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Past Gigs

Feb 23, 2010

Cloudy (but Clear) Skies and Visual (Studio) Sights with Chris Bowen

Presented By: Chris Bowen, Microsoft

Held at: Tyler Technologies, Bangor

Summary: 
Windows Azure: What? Why? And a Peek Under the Hood

What is Cloud Computing and where can it take you? In this session, Chris will first focus on showing the potential benefits of creating applications for the cloud with Windows Azure. Then, we’ll pop open the hood to show you around the main parts of the engine, including web roles, worker roles, and queues. You’ll see how Windows Azure plugs in for interoperability with other on-premises and cloud applications via the App Fabric. You’ll also learn how Windows Azure can be used to host technologies other than .NET – such as Java and PHP – and get a glimpse into what’s coming next with project "Sydney" and the integration of Windows Workflow into the cloud.
Visual Studio 2010: That’s a 10-4, Good Buddy
There’s a buzz in the air as Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 are arriving soon, and they’re bringing plenty of cargo that developers will enjoy, from new features to improved productivity. We’ll hop on and take a tour, giving you the lay of the land in terms of what will help you as a developer. The sights will include parallel application development, new editor features and debugging capabilities (including a new historical debugger), improvements for web and Windows development, new .NET language features, and much more.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


Jan 23, 2010

Web Site Security -- Top Attacks and How To Defend Against Them

Presented By: Greg Howe, BAND co-leader

Held at: Libra Conference Room, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
In today's world, you can't afford to not know what the top attacks are on web sites AND how you can defend against them. If your data gets compromised, you won't find much sympathy about a lack of understanding of these issues. Come learn about XSS, CSRF, SQL Injection and other top attacks while also finding out how to stop them using standard ASP.NET and some basic security knowledge.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


November 24, 2009

Dueling BAND Joes "Mulligan" - jQuery and SQL XML

Presented By: Jeff Hall and Greg Howe, BAND co-leaders

Held at: Tyler Technologies, Bangor

Summary: 
Jeff and Greg lead the BAND together. As developers Jeff is somewhat conservative and well thought out in his approach, while Greg tends to "wing it" and doesn't enjoy having to write test plans and documentation. However, instead of their differences making it impossible for them to work together, they see how they provide ideas and tools to each other. They brought their minds together and showed how differences can work in your favor for really neat solutions.

This session had Jeff showing how you can work with XML natively in SQL Server, Greg showed you how to integrate jQuery into your web apps, and then both Joes showed how you can make a neat data-centric solution using the two technologies together.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


September 29, 2009

Introduction to Visual Studio T4

Presented By: Mark Blomsma

Held at: Libra Conference Room, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
An introduction to a somewhat hidden feature in Visual Studio: Text Template Transformation Toolkit or T4 for short. You will learn about using T4 and the statement, expressions and declarations needed to succesfully use T4 in your software projects.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


August 25, 2009

Tool Time

Presented By: Group members

Held at: Kominsky Auditorium, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
At this gig we heard from several group members about the tools they find indespensible on a daily basis. It was a fun gig with lots of interaction and discussion.

 

Resources:

Mark Blomsma's PowerPoint presentation on his list

Notable Names' lists


July 28, 2009

Using Test-Driven Development to Get Done Fast

Presented By: Scott Bressette

Held at: Libra Conference Room, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
Scott walked us through a real life situation to show how using Test-Driven Development gets the code done right the first time. He discussed how understanding Agile concepts such as roles and motives will help you read “between the lines” of what clients are asking for and deliver what they really want. TDD can seem like an impediment to getting things done quickly, but Scott showed how he uses just a few simple techniques to code with both speed and confidence.

 

Resources:

Coming Soon


June 23, 2009

WPF - A Little Further Down The Rabbit Hole

Presented By: Daniel Pratt

Held at: Libra Conference Room, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
Probably most of us have seen at least one slick demo of WPF or Silverlight. Such demos are inspiring, but they don't convey what it's like to actually use WPF in the real world. Fresh from completing our first business-centric application that uses WPF extensively, I'm excited to share from my experience of using WPF in the real world.

