code using a 3D design tool called Zam 3D. 

Date:         Thursday 1st March 2007
Time:          5:30 PM
Topic:        Building applications you can take on the road - A guide to Microsoft Synchronisation Technologies
Location:   Excom Education - Level 2, 23 Barrack St, Perth
Cost:         FREE
Presenter:  Nick Randolph

Hidden amongst the mass of recent technology is an underlying trend away from traditional web or windows forms applications. In a world where most of us carry a mobile phone and enterprises that are looking to mobilise their work force there is an increasing number of applications that are built to be occasionally connected. Microsoft have a number of synchronisation technologies that form the basis of any application that is to be network aware - in otherwords, applications that don't care whether they are connected or disconnected from the server.  In this session we cover three of these technologies: RDA, Merge replication and the latest, the Microsoft Sync Services.  We will also cover the recently released SQL Server Compact Edition which can now be used to build both mobile and desktop applications alike.

 

Date:         Wednesday 10th January 2007
Time:          5:30 PM
Topic:        .NET and Robotics
Location:   Microsoft offices, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Cost:         FREE

Come and join us for our first meeting of the new year, where David Lemphers will be in Perth, talking about his experiences putting together a .NET controlled Robot: Mr. Boto!

Date:        Thursday 7th December @5:30 PM
Topic:       Open Mike Night
Location:   Excom Education - Level 2, 23 Barrack St, Perth
Cost:         FREE

10 to 20 minute presentations from our very own user group members on a range of topics including

• My Favourite tools
• Codesmith NETTiers, agile development and SQL tips and tricks....
• Mysteries / Terminology around the workings of payment gateways

Prizes for the best presenter and some random giveaways

So if you want to get up and give it a go, just send me an email

..and seeing as this is our last session for the year, we will finish at the pub for some free drinks to say thanks for your support.

 

 

Date:        Thursday 2nd November
Time:        5:30 PM
Topic:       Creating User controls
Location:   Excom Education - Level 2, 23 Barrack St, Perth
Cost:         FREE
Presenter:  Alastair Waddell

If you are like me who hates writing the same code for different applications then join me as I run through creating reusable web user controls.

In this presentation I will show you how to add design time support for your controls including Smart tags and Autoformatting.

 

Date:        Wednesday 4th October
Time:        5:30 PM
Topic:       Designing Indexes for Developers
Location:   Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Cost:         FREE

Indexes that allow the database management system to access the underlying data efficiently are critical for the successful operation of a database application. In this session, Greg Linwood will explain some simple techniques you can follow to design indexes which will help your code run like the wind.

 

Date:         Friday, 1st September
Time:        12:00 PM
Topic:        Patterns and Anti-Patterns for SOA
Location:   QV1, level 2 Theatrette, 250 St. Georges Terrace, Perth
Cost:         FREE!

It is with great pleasure we can announce that Ron Jacobs is coming to Perth to talk about "Patterns and Anti-Patterns for Service Orientated Architecture (SOA)". Don't miss it!

Sure everybody wants to get on the SOA bandwagon, but the question is how? You know how to write a Web service, but isn't there more to becoming truly service-oriented? In this session, we use patterns as a way to think about architectural ideas that move us in the right direction and anti-patterns to help us avoid the common mistakes that many will make on the road to service-oriented architecture

 

Date:        Wednesday 9th August
Time:        6:00 PM
Topic:       Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System
Location:   Colonail Ballroom - MELBOURNE HOTEL, 942 Hay St  (cnr Milligan St), Perth
Cost:         FREE

At the request of a number of User Group members we have put together a presentation on VSTO

In his presentation Alastair will be demonstration how he has build an application to track RSVP's for user group sessions.

Please RSVP it you plan to attend so we can ensure there is enough room (and food) for everyone.

 

We are sorry to have to do this, but the expected normal fortnightly meeting scheduled for this Wednesday has had to be cancelled.

 

 

Join Alastair as he continues the SQL 2005 Reporting services series. This session focuses on the the integration into Windows Forms applications.

Date/Time:        Wednesday 12th July 2006, 5.30pm
Venue:              Melbourne Hotel - Heritage Boardroom
Presenter:         Alastair Waddell
Topic:               SQL 2005 Reporting Services - Winform intgration
Cost:                 $5

This event starts the usual time of 5:30

 

In Perth we sometimes miss out on some really good sessions like Innovations which was only run in the Eastern states. Not this time though - We are pleased to announce that Chuck is in town next week to deliver Vista Content for developers.

