Join me at DevTeach 2011 in Montreal

While the Canadian government is the biggest fan of me at border crossings, I will be making one trip to the Great White North this spring to speak at DevTeach 2011 in Montreal. This is an amazing community conference- 3 days, over 90 sessions, plus pre- and post-conference workshops. If you're in, around, or able to get to Montreal for this event, you definitely should. It's only XX, which is a bargain for this kind of training.

I will be presenting a session on ASP.NET MVC on Wednesday, so if you're a WebForms developer still trying to understand MVC and some of the different concepts it represents, don't miss this targeted talk. It's early, but it'll be worth it.

I'll also be hosting a "open discussion" on Tuesday during the lunch hour talking about "Silverlight, HTML5, and the Future of the Rich Web."  This will be a fun, interactive conversation about two very interesting technologies and a chance for you to actively share your opinions. The lunch conversation is sponsored by Telerik, so we'll be providing free ice cold beer! That should make the conversation more fun. Don't miss it and don't be late (first come, first served).

In fact, Telerik is a sponsor of the entire DevTeach event, so don't miss our other speakers (Joel Semeniuk, Phil Japikse) and our other lunch-hour bonus sessions (happening on Wednesday and Thursday, also with free beer). It should be a great time and it all starts on May 30th. See you in Montreal soon!

Dallas DNUG Speaking Tour This Week

I've trekked north from my home-base near Houston and I am in Dallas this week for a quick series of .NET User Group sessions. Three nights, three different groups, and three very different talks. Here's the schedule for the week:

• Dallas XAML Users Group (Tuesday, May 3rd)
  "State of Silverlight + What's New in Silverlight 5"
  
• North Dallas .NET Users Group (Wednesday, May 4th)
  "The Rich Standard: Getting Familiar with HTML5"
  
• Dallas C# SIG (Thursday, May 5th)
  "Building a Testable Data Access Layer"

Obviously, the XAML talk is already in the history books, but you still have time to attend the fun HTML5 and useful testable DAL talks this week. All of the meetings occur at the local Improving Enterprises offices, and all seem to start around 6:00 PM. I've got some extra Telerik swag for each meeting, of course, so clear an evening and come join me and the rest of the Dallas .NET community for some fun this week.

Vote for my MIX11 session

One of my favorite Microsoft conferences takes place every spring in Las Vegas, and this year I may have an opportunity to speak at MIX11. If you've never been to MIX and you are a web developer (particularly, a "Microsoft web developer"), then you're missing-out on a great conference experience. Personally, if I had to choose between Microsoft-run events, I'd pick MIX over TechEd and PDC almost every time. It's not as big as some events, but it's high-energy, focused, and a great place to talk about all things web and design.

This year, I have the distinct honor of getting a session in to the MIX11 Open Call. As MIX goes, this is your chance as attendees (both physical and online, alike) to vote for the sessions you want to see at this year's event. So, if you're interested (or even if you're not), I'd love to have your vote for my session:

Doing More with LESS for CSS

It's a cool CSS3 talk with lots of practical tips for managing the ballooning CSS rules modern browsers offer. Picked or not, I appreciate your support and can't wait to see some of you in Vegas this April!

[By the way, voting ends February 4th, so cast those votes today!]

(NW) Arkansas DNUG Road Trip

In the midst of a busy Telerik Q2 release week, I’m multi-tasking and doing a .NET User Group Road Trip in Northwest Arkansas. Visiting 6 DNUGs in 4 days and delivering 3.5 different talks, this week is definitely busy! At this point, there is one more major “public” stop left on the DNUG Road Trip (a few stops are “private” corporate DNUGs in the area), and so far all stops have been great. Northwest Arkansas has a great .NET community and it’s been fun talking about Silverlight 4, HTML5, and Building Testable Data Layers with this group of smart developers.