 

Resources:

Daniel's Slides


May 26, 2009

Sql Server XML Tips Tricks & Practical Programming

Presented By: Jeff Hall

Held at:  Kominsky Auditorium, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
Jeff showed how you can use XML to make your .NET apps rock! Jeff covered getting xml in and out of sql server, serialization, and even revisited jQuery from a new angle.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


April 28, 2009

Introducing jQuery!

Presented By: Greg Howe

Held at:  Kominsky Auditorium, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
Maybe you are comfortable creating server-side code and Javascript scares the pants off you. Or maybe you don't mind coding in Javascript but wish there was an easier way to do things, especially for speed and efficiency on your site. If you've jumped into AJAX, you know how client-side programming can speed up your pages and help provide a really nice, highly interactive interface. jQuery allows both sets of developers to ramp up quickly for basic things and dig in where needed for some pretty complex scenarios without having to know how different browsers might trip over your code. Greg showed how to add jQuery to your sites, even if you are tied to Microsoft ASP.NET and the UpdatePanel model.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


March 24, 2009

INETA Event -- Dissecting DevEvents: A Look at a Real World .NET MVC Implementation

Presented By: Steve Andrews

Held at:  Kominsky Auditorium, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
The ASP.NET MVC Framework provides a powerful Model View Controller (MVC) approach to building web applications, and provides separation of concerns, increased testability, control over HTML output, and intuitive URLs. We started by looking at building a model framework with LINQ to SQL, including validation and model binding. Then, we explored a custom generics-based repository and services implementation. Finally, we tied it all together with a look at Views and jQuery.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


February 26, 2009

Tips and Techniques

Presented By: Eric Burdo

Held at:  Libra Conference Room, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
Eric showed us lots of keyboard shortcuts and other tips and techniques to make our development environment shine and help us be more productive.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


January 27, 2009

Entity Framework

Presented By: Daniel Pratt

Held at:  Kominsky Auditorium, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
Using entity classes has many advantages over more generic data access methods. On the other hand, entity classes can be time-consuming and surprisingly difficult to implement correctly. In this talk, Daniel showed how Microsoft's new Entity Framework does the heavy lifting to make entity data access simple and powerful.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


November 20, 2008

Dueling BAND-Joes Development

Presented By: Jeff Hall and Greg Howe

Held at:  Libra Conference Room, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
This presentation had the BAND co-leaders, Greg and Jeff, taking an application from idea to finished product in just over one hour.  Using Test-Driven Development (TDD), web services, SQL Server 2005, ASP.NET using VB.NET, and C# desktop programming, the guys went back and forth in an entertaining way to show you how to make .NET applications in today's world.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


October 28, 2008

Application Frameworks

Presented By: Scott Bressette

Held at:  Libra Conference Room, Husson University, Bangor

Summary: 
This presentation was an introduction to application frameworks. Scott took us on his personal journey to understand what an application framework is, why we (should) want one and how to pick the right one. For Scott, the right choice was MicroFour’s StrataFrame. He showed us why StrataFrame met and exceeded all of his criteria. Then, he created an application from scratch to demonstrate how an application framework will make every developer of any skill level more productive and create better software.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


October 2, 2008

XNA Game Development

Presented By: Chris Bowen

Held at:  Libra Conference Room, Husson College, Bangor

Summary: 
This meeting was for people who enjoy games and are interested in how they're made. Microsoft XNA (http://creators.xna.com) is a free game development platform based on the .NET Framework that helps to make it easy to develop games for Windows, Xbox, and now the Zune as well. Using XNA Game Studio, you can create games of your own, to the amazement of friends and family. Chris introduced XNA, showed us around the XNA world, then created a simple 2D game from scratch (PINGAH!) to give us a feel for game mechanics and the architecture of XNA. This session required no game development experience, only a passion for coding and for games!

