MS IGNITE NZ 2016

Microsoft Ignite (formerly Microsoft Tech-Ed) conference is nearly over.  It's been 3 years since I last posted to this blog.  What have a learned this year?

• You don't need permission to improve the business.  - Dona Sarkar
• DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users.  - Donovan Brown
• I got promoted from Lead Developer to Development Consultant (effectively a Solution Architect).
• I've been at Spark (formerly Telecom NZ) now for over 11 years.
• Infrastructure as Code: I can create a project in Microsoft Visual Studio which, when deployed, will stand up a VM in Azure.  Then my code project will be deployed onto it.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2016 (and SSRS 2016) integrates directly with Power BI.
• Power BI is awesome.  It does Mobile Charts as well as KPI's and legacy tabular reports.

Teach Yourself Azure in 4 Hours

Learning to use Azure:

1. Create Web Site - Check
   https://manage.windowsazure.com/?whr=live.com#Workspaces/All/dashboard
2. Create Database – Check
   https://manage.windowsazure.com/?whr=live.com#Workspaces/SqlAzureExtension/Databases
3. Upload Project to TFS – Check
   http://tfs.visualstudio.com/
4. Link TFS to Azure Web Site – Check
   http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/common-tasks/publishing-with-tfs/
5. Download Azure SDK for Visual Studio 2010 – Check
   http://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/download/details.aspx?id=15658
6. Download Web Site publication connection settings – Check
   http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/deployment/cse-curated-view-deploy-to-waws
7. Publish Web Site to Azure – Check
   (see above)
8. Create Visual Studio VM – Check
   https://manage.windowsazure.com/?whr=live.com#Workspaces/VirtualMachineExtension/vms
9. Synchronise Local Database Schema to Azure Database - Check.
   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee730904.aspx
10. Synchronise Local Database Data to Azure - Check.
    http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/sql-databases/getting-started-w-sql-data-sync/

Not easy, but worth it.
Got inspired by Scott Guthrie’s session on Azure yesterday at Tech Ed 2013, Auckland, NZ.

Day 02 – Preferred programming language?

Visual Basic.NET (Visual Studio 2010)

Why?  Because historically, I progressed from:

• AppleSoft BASIC
• GW BASIC
• dBASE III Plus
• FoxPro
• Paradox
• Access
• VB 5.0
• VB 6.0
• VB.NET

In addition, Visual Basic.NET has the following advantages:

• VB not only stands for Visual Basic, but also Verbose.  It is a verbose language, which assist with self-documentation, as I don’t have to guess as much which } closes which statement.
• C#.NET coders are a dime a dozen.  You have to really love VB to go against the flow.  This makes you rare and more valuable.
• All the Java developers hate you.  I can live with that because I am anti-LAMP:

	Open Source	Microsoft
Operating System	Linux	Windows
Web Server	Apache	IIS
Database Server	MySQL	SQL Server
Language	PHP/Java	ASP.NET

This is day #1 of “30 Days of Geek” 

To find out more about what that means, read here: http://www.eguru.co.nz/2011/03/30-days-of-geek-challenge-starting-1st-april/

Day 01 – Why do you consider yourself a geek?

1. I’ve been coding since Form Four at Nelson College in 1984.
2. I am a Senior .NET Developer at Telecom New Zealand.
3. I am Web Master for Align Church.
4. I was Web Master for Grenada Village Residents Association.
5. I was Web Master for Wellington Home Education Network.
6. I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer.
7. I am a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (.NET Framework 2.0 – Web Developer).
8. I am a Microsoft Certified IT Professional (SQL Server 2005)
9. People ask me to fix their computers at parties.
10. I carry an LG (Android) Smartphone.
11. I am known as “Mr. VB” at Dot Net User Group meetings.

That’ll do for now.

How to Change .NET Framework Version Without W3SVC Restart

If you are changing the .Net Framework version of a website hosted in IIS  you will most likely receive a message that looks like the following

The problem is that if you restart the W3SVC, all the application pools will be recycled.  Not a good idea on a Production server.

Steps to resolve this issue

1. Log onto IIS Server.
2. Start IIS Manager.
3. Check that your web site is a virtual directory off the Default Web Site.  If not, you need to find the Site ID of your web site. 

