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Posts about getting involved in the software development community

.NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip in Indianapolis!

.NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip

The details are still a bit sparse on this one but here’s a note to mark your calendar.  On October 8 (Yes, the day after GiveCamp) IndyTechFest presents The .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip in Indianapolis!

If you’re wondering what this is all about here you go:

Well, we’ve done it again! We went and rented a big 37′ RV and booked another United States (mostly) Road Trip for the launch of Visual Studio 2012. No charge for admission.

At each stop we will record a live .NET Rocks! show with a guest star, whom we will fly in for the occasion.

Following that, we (Richard Campbell and Carl Franklin) will each do a presentation around building modern applications on the Windows platform. Carl leans toward development and client-side technology and Richard leans toward DevOps and server-side technology.

There will be food, drink, geeking out, and hopefully some alert locals will know of a pub where we can adjourn after the event to continue the conversation.

If you’d like to attend be sure to register.  I’ll update this space with more details as they’re made available.  I hope to see you there!

10/8/2012 Update

I’m a little behind with this update since I was tied up with GiveCamp all weekend but the venue details are as follows:

IndyCoz
7960 Castleway Dr
Indianapolis, Indiana 46250
[Map]

Indy GiveCamp: October 5 – 7

Many non-profit organizations struggle to carry out their mission effectively because they don’t have the IT resources to get the software tools that will support them. At the same time, there aren’t many outlets where software professionals can utilize their specialized skills to contribute something meaningful back to the communities in which they live.

GiveCamp events across the country are filling this gap one weekend at a time by bringing non-profit organizations together with small teams of developers, designers, DBAs, and other software related roles to build something that will help the organization carry out its mission more effectively.  GiveCamp can’t do it without your help though.

This year’s Indy GiveCamp is being held October 5-7 and volunteers are still needed to maximize the number of organizations we can serve.  I understand that an entire weekend is a major time commitment but given that this is my second year participating I can personally attest to how rewarding the experience is.

Last year my team changed how Heart in Education Teacher Outreach (HETO), an Indianapolis-based organization that connects Indiana teachers with teachers in Honduras, promotes its mission, recruits teachers, and accepts donations.  We built a new WordPress-based site that was easier for the organization’s leadership to maintain, organized the site in a manner that focused on their objectives, and extended volunteer involvement by placing the HETO Facebook feed on the homepage.  The site is now the go-to resource for all things HETO.

If you’re in the Indianapolis area and can spare the time for a great cause I highly recommend that you volunteer.  Don’t worry if Indianapolis isn’t convenient for you though since there are GiveCamp events all over the country – just check the upcoming events calendar on the national site.

Faking It Slides Available

Thanks to everyone that attended one of my Microsoft Fakes talks this week. I hope the sessions were beneficial. I just uploaded the slides to SlideShare for you to review at your leisure.

If you attended one of my sessions could do me a quick favor by taking a moment to rate the talk on SpeakerRate?

NUFW (6/12/2012)
IndyNDA (6/14/2012)

Thanks!

Upcoming Talks

If you’re interested in learning about the Fakes framework (formerly Microsoft Moles) that’s included with Visual Studio 2012 you have two opportunities to do so this week.  Those in Fort Wayne, Indiana should attend tomorrow’s (June 12) NUFW meeting.  If Indianapolis is more convenient, feel free to attend Thursday’s IndyNDA meeting instead.  Of course, if you just want to heckle me attending both is also an option!

If either of these events interest you please check the appropriate group’s site for logistics.  I hope to see you there!

IndyNDA – Your Spark Razored my NHaml

When Jay Harris told me at KalamazooX that he was going to be speaking at IndyNDA soon I got really excited. That’s why I’m upset that for the first time in nearly two years I can’t make it!  On the bright side, I’ll be hanging out with my wife in Las Vegas as we celebrate our 10 year anniversary.

This month Jay is going to discuss a few of the ASP.NET MVC view engines, namely Spark, Razor, and NHaml. Jay is a great speaker and an all around good guy so if you can make this event I highly recommend it.

This month’s meeting will be at:

Wiley Publishing
10475 Crosspoint Blvd
Indianapolis, IN 46256

Kalamazoo X in a Nutshell

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend my 3rd consecutive Kalamazoo X conference.  This event has gotten better every year thanks to the efforts of Mike, Mike, Matt, and Mark.  I’ve written about the conference recently so I won’t go into detail about what Kalamazoo X is.  Instead I’ll let a quote from the home page do the work for me:

The X Conference is the other half of your career; the half that makes you stand out.

Kalamazoo X has a rich history full of great speakers with interesting topics and this year was definitely no exception.  As with years past I took quite a few notes, the highlights of which I’d like to capture here and share for you to ponder.  As you read through them I think you’ll find some of the recurring themes begin to fall out naturally.

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Turning Over A New Leaf

Today is my last day at Aprimo.  The past 6 1/2 years have been full of rewarding experiences.  During my time at Aprimo I’ve learned a lot, worked on some neat projects, and made some very close friends.  At the same time though, I’ve felt like I’ve been in a bit of a rut for some time and needed some change.  After serious consideration I decided that the time to make the change is now.

Next week (April 2) I’ll be starting as a Systems Engineer at Leaf Software Solutions in Carmel, Indiana.  I’m really excited about this opportunity and the new challenges and experiences it will bring.

I’d like to thank Aprimo for its part in shaping me into the person and programmer I am today and for preparing me for this next chapter of my life.  I wish everyone at Aprimo the best wherever life may take you.

Kalamazoo X Conference 2012

I don’t get to as many conferences as I’d like to during the year.  I have yet to go to Code Mash, I missed out on Code PaLOUsa, and I envy everyone tweeting from VSLive (especially since Aria is a great place), but one conference I always make sure to attend is Kalamazoo X.  I’ve attended this conference for the past two years and didn’t hesitate when I was invited to take advantage of early bird registration for this year’s event.  It’s a four-hour drive from Indianapolis but it’s always well worth the trip.

I’ve mentioned this before but Kalamazoo X isn’t like other developer conferences.  Instead of focusing on the latest frameworks and toys, Kalamazoo X looks at things like communication skills, process improvement, and design.  I generally view it as a personal and career development conference for geeks.

The organizers have traditionally done a great job pulling this event together.  With speakers including Leon Gersing, Jeff Blankenburg, Tim Wingfield, and Joe O’Brien this year should be no exception.

Kalamazoo X is on April 21 from 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM at Kalamazoo Valley Community College (check the conference site for full logistics).  If you’re free that day I highly recommend registering.  It’ll likely cost you less than seeing a movie but the lessons will last for years to come.  You won’t be disappointed.

Speaking in Fort Wayne

Ok, this should be the last post about speaking engagements for a while ;)  I have something else in the works that’s going to take a lot of my attention for some time (more on that on Friday). 

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be returning to Fort Wayne in June to talk about the Microsoft Fakes framework (formerly the Moles framework).  In this talk I’ll introduce the Fakes framework, discuss the use cases for the different isolation techniques, and show how to take advantage of them in your unit tests.

The meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 12 at the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center.  Pizza and drinks will be available at 6:00 with the presentation starting at 6:30.  For more information please check the NUFW site.

Theoris Innovation Series

On April 20, 2012 from 1:00 – 4:00 PM Theoris IT Services is hosting the next installment of its Theoris Innovation Series.  For this event Alex Gheith and I will be discussing many of the modern features of C# including:

  • LINQ
  • Dynamic Programming
  • Parallel Programming (including the upcoming async and await keywords)

This is a free event but please note that space is limited to the first 40 respondents.  For more information, please check the event site.