*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

I’ve been wanting to post this for a few days now but wanted to wait until I got the *official* email.  This morning it finally came so I can break the news that I’ll be doing a full day pre-conference session at TechEd 2010 in New Orleans, LA.

The conference is officially slated for June 7-10th this year but as typical with most conferences like this there is a pre-conference that happens the day before the conference.  The pre-conference sessions are typically full day lengthy sessions whereby attendees can get deeper into a technology.  This year I will be doing a pre-conference entitled “.Net From Scratch” (at least I think that is going to be the title). 

.Net from scratch will start attendees at the beginning of what .Net is and work through all the layers of the platform building upon one another.  Some of you may recall my “Back to the Basics” series and this is born right out of that.  I know there are attendees that go to these larger events where some get their first exposure to the .Net platform.  There are a multitude of reasons why this is but I’ve never seen any sessions tailored to bringing new people into the platform.  The bottom line is if you don’t have a way to get people introduced the platform, the platform doesn’t grow.  Most of the time speakers like to talk about the new shiny thing, leaving out those people that are just getting started.  Someone has to fill this gap and I am truly passionate about filling this void. 

What is the moral of the story?  If you are going to TechEd 2010 and don’t know .Net but want to learn it come to this pre-conference session. Or if you know someone that is going to TechEd that is trying to learn .Net and the platform tell them about this pre-conference session.  It’ll be a great primer for things they’ll see and learn later in the week.

I was wanting to host a crawfish boil at my house (which is only 1.5 hours from New Orleans) on the Saturday before TechEd this year but I don’t know if I’ll be able to prepare all that I have to prepare for and host a crawfish boil.  We’ll see how things pan out.  If you’d be interested in attending a Pre-TechEd Crawfish Boil in Hattiesburg at my house on Saturday before TechEd let me know (comment, IM or carrier pigeon).  If there is enough interest I’m sure I can make it happen.

Codemash 2.0.1.0 is just a few days away and it is going to be a busy few days for me this year.

This year I was asked to be the official MC of Codemash.  I was truly honored to be asked and I’ve been gargling salt water and oils to keep the throat fresh ever since. 

On Wednesday for the pre-compiler I’ll be doing a full day of what I call “.Net From Scratch” or “.Net Basics”.  This is a perfect opportunity for those that don’t know .Net to get a full picture of the platform from ground zero.  Here is the official abstract from the Codemash site:

.NET Basics with Keith Elder (all day)

Technology/Platform: .NET
Difficulty Level: 100/200

Abstract: This all-day session is targeted to anyone new to .NET. You’ll start out with basic “What is .NET?” and move through building applications on in various .NET technologies. Topics covered include:

• What is .NET? Discusses the fundamentals of the .NET platform, what it is, where it can be used, and a few myths about .NET.
• How to Use Your Hammer – Visual Studio Walks you through how to use Visual Studio features like Intellisense, Source Control integration, debugging, and other critical foundational skills.
• A Programmer’s Primer Programming in C# Covers the basics of the C# language from Object Oriented Programming principles all the way to generics, collections, and LINQ. This is a programmer’s primer, which means you should already know at least one language and have some experience programming.
• Client Applications Covers standard Windows applications, Windows mobile applications and newer Windows applications based on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).
• Web ApplicationsCovers the variety of ways to build web-based applications in .NET. standard ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight and Web Services.

As if that wasn’t enough, Woody and I will be recording some podcasts for Deep Fried Bytes here and there when we can.  It is going to be a busy few days but I am ready. 

My only hitch at the moment is I hope to get clearance from my eye doctor to fly.  Right now I am grounded since I had eye surgery on Monday.  If the Dr grounds me when we meet on Monday, I’ll just start driving.  See you there!

Tonight I’ll be speaking at the Shreveport, LA .Net User Group.  This is my first trip back to Shreveport in 12 years and I’m looking forward to the visit.  I used to live in Bossier City / Shreveport, LA after I graduated college.  It was there I had my first teaching job.  It is funny how life makes full circles because the leader of the .Net Group there, Brian, I taught when he was in 8th grade. 

Tonight I will be Demystifying Windows Communication Foundation.

Summary:

Windows Communication Foundation was released with the .Net 3.0 framework and is the future of the platform for distributed computing. With .Net 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) became a first class citizen with additional tooling and add ons for Windows Workflow Foundation. In this session we are going to look at WCF from the standpoint of how to transition from ASMX web services and some of the important things you should know about WCF. If you have been hesitant in adopting WCF and still writing ASMX web services, this session will hopefully put you over the edge to giving WCF a try. I assure you, once you do, you will never look back.

If you are in the area I hope you’ll come out and join the conversation.

July 13th I’ll be in Fort Smith, AR presenting at the local .Net User Group there on the topic of distributed caching with Velocity (Microsoft’s new distributed caching product). 

This will be my second trip to the state of Arkansas as I was in Little Rock earlier in the year.  Before hitting Fort Smith, we are planning a mini-vacation to Branson, Mo.  We’ve been there before and it will be fun to spend the weekend there. 

Here is the abstract and title for Monday night’s presentation:

Distributing Cache One Byte at a Time With Velocity

Have you ever used the built-in caching capabilities within Asp.Net? If you have you know that as long as you have one server to cache information it works really well. What happens though when you add an additional server? Or even better let’s say you add an additional 10 servers! Now what? What happens is you’ve got data replicated all over the place and it gets out of sync. Not to mention it becomes really hard to manage as data gets changed. Enter “Velocity”, Microsoft’s new distributed caching product. In this session we’ll do a thorough look at all of the pieces of Velocity from installation/deployment, configuration, the API and some of its features like regions and tags.

Last year I was invited to speak at a lot of conferences and code camps but the one that I didn’t get to go to due to scheduling conflicts was CodeStock held in Knoxville, TN.  This year I made sure it was on my schedule because the majority of my Twitterverse / Tribe will be there and I couldn’t stand to see the tweets from a remote location again this year.

CodeStock Sessions

I’ll be doing two of my “Back To Basics” sessions this year to help those that want to learn .Net get acclimated into the .Net platform.  The two sessions are:

• What is .Net?
• A Programmer’s Primer Programming in C#

While these two sessions aren’t about the latest and greatest technology and won’t fill the room, I strongly believe they are a necessity for code camps and other areas.  Speakers tend to focus on the latest and greatest shiny new thing but there is a huge whole whereby those that are starting at ground zero don’t have a place to go.  I’m glad these sessions got picked.

Deep Fried Bytes Live!

On Friday evening from 5:00 – 6:00 Woody and myself will be doing a Deep Fried Bytes episode live! 

But, the coolest announcement is that Elly Mae will be there live and in person to help us kick off the show.  So for those in attendance you’ll get a special treat no doubt getting to meet the truest Southern Belle in the South. 

It is going to be a great weekend with loads of fun.  See you there! (ps – rumor has it there are a handful of tickets left if you still haven’t signed up)