While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
ORCS Web - http://www.orcsweb.com/rdirects/NEW_padnug_hostby.asp
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
ORCS Web - http://www.orcsweb.com/rdirects/NEW_padnug_hostby.asp
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

It must be Summer! That means Rick is in town and ready to present some of his great content!

When Rick presented on jQuery to us last year, we were still about a month away from Microsoft's announcement that they would ship it with Visual Studio. Let's catch up and expand on that presentation!

Check out his post, too.

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea Corporation - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
JetBrains - http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/Pages/main.aspx
ORCS Web - http://www.orcsweb.com/rdirects/NEW_padnug_hostby.asp
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
SoftSource Consulting - http://www.sftsrc.com/
Rober Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/
SubMain and CodeIt.Right - http://submain.com/codeit.right

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Just in time for the weather to cool back down, we're having a PADNUG meeting!

We have the good fortune to have Nick Muhonen visit us again to discuss some of the new bits that are coming from Microsoft for C#.Next. There are some compelling changes, but some things to watch out for, too.

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea Corporation - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
JetBrains - http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/Pages/main.aspx
ORCS Web - http://www.orcsweb.com/rdirects/NEW_padnug_hostby.asp
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
SoftSource Consulting - http://www.sftsrc.com/
Rober Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/
SubMain and CodeIt.Right - http://submain.com/codeit.right

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Sara Ford is in town for the Open Source Bridge conference. It'll be a great time to show her how much fun visiting Portland is!

If you don't know, among all of the cool geeky things Sara is involved in, she also helps young survivors of Hurricane Katrina with a scholarship program. You can contribute to this directly or by purchasing Sara's book. You can read more about the program here.

What: Portland

Nerd Geek Dinner
Where: Old Town Pizza - 226 NW Davis Street
When: Wednesday, June 17, starting around 6:30 PM
Why: Because Open Source Bridge is happening and Sara Ford is in town - Uncle Jimmy Stories*!

Be There and Be Square!

[* If you want to know what Uncle Jimmy stories are, then be there! It's worth it!]

Taking Team System to the Next Level
A VSTS 2008 Training Event

EVENT ABSTRACT
Please join Northwest Cadencefor this half-day training event on Visual Studio Team System 2008.

Successful Adoption of VSTS
Are your legacy tools no longer meeting your needs? Is VSS too small for your development team or not well suited to your geographically dispersed team? Have you already moved to TFS to scale up from VSS or another legacy version control tool, but feel like there are features that you're missing? Feel like it should do more? This session will show you have to use Team system to improve the quality of your code and better manage/monitor software development and ease communication between project stakeholders.

Regulatory Compliance: End-to-End Traceability
Some form of traceability or regulatory compliance is commonplace, as is the ever-increasing challenge of managing adherence to regulatory standards. While compliance stretches across many parts of an organization, one of the key points is the software development process. Whether it is SOX, HIPPA, or PCI compliance, regulatory standards require your software development process to provide a secure development environment with traceability from one end through the other.

Metrics for Real Process Improvement
Process improvement without good metrics is like shooting in the dark – it is impossible to aim and difficult to know if you hit your goal. This session will be framed around using a process improvement effort (either formal or informal) to ensure that your Team System implementation is helping you achieve real improvements.

Using Team System to Drive Agile Adoption
Are you struggling to adopt agile? Is there still a fundamental disconnect behind the desires of the dev team to be agile, and the business who wants "business as usual"? This session will focus on using Team System to act as a change agent for adopting agile. We'll cover the features of Team System that support agile, how to handle iterations effectively, and how to use the results of prior iterations to effectively scope future iterations. Finally, we'll specifically address the use of Scrum with Team System, and will share results from an actual implementation to show the gotchas and successes of adoption Agile.

Sneak Peek at VSTS 2010
We'll wrap up our morning with a sneak peek into VSTS 2010 to see what all of the excitement is about!

DATE
Portland, OR – July 16, 2009

TIME
8:30 AM: Registration and Welcome
9:00 AM – noon: Event

LOCATION
Microsoft Corporation
10260 SW Greenburg Rd
Suite 600
Portland, OR 97223

REGISTER
Register online – http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=138856
Register via email – please email: Sue.Ferguson@nwcadence.com

What is SQLSaturday?

