RSVP now for the HUGE Tech Ed Developers edition of Party with Palermo.  I’ve rented out an entire night club right down from the convention center for this party.  Bring your friends and your business card.

Party with Palermo: Tech Ed 2008 Developers Edition

June 2, 2008 @ 7:00PM – 10:00PM

Glo Lounge  http://www.gloloungeorlando.com/
8967 International Dr, Orlando, FL
Ph: 407.351.0361
 
Cover charge is 1 business card.  This will get you in the door and register you for the grand prize drawings.

• Free to attend
• Free fingerfood
• Free drink
• Free swag

Infragistics has a countdown to the party on thier website.

PreEmptive will be bringing a Pinata to the party

KEEP TABS ON http://www.PartyWithPalermo.com — THIS IS WHERE THE INFORMATION WILL BE POSTED.

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The Austin .Net User Group conducted its third annual Austin Code Camp on May 17, 2008.  Eric Hexter and John Teague did a great job heading up the effort to put on this weekend conference.  Attendance was around 203, and St. Edward’s PEC graciously hosted again.  Those facilities are great!!

I was returning from the DevTeach conference in Toronto, so I had to miss.  Very unfortunate.  I was able to vicariously experience it through reading second-hand reports from some of the attendees.

Peter Seale provided some encouragement that the focus of the Austin .Net User Group is on the right track with his report of the code camp.

“The code camp did not feature an “Introduction to Silverlight” session. This is the simple, effective test by which I will measure all future conferences: is there an intro to Silverlight session. If there is, then good chances are most of the sessions will be useless. Further down the road, change out “Silverlight” with whatever new UI framework/data grid/designer tool that is “up to two years away from release.” I’m officially tired of these type of talks, 4 LIFE. Call me back when you’re running a “Best Practices in Silverlight Smackdown.”

The code camp was heavy on OO principles. This is a good thing; between “patterns cage match” and “IoC jumpstart” and “OO design” and “mocks and stubs”, my brain was assaulted by lots of OO. Which is good, I haven’t gotten this much in the 3+ years of involvement with Houston user groups and events. Not to gripe on my home city, let’s stay positive etc.”

Others have also provided thier thoughts about the conference:

Ben Scheirman

Jimmy Bogard

Mitch Fincher

Michael Koby

Chad Myers

Rhonda Tipton

A quick tip about scripting a software build using SQL Express 2005.  It isn’t network-enabled by default, so you’ll want to change the network configuration to enable TCP/IP.  The setting is in Sql Server Configuration Manager.  Here is a screenshot:  And I used Cropper on x64 windows to make the screenshot. 

I recently tried out Windows Server 2008 x64, and I’m gradually transitioning.  I’m installing all the tools I have on my XP drive, but I won’t complete the switch until I’ve verified there are no blocking issues.  

I regularly use Cropper to grab snapshots of my screens and portions of them.  I tried running it, and it failed spectacularly!  I decided to grab the code from CodePlex and see why it was failing. I ran through and was able to fix the issues.  The main issue was that it was built against .Net 2.0 with Any CPU, but it depends on Win32 APIs.  I switched the build configurations to x86, refactored an assembly load problem buried in a static constructor, modified the MSI setup project, and it started working.

I’ve submitted a patch back to the CodePlex project, so if you need Cropper on x64 Vista or Server08, you can grab the code with TortoiseSVN, apply the patch and make your own build.  I’ve sent Brian a note, so I’m hoping he’ll either add me to the project or apply the patch soon.

I used SvnBridge to pull down the source code.  I didn’t want to install Team Explorer JUST to pull down one project.  I’m happy to report that SvnBridge 2.0 worked very well.  I followed the instructions here for pulling down the source code with TortoiseSVN. 

My session materials are posted here on my
google code repository

Blackbelt configuration for new projects
Jeffrey
Palermo – ARC439
Any architect knows the challenges of setting up
configuration management for a new project. Architecture isn’t just for the
application. The manner in which source control, dependencies, and the Visual
Studio solution is set up can have profound impacts on the productivity of the
team. In this session, we’ll set up a source control repository, a VS.Net
solution and a build script to enable a team to move quickly on the project.
We’ll used advanced techniques to reduce friction while working with the code
base on a day-to-day basis.

ASP.NET MVC Framework Submersion
Jeffrey Palermo –
NET328
The move from ASP 3.0 to ASP.Net was a very dramatic move, and it
forced developers to learn a completely new way for building web applications on
Windows servers. From Web projects with v1.1 to websites in v2.0 and then web
application projects in v2.0+ , working with ASP.Net can be a more difficult
than necessary due to viewstate, postbacks and the control lifecycle for
post-back eventing. Microsoft is providing an extension to ASP.NET to provide an
easy way to implement the Model-View-Controller pattern using ASPX as a view
engine (templating). With all presentation logic residing in the Controller, the
View (ASPX) is left to concentrate on what it does best: rendering html. This
new MVC framework is pluggable and testable and even allows for Controller
classes to be created with your IoC container of choice. This presentation will
include a primer on programming with the MVC pattern and will also cover unit
testing controllers and creating controllers that use dependency injection.

Eric Hexter has already announced his move to Headspring Systems.  I am very glad to have him on board.  I look forward to the contribution he will make to our company.  He brings many years of experience from being the Director of eCommerce Technologies at Callaway Golf Interactive.  He joins us as a Principal Consultant. 

Eric is very influential in the central Texas .Net developer community, and he is one of the Directors of the Austin .Net User Group.  He also is a co-chair of the Austin Code Camp that is happening this weekend.

Eric is also a co-founder of the MvcContrib open source project that compliments the ASP.NET MVC Framework.  Along with that, he’s done quite a bit of research on how to write automated tests for Silverlight applications.

Eric, welcome to the team!!

Today I had the pleasure of hearing Mike Cohn speak at an AgileAustin meeting. Below are some of my raw notes. I have not edited them. Just a brain dump of some of the presentation.

– agile is all about continuous improvement
– we cannot predict how an organization will respond to change.
– We cannot plot an agile transition on a ghant chart.
– When we break things apart to a small level, we sometimes lose sight of the whole
– The steps necessary to become good at X cannot be enumerated and have them be correct for more than a single organization
–

Different mental model: CAS, Complex Adaptive System
– many agents acting in parallel
– Control is highly dispersed and decentralized
– Overall system behavior is the result of a huge number of decisions made constantly by many agents

Our organizations need to be networks, not a hierarchy

Success:
Newtonian: Success = closing the gab with the desired state and actual state

CAS view: Success = achieving a good fit with the environment

Agility is different for every company. We need to find how it fits with the environment.

Vision should come from someone influential in the organization.
– Local actions will be taken based on interpretation of the vision. Overall we can’t predict local actions based on the communicated vision.

CAS (agile) model of change:
– Behavior is unpredictable and uncontrollable
– Direction is determined through emergence and by many people
– Every effect is also a cause
– Relationships are empowering
– Responsiveness to the environment is the measure of value
– Decisions are based on patterns and tensions
– Leaders are facilitators and supporters

Traditional model of change
– Behavior is predictable and controllable
– Direction is determined by a few leaders
– Every effect has a cause
– Relationships are directive
– Efficiency and reliability are measure of value
– Decisions are based on facts and data
– Leaders are experts and authorities

ADAPT acronym
– Awareness: Before an organization can change, the organization needs to be aware of the need to change. We have to be aware that what we are doing is not working as good as we would like it to work.
– Desire to change
– Ability to work in an agile manner
– Promote early successes to build momentum and get others to follow
– Transfer the impact of agile throughout the organization so that it sticks.