Thanks to everyone that attended the Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta last Saturday.  I know that I had a lot of fun and was very impressed with the work of David and Julie Yack.  I know that Julie put a lot of hard work and heart into this event and it really showed.  She did an amazing job of coordinating the logistics of the event and I know she worked tirelessly to get some great speakers here in Denver.

I had a lot of fun presenting on Internet Explorer 8 and there were some great questions from the audience.  I have posted my slide deck from the session here if you would like to review it.  I know 50 minutes is not very much time to discuss the topic, so I am posting some additional links here if you want to explore further.

• Download IE8
• There is a great series of short videos called Internet Explorer “How Do I”
• You could think about writing a an IE8 Accelerator
• Explore how to light up Web Slices for your web applications
• Dig deeper into the IE7/IE8 compatibility modes and the meta tag to force IE7 rendering
• You can learn more about the IE8 developer tools here and here
• Follow the IE8 team blog

Architect Council  | The Importance of the Client

Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of innovation around of technologies that make it easier for the end user of an application to interact with systems.  This innovation has been a boon for the end user because it has provided them a more natural interface with systems that span the web, computer, and phone.  However, this has caused the complexity of systems architecture and development to increase.  The focus of this session will be on how to prepare and manage this complexity within your organization.

Facilitated by Microsoft, the premise of this event is to provide an open forum where architects can meet to discuss technologies with their peers.  This forum will provide first-hand experience and best practices that will enable its members to learn from each other and transfer knowledge. Please join us for this great opportunity to learn, share and network with your peers and other company leaders.

EVENT SUMMARY

The Value of the Client – In the past, the choice of how an end user interacts with an application has been dictated by IT and often without regards to the usage.  Recently, as the population has become more tech savvy and are experiencing interactions on the web, computer, and the phone their expectations have increased tremendously.  Many organizations now have to support multiple standards and technologies to accommodate their user base.  We will discuss the opportunities and challenges this presents.

The Changing Face of the Web – The web has changed from a static collection of data to an application platform.  In many cases, JavaScript and AJAX have enhanced the experience to enable more advance application scenarios.  In other cases, the Rich Internet Application using technologies such as Silverlight and Flash can bring the experience to a new level.  In this session we will discuss the web and in particular the investments Microsoft is making in this technology.

Creating Powerful Applications on Computers and Devices – The web has been a boon to application development and deployment, but it doesn’t always fit every scenario.  There are certain classes of applications which provide a better experience when running on a device and utilizing local hardware.  The ubiquity of the mobile device has also extended the expectations of users with anytime/anywhere access. 

The Future of the Client – The pace of change in client technologies over the past few years has been tremendous and is expected to continue to evolve.  From support of new device types such as tables and walls, to continued improvements in interactions on the web, client, and the phone the client will become more and more important from a technology perspective and more strategic to the organization.

AGENDA

12:15 PM  Arrival

12:30 PM  Lunch and announcements

01:00 PM  The Value of the Client

01:45 PM  The Changing Face of the Web

02:45 PM  Creating Powerful Applications on Computers and Devices

03:45 PM  The Future of the Client

04:15 PM  Raffle and close

SPEAKER BIO

Joe Shirey

Senior Architect, Developer & Platform Evangelism

Microsoft Corporation

http://www.joeshirey.com

Joe Shirey is a Senior Architect Evangelist for Microsoft based in the Denver area. In this role, Joe works closely with customers and the community to help them understand where Microsoft technologies fit into the architecture of their solutions. Prior to joining Microsoft, Joe was a Vice President at Interlink group where he was responsible for service and delivery for Interlink's Denver market. In the past, Joe was a Microsoft Regional Director, a member of the Microsoft Architect Advisory Board, and sat on the .NET Partner Advisory Council. Joe has more than eighteen years of hands-on technical and functional experience in project management, systems analysis, design, development, and implementation. Joe attained his Microsoft Certified Architect award in 2005.