Date/Time:        Wednesday 28th June 2006, 5.30pm
Venue:              Heriatage Ballroom - MELBOURNE HOTEL, 942 Hay St  (cnr Milligan St), Perth
Presenter:         Charles Sterling
Topic:               Developer Features Windows Vista
Cost:                 FREE

You MUST RSVP to alastair@softteq.com for this event.

This event starts the usual time of 5:30 but there is a lot to get through, so don't be late.

 

Alastair will be talking about SQL2005 reporting services including creating reports, security, report parameters and some of his best practices.

Date/Time:	Wednesday 14th June 2006, 5.30pm
Venue:	The Atrium Theatrette, Lvl4/ 168 St George's Tce Perth
Presenter:	Alastair Waddell
Topic:	SQL 2005 Reporting Services
Cost:	FREE

Please RSVP to alastair@softteq.com for this event.

 

Resource and Configuration files have been with us since the first version of the .NET Framework.  Most of us use Resources files without even realising it, and it is only when we want to globalise an application that we realise how they work.  The built in support in VS2005 for application settings means that working with configuration files is much easier.  However, the format for custom configuration section handlers has dramatically changed.  This session walks through using resource and configuration files in your application, and how you can build a custom configuration section handler without writing thousands of lines of xml parsing code.

Date/Time:        Wednesday 31st March 2006, 5.30pm
Venue:              TBA
Presenter:          NiIck Randolph
Topic:                Resource, Settings and Configuration Files

This event is a Member event, which means that you either need to be a member of the user group ($75) or you need to pay to attend the session ($5 – for this session).

You MUST RSVP to nick@softteq.com for this event, the location has changed and we will be notifying people directly of the new venue.

This event starts the usual time of 5:30, although we will hopefully have drinks and nibbles from 5:15

 

Code and slides from both Dave Lemphers session and Adam Cogan's session are now available on the EVENTS page 

This month we have a special day of events (instead of our regular fortnightly meetings) as both Dave Lemphers and Adam Cogan are in town on Wednesday May 17^th !!!  As per usual we will be meeting at the Microsoft office, L14, QV1 building, 250 St George’s Tce.

Details are at

http://www.aususergroups.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1034

 

This week's presentation will look at 9 OO design principles that form the basis of most Design Patterns.
Examples of some of the common design patterns will be shown.

Topic:               Introduction to Object Oriented Design Principles
Presenter:         Mitch Wheat
Date/Time:        Wednesday 26th April 2006, 5.30pm
Venue:              Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Cost:                Free for members and non-members

 

In continuing the ASP.NET 2.0 series, Alastair Waddell of SoftTeq will run through ASP.NET Caching

This is a Members session, so if you are not already a member, you can either sign up on the night, or pay a one-off cost of $10 towards the community…

Caching is something ALL web developers should know about.  Alastair will be discussing the different caching methods available, how to implement them and some of the new features available in .NET 2.0 and SQL 2005

Date/Time:        Wednesday 12th April 2006, 5.30pm
Venue:              Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Presenter:          Alastair Waddell, SoftTeq
Topic:               Caching with ASP.NET 2.0
Cost:                 $10

Code now available on my blog - http://community.softteq.com/blogs/alastair/default.aspx

 

John Viner of SoftTeq will discuss the latest release of the Enterprise Library, version 2.0.

The Enterprise Library is a collection of reusable components (known as Application Blocks) developed by the Microsoft Patterns and Practices Group. The Enterprise Library provides best practice mechanisms for database access, caching application data, logging and instrumentation, handling exceptions and encrypting application data.

John will provide an overview of the various Application Blocks, and will run through usage scenarios to illustrate how they can improve the consistency and reliability of your enterprise .Net development projects.

Date/Time:        Wednesday 29th March 2006, 5.30pm
Venue:              Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Presenter:          John Viner, SoftTeq
Topic:               Enterprise Library, version 2.0
Cost:                 Free

Update:  slide deck now available from the section on the Events page, or via John's blog at http://community.softteq.com/blogs/john/default.aspx

 

Due largely to the Security Interchange and Security Seminar events being run by Microsoft next Monday and Tuesday March 13th and 14th, there will be NO user group meeting Wednesday next week.

Instead, the next meetings for the group will be
  March 29th    (free for all)            Enterprise Library – John Viner, SoftTeq
  April 12th      (free for members)  ASP.NET 2.0  Part 2 – Alastair Waddell

More details will follow closer to the date.