   To find the Site ID, just click on the “Web Sites” folder in IIS and you should see a table in the right column that looks similar to this:

   

4. Check that your application has an application memory pool of its own.
5. Open a command prompt window.
6. Change directory to .NET Framework version desired
   e.g. C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319
7. Type aspnet_regiis –norestart –s {IIS-Virtual-Path} where:
   {IIS-Virtual-Path} = W3SVC/{web site id}/root/{application name}
   {web site ID} = “1” (for Default Website)
   {application name} = Virtual Directory of your web application
8. Framework version will be changed. 
9. Recycle the application memory pool for the website (from IIS Manager).

Geek Post Monthly Newsletter Volume 2 Issue 11

Geek Post

Volume 2 Issue 11 November 2010

Hippolite Musings	Tena Koutou Katoa, In November, I: Conquered the Project Management tool which Telecom uses by entering 3 months actuals and 1 months forecast work for the 8 staff in my team.  I’m a trainee Team Lead! Attended another Vex Robotics Scrimmage. Received direction on how to maximise My Personal Performance (MPP) reporting.  This is corporate-speak for complying with my quarterly performance reviews. Fixed up WHEN library database in preparation for handing it over to somebody else.  Yippee! Sat and failed my Windows Communication Foundation exam.  Ah, well, there’s always next month! Studied (before and after exam) materials for said exam. Took final minutes as Secretary for Grenada Village Community Association at AGM.  Presented finances as acting Treasurer. Assisted Fiona to handover Membership Secretary duties of WHEN. Delivered one project.  Picked up three more.  Christmas is always busy (people trying to get stuff finished before the shutdown period). Blessings, James
Community Development	Grenada Village Online My former manager read last months blog; found out I needed training in how to give a logo a transparent background; sent me an email explaining how to do it; and now Grenada Village has a better look and feel.  Here’s how: Downloaded IrfanView. Load the graphic. Save As… Specify JPG Click on background Specify Transparent. Align Church Online Reorganised home page and master page so that Search Widget and Login Widget are both Web Parts in the right pane.  Implemented Top 5 News Items (as per Grenada Village Online). Reduced size of logo. Looks much better. Wellington Home Education Network Handed over Fiona’s Membership Secretary role. Still to hand over my Treasurer’s role. Wellington SQL Server Users Group We had Clive Trott come to show us Virtualisation, Unattended Installs and the Resource Governor. Wellington Dot Net Users Group We had Mark Clearwater from Intergen come to show us XAML, to the UI and Beyond. The Silverlight Group had  Andrew Tokeley from Xero come and show them Making a Great Silverlight Installations experience.
Developer News	Top Stories Show off your Azure skills using New Zealand Digital Content If you want a good incentive to learn more about Windows Azure then check out the "Best use of Windows Azure cloud computing services" category in the Mix 'n Mash competition that opened today. The competition is a chance to show the world what you can do with New Zealand digital content and data. All you need to do for a chance to win $1,000 is to build a mashup hosted on Windows Azure (there are other competition categories as well). PDC On Demand: The Future of C# and Visual Basic Technical fellow Anders Hejlsberg talks about the roadmap for C# and Visual Basic in vNext and beyond. Plus: Asynchrony in C# 5. Part II: Whence await. Part III: Composition. New Release: Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tools A set of extensions to Visual Studio Professional (and above) which improves developer productivity. In this third major release of the Power Tools we have made significant improvements to the Solution Navigator and the Tab Well to address our top customer requests. ASP.NET MVC 3 Release Candidate Backwards compatible with ASP.NET MVC V1 and V2, this release adds a ton of new functionality and refinements.