Woody Pewitt

Technology Evangelist, Developer & Platform Evangelism

Microsoft Corporation

http://blog.pewitt.org/

Woody is a Technology Evangelist with Microsoft in Southern California. He gets to work with all kinds of people who are interested in Microsoft development technologies. He is an experienced teacher/trainer and is a part-time instructor at University of California San Diego.

Before joining Microsoft in 2005 he worked for as a Principal Engineer for a Microsoft partner, InterKnowlogy. He has been involved in software and system architecture, code, development and infrastructure reviews and analysis of several fortune 500 companies for salability, security, performance and standards & practices. He is also an accomplished author, having written Microsoft Official Curriculum and has authored several published magazine articles.

Locations

Click on the city name for details and to register

3/24/2009 – Bellevue, WA
3/25/2009 – Mountain View, CA
3/26/2009 – San Francisco, CA
3/31/2009 – San Diego, CA
4/1/2009 – Irvine, CA
4/2/2009 – Los Angeles, CA
4/7/2009 – Denver, CO

In my job I get to talk to a lot of developers about their tools they use – and many of them use some variant of Visual Studio (which isn’t surprising considering my job).  However, what does surprise me is the number of teams that I speak to that are not using the Database Edition of Team System.  There are some very powerful tools in the box that can really help out the DBA (or the developer that becomes the default DBA on many projects).  If you are using Visual Studio and do any database work, these are tools you should know about.

You may not realize it, but recently Microsoft made some changes to the licensing and now when you buy Team System Developer Edition, you also get Database Edition included (definitely an acknowledgement to the developer that is also the DBA). 

My team has recognized that there are many people who could benefit from understanding more about this functionality and has an event to help with this that they are running in Denver, Phoenix, LA, Irvine, and San Diego.  If you are already using Team System Database Edition today, you probably won’t get a ton out of this session, but if you are using Visual Studio Professional or Standard and do a lot with databases, you may want to check it out.  I know that it costs more, but if you can automate and avoid change control problems on a lot of your database tasks it may just pay for itself quite rapidly. 

For more information check out Steven Lange’s post on the event.

Thanks to a number of a really motivated folks in the Colorado community we have a fantastic event coming up in February – the Rocky Mountain Trifecta.  There will be tracks dedicated to .NET development, SQL Server, and Windows Server. 

There are some amazing speakers that will be coming – see Julie Yack’s post on the event.  Go register and pass along the information to your friends that might be interested.

My colleague, Rob Bagby, has announced the dates for his next series of MSDN Events this January.  This series of events focuses on a number of topics from the Professional Developer’s Conference which took place last October.  As I always tell people, Rob is one of the best presenters around and his sessions are always fun and informative.  He does a great job of walking through complex topics in a manner that anyone can understand.  In this series, Rob will be covering:

• What to expect with C# 4.0
• The Silverlight Control Toolkit
• REST with WCF and the WCF REST Starter Kit
• Overview of Windows Azure (“The Cloud OS”) and Azure Services

The following is the schedule for these events (click on the city to register):

• 1/12: Albuquerque
• 1/15: Salt Lake City (morning), Salt Lake City (afternoon repeat)
• 1/26: Colorado Springs
• 1/27: Englewood
• 1/29: Fort Collins

Hope to see you at one of the events.

At TechEd US 2008, I hosted a panel discussion with Michael Stiefel, Denny Boynton, Miha Kralj, and Patrick Weikle.  We discussed what an architect is and how to develop the skills of an architect.  It ended up being a very lively discussion with some very fun banter about our different opinions on the topic.  You can check it out here on Channel 9.

My colleague Rob Bagby has an event coming up in November which looks to be very good.  If you have ever seen Rob speak, you know that he always puts on a great show in addition to having fantastic content.

Here are the details…

Build it better with MSDN Events.