The “public stop” schedule this week was (and is):

1. Forth Smith .NET User Group on Monday
   Talk: The Rich Standard: Getting Familiar with HTML5
2. Northwest Arkansas DNUG on Tuesday
   Talk: Building a Testable Data Layer
3. Northwest Arkansas SQL Users Group on Wednesday
   Talk: What’s New in Silverlight 4 (with a “data twist”)
4. Ozark DNUG on Thursday
   Talk: Building a Testable Data Layer

I’ll update this post with slides and code soon, but in the mean time, if you’re in the area, why not join us for the last stop of the road trip tonight, Thursday, at 6:00 PM at the Ozark .NET User Group? It’ll be a fun talk and there will be some more great Telerik swag to give away.

Thanks to all of the community leaders in the area for helping make this Road Trip a success, and for doing a good job growing an active .NET community. I look forward to coming back!

What’s new in Silverlight 4 tonight at D2SIG

Following my great one-day notice about my speaking trip to the South Florida .NET Code Camp, here’s a same-day notice about your next opportunity to attend one of my sessions. Tonight, Tuesday, I’ll be speaking at the D2SIG in the Houston offices of Microsoft. I’ll be presenting a new “What’s New in Silverlight 4” session, where we’ll do the basic walk-thru of some of the more significant changes in the next version of Silverlight (like printing, data binding, notifications, and so on).

The session starts promptly (as I learned by being late to speak last time) at 6:00 PM. If you’re in Houston and you’re ready to start working with Silverlight, don’t miss this great introduction to the newest features. You can RSVP for the session on the EPS Software website and then we’ll see you tonight. I will, of course, have some Telerik swag to give away, if bribery is the incentive you need.

Join me at the Tulsa TechFest tomorrow

While this week is dominated by Q3 2009 release activity (clearly), I've still managed to find a way to hop on a plane and participate in this Friday's Tulsa TechFest 2009! Tulsa TechFest is one of the larger TechFests in the US (they have a stated goal of 1,000 (!) attendees this year), which is pretty incredible considering the size and location of Tulsa (population 592k). The event is virtually free for all attendees. Admittance costs either $2 or you can choose to bring and donate two canned goods for the local food bank (great idea, especially around this time of year).

I last spoke at Tulsa TechFest waaaay back in 2006. It was actually my first speaking gig for Telerik, and it was before I was a paid company man. It will be fun to go back and speak this year (even if I'll be thoroughly exhausted by Q3).

I'll be delivering three sessions this Friday:

• What's New in Silverlight 3.0? 9:00 AM, SL & WPF Track
• Being Productive with MVC: Telerik Open Source Extensions for MVC 10:30 AM, Agile, Frameworks, and Patterns Track
• Rich Islands of Functionality: Silverlight in ASP.NET 1:00 PM, SL & WPF Track

If you're in the Tulsa area or traveling-in for the event, be sure to stop by and say hello. I'd love to meet and I'll be more than happy to chat about all of the fun new stuff Telerik just released in Q3 2009. See you tomorrow in Tulsa!

Fall Travel Season 2009, Where in the world is Telerik

For a few weeks now I've been blaming the mysterious "Fall Travel Season" as the root cause of some of my blogging delays. So, it's high time I introduce and describe the 2009 Fall Travel Season at Telerik.

For those not aware, .NET conferences and events tend to happen in "clusters." There are a lot of events in the spring, very few (though there are some good ones) in the summer, and then a lot in the fall. During these times, those of us that speak at a lot of conferences say goodbye to our loved ones and hit the road for a couple months.

My participation this fall will cover 6 events and span 15 sessions delivered in 2 countries and 5 states. My full schedule:

1. Houston TechFest 2009, Sept. 26th
2. SW Florida Code Camp, Oct. 3rd
3. DevReach 2009, Sofia, Bulgaria, Oct 12 - 13
4. Tulsa TechFest 2009, Nov 6th
5. DevConnections Fall 2009, Las Vegas, NV, Nov 10 - 12th
6. PDC 2009, Los Angeles, CA, Nov 19 - 22nd

My sessions at these events will cover everything from Silverlight to ASP.NET AJAX performance to building common data layers for web applications. After each event, I do my best to post the slides and code to Telerik Watch, so check back often this fall for updates that contain bits, slides, and wrap-up notes. And, in case you've never caught my sessions in the past, I always try to give away some Telerik swag (yes, I'll bribe you to attend). If you're at one of these events, check out my sessions for an extra chance at winning.

