Registered Community Speaker with INETA

I am now a registered community speaker with INETA. If you are organizing a technology conference or a user group leader, you can make a request for me to come over and deliver a talk by clicking on the link below:

Presentation to VanSPUG on Enhancing SharePoint with Silverlight 2.0

VanSPUG (Vancouver SharePoint User Group) is less than one year old. I can proudly say that I was a catalyst in the establishment of this young user group when I helped Peter McFarlane organize the launch event on September 17, 2008 at my BCIT workplace. Since then I have attended most of their meetings. Therefore, it was certainly an honor for me to be a speaker for the first time.


I had a blast when I presented at VanSPUG yesterday evening on the topic of "Enhance SharePoint with Silverlight 2.0". The event started just after 6:30 PM and ended promptly at 8:15 PM becuase we had to vacate the meeting room. Sherman was my host who did a good job introducing me at the start. The event was attended by about 30 people and was held at the Microsoft offices at 1111 West Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver. I would have liked to have questions from those who attended. Actually, I cannot recall even a single question. Oh well ...

For those who are interested in the resources clck here to download my powerpoint presentation + examples.

DevTeach & SQLTeach 2008 conference in Toronto

We are only two weeks away from this premier Canadaian technology conference which will be held in Toronto from May 12, 2008 to May 15, 2008. If you are a computer techie living on the eastern part of our North American continent, you must seriously consider attending this conferernce. It is well worth your time and money. There are some real well known heavy weight speakers who will be presenting. Check out the list at http://www.devteach.com. And if that is not enough to convince you, here are yet more reasons to be there:


Keynote by Scott Hanselman, Microsoft

Scott Hanselman is one of the most prolific, renowned and respected blogger (http://www.hanselman.com) and podcaster (http://www.hanselminutes.com) about technologies. Scott is a hands-on thinker, a renowned speaker and writer. He has written a few books, most recently with Bill Evjen and Devin Rader on Professional ASP.NET. In July 2007, he joined Microsoft as a Senior Program Manager in the Developer Division. In his new role he'll continue to explore and explain a broad portfolio of technologies, both inside and outside Microsoft. He aims to spread the good word about developing software, most often on the Microsoft stack. Before this he was the Chief Architect at Corillian Corporation, now a part of Checkfree, for 6+ years and before that he was a Principal Consultant at STEP Technology for nearly 7 years.

http://www.devteach.com/keynote.aspx

Silverlight 2.0 workshop

For the first time an independent conference is having a workshop on Building Business Applications with Silverlight 2.0. Join Rod Paddock and Jim Duffy as they give you a head start down the road to developing business-oriented Rich Internet Applications (RIA) with Microsoft Silverlight 2.0. In case you just crawled out from under a rock, Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in positioned to revolutionize the way next generation Rich Internet Applications are developed. Microsoft’s commitment to providing an extensive platform for developers and designers to collaborate on creating the next generation of RIAs is very clear and its name is Silverlight 2.0. In this intensive, full-day workshop, Rod and Jim will share their insight and experience building business applications with Silverlight 2.0 including a review of some of the Internet’s more visible Silverlight web applications. This workshop is happening on Friday May 16 at the Hilton Toronto.

http://www.devteach.com/PostConference.aspx#PreSP

Bonus session: .NET Rock host a panel May 14th at 18:00

This year the bonus session (Wednesday May 14 at 18:00) will be a panel of speakers debating the Future of .NET. Where is .NET going? How will new development influence .NET and be influenced by .NET? Join Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell from .NET Rocks as they moderate a discussion on the future directions of .NET. The panellists include individuals who have strong visions of the future of software development and the role that .NET can play in that future. Attend this session and bring your questions to get some insight into the potential future of .NET! This bonus session is free for everyone. Panelists are: Ted Neward,Oren Eini ,Scott Bellware

http://www.devteach.com/BonusSession.aspx

Party with Palermo, DevTeach Toronto Edition

Jeffrey Palermo (MVP) is hosting Monday May 12th in Toronto is acclaimed "Party with Palermo". This is the official social event kicking off DevTeach Toronto. The event is not just for the attendees of Toronto it’s a free event for everyone. It’s a unique chance for the attendees, speakers and locals to meet and talk with a free beer. The event will be held at the Menage club location and you need to RSVP to attend. Get all the details at this link:

http://www.partywithpalermo.com/

My presentations at this conference are:

