DevReach Follow-up Part II, Sights and Sounds

As promised last week, Part II of my DevReach 2009 conference follow-up. This time I bring you the sights and sounds of DevReach in a quick Telerik Watch Minute update. DevReach firmly established itself this year as one of the premiere .NET conferences for Eastern and Central Europe this year (despite the economy's woes), and this quick video helps transport you to the event. Enjoy the clips of the conference and start making plans to join us next year for DevReach 2010!

Watch the sights and sounds of DevReach 2009 on Telerik TV (full size)

DevReach Follow-up, Part I

Hello from Bulgaria! This update comes to you direct from Telerik HQ in cold, wet Sofia, Bulgaria. I am seated high atop the Telerik building listening to the sounds of buses and cars cruise by on the wet streets below as I get prepared for a busy week with the local teams, and I figured it was high-time I broke my blog "travel silence" to bring you a quick update.

As you know, I am in the middle of the busy "fall travel season," and since I'm in Bulgaria, that means it's time for DevReach 2009. The conference went down last week and it was a great event! Despite the economic turmoil plaguing many events this year, DevReach was as strong as ever, with over 450 attendees packing the two days of sessions delivered by "first class" speakers. Everyone from Richard Campbell to Shawn Wildermuth to Tim Huckaby, Chris Sells, and Kent Alstead (and many others) trekked to the capital of Bulgaria to put on a good show.

I, of course, joined this stellar cast of speakers as the "outlier." I presented three sessions this year at DevReach:

• Maximizing Ajax Performance with REAL Ajax
• Building a Common Data Layer for ASP.NET and Silverlight
• Will It Blend? Building Websites with All Flavors of ASP.NET

All of the sessions were well attended and everyone seemed to have a "good enough" time. The most popular session this year (of mine)? Probably "Will It Blend." A big thanks to everyone that came-out to my sessions and for putting-up with my random Texas trivia. Hopefully you all had a good time and managed to learn something (even if only how great Texas is) at each of my sessions.

I captured some video from around the conference I'll be working to transform in to a new TWM as soon as I can. Stay tuned for that "Part II" update. Until then, enjoy the resources below from my sessions and then watch for more updates as "Fall Travel Season" wears on. Next-stop: Q3 2009 release week!

Maximizing Ajax Performance with REAL Ajax

[Slides] [Code]

Will It Blend? Building Websites with All Flavors of ASP.NET

[Slides] [Code]

Building a Common Data Layer for ASP.NET and Silverlight

[Slides] [Code coming soon...]

Register now for DevReach 2009, Save 15%

Have you ever wished you could go to a conference that had all the "big name" speakers from PDC and TechEd, but in a format where you could actually meet and hang-out with them? Then you probably want to make sure Bulgaria is in your travel plans this October, because the 4th Annual DevReach conference allows you to do just that. Telerik, in partnership with Kulov.net, is hosting another premiere event in Sofia, Bulgaria (home to Telerik's headquarters and all-around beautiful city in Eastern Europe) this October 12th and 13th. For less than $200, you get a 2-day conference pass to come learn from speakers like:

• Chris Sells, PM for Business Platforms at MSFT
• Richard Campbell, (does he need introduction?) .NET "rockstar"
• Kent Alstead, ASP.NET MVP & .NET genius
• Lino Tadros, CEO Falafel & .NET stand-up comedian
• Shawn Wildermuth, C# MVP & Silverlight trainer extraordinaire
• And on the list goes...

There really is no better value in .NET conferences anywhere in the world. And as if the price wasn't good enough at 120 eur ($170), if you register before September 15th, you save an additional 15%! As John Kellar might say, for the price of 2 or 3 books, you get face time for two days with all the authors. If you're in Eastern Europe (or Europe in general), you have no excuse. You need to find your way to DevReach. It will be the perfect way to have the PDC experience without making the long trip to LA. If you're not in Europe, you still don't have much excuse. Haven't you always wanted to visit a new country? I guarantee you'll have no better time visiting a new country than if you do it for DevReach in Bulgaria. In fact, if you make the trek from the US to DevReach, let me know, and I will personally show you around the city (with a little help from Telerik, of course!). So there you have it. DevReach 2009. October 12th and 13th. I will be your personal tour guide if you come. What more do you want? (Okay, I know there are lots of things you probably want more, but that's the best I can offer...) Register today to save your spot (space is limited) and get your discount. SIDE NOTE TO U.S. TRAVELERS: With the money you save (especially compared to the registration fee for other conferences), you can easily afford the flight. It's not as expensive as you might think. Round-trip from Texas right now is about $900 (with tax). So, flight + conference ticket still is less than the price of admission alone to PDC ($1600)! See you in Sofia.

Join Telerik at DevReach 2008 this week

Do you know what's happening this week? If you don't, RTFPT (read the * post title). It's DevReach week! Starting today, Telerik and Kulov.net are hosting the 3rd Annual DevReach conference here in Sofia, Bulgaria. This year's event is loaded with excellent sessions from speakers like Tim Huckaby, Lino Tadros, Stephen Forte, Carl Franklin, and, of course, yours truly, and well over 400 people have packed the International Events Center to see them. Now, clearly, if you're not already here, you probably won't make this year's event, but we'll be recording some of the sessions and putting them online for your viewing pleasure. Hopefully we'll have the first of the video up by Wednesday.

During my time this year, I'll be doing 3 sessions: "ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight, and the Future of Web Development (updated)", "ASP.NET MVC: Red Pill or Blue Pill?," and "What's Next for Web Development," a .NET Rocks panel with Carl Franklin, Miguel Castro, and Shawn Wildermuth. Slides and code should be available on my blog as soon as I can upload them, so check back later for those.

DevReach is always a great conference and a great time, so you're really missing-out if you're not here. Stay tuned for more updates as the week roles along!