 

 

The next meeting will be Wednesday 1st March, in the Heritage Boardroom in The Melbourne Hotel from 5:30pm. 

This is a Members session, so if you are not already a member, you can either sign up on the night, or pay a one-off cost of $5 towards the community…

Details:

Date/Time:        Wednesday 1st March 2006, 5.30pm
Venue:              TBA
Presenter:          Alastair Waddell
Topic:                ASP.NET 2.0 – more than just a demo

There have been many ‘Hello World’ demos showing off the capabilities of ASP.Net 2.0. In this session we dive a little deeper, and help answer some commonly asked questions faced by developers wanting more than the default settings.

We will look at Authentication and role management, covering the Login control; create new user wizard and resetting user passwords and Sitemaps - getting the security trimming to work.

From there we move onto creating a SQL Sitemap dataprovider.

 

 

Details for the session:

Topic:           SOA and Biztalk Server
Venue:         Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Date:            Wednesday, 15th Febuary, 5.30pm
Presenter:    Michael Kleef
Summary:     Business Process is a burgeoning area at present. Everyone has something to offer to magically solve business problems and everyone is touting SOA. What does it actually mean though? How far can SOA go in reality right now? Michael will show whats currently achievable now with tools like BizTalk Server and how it aims to integrate services and automate business processes.  

 

 

The first meeting for the year will be this Wednesday at the Microsoft offices from 5:30pm.  Details:

Date/Time:        Wednesday 18th January 2006
Venue:              MS office, L14, QV1 Building, 250 St Georges Tce
Presenter:          Nick Randolph
Topic:                 Linq, a Language Feature of the Future

This session looks at the innovation happening in the .NET language space.  Linq is actually the accumulation of a series of language enhancements and is a major step forward in bridging the gap between conventional OO programming and data manipulation (relational, XML and other).  This presentation will provide a quick overview of the current .NET framework and features in .NET 2.0 before moving on to look at the proposed language features for .NET 3.0.  It will also cover the integrated support for database and xml data using DLINQ and XLINQ technologies.

 

 

This is the final meeting for the year and we have some pretty awesome prizes to give out.  In addition to the usual t-shirts etc we have 2 boxed sets (full licenses) of Visual Studio 2005 Professional and SQL Server 2005 to give away.

Details for the session:

Topic:           Windows Workflow Foundation
Venue:         Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Date:            Wednesday, 30th November, 5.30pm
Presenter:    Nick Randolph
Summary:       

Workflow management is an ongoing problem with technology today.  Often applications are built with a single function in mind and then extended well outside the initial scope.  In addition a particular workflow, such as a leave application or expenditure claim, may require data from multiple sources to go through a process of authorisation by a number of people.  WWF has been developed to cover scenarios such as document management, line of business processing, website page flow etc.  This session provides an overview of a technology that will allow developers to combine traditional techniques of flow diagrams into applications built using the .NET Framework.

 

Presenter: Alistair Waddell
Venue: Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Date: Wednesday, 30th November, 5.30pm
Cost: Free for members, $10 for non-members

Who said we can’t have fun.

Many years go, over a few drinks with my completely computer illiterate flatmate, I was proudly showing off a jukebox application I had created. I was crushed when he said “If you can get that thing to turn on the shower then I will be impressed”. And so my journey to Robotics began.

This session shows how things have changed. Using Lego Mindstorms, .NET 2.0 and a webcam, we will build a robot that we can control where he is looking, and see what he sees.

 

With the release of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 on November 7th, the Perth CoP has organised an all day event to get you up and running with these new products.

Date:   Wednesday, 16th November
Cost:    Free
Venue:   Atrium Theatrette
      Level 4 of the SGIO building
      168 St Georges Terrace, Perth

Thanks to Hays Recruitment for kindly offering to be the Event Sponsor, and thereby making this a free event for all who are interested in attending.

http://www.hays.com.au/

Format:

 8:30am  Registration
 9:00am  Session 1 - Introduction to Language Features in the .NET 2.0 Framework
10:30am  Morning break - Tea & Coffee
10:45am  Session 2 - ASP.NET 2.0
12:00pm  Lunch
 1:00pm  Session 3 - Testing and Debugging with VS2005
 2:15pm  Afternoon break - Tea & Coffee
 2:30pm  Session 4 - Building Data Applications using SQL Server 2005
 3:45pm  Panel/Open Discussion - Skilling up your development team
 5:00pm  Close

To register for the event, please email Nick at nick@autumncare.com.au.  If you plan / are only able to attend some of the sessions, please let Nick know.

