When: Tuesday, May 4th, 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Where: HCC Business Training Center, 6751 Columbia Gateway Drive, MD, 21046

Topic: Awesomize Your Windows Apps

With the release of Windows 7, many developers might be looking to take advantage of the features Windows 7 offers. This presentation offers attendees a broad overview of the Windows API Code Pack, which is a managed library for .NET developers to use for accessing some of the underlying functionality of Windows that was typically reserved for Interop fans. Topics and demos include Windows 7 taskbar functionality, Task dialogs, Libraries support, and more.

Presenter: Kevin Griffin

Kevin Griffin is a .NET Developer for Antech Systems, located in Chesapeake, VA. He's an ASPInsider and the leader of the Hampton Roads .NET Users Group. Additional, he serves as an INETA mentor for the state of Virginia. Often, he can be found speaking at or attending other local user group meetings or code camps. He enjoys working with new technology, and consistently works on being a better developer and building the best software he can.

Follow Kevin on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/1kevgriff

Read Kevin's Blog: http://www.kevgriffin.com

For more information about the meeting, please visit the CMAP website.

The next DC ALT.NET meeting is 5/27 where we have Roberto Hernandez to talk
about ASP.NET MVC 2 at the usual location at the Motley Fool from 7-9PM.  Here's
what we'll be talking about...

Ramp up on ASP.NET  MVC2!
Learn about the new features in the ASP.NET MVC2 Beta release. Learn how Areas,
Templates, Validation, Model Metadata, and Strongly typed URL Helpers will
improve the development experience on the ASP.NET MVC stack.

Hope to see you there and RSVP here:
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/696833247

Just an FYI that this event is tomorrow for anyone interested.  I'll see you
there!

--- In dcaltnet@yahoogroups.com, "matthew.podwysocki" <matthew.podwysocki@...>
wrote:
>
> For anyone interested, I'm doing a talk at Microsoft in Reston on the Reactive
Extensions for .NET/Silverlight/JavaScript on 5/19.  I was planning a separate
meeting on just this topics, but if you want to come to this instead, I'd love
to see you there!
>
>
https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032450368&Culture=e\
n-US
>
> Matt
>

All:

Random Hacks of Kindness (RHOK) (http://www.rhok.org) is going to be held on
6/4-6/6 at the Microsoft Office in Chevy Chase, MD. Random Hacks of Kindness is
a joint effort founded by Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, NASA and The World Bank,
dedicated to bringing software developers together to respond to challenges
facing humanity in the area of natural disaster risk. They start with problem
definitions created through consultations with NGOs, governments and experts in
the field from around the world, then we invite hackers to a come together to
organize and go to work putting their skills to use to solve those problems with
software solutions that make a difference on the ground.  At a RHoK hackathon,
new technologies are born, existing platforms are built upon, and innovative new
ideas attract attention and support.  At the close of the hackathon, teams
present the technologies they have developed and prizes are awarded.

If interested, RSVP here:
http://rhokdc.eventbrite.com/?src=rhokweb

Matt

All,

Just an FYI, it's this upcoming Thursday if you're planning on attending!

Matt

--- In dcaltnet@yahoogroups.com, "matthew.podwysocki" <matthew.podwysocki@...>
wrote:
>
> The next DC ALT.NET meeting is 5/27 where we have Roberto Hernandez to talk
about ASP.NET MVC 2 at the usual location at the Motley Fool from 7-9PM.  Here's
what we'll be talking about...
>
> Ramp up on ASP.NET  MVC2!
> Learn about the new features in the ASP.NET MVC2 Beta release. Learn how
Areas, Templates, Validation, Model Metadata, and Strongly typed URL Helpers
will improve the development experience on the ASP.NET MVC stack.
>
> Hope to see you there and RSVP here:
> http://www.eventbrite.com/event/696833247
>

When: Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Where: HCC Business Training Center, 6751 Columbia Gateway Drive, MD, 21046

Topic: An Introduction to Microsoft Azure

In this talk, I'll go over Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform. I'll review what it is and the services it offers, as well as its cost. We'll see what you'll need as a developer, and we'll build an application.