Training	Complete Conference Session Schedule Now Online! The virtual Microsoft Certified Career Conference is almost here, and it will be packed with valuable information you won’t want to miss! Join highly respected leaders in the industry for technical and career development sessions and network with other professionals during and after the event. Check out the Conference Schedule and Register today. Microsoft Certified Professionals can use the code MCP50 for a 50 percent discount. Add the MCT & Educator Virtual Summit to Your Calendar MCTs and registered academic educators can join us for the MCT & Educator Virtual Summit—a complimentary readiness event on November 17. To make sure you do not miss this event, add it to your Outlook calendar. Certification/Exams - Save up to 20 Percent on Microsoft Certification Exam Packs with Second Shots Get the certification you need to keep your career on track. Find guidance on the training you’ll need, chart your training course, and save up to 20 percent when you purchase Microsoft Certification Packs of two to five exams. Training - MOC/Courseware/Exams/Clinics - New Microsoft Official Courses Mean New OneNote Trainer Packs Eight new OneNote trainer packs are available—bringing the total number to 40. All are available at the MCT Download Center. Check them out today! New IT Fundamentals Course for Windows Server 2008/R2 Microsoft Learning is proud to announce the release of Course 6420B: Fundamentals of Windows Server 2008. This five-day course covers the fundamental concepts and skills of server administration, Active Directory, networking, and security of Windows Server 2008 servers (including Windows Server 2008 R2) for students who are new to IT.
Study News	As per last month, I finished studying Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 - Windows Communication Foundation.  I booked my MCTS exam 70-503 for Tuesday 9 November at Auldhouse.  I failed.  Now I’m doing the Skill Port on-line training (freebie offering via Telecom).  Will re-sit in the new year. What I have learned from this experience WCF is tricky, real tricky to get right.  And by virtue of its very nature, debugging it is hard, real hard.  For example, I had a real-life example to code.  I had a successful Web Service running inside an existing web site.  So I thought, “here’s a perfect candidate to switch over to WCF.”  Wrong.  I tried and failed for 3 days: First, I discovered that because the DEV & PROD servers are Windows Server 2003 and not 2008, that therefore I can’t use WsHttpBinding but have to use BasicHttpBinding. Then I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decipher what combination of binding and address (HTTPS was not available to me) was giving me the really unhelpful “Service actively refused connection” error message. Turned out that I had altered my DEV code some time back from System.Oracle.Client to Oracle.Data.Client and the DEV server didn’t have the correct Oracle client installed.  Nowhere did WCF tell me this. I will keep trying.  I will succeed.  My success has merely been delayed.
Telecom News	Project Marley It’s no secret that a strategic decision has been made to bring in-house as much IT work as possible.  This was caused by a number of factors, not least because of the government’s Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) initiative will probably force structural separation of the Chorus business off from the rest of Telecom.  This will mean the requirement for some IT resources to be split off separately to Chorus. So, Project Marley is all about offering those HP staff who work exclusively on the Telecom account, to come over to permanent Telecom jobs.  This will be done sensitively, I have no doubt.  It doesn’t directly impact my small team, but what it does impact is that the appetite for increased permanent head count means my manager can now hire just about as many .NET developers as he would like.  So any of my Geek friends, if you’re reading this and desiring a change, let me know and I’ll see if I can arrange you an interview!
Situations Vacant	Lots See my paragraph above.
INETA News	A summary of Significant Dot Net User Group Chatter None - The hamster finally died. Linked-In had this: Scott Guthrie Talks Shop VII Developing testable web parts for SharePoint by Richard Fennel
PASS News	A summary of  Significant SQL Server User Group Chatter Ditto to the above. Linked-In had this: Top 10 Secrets of a SQL Server Expert SQL Server Security Concerns
Events Schedule	In this section, I highlight dates, times and venues of events either I am presenting at, or of interest to Geeks.  I’m available for bookings. Date Event Venue Speaker 1-Dec-2010 LINQ to Async: An Introduction to the Reactive Extensions Xero, Wellington Ivan Towlson 2-Dec-2010 SilverLight Firestarter Redmond or Online Lots 11-Dec-2010 SharePoint Saturday Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology Lots 12-Dec-2010 VEX Robotics Scrimmage Hutt Valley High School N/A 15-Dec-2010 MonoTouch and MonoDroid Xero, Wellington Nic Wise 12-13 Feb 2011 VEX Robotics Regional Competitions St Peter’s College, Palmerston Northq N/A April 2011 ALM Conference Wellington Various
Humour	Web Designers vs. Web Developers An infographic of the differences between them.