It's a free one day learning event for SQL Server professionals, loosely patterned on the well known Code Camp model, organized by the Portland SQL Server Users Group (pdxSSug).

Date and Location:

SQL Saturday Portland will be held June 6, 2009 at Mt. Hood Community College, 26000 S.E. Stark St., Gresham, Oregon 97030. The event follows the standard conference model. There are 12 sessions across 2 tracks. Most of the sessions will run 60 minutes. Check in will open at 8:00 am and sessions begin at 9:00 am. Lunch will be provided on site, and the day will close out around 5:00 pm. The after event will be held at McMenamins Edgefield, 2126 S.W. Halsey St., Troutdale, OR 97060 beginning right after the last session. Registration is at http://www.sqlsaturday.com

When will the schedule of sessions be posted?

The call for speakers is closed, and the schedule is finalized.

Can I sponsor this event?

More sponsors are needed to help subsidize the incidental costs of running the event and this is a great event to meet SQL Server professionals or to just give back to the community. If you are interested or want more information, please visit the sponsor page. You can view all of the great sponsors there and it is hoped that most of them will be at the event.

What else can you tell me about the event?

This event is free to anyone that wishes to attend. Check in for the event opens at 8 am.

Be sure to register at http://www.sqlsaturday.com

Yes, Virginia, there is a PADNUG meeting! I know last weekend's Code Camp still has many heads spinning, but we are now settling back in to the groove. Obviously, mine is!

Join us this evening for a great presentation on debugging ASP.NET applications. I know the majority of us work in ASP.NET, so this should be very useful.

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea Corporation - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
JetBrains - http://www.jetbrains.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/
ORCS Web - http://www.orcsweb.com/
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
SoftSource Consulting - http://www.sftsrc.com/
Rober Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/
SubMain and CodeIt.Right - http://submain.com/codeit.right

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

We’ve combined this month’s meeting with Rose City Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN)! Many of you may already be attending the Team System Big Event on Tuesday and we are just going to continue the party for our meeting.

Rose City SPIN is a monthly forum for networking, mutual support, and promotion of effective software practices. We exchange practical experiences, ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and war stories about the technical, business, and human facets of software process improvement.  The Rose City SPIN serves the software development community of the Portland/Vancouver metro area.  Whether you work for a large company or a small one, corporate or self-employed, industrial or academic setting, you are welcome at the Rose City SPIN.

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea Corporation - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
JetBrains - http://www.jetbrains.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/
ORCS Web - http://www.orcsweb.com/
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
SoftSource Consulting - http://www.sftsrc.com/
SubMain and CodeIt.Right - http://submain.com/codeit.right

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

*** Notice: We are meeting on Thursday this week to avoid election conflicts! ***

No typo this time :-).

This is a presentation I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. F# is a fascinating demonstration of what can be built on top of the .NET platform and has now left the Microsoft Research labs to join the mainstream world of .NET programming languages.

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/Pages/main.aspx
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/
SoftSource Consulting - http://www.sftsrc.com/
SubMain and CodeIt.Right - http://submain.com/codeit.right
JetBrains - http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

I was worried that we wouldn’t get to hear from Rick this year since he was not spending his regular, lengthy summer here in the Portland area. Fortunately, the Universe cares about us much more than that and timed his visit perfectly for the August meeting!

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/
SubMain and CodeIt.Right - http://submain.com/codeit.right
JetBrains - http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

I know you are all probably thinking about the upcoming weekend; I know I am. But with these crazy temperatures lately, what a great time to hide in the air conditioned spaces of the Tigard Microsoft office?

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium- http://www.ascentium.com/
Microsoft- http://www.microsoft.com/
O'Reilly- http://www.oreilly.com/
Robert Half Technology- http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/
SubMain and CodeIt.Right - http://submain.com/codeit.right
JetBrains - http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Via Ben Hickman at Microsoft:

The monthly Microsoft Portland SharePoint User Group meeting will be held on Wednesday June 25th in the Microsoft Office. We have a great speaker, topic, and give-away this month. Details are below.

We are doing away with registration, but will still be providing lunch. Also, be sure to bring your business card to register for our great give-away this month.