Presenter: David Makogon

David Makogon is a Senior Consultant at RDA (www.rdacorp.com), and the technical lead on RDA's Architectural Guidance Practice Group (blog at rdaarchitecture.blogspot.com). He's also a Microsoft Solutions Advocate and an Azure Virtual Technical Specialist. You can follow him on twitter (@dmakogon) and visit his blog (www.DavidMakogon.com).

For more information about the meeting, please visit the CMAP website.

The next meeting of DC ALT.NET on 6/30, we have a follow-on to our Git
presentation, this time on Mercurial with Buck Dunn.

Overview:
Whether you are developing an application with a team or even solo hacking.
Keeping track of changes that are made and being able to work with previous or
alternate versions quickly becomes a necessary task. Mercurial is a distributed
source control system that provides a good collection of the features needed to
allow collaboration for you and your team.


In this presentation Buck will give an overview of distributed source control
systems, an overview working with basic Mercurial features as well a few
extensions and some direction in setting up an effective workflow for you and
your team.

About Our Speaker
Buchanan (Buck) Dunn is a Senior C# Web Developer with Input located in Reston,
Va. Previously he has worked for Corporate Executive Board and DubMeNow. He has
spoken at Code Camps and User Groups in the DC area.

RSVP below and hope to see you there!
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/731658410

Matt

We need some help adding location information to our planning system for AID programs - see below for the mix of technologies. We'll be doing all the design and implementation working with users in D.C, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Very little bureaucracy for the government - a good position for a talented developer who wants to make software and see it put to good use. Like many in our office, you'll be working through a contractor that people seem to be happy with.

HR Description:

Software Development / Knowledge Management

This position is part of a small team developing a mission management and reporting system for the US Agency for International Development in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The candidate will work on some or all of the system components: a dimensionally designed database running on MS SQL Server 2008; an application server exposing WCF web services, a data entry web application in ASP.Net, a Windows Forms thick client, and Google Earth for mapping. A particular focus will be enhancing geospatial features that reside on each of these components: incorporating geospatial data into the database, building user tools to query it, and GIS and graphical components  (in addition to Earth) to render it. Downtown D.C with some telecommuting possible. Willingness to travel to Afghanistan or Pakistan not required.  Ability to obtain a secret clearance.
Principles only.

Skills:
Strong dot net /C# programming skills above all else
Geospatial tools such as SQL Server Geospatial, KML or ArcView preferred 
Web applications in a Microsoft environment: ASP.Net or ASP.Net MVC
Windows Forms and WPF/Silverlight a plus
ASP.Net webservices and WCF a plus
Good database design and SQL skills
Experience integrating data from multiple sources
Familiarity with dimensional database concepts a plus
Team Foundation Server a plus.

Contact:
Scott McKissock
smckissock@...

All:

Don't forget about this Wednesday's meeting on Mercurial!  Hope to see you
there!

Matt

--- In dcaltnet@yahoogroups.com, "matthew.podwysocki" <matthew.podwysocki@...>
wrote:
>
> The next meeting of DC ALT.NET on 6/30, we have a follow-on to our Git
presentation, this time on Mercurial with Buck Dunn.
>
> Overview:
> Whether you are developing an application with a team or even solo hacking.
Keeping track of changes that are made and being able to work with previous or
alternate versions quickly becomes a necessary task. Mercurial is a distributed
source control system that provides a good collection of the features needed to
allow collaboration for you and your team.
>
>
> In this presentation Buck will give an overview of distributed source control
systems, an overview working with basic Mercurial features as well a few
extensions and some direction in setting up an effective workflow for you and
your team.
>
> About Our Speaker
> Buchanan (Buck) Dunn is a Senior C# Web Developer with Input located in
Reston, Va. Previously he has worked for Corporate Executive Board and DubMeNow.
He has spoken at Code Camps and User Groups in the DC area.
>
> RSVP below and hope to see you there!
> http://www.eventbrite.com/event/731658410
>
> Matt
>

When: Tuesday, July 6th 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Where: HCC Business Training Center, 6751 Columbia Gateway Drive, MD, 21046

Topic: Real World Entity Framework

Most applications connect to a database at some point and ORM tools, like Entity Framework, can make that process a lot simpler. Whether you have worked with the Entity Framework before, sometimes it takes real world examples to make it all click. In this session we will look at a few real world examples using Entity Framework with technologies like ASP.Net MVC, Silverlight and WCF. We will look at some of the common issues when building applications with any ORM solution and how the new features in Entity Framework 4 help reduce development time and frustration. Most importantly, you will get to see how Entity Framework can be utilized in real applications along with some tips, tricks and gotchas.