Geek Post Monthly Newsletter Volume 2 Issue 3

Geek Post

Volume 2 Issue 3 March 2010

Hippolite Musings	Tena Koutou Katoa, Looking forward to the Visual Studio 2010 launch in April.  Finding it hard to find time to study for my next exam.   Blessings, James
Developer News	Grenada Village Online This is where I continue the saga of documenting my learnings from actually putting a web site “out in the wild” (I usually code within a nice, safe, Intranet). In March there wasn’t time nor a requirement to implement any new code.  However, I did have time to make a proposal to the Chairman.  Now that we’ve got a database, and a method to authenticate/authorise users, we could allow residents to view/book use of the community hall. This would be a radical departure from Standard Operating Procedures.  We need a meeting to discuss.  Stay tuned.
Telecom News	Got a new CTO My hierarchical structure now looks like this: Dr Paul Reynolds CEO Telecom -->David Havercroft -->Group CTO Transformation, Technology & Shared Services ---->Marc Rackett ---->GM Shared Business Delivery – IT & Internal ------>Trevor Coles ------>HO Application Delivery -------->Steven Burke -------->Manager Online Delivery
Microsoft News	What I did for Microsoft this month (I don’t work for them, but sometimes it feels like I do) Filled in Partner Survey Updated MCT Blog Roll Attended Dot Net User Group meeting Got a freebie t-shirt (thanks Microsoft!) which says “MS-DOS” (say what?) Started training myself on Exam 70-503, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Windows Communication Foundation That’s enough!
Situations Vacant	Senior Category Specialist – Corporate - STR0204N Take tactical procurement to a new level in our Procurement Category Management function. Helping shape world class procurement practices. Work horizontally right across categories and suppliers ensuring that we bring together new developments. Deliver leading strategic category management activity that enhance our corporate sourcing activity and enable us to transform the way we deliver to our customers! Senior Payables Specialist - FIN020GS Let your enthusiasm and sense of achievement shine through as you develop your commercial understanding and steer your abilities towards being part of this dynamic, fun and tight knit team. Immerse yourself in this accounting environment, demonstrating your natural flair and confidence dealing with numbers. Come and find out where this role could lead you, the options are there for the taking - see where your potential lies!! If any of my non-Telecom friends are reading this and interesting in any of the above, then drop me a line so we can discuss eligibility and suitability.
Training News	Got invited to Visual Studio 2010 C# Beta Training At: Auldhouse Wellington On: April 26-30 By: Invitation only To register interest: drop me a line.
INETA News	INETA stands for the International .NET Association It’s the umbrella group for all Dot Net User Groups world-wide. I’ll try to find new stuff of interest to post here each month. Last week, we had a report back from Ryan Tarak of Microsoft about the recent MIX conference in Las Vegas.  Here’s the blurb: With MIX10 around the corner, it’s no better time for Microsoft to get on the road and showcase some of the highlights from this year’s conference held in Las Vegas. Join us at your local Community User Group where we will focus on some of the key highlights including; the future of Mobile™, Silverlight™, Internet Explorer®, Expression®. Ryan Tarak, from Microsoft New Zealand will be travelling all over NZ spreading the good word and also be getting everyone ready for the launch of Visual Studio 2010 by giving the first 30 members at each event a retro Microsoft t-shirt. We will also be providing content from MIX on DVD’s and also the usual pizza, so make sure you block out the date below.
PASS News	I’m not speaking at Auckland SQL Saturday in April… On Saturday 10 April at Wolters Kluwer, 41 Centorian Drive, Mairangi Bay, North Shore. My topic (Microsoft Sync Framework) was rejected.  I find it difficult (as a full-time Web Developer) to find topics of relevance to Microsoft SQL Server Database Administrators. If you’re in the area, you should still go; Ivan Towlson will be talking on LINQ again.
Events Schedule	In this section, I highlight dates, times and venues of events either I am presenting at, or of interest to Geeks.  I’m available for bookings. Date Event Venue Speaker 31-Mar-2010 Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) 2010 Xero,  Wellington     Mark Carroll 10-Apr-2010 SQL Saturday Wolters Kluwer, Auckland Various 14-Apr-2010 Wellington:SLUG Xero, Wellington Sky Sigal 22-Apr-10 Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Launch All Over The World Various 21-23 April 2010 PASS European Conference Neuss, Germany Various 18-May-10 NZ SharePoint Conference Bay of Plenty Lots
Humour	Why I’m generally sceptical of all statistics Three econometricians went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first econometrician fired, but missed, by a meter to the left. The second econometrician fired, but also missed, by a meter to the right. The third econometrician didn't fire, but shouted in triumph, "We got it! We got it!"

MCTS Exam 70-561 Prep

I’m reading the Self-Paced Training Kit for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – ADO.NET Application Development…

…and loving it.

At first, I wasn’t because the first four chapters were boring, but now I’m reading about interesting stuff:

1. Creating Database Connections
2. Selecting and Querying Data
3. DataSets (including Strongly-Typed DataSets)
4. Updating Data
5. Synchronizing Data (including the Microsoft Sync Framework)
6. Introducing LINQ
7. XML
8. LINQ to SQL
9. Using the Entity Framework
10. ADO.NET Data Services

Tech Ed 2009 Thank you!

Dear James,

Thank you for attending TechEd 2009!

