Thanks to all who attended my jQuery presentation at the Dallas Tech Fest last Friday.

As promised, here is the code we developed and discussed during the presentation.

If you are interested in learning more about jQuery, here are two resources I recommend:

• The jQuery Web Site
• The book jQuery in Action (looks like the 2nd edition was just released!

Thanks,
Ken

From the Microsoft IIS team:

The Web Deployment Tool simplifies the migration, management and deployment of IIS Web servers, Web applications and Web sites. Administrators can use command-line scripting with the Web Deployment Tool to synchronize IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0 servers or to migrate an IIS 6.0 server to IIS 7.0. The Web Deployment Tool also enables administrators and delegated users to use IIS Manager to deploy ASP.NET and PHP applications to an IIS 7.0 server.

Looks like a great tool to help ease some pain!  The Web Deployment Tool will help to:

- Migrate Web applications between IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0 with ease

- Synchronize your server farm efficiently

- Package, archive and deploy Web applications more easily

More info: http://www.iis.net/extensions/WebDeploymentTool

Ken

Links from this week's Silverlight class:

Stuff you need to get started - links to downloads, service packs, etc.

Silverlight.net - the official page for information, downloads, documentation, tutorials, forums, etc.

Silverlight Cream - an aggregation of Silverlight articles and resources, updated frequently. A great resource!

Silverlight Tip of the Day Blog - active blog with lots of good examples and information

How to customize the Silverlight install experience - using the PlugInNotInstalledTemplate.

How to define a simple Silverlight splash screen

Working with multi-page Silverlight applications

Sparkling Client - The Silverlight Podcast

The Silverlight 3 Beta Release

- Ken

I'll be presenting two sessions this Saturday (3/28/09) at the Tulsa School of Dev event being held at the North East Campus of the Tulsa Community College. (The event is being held in conjunction with Sharepoint Saturday.)

9:00am - Introduction to jQuery - Occasionally a software product comes along that fundamentally changes the way we do things... jQuery does that to the world of client-side JavaScript! Learn how to use jQuery in your web pages for styling, user interaction, animations and more. You'll be surprised at how easy it is!

1:30pm - Coding with Confidence Using C# - You're an experienced C# developer, now take your skills to the next level. In this session you will see how to get the most out of C# by learning tips and tricks on how to work with events, initialize data, minimize garbage collection, work with iterators, create binary components and more!

Hope to see you there!
Ken

Omar Villareal from Notion Solutions will be presenting this Friday (3/27) at DevCares - see the Dallas DevCares site for time and location information. Here's an abstract for the talk and Omar's info:

Session Information

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 is an integrated application lifecycle management (ALM) product family with the tools and processes that help development teams (developers, testers, project managers, release managers…) work more effectively together. Whether it is a brand new application or an existing application that is in maintenance mode, having a sound ALM process and a good set of tools in place can increase a team’s productivity and reduce friction between team members. In this session we will look at the Team System tools and features that can help developers go home at 5:00 PM while still delivering high quality code on time. We will also glance at some of the tools and projects that the developer community has released to complement the work that Microsoft has done with the Team System family of products as well as the two features that I find most exciting in the upcoming release of Team System with Visual Studio 2010.

Speaker Bio

Omar Villarreal, is a Development Process Consultant for Notion Solutions, Inc. in Irving, TX. He is passionate about helping development teams implement better project management and development processes as well as to produce better quality software in record times through the use of the right tools and he has been doing that and since the early beta releases of Team System.
Omar is a Team System MVP, MCP, President of the Dallas .Net Users Group, Founder and President of the Dallas Team System Users Group and has organized two Code Camps in Dallas, TX. Omar also speaks about Team System at regional community events but when there is none of that going on, he rides his mountain bike at different off-road trails in the D/FW area. You can read the blog posts he writes when he finds time between all these activities at http://www.TeamSystemRocks.com/blogs/omarv. 

Hope to see you there,
Ken

Thanks to all that attended my presentation at the Dallas .NET User's Group last night! We had a good time getting started with jQuery.

You can download the demos from the presentation by clicking here.

I'll be on vacation (Spring Break!) for the next week, but will try to catch up promptly and answer any questions/comments on my return.

Thanks again!

Ken

Just confirmed that I will be speaking at the March meeting of the Dallas .NET User's Group on Thursday, March 12.

The topic is jQuery! Here's an abstract for the presentation:

Adding Life To Your Web Sites Using jQuery

Occasionally a software product comes along that fundamentally changes the way we do things... jQuery does that to the world of client-side JavaScript. Learn how to use jQuery in your web pages for styling, user interaction, animations and more. You'll be surprised how easy it is!

Hope to see you there,

Ken

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 8:30AM - NOON

NOTE: DevCares is held the last Friday of each month at the Infomart near downtown Dallas. Click here for the official Dallas DevCares site.

Learn about the latest technology for developing HTML-based web applications: ASP.NET MVC!

ASP.NET MVC enables you to build Model-View-Controller (MVC) applications by using the ASP.NET Framework. ASP.NET is an alternative, not a replacement, for ASP.NET Web Forms that offers the following benefits:

• Clear separation of concerns
• Testability - support for Test-Driven Development
• Fine-grained control over HTML and JavaScript
• Intuitive URLs

Click here to register or contact us for more information.

SPEAKER

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 One 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 son's Pack. Chris also enjoys traveling, cooking, camping and playing guitar.

You can contact Chris through his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/chkoenig, via e-mail at chris.koenig@microsoft.com, or via Windows Live Messenger at chris@koenigweb.com.

Random smatterings of stuff that I found interesting and wanted to keep...

Programming Sucks! Or At Least, It Ought To - "At the end of the day, the best programmers are not the ones who create the most beautifully-elegant, exceedingly-innovative code. The true rock stars can deliver software before deadlines, under budget, and that does exactly what the business needs. And those are the type we should all strive to be." - from TheDailyWTF.com

Measuring ROI – Moving from Cost Center To Strategic Partner - "The issue is that most IT departments are considered cost centers. This means that they are the first to be cut when times get tough, they are the least invested in, they are the last at the table to be heard and they are pushed around by all of the other departments. This is not a good position to be in. This is why a lot of companies look to outsource IT. Since they don't see it as a strategic asset and partner it doesn't matter if they keep it close." - from Josh Holmes

Creating and Publishing a Silverlight 2 video player to Silverlight Streaming End-to-end - Detailed step by step guide to importing and encoding a video with Expression Encoder, setting up a Silverlight streaming account, and uploading the video and player. - from James Clarke

Getting a SOLID start - "The SOLID principles are not rules. They are not laws. They are not perfect truths. The are statements on the order of “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” This is a good principle, it is good advice, but it’s not a pure truth, nor is it a rule." - from Uncle Bob Martin

Hanselman List of Podcasts for .NET Programmers - from Scott Hanselman

A Guide to Learning ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate 1 - "Now that the ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate is available for download, how do you learn how to start using it to build applications? Here’s a guide to resources for learning about ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate 1." - from Stephen Walther

- Ken

Thanks to everyone who attended my presentation on Silverlight at the January DevCares meeting.

Here's the code from the DNRTv viewer project we built during the presentation: DnrTvViewer.zip.

- Ken