Presenter: Dane Morgridge

Dane Morgridge has been a developer for 9+ years and has worked with .Net and C# since the first public beta. His current passions are Entity Framework, WPF, WCF, Silverlight and LINQ and is currently a Microsoft MVP for Data Platform Development. He works mostly with C#, but is also a big fan of whatever new technology he happens to come across. In addition to software development, he is the host of the Community Megaphone Podcast and also enjoys dabbling in graphic design, video special effects and hockey. When not with his family he is usually learning some new technology or working on some side projects. He is currently working as the Development Manager and Architect at Roska Digital in Montgomeryville, PA. He can be reached through is blog http://geekswithblogs.net/danemorgridge or on Twitter @danemorgridge.

For more information about the meeting, please visit the CMAP website.

For those who attended Buck's Mercurial talk this past month, there is a good
overview on Mercurial Workflows done by Jimmy Bogard:
http://www.lostechies.com/blogs/jimmy_bogard/archive/2010/07/08/mercurial-workfl\
ows-local-development-work.aspx

Matt

This month, we have Troy Goode to give a talk on ASP.NET MVC View Engines.

RSVP Here:
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/768156577

Details below:

Session:
View Engines: Razor, Spark, & NHAML

Overview:

You may be asking yourself, "Self, what is a view engine and why would I want
one?" A view engine is a library that takes an HTML-like template, converts that
template into code, and then executes that code to get HTML for return to the
browser. If you're using ASP.Net MVC, you're already using a view engine whether
you know it or not: the WebForms view engine.

In this presentation you'll learn how to install and configure alternatives to
the standard WebForms view engine in ASP.Net MVC, and you'll walk away knowing
how to utilize them to improve your productivity. The view engines we'll cover
are:

* Razor, the new view engine from Microsoft.
* Spark, a popular OSS alternative.
* NHAML, another OSS alternative straight from Ruby-land.

About Our Speaker:

Troy Goode is a lead developer with NRECA in Arlington, VA. Previously he worked
as a consultant for the World Bank, National Academy of Engineering, the
Institute of Medicine, and other agencies & associations in the DC area. He
lives in Arlington with his wife and two dogs.

When: Tuesday, August 3rd 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Where: HCC Business Training Center, 6751 Columbia Gateway Drive, MD, 21046

Topic: Curing the asynchronous blues with the Reactive Extensions for .NET

In today's world, we want to create applications both rich in data and in behavior. The problem has been in the past that asynchronous and event based programming has been difficult, especially in the coordination between events and error handling. Come learn how the Reactive Extensions ("Rx") framework takes care of the difficult parts of asynchronous programming by viewing asynchronous computations as push-based collections. Instead of focusing on the hard parts, developers now can start dreaming about the endless possibilities of orchestrating and synchronizing computations at a high-level of abstraction. In this session we cover the design philosophy of the Reactive Extensions for .NET, rooted on the deep duality between the well-known iterator and the observer design patterns. From this core understanding, we start looking at various combinators and operators defined over observable collections, as provided by Rx, driving concepts home by a few samples showing rich applications that coordinate both external data and events in new and interesting ways. Democratizing asynchronous programming starts today.

Presenter: Matt Podwysocki

Matt Podwysocki has been a professional developer for 11 years and writing software since he was 7 years old with his trusty Commodore 64. Matt is currently a Senior Consultant at Microsoft in Washington, DC. In addition to his day job, he is also actively engaged with the product groups such as F#, the Reactive Extensions and more.

As a programming language enthusiast, he has a deep interest learning a new language every year with a lot of recent time spent in Haskell, Erlang, Clojure, JavaScript, Python, Ruby and F#.

He has spoken at conferences both internal and external to Microsoft and acted as an co-organizer for such events as ALT.NET Seattle and no:sql(east).

In addition to founding DC ALT.NET, he is active in the Washington, DC developer community with co-organizing NoVALang, a polyglot user group and speaks at other local user groups. You can find him on his blog at http://codebetter.com/blogs/matthew.podwysocki/

For more information about the meeting, please visit the CMAP website.