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)