May 2009 - Posts

• Community Radio Narration Contest

  I started recording episodes of Community Radio at Microsoft Tech-Ed 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Since coming back home, I’ve been hard at work editing these episodes and creating the intro/outro music. There is still one element missing however, the narrator. That’s where you come in. I’m holding a contest to find the Community Radio narrator. To enter, record yourself speaking the below intro and outro phrases in the highest quality format (either MP3 or WAV). The recorded intro and outro must be no longer than 27 seconds each. To submit your entry, send an email to Steve with a link to download your recordings. Entries must be received by 11:59 PM eastern time on Friday, May 29th. Intro: "Welcome to Community Radio: connecting the developer community everywhere. Community Radio is powered by INETA Live, located on the web at live.ineta.org, and hosted by Steve Andrews: Microsoft MVP for Visual Studio Team System, Director of Technology for INETA North America, and all-around Community Fanatic. And now… to the communitymobile! Enjoy the show!" Note: In the second to last sentance, it's communitymobile, as in "To the Batmobile." Outro: "Thanks for listening to Community Radio: powered by INETA Live and hosted by Steve Andrews. If you enjoyed this episode, pass us along to your friends and colleagues and check out our podcast archives at live.ineta.org. Narration by [your name]. Join us next time for another edition of... Community Radio." Good luck! Posted May 24 2009, 07:26 PM by Steve with 2 comment(s) Filed under: contest, Community Radio

• WinFormsMVC

  I’ve been working on a Windows Forms based project recently, and I quickly became frustrated at how unwieldy it became after just a short while. I have also been working a lot with the ASP.NET MVC framework recently, and I thought this model might work better, so I set out to build a proof-of-concept of what Windows Forms MVC might look like. So far I have a very rough framework, but it’s at a point where feedback would be beneficial so I have published the project over on CodePlex. So go take a look, browse the source, and let me know what you think! http://winformsmvc.codeplex.com Posted May 20 2009, 05:11 PM by Steve with 4 comment(s) Filed under: ASP.NET, Windows Forms, MVC

• Training: Hands-on Introduction to ASP.NET MVC Development

  Registration is now open for this four hour course taking place on May 29th, 2009 at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center in Malvern, PA. ASP.NET MVC is a free and fully supported Microsoft framework for building web applications that use a model-view-controller pattern. Like ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC is built on the ASP.NET framework. The benefits of ASP.NET MVC include complete control over your HTML markup, intuitive website URLs, clear separation of concerns which results in web applications that are easier to maintain and extend over time, and testability – including support for test-driven development. This course will be led by Steve Andrews, a Microsoft MVP for Visual Studio Team System, Director of Technology for INETA North America, and founding partner of Five Velocity Partners, a consulting and training provider specializing in Application Lifecycle Management and custom application development. Overview: 4 Hour Course, including lunch Instructor-Led Introduction to ASP.NET MVC Development Overview of the Strengths and Weaknesses of ASP.NET MVC from a Developer’s Perspective Overview of the Essentials of the ASP.NET MVC Object Model Opportunity for a Hands-on Lab Writing ASP.NET MVC Extensions Discussion of Unique ASP.NET Deployment Requirements and Strategies Opportunity for Questions and Answers Date Location Event Friday May 29, 2009 9:00am -1:00pm ET Desmond Hotel & Conference Center Malvern, PA Hands-on Introduction to ASP.NET MVC Development Registration Fee: $349 Presented By: Steve Andrews Includes Bound hard-copy of the training materials USB memory stick with trainings resources including demos and labs Continental breakfast Buffet lunch High-speed internet access Requirements: Comfortable with ASP.NET development Understanding of the ASP.NET page lifecycle Attendees must bring their own laptop installed with: Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Standard or greater SQL Server 2005 or 2008, Express or greater ASP.NET MVC Framework version 1.0 To register for this event, please contact Steve Andrews. Posted May 18 2009, 09:02 PM by Steve with 12 comment(s) Filed under: ASP.NET, MVC, Training

