What: Utah Spring Code Camp

When: April 14^th 2007 9:00-5:00

Where: Neumont University

Registration: http://utahcodecamp.eventbrite.com

The local .NET Users Group and SQL Server Users Group is conducting a “Code Camp” for local software programmers next month at Neumont University. The code camp is by the community for the community. Always free and Always for the community.

We will have Sessions on .NET, SQL Server, and Oracle. Presented by experts around the valley!

The Saturday, April 14^th event is scheduled from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The conference is free please register at. http://utahcodecamp.eventbrite.com

Lots of Sponsors and Lots of software and Tech Gadgets to giveaway!

You can check out www.msutahevents.com for a session schedule and speaker list for the Code Camp.

According to the post at http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsqualitytools/archive/2007/03/27/welcoming-unit-testing-to-the-pro-sku.aspx and the more detailed post at http://blogs.msdn.com/nnaderi/archive/2007/03/27/unit-testing-trickling-into-pro.aspx the next version of Visual Studio code named "Orcas" will have unit testing in the professional version. I think this will be a major step forward as making sure that code runs correctly is everyone's job and not just for the "enterprise" developer or professional tester. Anything that we can do to make sure bugs are removed before code is shipped is a good thing. I have used NUnit and you can currently use it with the professional version of Visual Studio but I think having it in the box will encourage more people to do the right thing.

Just a note: I got this link in IM the other day but problems with DNS on my blog stopped me from posting it. I am working on that now but it seems to be somewhat intermittent. If you can't get to this site, please try back again later

I was taking advantage of the warm weather this weekend to do chores. Among the long list of "honey-do" items was cleaning out our storage shed. I didn't finish it but I ran across some interesting things. Burried in a stack of old computer magazines was a "Map of the Internet". Curious as to what it would contain I opened it up and saw it showed the major areas on Prodigy, CompuServe, America Online, and the MS Network. There were areas for technical support, taxes, and advice on hardware and software. I thought that it was not that different than the current Internet except that now instead of dialing into a particular service we can just go to Google, Yahoo, or Live Search and find the same types of information.

It was also interesting to me that of the sponsors of the map only a few still exist as companies and they are generally not household names. The one exception is America Online which is still around and sending out CDs at certain intervals. Samsung is still around but is not associated with computers as much as consumer electronics. U.S. Robotics is still alive and kicking according to Wikipedia but I haven't heard about them for a long time. Then again I haven't been in the market for a fax modem for a long time either. Okidata appears to be alive and well but I am not sure what they do beyond printers.

Other sponsors who have gone out of business or been bought up are CompuServe, Connectix, NETCOM, and Prodigy.

It was a nice trip down memory lane. I don't think I will see another add that attempts to show cyperspace as a collection of 41 dots that tells me that 1 of those dots could be my home page. It makes you realize how much things have changed in a few short years and how much we are poised to see them change in the future. It's exciting to be part of that change.

Join us for the Utah County .NET User Group on Wednesday, March 21. We will meet at our usual location in Provo. The topic this month is security in Windows Vista. We will specifically focus on UAC and CardSpace to show how they work and how they can help to protect your computer and applications.

We will be giving away prizes including a copy of Windows Vista and Office so please be sure to come.

Utah Spring Code Camp
Saturday April 14th 2007
Neumont University
Salt Lake City, Ut
Call for Speakers
Closes March 30th 2007

Code Camp is a one day free training for all developers of any technologies to attend and learn from there peers and local speakers.  We are looking for Speakers to present at this event.  All topics are open for discussion and all formats.  The sessions would be 1 hour long with a 10-15 minute QA time at the end of the session.  This will be an all day event we plan to go from 9:00-5:00.  You don’t need to be present the whole day but we would love to have you for an ask the experts panel at the end of the day. 

We are looking for 100-150 people to attend the code camp.  I hope to have enough speakers to break this into several tracks that run at the same time.  Right now a SQL track and a DEV track are planned. 

You must bring your own notebook for your presentation. You’ll have a chance to test the video connections during the speaker prep meeting. There will be a room on site for speaker prep during the day of the Code Camp.

Any code samples you show should be made available for download from Code Camp web site. 

We are not covering travel and expenses for speakers, but you will receive recognition and a great big THANK YOU from yours truly.  A Cool Polo Shirt also!

If you’re interested please submit a session title, abstract, and bio Email to Pat_wright@sqlpass.org Please put Code Camp Speaker In the subject. 

This is a great opportunity to give back to the community and present on a topic that you like. You don't need to worry about being the best presenter in the world, just get out there and tell people about what you know or what you have been thinking about. Also this is not just about Microsoft technologies. I talked with Pat and he said he has invited other user groups (I think he specifically mentioned Linux and Java) to present as well. I think it would be great to be able to sit in on a session on Ruby on Rails or Continuous Integration with CVS or something else that I would not normally hear at a Microsoft sponsored event.

This morning at the first session at the MVP summit Scott Guthrie is addressing us. I asked him if there would be additional content beyond what they are telling us here. He promised that there would be many new announcements at MIX and that it would be worth our time to go.

The early bird discount for MIX ends at midnight tonight so you need to sign up early. Or.... if you are a good designer (not the gray background and square buttons type of design that I do) you could enter the REMIX contest and design your way to MIX.

At the conference you can get information about Expressions, "WPF/E", and other design tools. If that is enough you can sign up to get into the MEDC (Mobile and Embedded DevCon) at the same time.

All attendees to MIX will get a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and the right to purchase two additional copies of Vista Home Premium through the Windows Vista Family Discount so not only do you get a lot of good information but you also get some cool software.

So don't delay. Go register at visitmix.com. I will be there and joining in the conversation. After what I am seeing here I am excited for the announcements that will come out at MIX.

I was just finishing up some things on a remote server and noticed that it made the switch to DST while I was using it. I didn't notice the clock change (and I am not going to stay up the extra hours here to watch my computers switch over) but it seemed to go well. It didn't crash and the time was correct so I guess the patch worked. The only weird thing I saw was getting on to my e-mail to send the report I was working on. It was past 2:00 a.m. on the east coast where the server is located. I logged into the portal as usual and then tried to get to Outlook Web Access. I was prompted for my credentials again. That doesn't normally happen and I am not 100% sure it wasn't some other problem but I can see it being related to the DST change. If the two systems use Kerberos to exchange my credentials then a difference of an hour in the clocks could be enough to invalidate any security token that was passed with the request. I will have to see if the problem exists later on and report back what I find out. For now I am headed off to bed. After all I will already loose an additional hour of sleep tonight and that can't be good for anything other than my sleep deficit <grin />