 

Resources:

Coming soon


August 12, 2008

Workflow Foundation

Presented By: Mark Blomsma

Held at:  Kominsky Hall, Husson College, Bangor

Summary: 
Workflow Foundation (WF) is one of the pilars of .NET 3. If you think WF is an end user tool then you’re wrong. It is a framework targeted at software developers that want to embed workflow into their custom applications. This session explored the WF basics and focused on implementing State Machine Workflows, how to use the workflow runtime and where Windows Communication Foundation fits in the whole picture.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


June 24, 2008

.NET 3.5 Language Enhancements

Presented By: Daniel Pratt

Held at:  Kominsky Hall, Husson College, Bangor

Summary: 
LINQ gets all the attention these days, but it's only one of a long list of enhancements added to C# and VB.NET in .NET 3.5 / Visual Studio 2008. In this talk, Daniel showed how the new features will change the way you program in .NET.

 

Resources:

Daniel's Slides


May 27, 2008

Heroes Happen Here -- 2008 Product Mini-Launch

Presented By: Jeff Hall and Greg Howe

Held at:  Kominsky Hall, Husson College, Bangor

Summary: 
In this gig, we ran long and rushed the end, but there was just so much to do to introduce the 2008 series of products and show what they do, including how your development efforts will be easier and more powerful. We talked about web improvements and also SQL Server 2008, and touched on Windows Server 2008's new IIS7.  We gave away a lot of cool stuff and had fun with it all.

 

Resources:

Coming soon


April 22, 2008

Step Into The Silverlight

Presented By: Chris Bowen, Microsoft

Held at:  Kominsky Hall, Husson College, Bangor

Summary: 
In this talk, Chris introduced the concepts behind Silverlight, what it does, when you might use it in your web applications, and how to use it. We saw some of the interesting ways customers are using Silverlight to improve the user experience of their web applications. We dove into both Silverlight 1.0 and 2.0 and showed some of the development experience using Visual Studio 2008.

 

Resources:

Silverlight website


April 1, 2008 (reschedule of March 25 date)

Converting VB6 Apps to .NET

Presented By: Eric Burdo

Held at:  Hampton Inn, Bangor

Summary: 
You feel stuck in VB6 land...there is all this .NET stuff people are talking about.  You know you want to get there, but what does it take?  Eric showed how to make the jump from VB6 to .NET and find out some of the pros and cons to converting your older apps.

 

Resources:

Upgrading from VB Classic to VB.NET


March 4, 2008 (reschedule of February 26 date)

AJAX: What It Is, How Cool It Is and How You Can Use It Today

Presented By: Greg Howe

Held at:  Hampton Inn, Bangor

Summary: 
You've heard the buzzword, and know it isn't just for cleaning anymore.  But did you know that you don't need a lot of ASP.NET programming experience and knowledge to use it in your web apps today? And that with some simple programming you can make a site more interactive and full of pizzazz to be like the big sites?  Greg spoke about:

  • What AJAX is and what it isn't
  • How some big sites are using it
  • The AJAX Control Toolkit
  • How to create a new AJAX-ified web app
  • How to AJAX-ify your existing web apps
  • How to take AJAX to the next level

Resources:

Greg Howe's PowerPoint Presentation (lots of additional resources on final few slides)
AJAX Web Service used in demo (returns random Double)
AJAX Demo Site (both UpdatePanel and Next Level demos)


January 22, 2008

Summary of the Bob and Chris Roadshow from December
Presented By:
Jeff Hall

Held at:  Hampton Inn, Bangor

Summary:  Did you miss the "Bob & Chris’ MSDN Roadshow" event held in Westbrook on December 11?  Jeff Hall, a fellow Bangor-area .NET developer, gave a summary of the event that talked about:

  • "Visual Studio 2008: The Accelerated AP/Honors Class"
  • "The Multi-Tenant Data Architecture"
  • "’You Are The Strongest LINQ!’: Effective Language Integrated Query"
  • "Expression Studio for the Designer-Wannabe"

Resources:

Chris Bowen's Blog on the December roadshow, with links to the content Jeff used
Scott Guthrie’s Blog on Javascript Intellisense
Scott Guthrie’s Blog on VS 2008 Code editing improvements
Get yourself a 90 trial download of Visual Studio 2008