Mainland Code Camp 2008 - Keeping It Real

Another Code Camp is being organised for Christchurch (see details below).  I'm taking a back seat this year with the organisation but I will be presenting a session or two.  I'm thinking:

100% Pure Javascript - All script and no controls

This session will demonstrate how to create a rich client application using javascript that uses an ASP.Net application for server side functionality - without using any (or at least very few) ASP.Net server controls. I guess you could call this hand-crafted AJAX.

Whats it all about, TFS?

Team System and Team Foundation Server are not particularly well understood.  In this short session I will attempt to explain (and possibly demonstrate) how the features of Team System impact & benefit developers and the project life cycle on a day to day basis.

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Date: Saturday 1st November, Christchurch.  9am - 6pm
Location: Trimble Navigation, 11 Birmingham Drive (map)
Cost: Free! (Lunch provided)

Theme:  Keeping It Real
The sessions are designed to showcase .NET related tools and techniques that will be useful to you as a developer, focusing on real-world topics that will be of immediate use.

Featuring mostly local presenters it's a time to talk and socialise and connect with others in the local community. An optional dinner in the evening is an ideal way to finish the day (the great restaurant last year is still being talked about!)

Speakers:  Looking at getting into speaking?  Email christchurch@dot.net.nz to register your interest. It's a great opportunity to give a talk on anything .NET related.  We have plenty of options

• 5mins (Lightning) - Powerpoint only (no live code).  Aim at getting a single point across - demonstrating a product, feature, tip, technique etc.  These sessions are a hit with audiences at other DNUG groups and code camps - fun and lightweight!
• 15mins (Thunder) - Enough time to show a single concept or demo without getting into too much detail.  eg Interesting practical code, fun side projects, favourite dev tool/trick , LINQ to XML example etc
• 30mins, 60mins - Useful for when you have something larger to demonstrate or feel really passionate about and need to spread the word!

 

Contact Details: If you have any questions, suggestions or want to offer sponsorship, please contact us at christchurch@dot.net.nz.

It's been a while since I've blogged about anything interesting - or had anything very interesting to blog about - so this is a bit of proof that I'm still alive and a catchup of what I've been up to.

iPhone
I succumed to the hype and was sucked into buying a new 3gesus phone.  This was also prompted by my realisation that my iMate SP5 was actually a peice of fecal matter.  iPhone rocks!  The UI is fantastic and so easy to use.  I was worried when it arrived without any sort of manual - a slim pamplet is all you get.  However a manual is unnecessary.

There's been some negative comments from people about drop-outs and slowness, but I haven't had any problems that I didn't cause myself.  The latest 2.1 OS patch has made the phone faster and the battery life does seem a tad better.  I did use the jailbreaking WinPwn on the phone pre-2.1 but this made the phone very slow and I really can't seen the point of doing this unless you really need to hack it to death. 

My only complaint is Safari - it locks the phone and crashes very easily.  However, I dont really use it much so this is no biggy.

Windows Server 2008
I updated my dev desktop to 2008 server x64 without much forethought or planning.  The upgrade painless but I've spent a lot of time getting all my VM's converted to HyperV.  Its faster then 2003 server and it seems more stable, but this might be more to do with 64bits and a cleanup of installed rubbish than anything else.

HyperV is great.  It's certainly a step up from Virtual Server.  Snapshots are a life saver!  I've been doing some work with Active Directory schemas so it's a peice of cake to make a change then roll back to a previous snapshot and try again.

Like all good Microsoft software there are a number of really annoying little quirks, missing features and unwelcome changes:  The HyperV VM Connection console doesn't do clipboard across machine so you still need RDP, which impossible if you only use the internal network connection.  The event viewer now has 4 hundredd thousand gazillion different nodes - finding a simple error in an event log can take a long time.  UAC still sucks and is unnecessary for anyone with an IQ above 12.

Chrome
For a version < 1 browser Chrome is excellent.  I use it in preference to FireFox which I use in preference to IEeeek (any version).  It's very fast, work on just about everything and has the typically clean Google UI.  Like Firefox though it's not the best for Windows authentication - IE still works better there.

EPiServer
EpiServer have released a new CTP of version 5.2.  It's hard to find exact details on what is included in this release but it does support Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and .Net 3.5.  The new Installation Manager is way better than EPiServer manager.

SharePoint & PowerShell
Most of my time is spent diddling around with SharePoint.  Most recently I've been heen helping out on a large MOSS project with a few small PowerShell scripts.  The entire MOSS site and migration of content from a SharePoint 1 site is scripted with PowerShell.  This has shaved months off the development time.

Code Camp
It's coming soon!  Stay tuned...

Holidays
Spring is hear at last - on and off - which is great cause I've had the winter from the cold part of hell.  We are packing up the kids and taking 2 week in Sydney and Queensland from next week.  Can't wait - and I may not come back until after the election!