*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

Holidays

I trust everyone had a great Holiday season.  This Christmas and New Years I felt like all I did was travel.  Ellen and I visited my Mom in Columbus, MS where all of my family gathered for Christmas.  Just as soon as I had recovered physically from playing with nephews and nieces during Christmas it was time to head to Codemash. 

The Mashing of The Code

Codemash was great this year and a totally different experience from the past several years.  For starters, several of us combined our funds together and got a suite at the Kalahari (thanks to Jeff and Carla McWherter for the idea). 

I was a little bit nervous at first about the suite but knew we had great chemistry among us and that’s all you need.  It turns out we saved major $$ getting the suite and got to play cards and stuff at night.  Truly a blast.

It was late Tuesday night when Jeff Blankenburg approached me and said he needed some help.  Wednesday was the pre-compiler for Codemash and Josh Holmes had a family emergency.  He wasn’t going to be able to make the pre-compiler.  I didn’t register for the pre-compiler because I had planned on just sitting in my room working on slides, demos, catching up on bills and email since I hadn’t been near a computer with an Internet connection very long. 

Jeff asked if I would step in and do an Intro to .Net since Josh wasn’t there.  It just so happens that I had just completed a whole series on “Back to the Basics” with three new slide decks covering an intro to .Net, Visual Studio and C#.  With zero preparation I stepped into the pre-compiler room at 8:30 AM the next morning just in time to kick off the Intro to .Net Track.  Three hours later I was done and came out of the track worn slap out.  No matter what someone says, speaking for that long is tiring.

Thursday afternoon I gave my talk on Demystifying Windows Communication Foundation.  After I spoke, several of us carried the conversation out to the open tables where we hashed out a lot of stuff for several hours and I somehow I wound up giving an adhoc CSLA talk.  That evening was the mixer and this year was awesome.  Good friends Carl Franklin, Dustin Campbell, and Darryl Hogan put on a heck of a show at the jam session.  They played Stormy Monday, Kansas and some other stuff.  Very cool.

Friday was recording day for Deep Fried Bytes as well as the battle of the Rock Band competition.  Woody and I recorded 3 or 4 shows from Codemash that we’ll be publishing soon.  Jeff Blankenburg, Jonathon Thorndycraft and myself formed a Rock Band to compete.  We made the Battle of the Bands top three and competed only to come in third.  SRT, watch out next year, we are taking you guys down!

BTW, if you want the slide deck from Codemash for WCF, you’ll find it here:  http://keithelder.net/presentations/

Grown Men Doing What?

After Codemash I rode back to Michigan where I stayed with fellow teammate Brad Lloyd.  Brad had a LAN party on Saturday where 6 grown men sat around playing video games for about 12 hours.  It has been awhile since I took part in a LAN party and it was fun to play even if I did get slaughtered.

Brad made a time elapsed video of the LAN party and needed some non-copyrighted music, so I gave him the DFB theme music to use.  Overall an interesting week to say the least.  Here is the video enjoy!

On January 1st, 2009 I received a really nice email telling me I had been selected to be a speaker in the INETA speaker’s bureau.  If you are not familiar with INETA here is a quote from their web site:

INETA provides structured, peer-based organizational, educational, and promotional support to the growing worldwide community of Microsoft® .NET user groups.

What does this mean?  It means that if you run or participate in a .Net User Group that meets the requirements for INETA then you can request me to come speak at your group and INETA helps to get me there.  For me this is great as it means I get to visit some areas I haven’t gotten to visit before and bring some WCF, Smart Client, Visual Studio, talks to areas I would otherwise not get to visit.

A big thanks to INETA for selecting me and a big congratulations to the other 15 members who were selected, many of which I consider friends (you know who you are).

After living only 1.5 hours away from New Orleans for about 3 years, I am finally making a trip down to speak at the .Net User Group in Metairie, LA.  If you look at the map I’ve graciously included for you, you’ll notice that I am really not that far at all. 

I’ve been to Mobile to speak several times so this will be a nice trip to go the other way and meet some new people.

I would say what I will be speaking on but I don’t know yet, it is still being decided.  I’ll update this post when I get the official word.  If you are in the area I hope you’ll stop in.  I will have some Deep Fried Bytes stickers with me so right there is enough reason to come. 🙂

It has been about a year or more since Kevin asked me to come speak at the Gulf Coast .Net Users Group and I am happy to report that I will be there with bells on Thursday July 17th!  It took us a while to get things in order but I’m looking forward to traveling down.  The drive isn’t that far and let’s face it, who doesn’t love a peaceful drive down the coast looking at sandy beaches and ocean water!?

That Thursday night I’ll be speaking on Windows Communication Foundation entitled “Demystifying Windows Communication Foundation”.  I may throw in a little Workflow Foundation love if time permits to show how WCF and WF are friends now within .Net 3.5. 

After the talk on Thursday, Kevin has promised to take me and Mrs. Dr. Elder deep sea fishing.  It is going to be a fun trip and I look forward to speaking in a new location and meeting some new people.  It has been too long since I’ve been to the Destin, FL area.  The last time I was in the area we went to the jazz festival in Pensacola.  I got so sun burned I spent 2 days sick in my dorm room after getting back. 

For those that attended my session yesterday, a big thanks.  I appreciate you taking time out of your day to attend the event.  I know after living in Michigan for years that beautiful summer days are scarce and the fact you gave one up to attend a one day event is incredible.

Here are the links for the session on Structure and Guidance for Organizing Applications in Visual Studio.

Power Point Slide Deck 

Sample ERP Solution

Note, this solution is a very SMALL example. I plan on expanding it down the road to incorporate a combination of things.  This is the solution we built during the talk yesterday.