The February Geek Dinner is coming up next Wednesday night. It will be held at the Miller Business Innovation Center at 6 PM. Here is a description that came in my e-mail with a link at the bottom to sign up for the event.

**EVENT SUMMARY**
DevUtah's February Geek Dinner will be held at the Miller Business
Innovation Center on Wednesday February 22 at 6 PM.

David Spann and Alistair Cockburn will lead a discussion on “Introducing
Agile to the Organization”. If you’ve heard of Agile methodologies but
can’t get others in your organization interested; or if you’ve been a
member of a high performing Agile team but can’t find the right words to
convince upper management to spread the “gospel”, this discussion may be
helpful. David and Alistair will take your questions before they begin
and will respond to as many as possible. Being agile by nature, they
want to meet your (the customer’s) interest. If you’ve only heard about
Agile, feel free to do a little research and post beginner questions as
well.

**SPEAKERS**
David Spann is high-tech management consultant who focuses teams on
making a reasonable return on investment while exceeding customer
expectations. David has helped conduct each of the annual Agile Software
Conferences since the first one held at Westminster College in 2002 and
is currently involved with Alistair Cockburn in developing Utah's Agile
Project Leadership Network.

Alistair Cockburn is an internationally known project witchdoctor and
strategist. He co-authored the 2001 Manifesto for Agile Software
Development and the 2005 project management "Declaration of
Inter-Dependence" and has written several best-selling books.

**MENU**
A build-your-own taco buffet will be catered by Megan Faulkner Brown.

The meal cost is $12. You can prepay from the wiki or just bring cash to
pay at the door.

Please RSVP:
http://www.phil801.com/devutah/index.php?title=2006_February_Event

Fellow Regional Director and all around nice guy J. Michael Palermo IV has done it again. He has written a valentine day love story that geeks can truly appreciate. You can read it at http://weblogs.asp.net/palermo4/archive/2006/02/14/DotNetLovePartII.aspx

It looks like the folks in Boise are planning on having a code camp next month. It is on March 18. If you would like to attend or even better speak at this event you can get more information at http://www.boisecodecamp.org.

I have never attended a code camp but from everything that I hear they are a lot of fun. It is also a wonderful opportunity for people who are thinking that they might want to get into speaking to start to get some experience talking about something that is interesting to them.

I was catching up on some old e-mail and saw that .NET-2-The-Max site at http://www.dotnet2themax.com/ is back in operation. I haven't spent a lot of time looking over their newly designed site but I loved the original version. I am looking forward to lots of good articles, tips, and code from them.

On March 20-22 Microsoft will be holding the MIX conference at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. If you want to go but can't get your company to pay for it, or you work for yourself and can't convince the boss to let you go :) you still have a chance to attend. You can enter a contest to redesign the MIX homepage. 3 lucky winners will get a pass to the show. You can get the full details at http://blog.mix06.com/blog/archive/2006/02/05/154.aspx or register for the conference at http://www.mix06.com.

I just registered so I will plan on seeing you there.

I just read an editorial at http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13568 entitled UNIX Security: Don't Believe the Truth. Aside from the authors assertion that UNIX is more secure than Windows and his refusal to entertain any other opinion (for the record I think it is somewhat akin to saying Orem, UT is safer than New York, NY because there are fewer crimes) I thought it was a good piece. The main point is that even though most users do not run with sufficent privileges to allow the OS to be damaged by a virus, the stuff the user cares about can be damaged. The exact same thing is possible when running Windows as a non-administrative user. I had an experience where not being an administrator saved me from a virus infection.

One other interesting tidbit was the advertisement that was playing along with the article. I normally ignore the ads but this one was for the Microsoft sponsored "Get the Facts" campaign on whether Linux or Windows Server 2003 is a better purchase for enterprises. It seemed ironic to me.

I will be teaching a class on ASP .NET 2.0 in the Microsoft offices in Salt Lake on February 14 & 15. I promise that we will be done early enough on the 14th to let you get home to your sweetheart. Here are the details from Microsoft.

You are invited to attend a ASP 2.0 Web Applications training class.  Microsoft is pleased to offer this training at no charge

Developing Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Web Applications

 

REGISTRATION ENDS February 10, 2006 by 12 noon

Elements of this syllabus are subject to change.

This two-day course provides students with the knowledge and skills to create ASP.NET 2.0 applications. It will show the advancements from ASP.NET 1.x to

ASP.NET 2.0 in creating applications. The course focuses on the new features and functionality of ASP.NET. The course includes sample code in both Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET and Microsoft Visual C#®.

Audience

This course is intended for experienced, professional Web application developers, including those employed by software companies or working on corporate development teams.

At Seminar Completion

After completing this seminar, students will be able to:

§       Describe advancements from ASP.NET 1.x to ASP.NET 2.0 in creating applications.

§       Develop new Web solutions using ASP.NET 2.0 features and functionality.

§       Creating ASP 2.0 Applications

§       Using Master Pages

§       Working with Data and the new source model

§       Handling State Management

§       Working with Web Parts

§       Personalizing web pages using Profiles and Themes

§       Implementing ASP 2.0 Security

 

Prerequisites

Before attending this course, students must have:

§         Experience developing .NET Web applications using ASP.NET 1.0/1.1

§         HTML

§         XML

§         ADO.NET (1.0/1.1)

 

Lunch

In appreciation for your attendance to this seminar, Microsoft will be providing lunch for the duration of the event.

 

Seminar Dates and Location:

February 14^th and 15^th, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Microsoft Corporation

123 Wright Brothers Drive, Suite 100

Salt Lake City, UT 84116

801-257-6400

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/info/usaoffices/rockymtn/saltlakecity.mspx

 

Register today at: http://www.microsofttraining.com/devonsites

Class/Invitation ID 304420 or click here

 

Here is the blurb from an MSDN flash on how you can get your very own Source Force Action Figures.

You might also want to sign up for some MSDN webcasts or virtual labs. Here's the deal: if you don't sign up for MSDN webcasts and virtual labs this very minute, the world stands a very real (or, at least, not insignificant) chance of coming to an end. Or, at least, it's not completely impossible. Okay. Maybe it won't "end," per se. But it will get a whole lot more embarrassing. And sometimes that's even worse than the end of the world. Remember middle school?

Thing is, if you don't attend at least four live MSDN webcasts or virtual labs per month, from January through April, you won't get to collect the Source Fource action figures. And then where will you be? While everyone else in your office is playing with their Source Fource action figures at lunch, you'll have to paint a potato red and blue and squint your eyes. Oh, sure ... everyone will pretend to play along as you run through the room, holding your potato over your head and making "whoosh" noises ...

Scared? Good. Here's the skinny: From January through April 2006, we'll unveil a new super dude or dudette and send them to developers who get their act together and attend at least four live MSDN webcasts or four MSDN virtual labs in a given month. Hey, not so fast! In order to confirm your shipping address and receive credit for attendance, you must complete an evaluation at the end of each webcast or virtual lab.

So now is the time to leap over tall developers in a single bound. Remember - you need to fill out the evaluation for four live webcasts (on-demand or dead webcasts don't count), or four MSDN virtual labs in a given month to qualify.
- Brad McCabe

So, with January gone you will have to sign up and attend more webcasts in February to make sure you get you Source Force Action figure. Even if you don't get the action figure attending webcasts is a good way to learn without spending a lot of money on training.