We now have a user group web site: www.portlandsharepoint.com kindly created and hosted by Netropole (www.netropole.com).

For June we have a great presentation from James Curry, an instructor with Mindsharp (www.mindsharp.com). We also have a fantastic give-away this month. Mindsharp has generously donated a $3,000 voucher for admission to their upcoming training event in Portland! The training event is from July 28 – August 1 and includes the following sessions:

• 5-day WSS 3.0 Developer (syllabus)
• 5-day 2007 SharePoint Designer (syllabus)
• 3-day 2007 SharePoint Power User (syllabus)

Mindsharp is also offering a 15% discount to this upcoming training event.

WHAT:	June Portland SharePoint User Group (PSUG) Meeting
WHEN:	Wednesday 06/25/2008 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
WHERE:	Microsoft Portland Office located in Lincoln Tower 10260 SW Greenburg Road Suite 600 Portland, OR 97223
WHO:	James Curry James is a respected computer scientist and consultant with over 15 years of programming experience. In his role as a Mindsharp instructor, James uses his knowledge of Microsoft products to provide students with a dynamic, hands-on classroom experience. James is a contributing author of a SharePoint products and technologies book. He has been invited to speak at user groups on subjects such as Customizing SharePoint 2007. As a computer scientist with InfoPro Corporation in Huntsville, Alabama, James developed information management solutions for organizations of all sizes. Prior to joining Mindsharp, James focused on developing Web applications for a large governmental organization. James currently resides in Huntsville, Alabama.
TOPIC:	Field Types and Field Controls James Curry from Mindsharp will discuss Field Types and Field Controls. Fields are the underlying data types for SharePoint list columns and site columns. SharePoint provides a number of fields, such as Number, Counter, Multi-Choice, Boolean, and URL. Custom fields can be created to allow custom validation of data and presentation beyond what is possible with the native SharePoint fields. Field controls are Server Controls or User Controls that can be used to provide custom presentation of data stored in a given field type. Server controls allow information stored in SharePoint lists to be presented in a very rich manner. As an example, a single line of text that contains an address could be presented using a field control as push pin on a map. Field Controls provide a far superior method of custom presentation than using the options natively available in a Field Type.

From George Clingerman:

We've had our third meeting of PAXNAUG and it went really well. We had an interesting discussion on sprite movement and the presentation and demonstration went swimmingly. We had quite a lot of snacks and refreshments as well. We had the room reserved, the signs posted and even put up reminders on the PAXNAUG site.

We did have one slight issue though. Small turnout.

It's ok. We know you were busy. But we did miss you just a little.

We want to start bringing in speakers from great faraway lands. Other XNA MVPS, book writers and community evangelists. Maybe even some of the legendary XNA team themselves! But we want to have just a few more people consistently coming to give them a decently sized audience.

It's our fault I know. We're pretty new at running a user group. We're getting better though. We swear! And we're making an even greater effort this time to spread the word about the next meeting. We're planning on contacting some of the local college campuses, getting in touch with the .NET user group and there's also a local game development group that we can get in touch with.

If you're reading this, help us out a little and spread the word yourself.

Here's the details.

WHAT:	XNA MVP George Clingerman (that's me!) will be speaking on "An introductory look at creating games for the Zune"
WHEN:	Wednesday June 25, 2008 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
WHERE:	River East Center (next to OMSI) in Portland Oregon
WHO:	Portland XNA User Group (PAXNAUG)

Hope to see you there!

PADNUGers are invited... [via Ben Hickman]

The monthly Microsoft Portland SharePoint User Group meeting will be held on Wednesday May 28th from 11:45am - 1:00pm in the Microsoft office:

Microsoft Portland Office located in Lincoln Tower

10260 SW Greenburg Rd.

Lincoln Tower, Suite 600

Portland, OR 97223

I am very happy to announce that we will have Jason Noble from Neudesic presenting on Master Page development. I saw Jason’s presentation earlier this year at the Office Developer’s Conference and it was excellent. Don’t miss this one.

Developing Master Pages with SharePoint Designer
The Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies stack provides amazing out-of-the-box capabilities for enterprise and web content management, search, and business intelligence solutions. These capabilities can be further extended using custom .NET solutions developed in Visual Studio or using the no-code approach offered by Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007. In this discussion we will put forth a predictable process for creating master pages using SharePoint Designer. This will include the creation of wire frames, and provide clear direction on the various content regions available in SharePoint.