• Volunteering at Tech·Ed 2010 in New Orleans

  Tech·Ed this week was tons of fun and an amazing experience! I worked several booths, interacted and networked with a large number of my peers, and enjoyed almost every moment. Needless to say I was thoroughly exhausted when I got home. One of the highlights of the week though was the Wednesday night INETA Developer Party at Chaya; thanks to Infragistics for helping to sponsor it! The food was great: sushi, great wine, delicious pastries. During the course of the night the topic of New Orleans and Tech·Ed came up, and I suggested that we fly in a day or two early and volunteer for an organization like Habitat for Humanity. The whole table was in agreement and every person said they would do it. Today, I sent an email to Habitat for Humanity inquiring about volunteering on June 5th, 2010 which is the Saturday before Tech·Ed. This is where you come in. If you are interested in arriving early for Tech·Ed 2010 to help rebuild New Orleans, please contact me so I can start to get a headcount. More information about volunteering for Habitat for Humanity can be found here: http://www.habitat-nola.org/volunteer/faq.php Posted May 17 2009, 04:04 PM by Steve with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Tech Ed, Community

• Tech·Ed Visual Studio Tips with Sara Ford

  While at Tech·Ed this week I had several opportunities to sit down with Sara Ford, including for my new Community Radio podcast. Along the way, I learned a few new tips and tidbits of knowledge about Visual Studio. Cycle Clipboard Ring If you’re like me when using Visual Studio, the last block of text you copied to the clipboard is always in the back of your mind, in many cases for future use. And then you mistakenly hit Ctrl+C (Copy), and overwrite the clipboard and destroying the coding flow. No more. Instead of using Ctrl+V (Paste) to paste from the clipboard, you can use Ctrl+Shift+V, which cycles through Visual Studio’s clipboard ring. Yes, Visual Studio has a clipboard ring. In the past when I presented this tip folks wanted to know how large the clipboard ring is, and I didn’t know. I asked Sara this week and it’s 20 items. File Tab Channel File Menu There are a couple nifty tips about the File Tab Channel, which is the horizontal bar above documents that lists each document name. First, if you right-click on a document’s tab, there are a couple new menu items added in Visual Studio 2008 that can be very useful: Copy Full Path – Copies the full file path to the clipboard. Open Containing Folder – opens Windows Explorer to the directory containing the file. Second, the File Tab Channel File Menu, the down arrow on the right side of the File Tab Channel, lists all the open documents. It can also be invoked from the keyboard using Ctrl+Alt+DownArrow. Lastly, and I learned this little-known tip this week, the File Tab Channel File Menu itself is state-sensitive. That is, when there are more documents than can be displayed in the space, the icon changes from to . This can be really handy since it isn’t always apparent how many documents are open. Using the Find Combo Box to Set a Breakpoint Another little-known tip is that if you type a method name for the currently open document into the Find combo box, located in the Standard command bar, and press F9, it will set a breakpoint on that method. More Tips If you liked these tips you can find more in Sara’s book, “Visual Studio Tips”, available now on Amazon.com. 100% of the author royalties are being donated to a scholarship fund at the local community college for residents of Waveland, MS which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Microsoft is also matching her donations 100%. Go buy three or four copies! Posted May 17 2009, 03:50 PM by Steve with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Tips, Visual Studio, Tech Ed, Sara Ford

• INETA Live – Call for Speakers

  Want to be famous-er? Give back knowledge? Geek out with your peers? You should do an INETA Live webcast! One of my initiatives as Director of Technology for INETA is to further develop INETA Live. Details on INETA Live can be found below: What is INETA Live? INETA Live is a forum for virtual events and webcasts via Microsoft Live Meeting. What to Present Whatever you want! Speakers can present a full presentation that they may present to user groups, an intro to one of their talks, or a topic of current interest. The choice is completely up to you! When do the webcasts happen? INETA Live webcasts are typically done during the week at 12 noon or 8pm eastern time. Feel free to request other arrangements if these times do not work for you. Hosts Each presentation and speaker will be introduced by a meeting host who will also serve to field audience questions to the speaker. Recording The presentation will be recorded for future viewing on INETA Live. What next? If you are interested in doing an INETA Live presentation, please contact me. Posted May 03 2009, 11:25 PM by Steve with 2 comment(s) Filed under: INETA, INETA Live