We really appreciate the effort and commitment that TechEd takes from all of our attendees and thank you for your support during the particularly tough current economic climate.

This year we hosted 128 sessions over 11 tracks and 3 virtual tracks and trust this provided you with confidence in the Microsoft roadmap, and visibility on how Microsoft technology can help to move your business and career forward. 

To maximise your TechEd experience, we are pleased to announce that as a delegate of the event, you will have complimentary access to premium content on TechEd Online. This offers hundreds of hours of breakout sessions from TechEd events around the world and is a great way to check out your favourite session or catch up on any of the sessions you may have missed.  We will notify you by email as soon as your access details have been set up.

Also don’t forget to tell us what you would like to see at future TechEd New Zealand events. Your feedback is critical for our future success so please go to www.msteched.com/newzealand/Public/eval.aspx to complete the evaluation form.  To show our appreciation you will automatically go into the draw to win a HP ProBook 5310. Deadline Wednesday 30 September.

Thanks again for supporting TechEd 2009 and we look forward to seeing you next year!

Kind regards,

Scott Wylie

Director Developer & Platform Strategy

Microsoft NZ Ltd

Code Camp Auckland 2009 – Feedback from attendees

Over on Kirk Jackson’s Page of Words, he gives an overview of the feedback from attendees.  All very positive.

He also released individual speaker’s performances privately to each one of us speakers.  Here’re mine:

Becoming Certified. James Hippolite:

• Dissatisfied: 1 (3%)
• Satisfied: 11 (28%)
• Satisfied++: 19 (49%)
• Very satisfied: 8 (21%)

It was difficult to follow the structure in the Becoming Certified talk and the Secure Coding Practices talk.

I guess that’s because I had 1/2 an hour to cram 1 hour’s worth of presentation.

Kirk indicated that responses were on average about 50% of attendance, which implies I had 80 people in my talk.  Not bad, woo hoo!

Who do you have to kill?

…in order to be nominated for an MVP award?

That was the tongue-in-cheek question I posed to a couple of MVP Leads, here at the Microsoft TechEd conference.

Background

I knew that it was awfully bad taste to go seeking this reward for oneself.  That it should be bestowed upon one by others who have recognized your contribution to the community through voluntary efforts.  However, after not being shoulder tapped (after many years of dedicated service, IMHO), I decided to ask the question.

Problem

Turns out, I’d been too generalist.  Which is natural for a New Zealander, but works against you in this case.  Because I’m both Web Dev and DB Dev, I’d been straddling the two streams, and contributing to both camps.  However, the MVP programme is structured along Product lines, and you must demonstrate in-depth knowledge, skill and dedication in that one area, in order to qualify.

Hence, I don’t qualify.

Solution

Question now is, do I want to bother refocussing on only one area?  Or am I basically happy to continue as I am, knowing that that particular gong is out of reach?

Thoughts and/or opinions?

As a matter of interest, the two areas that strike me as interesting, in which I feel I “had a shot” would be VB and/or SQL BI.

How I Choose To Use Data Dude

Data Dude was the old name for Microsoft Visual Studio Database Professional Edition, now also known as the GDR version. It allows you to add Server and Database projects to your Solution, which help synchronize your various environments. It can be tricky to get your head around. Here’s how I choose to use it.

1. I make my database modifications using the visual designers as much as possible, because I’m lazy and like it that way. So, I maintain a local copy of my new database, with edits.
2. I run a schema compare between my local database and the Solution’s database project. This generates all necessary CREATE scripts.
3. I maintain a Post Deployment script which populates the newly dropped and recreated tables.
4. I deploy the database updates from the Database project to the DEV (and/or TEST) server.

This has the added benefit of not-dropping and recreating my local database copy, so I don’t keep losing my lovely Database Diagram!

Code Camp Auckland 2009 - Development | SQL | Security

I’m speaking at Code Camp, presenting on Microsoft Certifications during lunch. Here is the blurb from Kirk Jackson:

Code Camp is less than two weeks away!

If you want to catch some free sessions on the state-of-the-art in .NET development, SQL Server and developer security then sign up for Code Camp Auckland 2009 now.

Code Camps are non-profit, and organised by members of the local developer community. This year the Auckland Code Camp is the day before TechEd (Sunday 13 September), so we've managed to nab a few great speakers on their day off to present to us.

It's the biggest Code Camp ever - over 14 hours of sessions across 3 streams from 10am till 5pm:

Development...