About Jason Noble
With over fourteen years of experience in building complex, mission critical applications, Jason Noble brings extensive knowledge in advanced enterprise applications, specializing in web, database and portal application development using SharePoint. Moreover, Jason has spent a number of years working with C# and ASP.NET, creating a variety of business applications, and has been actively involved with Microsoft’s .NET environment since it was introduced at the Professional Developer’s Conference in 2000. Lunch will be provided and begin promptly at 11:45AM. The presentation will be from 12:00PM to 1:00PM. A meeting invite is attached.

We will have a drawing for some give aways immediately following the meeting, so bring your Business cards to participate in the drawings!

Please register so we get an accurate head count for lunch. Click here to register. Please specify in the mail if you have any special dietary needs.

For questions or comments please contact Ben Hickman, SharePoint Technology Specialist, Microsoft NorthWest District.

Microsoft Portland SharePoint User Group
Microsoft Portland SharePoint User Group is dedicated to helping customers design, develop, deploy, and administrate applications on Microsoft SharePoint platform technologies.

The Code Trip is near its end at the MVP summit. Join us Thursday at the Corillian Cafe to cheer the team on through the final leg of their journey.

Also, don't forget to register for the PDX Webfoot event on Saturday! It should be a great event and it looks like it will be a fabulous day to bring the family out to an event. We're using Yahoo!'s Upcoming for registration at: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/468242/. There'll be food and lot's of give-aways.

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/
SubMain and CodeIt.Right - http://submain.com/codeit.right
JetBrains - http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

You know it's been coming...

It's almost here...

PDX Webfoot is coming April 12 at the OGI School of Science and Engineering. For the latest information, go to the PDX Webfoot Website.

Some of the topics and people already on the agenda (subject to change at this point):

Topics:

• Safe Internet Browsing
• Silverlight 2
• Internet Explorer 8
• XNA
• Adobe Flex/Air

• Scott Hanselman
• Adam Kinney
• Tim Heuer
• Jason Mauer
• Ryan Miller
• Kelly White
• Erik Mork

There will be good food (not just pizza) and there will be games and activities for spouses and kids (think Rockband and Mindstorms, though we can't guarantee either of those yet).

Next week Adam Kinney will be coming down from Microsoft to present an "Overview of Silverlight 2" and answer questions about other content presented at this year's MIX conference. This is a meeting you'll want to be sure to attend. Details are included below and can also be found at http://pdxux.net/.

Be sure to join us afterwards at Cornelius Pass Roadhouse for drinks and continued discussion.

When I heard Matt on Hanselminutes, I knew we had to get him to come speak at PADNUG. It had been long enough since I'd seen him, I didn't realize that he was still right here in the Portland Metro area - Perfect!

Matt and Earth Class Mail are definitely ahead of the curve on using the .NET 3.5 Framework. Not only that, but they came to the platform from LAMP.

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Gosh. Again, a lengthy pause between trips to the mall. Cinetopia has been pretty good to us over the last year, but I'm starting to forget what crappy mall food actually tastes like.

We can use this trip to the mall to recalibrate our nerdiness.

What: Portland Nerd Dinner
Where: Washington Square Food Court (Second Floor "Food Court"; typically, straight out from where Picture People was)
When: Thursday, January 31, starting around 6:00 PM (vCal link)
Why: TOO LONG HENCE!

Be There and Be Square!

The answer, according to Scott, is:

No, it's pretty harmless. If you look in the Object Browser in Visual Studio you'll see that one assembly you already have has had some additions and its version rev'ed....

I wouldn't go slapping it on a production machine unless you're living on the razor's edge, but it should be fine on a development machine if you know how to pay attention to what versions your projects reference.

So, for those who got their appetite whetted with Scott's introductory presentation at the InstallFest or for those of you that haven't seen what the new extensions are all about, this will be a great chance to find out more.

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

We're having a PARTY!!!

Microsoft is running an InstallFest for Visual Studio 2008 and you are invited! Everyone that attends will have a chance to get a licensed copy of Visual Studio 2008 Pro for their very own.