Wed May 14, 2008 8:00 AM, SharePoint 101, Room: Lismer

Wed May 14, 2008 11:00 AM, Web parts for SharePoint 2007, Room: Lismer

Thu May 15, 2008 3:00 PM, SharePoint 2007 Advanced Development, Room: Lismer

DevTeach 2008 Toronto

Yes. I will be delivering three talks on SharePoint at the DevTeach 2008 conference in Toronto May 12-16 2008. I am thrilled to be invited once again after DevTeach Vancouver in November 2007. Check out the conference at http://www.devteach.com/.
My presentations are:

SharePoint 101

SharePoint 2007 Advanced Development

WebParts for SharePoint 2007

Presentation on SharePoint WebParts to Bellingham .NET Users Group

Andrew Robinson, the president of the Bellingham .NET Users Group, invited me to give a talk to his group. I will be giving them a talk on "WebParts for SharePoint 2007" on Wednesday January 8, 2007 starting at 6:00 PM. Bellingham is the most visited city accross the border for British Columbians and I look forward to forging closer ties between .netBC and the Bellingham .NET Users Groups.
Here is the extract of my talk:
WebParts for SharePoint 2007

WebParts provide the fundamental building blocks for creating custom applications for SharePoint. This session will show you how to efficiently and quickly use your ASP.NET 2.0 and C# skills to develop WebParts for deployment into SharePoint 2007. Most of the development, testing and debugging will be done in Visual Studio .NET 2007. We shall then deploy the WebPart as a feature into Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0). We will also look at WebPart communication and modifying WebPart verb menus.

Wednesday January 9, 2008

The files that make up my presentation can be downloaded from here.

Thursday January 10, 2008

I had an enjoyable time at Bellingham. There were 13 people in attendance. Pizza was great and I was glad that they serve water instead of the dreaded pop.

DevTeach & SqlTeach conference held in Vancouver from 26nov07 to 30nov07

The highlight for me was the open ended bar night named "Party with Palermo" held on Monday night (26nov07) at the Steamworks brewery. It was a blast and happiness was being propelled by the alcohol level flowing through our veins. Unfortunately, I left early around 9:45 PM because I had to teach at BCIT very early the next morning. I know of a few who were there until midnight. Thanks Jeffrey Palermo.
The other highlight was the Mad Mexican's second appearance at DevTeach. He barged into Beth Massi's presentation to emphasize how great she is. Check out this blog entry.
I spoke on Wednesday 28nov07 on the topic of "SharePoint 2007 Advanced Development". Attendance was about 40 people. All went well except for the last part involving installation of the SharePoint workflow. After the simple workflow was deployed and activated it did not work. I did not bother trouble-shooting the problem because I was already about 15 minutes overtime. However, I later discovered that I had failed to set one of the dreaded GUIDs in the Manifest.XML. Oh well, as the saying goes "Shit Happens".
All in all it was a lot of fun and I am very happy for Jean-Rene that his first-time conference in Vancouver was indeed a success.

Speaking at DevTeach in late November 2007

I am scheduled to speak at the DevTeach conference in Vancouver on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 from 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM. The topic I will be presenting is the same topic I gave to the .netBC group on Wednesday September 12, 2007. That presention took 2 hours. Therefore, I must shave off about 45 minutes from that presentation.

The DevTeach conference is moving outside of Montreal for the first time. I attended it twice in spring 2005 and spring 2007. It is definately a very worthwhile conference. If you want to be on top of current and up-coming technologies in our very fast moving profession, it is a good use of three days.
Jean-Rene Roy, who is the owner of the DevTeach & SQLTeach shows, is organizing a very different type of conference in Vancouver. New to Vancouver will be an XNA track, a Halo-3 competition, and a free beer party with Palermo. It looks like it is going to be a lot of fun. Here is more on the various activities:
XNA contest: http://www.devteach.com/contest.aspx
Party with Palermo! Free beer: http://www.partywithpalermo.com/
For the first time a XNA track at a independent conference: http://www.devteach.com/Session.aspx#79
Three very good Pre-con Post-Con:

http://www.devteach.com/PreConference.aspx

http://www.devteach.com/PostConference.aspx
Key note by Ken Levy on VSX: http://www.devteach.com/Keynote.aspx

Presentation to VanQ user group in Vancouver

Brian Pidcock, who is one of the VanQ leaders, asked me to be their September 2007 speaker on SharePoint 2007. My presentation to VanQ was on September 27, 2007 at 6:45 PM. Since my audience were not necessarily developers, I decided to give a non-technical presentation.

For more details about this VanQ event, click here.

The event was very well attended. I saw a lot of friends, former students, and members of .netBC in the crowd. On the whole, I enjoyed presenting on the basics of SharePoint and would consider coming up with another more advanced talk with a possible title of "Sharepoint 201". I was told later that the attendance at this event was the largest that VanQ has seen. This was very encouraging news.

Click here to download my presentation.