• What's Happening in C# 4.0 and .NET Languages and Why Should You Care?
• Behaviour Driven Development
• Domain Specific Languages
• Silverlight with Prism
• .NET on the iPhone
• Becoming Certified
• Lightning Talks
• and more!

The latest and greatest in development topics, by the people that know!

SQL Server?

• SQL Server Virtualisation Best Practices and Recommendations
• SQL Server Analysis Services and Gemini
• Query Optimization and Query Tuning
• Understanding SQL Server Indexing
• SQL Server Maintenance

Training and guidance from the best SQL trainers in the industry!

Security!

• Secure Development Lifecycle and Threat Modelling workshop
• Secure Coding Practices

We are lucky to have Michael Howard, author of Writing Secure Code and 24 Deadly Sins of Software Security giving a free workshop for developers, architects and team leads on Threat Modelling and the Secure Development Lifecycle. This will be followed by a session on how to write secure .NET code.

Auckland has never seen such an awesome free event!

Presenters that are offering their time include Greg Low, Nicholas Dritsas and Auckland's Alex Henderson of Architecture Chat fame.

To cover the costs of the event, we have the help of our generous sponsors: Microsoft, Datacom, Intergen, INETA and Xero.

All that's left for you to do is to visit the website for more details, and sign up now!

See you there on Sunday 13 September,

What on Earth have I been up to?

I’ve been busy:

Date	Title	Venue
02-Apr-09	WebCast: Intro to ORM for DBAs	PASS USA
16-Apr-09	What’s New in Microsoft SQL Services	Wellington SQL Users
30-Apr-09	Microsoft Certifications	Auckland SQL Users
14-May-09	How To: Design and Develop Applications to Ensure Quality	VUW
26-May-09	How To: Design and Develop Applications to Ensure Quality	Ellerslie .NET Users
14-Jun-09	Microsoft Sync Framework	NZ .NET Code Camp, Porirua
18-Jun-09	Microsoft Sync Framework	Wellington SQL Users
15-Jul-09	How To: Design and Develop Applications to Ensure Quality	Wellington .NET Users
30-Jul-09	Microsoft Sync Framework	Auckland SQL Users & Ellerslie .NET Users
04-Aug-09	Creation: Why I Believe	Malakai’s Care Group, Wellington Elim
20-Aug-09	How To: Design and Develop Applications to Ensure Quality	Software Quality NZ
13-Sep-09	Microsoft Certifications	NZ .NET Code Camp, Auckland
29-Sep-09	Creation: Why I Believe	Jeannie’s Care Group, Wellington Elim

I’m available for bookings!

MSDN Unplugged Roadshow Wellington

Date/Time

Friday, 5 June 2009 @ 9:am - 12:30pm

Product(s)

Microsoft Expression Blend,Microsoft Silverlight,Windows 7

Audience(s)

Developer

Presenter(s)

Mike Zeff, Nigel Parker

Event Overview

Session 1: Windows 7 for Developers

Windows 7 contains many new features for developers that allow you to create very rich applications for your users, including the ability to touch-enable your own applications. This session will cover how you can take advantage of new Windows 7 features using .NET 3.5 to build rich client applications and we’ll also take a look at what’s coming in .NET 4.0. Presented by ISV Developer Advisor, Mike Zeff.

Session 2: Taking your Web experience to the next level with Silverlight 3

Internet Explorer 8 has been released and Silverlight 3 was announced recently at MIX ‘09. This session will show you how you can take advantage of Silverlight 3 and Expression Blend 3 to create stunning web applications that can run both inside and outside the browser. We’ll also show you how to take advantage of exciting features in IE8 that make your web site more ‘sticky’ for your users. Presented by Web Developer Advisor, Nigel Parker.

Impressions

A good introduction to Multi-Touch programming for Windows 7 using Visual Studio 2010 and XAML.

Matti had a good question: "When with IE8 support HTML5?"  The background to that question is that HTML5 is a new standard everybody else is adopting except Microsoft, because it's a Silverlight killer.  No official answer (from Microsoft) exists.

I advertised next weekend's Code Camp.

I won the web-cam draw!  All-in-all a profitable meeting.

How to: Design and Develop an Application to Ensure its Quality

I gave a presentation last night:

Title

How To: Design and Develop an Application to Ensure its Quality

Audience

Victoria University of Wellington, 3rd year “Software Engineering” students (SWEN 301 = COMP 301)

Attendees

About 30

Date/Time

Thursday 14 May @ 4pm

Slides

Ensuring Quality

Impressions

The first half of my presentation, defining and designing quality, was taken straight out of the book.  Specifically, straight out of the “Analysing Requirements and Defining .NET Solution Architectures” exam.  The second half of my presentation, coding quality, came out of my head and covered training, reviewing and testing.