We're meeting at Corillian for this one since they have more space. Also, note that we are starting the fun a bit early; this will give you a chance to install the trial copy of VS2008 and ask some questions before we begin.

Note that you must sign up for this event. The sign-up page is at
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032361177&Culture=en-US

While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea - http://www.aivea.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Storms of Fall are upon us!

This means it's time for another Nerd Event. This will be the third Nerd Event at the Cinetopia Theaters this year.

One of the extra special things about this event is that Cinetopia has installed the new 3D Digital Cinema system from Dolby Labs. They were one of just five theaters worldwide to launch this new system.

Jesann and I went to see The Nightmare Before Christmas there a couple of weeks ago on this system and it was incredible. It's going to be difficult to watch movies in two dimensions after seeing a few on this.

Note that we are shooting for the late afternoon showing, too. 1:45PM seems just a little too early and the 7:00PM will have too much contention with non-nerds. Also note that we will not be going to the Living Room Theater this time as the 3D system is only installed in the Grand Theater.

To that end, consider buying your tickets early. I'd imagine that there will be a pretty good turnout for this movie.

What: Portland Nerd Dinner Movie
Where: Cinetopia Theaters - 11700 SE 7th St, Vancouver, Washington
When: Saturday, November 17, 2007, 4:30PM Showing
Why: It's Freakin' Beowulf! In Freakin' 3D!

Let any and everyone that might be interested know. And of course...

...Be There and Be Square!

It hasn't been that long since the last PDXUX.Net meeting, but I wanted to get the word out early on this one. A couple things to note up front:

1. This meeting will be held at Corillian in Hillsboro
2. The meeting will be on the 2nd Tuesday instead of the 3rd to avoid Turkey-Day conflicts.

Look forward to seeing everyone there!

Just in case you've missed it, we're going to have a bit of an event this week.

Halo 3 on the REALLY big screen.

Thursday, October 11 from 7PM to Midnight (vCal reminder), we are gathering at the finest of movie theaters - Cinetopia Theaters - in Vancouver for an evening of fun and function. All proceeds from the $25 admittance to this event will be given to the American Diabetes Association.

Cinetopia has come through with two theaters for us. This means we will be able to pit two networked teams against one another and enjoy the show on their huge, Digital Super Hi-Def projectors.

Popcorn and a soda will be available, but don't limit yourself; the theater hosts a fabulous concession stand and Best of Citysearch Audience Winner Vinotopia Restaurant and Wine Bar, too.

Thanks to the efforts and contributions of Aivea, Robert Half Technology, Microsoft, PADNUG, SAO and others, we will be able to contribute thousands to the ADA in the Fight Against Diabetes, too. This is a big deal, folks.

Space is limited. Sign up now at http://iammasterchief.com with the RSVP code of "FIGHTDIABETES". Feel free to ignore the text mentioning the 'prelaunch' party; we're using the same site as was used for that event.

Scott is making it possible to prepay, too. You are welcome to visit his ADA site at http://www.hanselman.com/fightdiabetes/donate (takes you to the diabetes.org site) and make your contribution there. Print the receipt page and bring it with you to the event as your admission. All contributions made after October 2 will qualify. Otherwise, bring your contribution (feel free to bring more than $25 :-)) to the event.

Join us. You will have a great time!

No folks, I didn't make a typo this time. In order to accommodate various schedule conflicts, our August meeting has moved to the first week of September. I suppose with the extra meetings and all this year, it won't be that big of a change.

Now, as to the subject, Tom gave a similar presentation to PADNUG about four years ago and it was one of the most well regarded presentations we ever had. This is a presentation you definitely want to see.

We will be meeting at the usual time and place... just a week late :).

And while you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea - http://www.aivea.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

It started with the TechNet newsletters and is now making its way to the other properties' publications. The tall, skinny advertisement that pushes the content below the fold.

The shot to the right is from my Outlook Viewing Pane. This screen is running at 1,600 x 1,200 pixels. Thanks to the height of the advert, I only see one out of eight articles in all those pixels without scrolling.

Who thought this would be a good idea?

I no longer subscribe to any of the TechNet letters and now, the "Mike Vizard" letter is gone, too.