 

 

Presenter: Nick Randolph
Venue: Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Date: Wednesday, 2nd November, 5.30pm
Cost: Free for members, $10 for non-members

Come along for an overview session on Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System. This will include coverage of the new source repository, the various build and test options, and of course project management using work items.

For more details on Team System, see http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/teamsystem/.

Also check out http://teamsystemrocks.com/

 

Date/Time:    Wednesday 19th October, 5:30pm start
Venue:           MS Office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Cost:              Free
Format:

5:30pm  Introductory comments
5:35pm  Tech Jump Start - A quick overview of the Composite UI Application Block  (Matt Ryan, UnisysWest)
5:45pm  Main Presentation - Developing with CRM 3 (Anne Busby, Power Business Systems)

Anne will be giving an introduction to development with and customization of Microsoft CRM version 3, which is currently in beta and due for release soon.  Anne will be covering many of the new extensibility features provided including: 
• form customization,
• addition of entities, and
• the new CRM web services.

6:30pm  Close / Adjourn to the Melbourne Hotel.

 

Visual Studio 2005 Tips & Tricks

Come along for a presentation from Nick of a bilingual version (ie both C# and VB) of the Visual Basic 2005 session he did with Bill McCarthy at Tech Ed this year.

The blurb from the Tech Ed agenda:
This is a must-see session for developers who are new to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, and reviews the major feature changes and additions for the current release. Take a top-down look at the new application architecture and RAD development enhancements in Whidbey, plus some key productivity features that are exclusive to Visual Basic.

Date/Time:    Wednesday 5th August, 5:30pm-6:30pm
Venue:           Microsoft Office (L14, QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce)
Presenter:     Nick Randolph
Topic:            Visual Studio 2005 Tips & Tricks

Format:

5:30pm    Introductory comments
5:35pm    Visual Studio 2005 Tips & Tricks
6.30pm    Close, with drinks at the Melbourne for anyone interested.

 

Presenter: David Lemphers
Venue: Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Date: Wednesday, 21st September
Time: 5:30-6:30pm
Cost: Free

Come along for an overview and demo of the Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly code-named Avalon).  David will discuss some of the vision and design goals of WPF, and what to expect as we get closer to the release of Windows Vista (formerly code-named Longhorn).

He will also demonstrating what you can develop today using Microsoft Visual Studio Extensions for WinFX Beta 1, and Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2.

David's Bio:

I graduated Cum grano salis from Swinburne University of Technology with a degree in Computer Science and Software Engineering in 1999 at the height of the dot com boom. It was an exciting entry into the industry, and an amazing start to a career in IT. My experience to date includes developing software from a rented house, running my own software services firm, consulting for a large systems integrator, and now working for Microsoft as a Developer Evangelist. My passions include coffee, pizza and gadgets; in that order.

David Lemphers
http://blogs.msdn.com/davidlem

 

Join David and the rest of us for drinks, dinner and discussion across the road from QV1 at http://www.ninemarys.com.au/.

Date: Wednesday, 21st September
Time: 6:45pm
Please remember that it is important to RSVP as we will need to book for the Geek Dinner – just send an email to nick@autumncare.com.au.

 

Presenter: Michael Kleef
Venue: Mirosoft office, L14 QV1 Building, 250 St George’s Tce, Perth
Date: Wednesday, 17th August
Time: 8:30-10:30am
Cost: Free

Originally scheduled to be Nick's presentation on Team System, there was a late change when Nick urgently had to fly interstate.

Michael kindly stepped up and offered to do what turned out to be an excellent presentation on Microsoft's Active Directory Federation Services, including some details of the Web Services standards the implementation is based on.

If you missed the presentation, and are at all interested in the problem of cross-company authentication, Michael has given us a copy of the slides, which you can download by clicking the link below.

 read more ...

Building a custom module for DotNetNuke

Following on from last month’s presentation by Mitch on ASP.NET, this month Alastair Waddell is going to be giving a walk through of building a custom module for DotNetNuke.  For the benefit of those who missed Phil’s session last year and haven’t seen DotNetNuke, it is essentially portal management software with built in support for user authentication, logging, security (and the list goes on).  The latest incarnation has most of the features anticipated in ASP.NET 2.0 and has been built using a provider model which essentially means that you can configure it the way that you want to work.  Re-skinning or building custom modules is relatively straight forward and allows organisations to focus on providing solutions rather than just a website.

Presenter: Alastair Waddell