I'm not the only person traveling at Telerik this fall, though. Telerik all-star Stephen Forte is also on a whirlwind tour of US and European speaking stops. Check-out his blog for a full list of travel dates and sessions. Gabe Sumner will also be at a few additional CMS events this fall as our resident Sitefinity Evangelist, so check his Sitefinity Watch for travel and speaking updates.

As you can see, plenty of opportunities to visit with Telerik this fall no matter where you're located around the globe. We always love to meet fans (and critics), so be sure to stop us and say hello. For now, I've got to wrap-up this quick visit to Telerik Boston and get ready for the long flight to HQ in Sofia. Next update on the other side of the globe.

Join me at the Austin DNUG tonight!

Are you in the Austin, Texas area? Got plans tonight? Break them.

Very soon I'll be hitting the road and making the trek over from Houston to Austin to present at tonight's Austin .NET User Group meeting. I've been to Austin a few times this year to talk about various Microsoft technologies, but this time I'm focusing on my home turf: Ajax.

Specifically, we'll be talking about how you can (and should) maximize "real" Ajax performance in ASP.NET. "Real Ajax?" you say. Yes, real Ajax. If you're using UpdatePanels and you think you're using Ajax, think again. All will be explained at tonight's DNUG (and again at the Houston TechFest, DevReach, and DevConnections if you miss tonight's presentation).

Things get kicked-off at 5:30 PM at the Microsoft offices in Austin. Check out the ADNUG website for all the details and directions. See you tonight!

Join me Friday at Dallas TechFest 2009

Another fun .NET event is coming-up this week, this time in Dallas (actually, Fricsco), Texas. That's right. It's time for the 2009 Dallas TechFest. This year's event is being held at the Westin Stonebriar Resort, this Friday, June 19th, from 9:00 AM 'til 6:30 PM. The event features 8 different tracks running all day covering not only .NET, but Java, Cold Fusion, Flex, and Ruby. Cost is $75 to attend, but apparently there are plenty of discounts available via the Dallas DNUGs. Not sure if there is still time to get a discount, but for the cost of a couple .NET books (as John Kellar would say), this event is still a great deal.

For my part, I will be doing two sessions in the Silverlight track:

• What's New in Silverlight 3.0 (9:00 AM)
• Building Business Applications with Silverlight (3:00 PM)

These will be great sessions for anyone interested in learning more about Silverlight 3.0 and/or how to use Silverlight to build buisness applications. If these topics interest you, register now for the TechFest and then come join the fun this Friday. Oh! By the way. I'll also be giving away Telerik Premium Collection licenses at my sessions, so even if you don't like my topics, don't miss the sessions for your chance to win!

Join me Saturday for the Austin Code Camp

Do you live in Texas? Then make plans to travel to Austin this Saturday, May 30th for the 2009 Austin Code Camp. I'll be making the trek over from Houston to Austin early Saturday morning to partake in the fun, and I'll be presenting two sessions:

• ASP.NET MVC: Blue Pill or Red Pill? (9:00 AM) A fun session that provides a good overview of ASP.NET MVC and gives you the information you need to make the decision between WebForms, MVC, or a blend of both.
• Building Business Applications with Silverlight 3 (2:45 PM) A new session that highlights the new features in Silverlight 3 Beta 1 that makes it easy(er) for developers to build business applications with Silverlight.

The event gets started at 8:30 AM and runs 'til about 5:00 PM, so it's a full day of .NET fun in the Texas capital. Besides yours truly, there will be many familiar .NET speakers doing sessions throughout the day, including Jeffery Pallermo, Eric Hexter, and John Teague, covering topics ranging from MVC to jQuery to C# 4.0. The Code Camp is free, so register now, grab some coffee, and we'll see you early Saturday morning! P.S. If I spot anyone sporting their favorite Telerik t-shirt at the event, there just may be some prizes flowing their direction. So do your laundry and sport Telerik for a chance at some good prizes!