So far, the c|net and ZDNet newsletters have kept these type of ads along the side of their content. That works. We'll see if it lasts, though.

For those of us that were there, John's PADNUG presentation last week was really good and, I'm sure for many, inspirational. Have you downloaded the bits yet?

For those of you who were not able to make it or if you would just enjoy reviewing the presentation, Scott has been kind enough to take the video he shot that evening and provide it via Silverlight.

For some details on how Scott made the video, visit his post.

We've got O'Reilly's Open Source Convention visiting here in town this week and it gave us the opportunity to invite John Lam to come speak to us regarding his work on RubyCLR and IronRuby.

A couple of notes this month: First, appologies for the late notice. We had some logistics issues to work through and, obviously, wanted to work around the OSCON schedule.

Second, note that we are meeting at Corillian this month and I anticipate that we will start a tad later than usual as we will be rushing John from the Oregon Convention Center after his engagement there.

Look forward to seeing everyone there!

Want to remind everyone of a few events that are coming up shortly:

All the way from the building next door, Microsoft MVP and Regional Director Scott Hanselman will be joining us for a very special BONUS PADNUG presentation.

(Didn't you love the familiar tone of that paragraph?)

Scott has stepped this one up a bit, too. In his effort to raise funds for the American Diabetes Association, this meeting will also be a chance for you to step up and contribute to the cause. Not only will you be helping, but there are several folks that have pledged to match donations during this time period!

Let me give you one more reason to attend tomorrow night's presentation and donate to the ADA with Scott: PADNUG will also be matching donations from the meeting! Thanks to the generous contributions of our sponsors and the participation of all of you, PADNUG will match up to $500 in donations from this meeting to the American Diabetes Association.

Further, don't miss the opening meeting for PDXUX on the 15th. It will be a great follow-on to Scott's presentation.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

This morning, I take a look at my blog syndications and I find that the InfoWorld feeds have gone to an abbreviated format with a “READ MORE” link at the end. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am with that.

Please tell me that this is a short-term experiment. Otherwise, I now have at least two more feeds to remove from my list of subscribed blogs.

With rare exception, when blogs move to this style, I drop them. For one thing, I like to be able to download the feeds to my PDA for reading offline. Also, I typically read blog postings in bulk from Outlook (using NewsGator) and have zero interest in the context switch required to move to the browser to finish what I've started.

I figure I'll give InfoWorld a week to change their mind. If nothing comes of it, ZAP!!

Windows' Live Search Maps (last mentioned here)  has made another improvement to the ability to view the world in three dimensions. High resolution 3D has come to downtown Portland! I'm not sure, but I think my car is parked on the top of the garage near the bottom of the picture!

The excitement builds as Jason got the Portland Code Camp v3.0 site up this week! I'll blatantly plagiarize his blog post here to save some typing:

Head on over to the Portland Code Camp v3.0 site and register to attend, submit a session or two, or just check out what's going on with the event. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date with latest news about the event. It's happening May 19-20 at WSU-Vancouver and you won't want to miss it.

One word of note... changes have been made to ease the password requirements on the site. You no longer need non-alphanumeric characters in your password, so you actually have a chance of remembering your password now. As a result of the change we've blown away all the previous user accounts, so you will need to create a new account even if you have registered for a Code Camp in the past.

I'm sure this will the best Camp we've had yet. The campus and facilities are first-rate and it will be a great time of year for the event.

Why have I forgotten to mention this place before now?

It is a spectacular theater in Vancouver, Washington that provides a near perfect viewing experience for your favorite movies.

We went to see "300" up there (GREAT movie, btw!). This was our third time going to the theater and our first time in a Living Room Theater (pictured at the right). Just in case we weren't already convinced that this is the best theater ever built, the LR Theater pushed us over the top.

I never really understood how good a movie's picture could be. The sound is phenomenal; the seats are luxurious; and the food, beer, wine, and concessions are fabulous - and yes, you can dine and drink in the Living Room Theaters. I don't use the word 'dine' lightly, either.

