*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!

This past week I was onsite at my employer, Quicken Loans.  This coming April we will be moving to downtown Detroit into the Compuware building (exciting!).  There is a lot of planning taking place such as data centers, furniture, etc. 

I was in meetings all day Monday and Tuesday but when I came back out to our area, the floor was ripped up and the cubes that were a row over were GONE! A crew was installing new carpet and the new cubes so everyone on the 4th floor could see first hand the new office furniture going into our new Detroit office. 

After things were finally setup on Friday I whipped out my camera and recorded a preview of the furniture with one of our team members. 

In the video you will see the old cubes (the brown ones) and then the new ones, along with the new carpet.  Things look a little messy because everything was in mid shuffle but everyone so far seems to really like the new chairs and of course the tables as you’ll see.

Did I mention we are hiring?  We have several .Net Developer and SQL DBA positions open and are actively hiring other positions as well.  That means you can enjoy sitting in one of these if you are hired!

Interested?  Contact ME directly and we can kick the process off.  NOTE:  We move FAST, so be prepared for lightening speed.  How do you contact me? Email me at the address below:

 
http://deepfriedbytes.com/podcast/episode-41-developing-better-user-experiences-with-internet-explorer-8-with-jon-box/

Want to learn why you should look at the Internet Explorer 8 for developing better user experiences? We have just the guy to explain and give ideas around the new features of Internet Explorer 8. In this episode, we sit down with Jon Box, Microsoft Architect Evangelist, to get the scoop on how to use Accelerators, Web Slices and Search Providers in IE8 to keep users informed and updated.

The sky is falling! The rumors are true, it is snowed in Hattiesburg, MS on December 5th, 2010.  Not only did it snow but the New Orleans Saints are 11-0.  As if that wasn’t enough, Extreme Home Makeover is in Hattiesburg right now building a new home for a very deserving family that was taken advantage of after hurricane Katrina. 

I knew that global warming was just a fad. 

Don’t worry, the snow is already melting so this will be a short lived glance at Frosty.  It will return to sunny an 70 in no time.

View the pictures I took this morning that I uploaded to Flickr.

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