I could see some heads nodding in agreement as I was speaking, always a good sign.  I could see some heads nodding in weariness, never a good sign.

The question time is always my favourite, because it’s then that I can most accurately gauge whether what I have been saying is “scratching the itch” of the intended audience. 

The first question was along the lines of “great, you’ve told us some more theory, now what about you personally?  What were some of your failures in your career that will help us to avoid pain and embarrassment?”  I won’t record here what I told them in answer, suffice to say it amused them..

The PhD student in the audience had come with slightly different expectations.  I think he was hoping for more concrete examples of measurements and statistics for writing good code.  My rather lame response was that if/when I’m inclined to worry about that kind of thing, then I turn on FxCop to analyse my code for me.

I admitted to being a “lazy coder” in that I enjoy/prefer using objects that I drag onto the page from a toolbox, rather than coding everything by hand.

Definition of terms became important.  I needed to very clearly define “Agile” and “Peer”.  To me, peer programming is not necessarily the Extreme Programming definition of working side-by-side on the same computer.  It just means working as a team on the same project.  To me, Agile just means having many, quick iterations, rather than waterfall software lifecycle methodology.  I hadn’t realised they considered themselves Software Engineers.  To me, there are hardware/network engineers vs. software developers.

Evaluation

Hi James,

Your presentation today was really good. I believe that students love to have you coming from the really world to share your invaluable experience with them. Thank you very much again for your valuable time and your efforts, in particular while you are so busy. I really appreciate it.

Best wishes,
Dr Hui Ma
Lecturer

Right Sizing Agile Development - MSDN Magazine Webinar

I logged into a web seminar this morning:

Title	Right Sizing Agile Development
Audience	MSDN Magazine subscribers and/or developers
Presenter	Steve McConnell is CEO and Chief Software Engineer at Construx Software where he writes books and articles, teaches classes, and oversees Construx’s software development practices. Steve is the author of Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (2006), Code Complete (1993, 2004), Rapid Development (1996), Software Project Survival Guide (1998), and Professional Software Development (2004). His first two books won Software Development magazine's Jolt Excellence award for best programming books of their years. Steve has worked in the desktop software industry since 1984 and has expertise in rapid development methodologies, project estimation, software construction practices, and third-party contract management. In 1998, readers of Software Development magazine named Steve one of the three most influential people in the software industry along with Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds. Steve was Editor in Chief of IEEE Software magazine from 1998-2002. Steve is on the Panel of Experts that advises the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) project and was Chair of the IEEE Computer Society’s Professional Practices Committee. Steve earned a Bachelor’s degree from Whitman College and a Master’s degree in software engineering from Seattle University. Read more about Steve at www.stevemcconnell.com.
Brief	In this talk, Steve McConnell draws on Construx's extensive consulting work to dissect Agile development. McConnell names the Agile practices that have worked well for Construx's clients, describes the failure modes of Agile practices that have failed to live up to the hype, and explains how to right size Agile development for your organization.
Date/Time	Friday 17 April @ 7:00AM (NZT)
Slides	http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=140117&s=1&k=1565037F2927EB78039F829A25208578
Impressions	I liked how he explained the differences between: Extreme Programming: lots of iterations of Analysis, Design, Build, Test (rinse and repeat several times) Agile Programming: few iterations of ADBT (staged deployments i.e. versioning) Waterfall Programming: no iterations (single monolithic)
Further Comments	I missed the first 10 minutes.

Wellington SQL Server User Group Meeting April 2009

I attended a presentation last night:
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Title	Wearing multiple hats.  Being a DBA and a developer.
Audience	Wellington SQL Server User Group
Presenter	Dave Dustin – Wolters Kluwer Health Dave is also convenor of the Auckland SQL Server User Group
Brief	Given the size of many New Zealand companies and their respective IT departments, many IT professionals wear multiple hats.  Dave will be giving his view of coming from the development world into the DBA role, and what it means if you need to work in both areas.
Attendees	About 20 – a good number for us
Date/Time	Thursday 16 April @ 5:30pm
Slides	Coming
Impressions	It was unfortunate that Dave’s security key was not present, so that he was unable to start his laptop and show us his slides.  However, he did remarkably well from just memory. I was reminded of the usefulness of Test-Driven Development (TDD) aka “test-first” or “fail-first”: Before you code, write a test which fails. Then write the code that makes the test succeed Then you have a permanent regression test case
Further Comments	He was not able to do the second half of his presentation, which was about Visual Studio Team System 2008: Database Pro edition – GDR.