From the Cinetopia FAQ site:

10 Reasons to make Cinetopia your first theater choice:

1. Extra Wide Leather Seating
2. Extra Wide Rows
3. 50% Steeper Stadium Seating
4. Digital Super High Definition Projection
5. Finest Dolby / Klipsch Sound System
6. Giant Curved Screens up to 50 feet wide
7. Special Living Room Theaters with Private Box Seating
8. Premium Concessions / Gourmet Popcorn Bar
9. Gourmet Restaurant – 4 Star Chef
10. Lunch and Dinner available in Theaters

I feel so bad for Steve and the gang over the iPhone flap and the big Cisco Lawsuit. But, rather than whine about it, I thought I'd be a bit more proactive and help them out.

It's been a few years since 'e' was attached to everything hip. Maybe if we move the 'e' from the front to the back of the words, we would see a resurgence in it's use. With that in mind, I present my proposal for the new logo:

Happy 2007 Everyone!

It's shaken (not stirred) Martinis all year long folks and even though we can't have one at the mall, let's head out and have a Nerd Dinner! It'll give us a chance to exchange recipes in any event.

What: Portland Nerd Dinner
Where: Washington Square Food Court (Second Floor; typically, straight out from Picture People)
When: Thursday, January 11, starting around 6:30 PM
Why: Celebrate another New Year!

Be There and Be Square!

Hey, I like Amazon as much as the next person. I've bought a lot of stuff from them. I've complained about the "Recommendations" feature before, but haven't seen the "Better Together" get so mixed up. I wanted to look at the new Microsoft Mouse today:

How do these relate? Use the mouse as I watch the movie on my computer?

Reading Paul Thurrott's WinInfo newsletter and saw this:

Microsoft Provides New Theme for Windows XP
Since the dawn of the Luna UI style in Windows XP, Microsoft had promised a variety of colorful themes to replace the stock three it shipped in the first version of the OS. It even toyed with graphics-based themes for holidays like Halloween before abandoning the project due to its complexity. Since then, only one new theme--Royale, part of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005--has emerged. But this week, Microsoft shipped what we might assume to be the last official XP theme: Zune. As its name implies, the Zune theme is based around the Zune MP3 player, which is unfortunate. But it's pretty attractive looking, with black window, Start Menu, and taskbar treatments, and an orange Start Menu. And you can replace the lame Zune desktop wallpaper easily enough. You can download the new Zune XP theme from the Microsoft Web site .

What perfect timing! Just this week I downloaded the new Windows Media Player 11 and found that it just didn't fit my choices for color scheme. I'd been using the 'standard' XP Blue Theme and switched to Silver, but WMP was just a little too "Vista-ish" for XP.

Well, the Zune Theme solves this. Compare:

<-- Before                 After-->

I'm just so darn happy! Hey, it's the little things that count.

"Phil Factor" asks the question what, "If IT had been responsible for the Creation." I've seen this linked from a couple places and finally followed the link to the complete article. It is very funny and all too relevant. Here's just a quote starting with an executive angel:

"Our mission is to achieve total excellence in meeting the timescales for delivery of the project to the defined and agreed scope".

"Quality… excellence...", harmonised the assembled IT angels, upon hearing this confirmation of their mission statement, and rustled their feathered-wings to signal their commitment and solidarity.

"..and we're all clear on the project deliverables?" asked God. "Being more of the instinctive sort of executive, I realise I may have been heavy on the overall project vision…you know 'let there be light', and that sort of stuff…and light on the practicalities. I'm not really a detail person. That's why I delegate that sort of thing to you. I can appreciate that this is really a logistics and facilities-management issue but, we're 5 days in to a 6-day project and exploding two-headed donkeys at this stage make me rather nervous."

Check it out.

Although posted first by Paul Thurrott, I happen to see this wonderful tool on Omar's blog sooner. I've gotten so use to using the <ctrl>-i shortcut for finding items in Visual Studio, I find myself trying to do the same thing in other applications. Now, Internet Explorer provides for me!

Give it a whirl... I don't think you'll be sorry!

We always want to take advantage of Rick Strahl's time in the northwest. He's a fabulous presenter and really knows his stuff when it comes to programming ASP. He'll be heading home to Hawaii next month, so don't miss this opportunity to see him one more time!

