If you're in the mood to learn some .NET this year, Jon Box just posted a list of upcoming .NET events – some local to this area and über cheap (read: free)! High quality and low cost is a good thing.

Give Back to the Community!

As indicated on Jon's list, we at the Memphis .NET User Group are planning to have a Day of .NET this November. We are still in the process of working out all the details, but we're beginning to round up speakers. If you might be willing to share some of your .NET-related experience, please consider speaking at this event. Keep in mind: your session does not have to take the form of a PowerPoint lecture. In many cases, it will be better if it's not – be creative:

• Ask a co-worker or two to co-present with you
• Use a "chalk talk" style of session (very conversational and usually involving a white board… "White board talk" just doesn't sound as good!)
• Facilitate a discussion around a specific problem or technology – "birds of a feather" style

If you're thinking "What would I talk about? I don't have anything to say!", give me a holler; I'll help you think through it. Your topic could be as simple as thinking up a list of obstacles you've stumbled over in the last few months, and presenting your workarounds to each problem. Taking a different approach, you could get a list of "pain points" from the audience around a specific technology (e.g. ASP.NET & Ajax), and facilitate a discussion of workarounds. If you are interested at all, I would be happy to brainstorm with you both the topic and format of your session.

Even if presenting/facilitating is not your "thing", please consider attending the event. We're hoping to have a great turnout from the Memphis area and surrounding regions!

It occurred to me that I heard little (read:none) about ASP.NET 3.5 at TechEd, so I thought I would search the web to see what's coming down the pipeline.  My search engine brought back the answer: nothing.  You'll find some about Silverlight, some about ASP.NET futures, even a unreleased book on ASP.NET 3.5, but no real information (that I found) on ASP.NET 3.5. 

My thought: "Ah, a challenge!  Since I have VS 2008 Beta 1 installed, I'll just compare System.Web v2.0 to v3.5 using Reflector."  Should have worked, right?  Well, it may well have... had I found System.Web.dll v3.5.  I did successfully find a LOT of 3.5 assemblies, but the only one under System.Web.* was System.Web.Services...

My question to the blogosphere: has anyone seen any information on ASP.NET 3.5?

Being a web-oriented developer, I have decided to start looking into WPF in order to prep for future Silverlight development.  I plan to blog through my learning process.  If you're interested, stay tuned to this channel for WPF through a newbie's perspective.  Also, if there's specific aspects of WPF you'd like to see me look into, fee free to leave comments to that affect.  Seeing as how there seems to be a drastic shortage of VB.NET WPF code on the net, I plan to do at least some of my exploration in VB.NET.  This should also be interesting with VBx coming out "soon." 

I'll start by opening a new VB WPF Application in Orcas Beta 1:

Here's the result:
 

VS creates two XAML and code-behind files.  To see how the application behavior is configured, take a look at the project settings:
 

Observations:

• "Startup object" has become "Startup URI."  This can also be set in the "Application" node in Application.xaml:

• "Shutdown mode" has three settings - similarly to WinForms 2.0.  These settings can also be set in the "Application" node in Application.xaml:

• Many settings in the page are stored in Application.xaml.  Clicking "Edit XAML" (in VB) opens this file for manual editing.
  

A simple F5 runs our high-tech program:

More text time...

I was making my way to MSDN to check out the very cool Expression Web (now available to all MSDN Premium subscribers), and noticed some interesting new downloads available:
 

A quick internet search turns up the following Microsoft Press Release:

Microsoft Agrees to Acquire ProClarity, Enhancing Business Intelligence Offering
Leader in advanced analytics adds to Microsoft’s comprehensive BI capabilities

Here's a quick teaser from the ProClarity website (interestingly enough running classic asp):

ProClarity, a Microsoft Subsidiary, puts your business intelligence to work - moving you quickly beyond a barrage of numbers into "why is this happening?" and "how can we improve it?" ProClarity is designed to expand the capabilities of Microsoft business intelligence, making information simpler to access, easier to use and clearer to understand.

I thought I'd give live writer a go since I've got two blogs to maintain now:  this personal blog and the new Memphis .NET User Group Blog where I'll post announcements for MNUG. 

The Word 2007 blogging interface is very shiny, but I only have access to it at my work computer.  So, in order to blog from my home workstation and my laptop, I needed to find a new blog editor. 

So far I really like the simplicity of the Live Writer interface.  Live Writer actually analyzes the style sheets from your blog and lets you use them to preview text as you type.  Setting up multiple blogs is no problem, and you can easily choose between them with the dropdown in the upper left-hand corner.  Spell check is built in and you can set it to always spell-check before publishing (yes please!)  All this, and it works great on Vista too.

If you're looking for a good, cheap (free) blogging editor, give Live Writer a whirl.  I think you'll like it! 

Mostly unrelated: did I mention that I REALLY like WinSnap for screen shots?