Microsoft TechDays Tomorrow, Attend My ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 Talk

Yes, you have another opportunity to attend a free online event tomorrow- in fact, you have an opportunity to attend 24 hours of live webinars tomorrow! Starting at 1:00 PM Wednesday in New Zealand's timezone (which is really only about 2.5 hours from now) and ending at 5:00 PM in Seattle's timezone, Microsoft TechDays 2009 is a massive, world-wide online event that will deliver 24 hours of continuous Live Meeting presentations (that's 95 individual sessions). Speakers from around the world- including yours truly- will be talking about everything from web development to office development to mobile dev in 5 different tracks. My session, titled "Cranking ASP.NET Performance to 11...the Easy Way," will be brand new and it will focus on highlighting some of the fun new enhancements coming in ASP.NET AJAX 4.0. Specifically, we'll look at the roots of Ajax, seek to understand why the UpdatePanel isn't really Ajax, and then see how the new client-side features in ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 help us build "real," pure Ajax applications. I'll also toss a little jQuery in at the end for fun! To participate, you just need a computer and an Internet browser. You can register on the TechDay's website to get your free pass to the event and then be sure to look for my live session at 4:00 PM Central Time (9:00 PM UTC) in the Web Track. Plus, the best sessions win prizes! So even if you think I'm a boring speaker and you hate my topic, stop on by to vote for my session. See you tomorrow! TechDays 2009 Agenda

Vote for my TechEd BOF sessions

I'm activating the Telerik Watch army(?) to help put my "Birds of a Feather" sessions on the schedule at TechEd North America this May. I will be at TechEd this year as a "Microsoft Expert," but I've also submitted a few BOF sessions that I think the TechEd crowd will enjoy. To get them on the schedule, though, they have to be voted-in by the super fair online democratic process that enables you (the random- but clearly intelligent) web surfer to give the thumbs-up or thumbs-down. I'd, of course, appreciate it if you could help by voting for my two sessions:

1. Build Great Web Applications Today
2. Telecommuting: Is the grass really greener?

The first session will focus on the tough question of how do you build "great" web applications today with all the new technology options that are out there. Do you use Silverlight? ASP.NET AJAX? jQuery? And the second session (clearly less technical) will focus on exposing the truth and answering the questions about telecommuting as a .NET developer. I figure I've got some experience in this arena and I'd love to see an open dialog on the pros/cons of this "non-standard" working arrangement. Unfortunately, the voting form is much, much less than pleasant. You'll find my first session 10th on the list and my second about 50(!) spots below that (near the bottom of the list). I appreciate your help and I hope to see some of you at these sessions at TechEd in May! Vote for my BOF sessions now

Join me in Indianapolis for ALT.NET Telerik session

Do you live and work in the Indianapolis area? If so, come on out to the next Indy ALT.NET meeting this week where I'll be the guest speaker. The meeting will be held this Thursday, July 17th and it will start around 6 PM (local time) with food and drink and socializing starting around 5:15. You can find all of the details on the Indy ALT.NET website.

For my part, I'll be doing a new talk titled "Telerik Tools in an ALT.NET World," which will highlight more advanced features of the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX running in what could be considered a "real world-ish" demo application. "Real world" because it will be a multi-tier, NHibernate-powered, TDD built, DDD inspired application- not some simple one-tier demo app. In the talk I'll show you how you can use the RadControls with open source tools like NHibernate and NUnit to build powerful, scalable applications, and I'll show you how you can use many of the new features in the RadControls to improve the performance of your web apps.

It should be a fun talk with lots of new stuff- I'll even be doing some LINQ to NHibernate- so come on out if you're in the area. If you're not, I'll make the slides and code available here shortly after my talk. See you on Thursday!