Consuming Software Factories

The Fairfield / Westchester .NET User Group is hosting an interesting topic on Consuming Software Factories.
Next Meeting: August 5, 20086:30 PM to 9:00 PMWelcome time: 6:00 PM Speaker: David San Filippo Topic: Consuming Software Factories

David's also got a good comparison in his blog on some of the more recent unit testing frameworks.

Enjoy,
Freeon

BlackBerry 101

Time to go back to school and learn more about your Black Berry. This is another great link that all users should check out to get the most from your BB.

http://crackberry.com/blackberry-101-how-lecture-series

Stress Pint

Last but not least of all I found a cool office toy from Guinness called a Stress Bottle.

This toy may not relive all of your stress but here are a few ideas for making the day go by faster:

1. Proudly display your Guinness bottle to let the world know you will be attending the Friday happy hour

2. Convince colleges that you work so many hours in the day you have to drink a beer between meetings to keep creativity flowing.

3. Recreate great movie moments by cracking the "foam" bottle over a willing employees head. Warning: make sure said employee knows it's coming.

Looking back I should have named this post "What not to do at the office".

Oh well. Enjoy,

Freeon

Anti-iPhone Propaganda

I'm reading this piece on GIZMODO called NJ Mall AT&T Resellers Hand Out Anti-iPhone Propaganda to Customers. The short version is an ATT reseller is handing out fliers that downplay the iPhone to sell more Blackberry phones. Got me what that is all about but there was one page of interest to new BB owners.

The propaganda listed a few links that are probably on every BB addicts phone by now but are very useful to first time users or those of us waiting to purchase the Bold (ME!).

And now for your nubbage pleasure, the links:
www.blackberry.com/facebook
http://m.google.com (from your phone)
http://www.operamini.com/
http://viigo.com
http://mobile.yahoo.com/go
http://moviewavs.com/
http://videos4blackberry.info/
www.blackberry.com/messenger

I'm sure these have been listed a hundred times over but here they are again. Didn't I mention this site also serves a a repository for all my links.

Enjoy,
Freeon

Read, Read, and Read Some More

The more I read the more I find myself adding favorites, linking blogs and making notes of books to buy. The internet is a neverending stream of information. So as it be I'll try and keep track of those books I would like to purchase with a new Amazon Wish List.

Now you know what to get for my birthday :)

CTDOTNET CodeCamp

It's very exciting news the first Hartford CodeCamp next month. The call for speakers went out several weeks ago and by the looks of it many of our regional experts have answered. I listed a few excepts from the CTDOTNET site or you can get up to the minute information here:

http://www.ctdotnet.com/Home/tabid/63/Default.aspx


Hartford CT (Saturday Aug 16th 9AM-5PM)
To be held at New
Horizons Computer Learning Center (Bloomfield CT)
http://www.newhorizons.com/content/centerSearchResults.aspx?SiteId=25

CodeCamp Speakers & Presentations List
(Bio & more
details to come soon)
Becky Isserman - SharePoint Development - Differences between normal ASP.Net and SharePoint Development
Travis Laborde - SRP/DI/IOC - Don't Leave Sub Main Without Them!
Chris Bowen - XNA Game development for .Net developers
Sunil Kadimdiwan - SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
Michael delaMaza - Agile software development
Joseph Hill - Cross-Platform .NET: Mono and Moonlight
Christian Drouin - MBUnit , TestDriven.Net & Continuous Integration
Rick Minerich - F# Functional Programming in .NET
Brian R Nalewajek - Object Role Modeling Architecture tool using DSL & LINQ
Lee Rodgers - Silverlight development
Reddy Kadasani - LINQ development
Sam Nasr - 1). SQL 2008 for Developers 2). Developing SharePoint Web Parts
Mike Gerety - Topic pending
Allan Da Costa Pinto - Topic pending
Aaron Junod - Ruby development in .NET (IronRuby)
Michael Ruminer - Silverlight RIA (Rich Internet Application) using Agile/TFS
Michael Lotter - SharePoint development - Branding features
Steve Andrews - Visual Studio 2008: Introduction, Team System Tips & Tricks, MSBuild & Code Development
Jim Bonnie - Unit Testing with DotNetNuke
Talbot Crowell - Silverlight as a front end to Excel Services
Dan Mezick - 1). Scrum 2). .NET Attributes 3). LINQ Development 4). .NET OOP

Introduction to Game Development with XNA

Summer is upon us, so what better excuse to break away from the norm and discuss games? This meeting is for people who enjoy games, and have always wanted to know more about how they’re made… and maybe how to make their own.

XNA is a game development platform based on the .NET Framework that helps to make it easy to develop games for Windows, Xbox, and now the Zune as well. Using the free XNA Game Studio, you can use those same C# skills that pay the bills by day for creating your own games by night (or really whenever you'd like.)

We'll introduce XNA, show you around the XNA world, then create a simple 2D game from scratch to give you a feel for game mechanics and the architecture of XNA.
This session requires no game development experience, only a passion for coding and for games!

There are two sessions both by Chris Bowen
The Boston .NET meeting is on Wednesday (7/9) in Waltham and the Beantown .NET meeting is on Thursday (7/10) on State St. in Boston, both are from 6-8 PM.

Beantown is about 10 minutes further away for me but going out for beer after the meeting is always good call.

source: Chris Bowen's Blog

The Old Lighthouse

So my wife read the last post about Ireland and informed me she already picked out the place we will be staying http://www.gtunlimited.com/kinsaleluxuryhouserental.html

Code Camp - August 16th

Call for Speakers
CTDOTNET CodeCamp - Hartford CT (Saturday Aug 16th 9AM-5PM)
To be held at New Horizons Computer Learning Center (Bloomfield CT)

http://www.ctdotnet.com/Home/tabid/63/Default.aspx

Fame and Fortune
We are seeking talented .NET developers to make a presentation or two at the First Hartford CodeCamp on August 16th (Saturday). If you have ever wanted fame (& perhaps fortune) - this is your opportunity! We are giving away one MSDN Premium subscription and other prizes for presenters (judged by evals from attendees).

Ireland

I was reading a pair of stories about Ireland here:
http://blog.flickr.net/en/2008/06/23/storiesfromireland/
It's pretty crazy seeing a donkey in the street.

My wife REALLY wants to visit Ireland. We'll end up going someday after the kids are all grown up and we retire. That should be sometime around our golden anniversary.

My Favorite Little Ladies

Here is a picture of my two favorite little ladies running around during an easter egg hunt at their friends house.

On the left is "Big" and Right is "Little". Ya we have way too many nicknames for the kids.

Gotta love it.

Freeon