Join MSDN Events for the latest tips, tools and technical information you need to build powerful applications and engaging user experiences. Topics include:

• What’s New in SQL Server 2008 for Developers
• Power up your Office applications with VSTO
• Build next generation applications with Silverlight 2

If you haven’t yet registered or for up-to-date event information, please visit: www.msdnevents.com

Grand Hyatt Denver Downtown

1750 Welton Street
Denver Colorado 80202
United States

Language(s):	English.
Product(s):	Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Security, Windows and Windows Vista.
Audience(s):	Architect, Developer, Education, Government and IT Professional.

Event Overview

MSDN Event
Join us for a 4 hour MSDN Event where we will cover 3 seperate sessions focusing on Silverlight 2.0, VSTO and SQL Server 2008.

Session #1: What’s New in SQL Server 2008 for Developers

SQL Server 2008 adds numerous new capabilities for developers – from support for Spatial Data types to a storage mechanism for SQL BLOB data using the NTFS file system, and much more. The new release also delivers several improvements to development-related areas, from T-SQL to SQLCLR to XML. This session will provide a technical dive into the latest and greatest features you’ll find in SQL Server 2008, while offering insight into how to effectively apply them to your upcoming development projects.

Session #2: Power up your Office applications with VSTO

In this session, we’ll focus on the power and productivity of Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System (VSTO) – a .NET Smart Client technology. We’ll give you tips and tricks for designing and building smart client applications with VSTO, which allows you to create managed code applications with .NET languages including Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Visual C#. VSTO also makes it simple to manifest the functionality of those applications in the rich user interfaces of Microsoft Office Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio, Outlook and others from the Office stack. VSTO addresses some of the biggest challenges that Office solution developers are facing today, including separation of data and view elements, server-side and offline scenarios, seamless integration with the Visual Studio tools, deployment and updating. Join us for this eye-opening session and learn just how easy it is to build and deploy powerful applications with VSTO.

Session #3: Build next generation applications with Silverlight 2.0

Silverlight provides a powerful platform for building the next generation of rich interactive applications on the Internet. In this session, we’ll take a look at the programming model and tools that developers and designers can leverage to build these true next generation experiences for consumers and business, and demonstrate how to build a rich interactive application (RIA) using Silverlight and Microsoft .NET. We’ll explore how to use Microsoft Visual Studio to create applications, and how to create UI using XAML markup and code, controls, and File I/O. We’ll also discuss networking, how to retrieve data from a Web service, and various other aspects of building Silverlight applications.

If you watch MSNBC, you probably have seen the Microsoft Surface application used by Chuck Todd to predict the electoral votes.  You can download this application to your home computer and play with it if you want to make your own predictions.  See more details here at John Pelak’s blog.  I know that I will be playing with it on election night to see how the models change.

A couple of years ago I ended up working with one of the brightest minds I had ever met – Peter Provost.  Not only did we work together, but we ended up becoming good friends.  Over time we both ended up at Microsoft and Peter became as a Senior Program Manager on the Visual Studio team – in particular on the Visual Studio Team System for Architects team.  In talking with him, I realized that they were building out some cool things that were very useful from an architect’s perspective. 

Recently, I had the privilege of sitting down with Peter to discuss the upcoming release of Visual Studio and recorded it as a webcast that went up on ARCast.TV today.  Enjoy.

Thanks to everyone that turned out for my presentation on Monday night.  It was definitely a good time and I was impressed with the number of people that are either doing Office based development or are considering it.

A couple of notes from the presentation:

• Most of my demos and source code can be found from a blog posting I did a while back for the launch event in Denver/Phoenix.  If you want to get the code I would recommend reviewing this post.
• If you are interested in Server Side Generation of documents see this MSDN article which is excellent.
• I showed how to integrate SharePoint columns within the documents in that library and have posted about it in the past.
• At the end of the presentation I showed a little bit about how you can use the new Open XML SDK to read/write document in a much easier fashion.  If you have interest in the Open XML file formats you can see a lot of information at http://www.openxmldeveloper.org.
• At the beginning of the presentation, we talked briefly about Photosynth, Mesh, and Live Family Safety. 

Hope everyone had a good time and we will see you in the near future.