ORM for DBAs

I gave a presentation today:

Title	ORM 101: Object Relational Mappers for Database Administrators
Sub-title	Why Should I Be Afraid?
Audience	Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS) members
Attendees	About 18
Date/Time	Wednesday 1 April @ 12pm EST Thursday 2 April @ 5AM NZT
Slides	Introduction to ORM for DBA
Impressions	Newbie mistake: I ran out of material!  However, I was able to fill in with “Why get Microsoft Certified?” until the questions started flowing. The questions were right on the ball, and added to the body of this presentation.  Specifically: What does the generated code look like?  This sparked a reminder that I was meant to show an example of partial classes.  However, I couldn’t get the new method in the partial class to work!  I realise now that the reason why was because I forgot about the NameSpace of the generated code. How does the dynamic SQL avoid injection attack?  The answer, “via parameters” I was able to show by opening the code. Can you have different permissions/applications using the same DAL?  I talked about an example solution I’m working on that has multiple Web Applications working from the same Database via the same Data Access Layer. How does it work? “Duh, I dunno.”  I’m a lazy programmer.  If it works, it just works. Can you connect to more than one database at a time? Great question.  This sparked an explanation of the SubSonic providers and the way that they put each of their objects into separate folders. This further sparked an explanation of some of SubSonic’s provider options, where: Pluralization can be preserved or eliminated; Prefixes can be preserved or removed.
Further Comments	I was persuaded to put in an April Fool’s Day joke.  I did this by passing on a bogus Microsoft Announcement (attributed to Greg Low) that Azure was replacing SQL Server for the retail market.  Apparently, according to Mike the convenor, I was sufficiently convincing until I put up the “April Fool” slide.  Boy, it’s tough talking to a wall of silence! I discovered SubSonic 2.1 is LINQ-like, but not actual LINQ.  SubSonic 3.0 is LINQ. I made the decision not to bore the DBA audience with the creation of the presentation layer, and to concentrate on the flow of data through the layers instead.  However, I had the time, so need to think that through better next time. The subtitle was decided because DBA’s traditionally hate Dynamic SQL for 2 reasons: SQL Injection Attack – alleviated by use of parameters Store Procedure Superior Compiled Performance – is a myth The convenor did not read my bio (as I expected) so I was forced to introduce myself.  I able to speak with confidence from my credentialing (as at this time) as: Microsoft Certified Professional Developer: Web Developer Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Database Developer Microsoft Certified Trainer Microsoft Certified Solution Developer .NET

Team Focus

MSF Team	Envisioning	Planning	Developing	Stabilizing	Deploying
Product Management	Overall goals; identify customer needs, requirements; vision/scope document	Conceptual design; business requirements analysis; communications lan	Customer expectations	Communications plan execution; launch planning	Customer feedback, assessment, sign-off
Programme Management	Design goals Solution concept; project structure	Conceptual and logical design; functional specification; master project plan and master project schedule, budget	Functional specification management; project tracking; updating plans	Project tracking; bug triage	Solution/scope comparison; stabilization management
Development	Prototypes; development and technology options; feasibility analysis	Technology evaluation; logical and physical design; development plan/schedule; development estimates	Code development; infrastructure development; configuration documentation	Bug resolution; code optimization	Problem resolution; escalation support
User Experience	User performance needs and implications	Usage scenarios/use cases, user requirements, localization/accessibility requirements; user documentation/training plan/schedule for usability testing, user documentation, training	Training; updated training plan; usability testing; graphic design	Stabilization of user performance materials; training materials	Training; training schedule management Testing Performance testing; problem
Testing	Testing strategies; testing acceptance criteria; implications	Design evaluation; testing requirements; test plan/schedule	Functional testing; issues identification; documentation testing; updated test plan	Testing; bug reporting and status; configuration testing.	Peformance testing; problem identification, definition, resolution, and reporting
Release Management	Deployment implications; operations management and supportability; operational acceptance criteria	Design evaluation; operations requirements; pilot and deployment plan/schedule	Rollout checklists, updated rollout and pilot plans; site preparation checklists	Pilot setup and support; deployment planning; operations and support training	Site deployment management; change approval