WHAT:	August PADNUG Meeting
WHEN:	Wednesday 08/30/2006 6:00 p.m. Pizza (by Microsoft) 6:30 p.m. Presentation
WHERE:	PCC Auditorium at Capital Center 18640 NW Walker Road Beaverton, Oregon The auditorium is in room 1508 through entrance B. There is a $2 parking fee. The kiosk for paying for parking is located between entrances B and C.
WHO:	Rick Strahl Rick Strahl is president of West Wind Technologies on Maui, Hawaii. The company specializes in Web and distributed application development, training and tools with focus on ASP.NET and .NET in general. Rick is author of West Wind Web Connection, a powerful and widely used Web application framework, West Wind HTML Help Builder and West Wind Web Store and Business Framework for .NET and Visual FoxPro. He also collaborates with Kevin McNeish on the Mere Mortals Framework for .NET. Rick is a Microsoft C# MVP, a frequent contributor to magazines and books and speaks frequently at professional developer conferences all over the world. He is co-publisher and co-editor of CoDe magazine. In the summer months, Rick spends his time in beautiful Hood River, Oregon to play on the river, forests and mountains.
TOPIC:	Taking ATLAS for a ride This session presents ATLAS, Microsoft's new client side/AJAX extension for ASP.NET slanted for release as an Add-on for ASP.NET 2.0 later this year. ATLAS introduces a rich framework for remote scripting with a wide variety of tools and approaches available to build rich client applications. In this session he'll overview the features available in the framework and show business oriented examples of how to utilize the various features. We'll look at the server centric approach with ATLAS Server controls like UpdatePanel, and a client centric approach relying on core ATLAS network features and the client side ATLAS framework and contrast the two approaches.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

No surprise... I was using some of the Russinovich, et al, tools today to check things on my computer. Heck, on the home machine, I have Process Explorer set up in place of Task Manager.

That Microsoft has acquired the company is exciting news. As Scott mentions in his Ultimate List, "...anything these guys do is pure gold." From the tools to the Big Sony Flap, Mark and his cohorts have given a lot to the computing world.

Come out to our June meeting to learn source control best practices.

WHAT:	June PADNUG Meeting
WHEN:	Wednesday 06/28/2006 6:00 p.m. Pizza (by InfoGroup NorthWest) 6:30 p.m. Presentation
WHERE:	PCC Auditorium at Capital Center 18640 NW Walker Road Beaverton, Oregon The auditorium is in room 1508 through entrance B. There is a $2 parking fee. The kiosk for paying for parking is located between entrances B and C.
WHO:	Patrick Cauldwell After completing a Bachelor's degree in the unlikely field of East Asian Studies, Patrick Cauldwell fell into the software industry. Since then he has written tools that helped Intel localize software into 17 languages; architected large E-Commerce web sites like 800.com and gear.com while at STEP Technology, and spoken nationwide about how to build large scalable applications. Patrick is currently an architect/developer at Corillian Corporation, where he designs and develops software for online banking.
TOPIC:	Making Good Use of Source Control We’ll discuss source control best practices, and how those practices apply to some common SCC packages. The emphasis will be on practices and procedures, not the mechanics of a particular SCC solution. Specific attention will go to how source control fits into an agile development process and continuous integration.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

I finally got the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (sheesh! what a mouthful) and I do love it. So much so that I bought a second one for the office.

One thing I keep wishing with the MS keyboards, though, is to trade in the 'zoom' button for a scroll like the what you get with the mice. The customization software just doesn't offer such a feature. Well, of course, someone has found a way to 'hack' it.

Andy Atkinson has an article showing how to make such changes. The only addendum I would provide is that with my drivers, the file to run is "itype.exe" instead of "type32.exe"

Very handy... heck, what else can I change in here....

WHAT:	April PADNUG Meeting
WHEN:	Wednesday 04/26/2006 6:00 p.m. Pizza, Sponsored by 3Leaf 6:30 p.m. Presentation
WHERE:	PCC Auditorium at Capital Center 18640 NW Walker Road Beaverton, Oregon The auditorium is in room 1508 through entrance B. There is a $2 parking fee. The kiosk for paying for parking is located between entrances B and C.
WHO:	Rory Blyth Rory is an author, former co-host of the .NET Rocks Internet talk show. He has experience with many different platforms and languages, but his passion lies in using and helping people with .NET technologies.
TOPIC:	Developing on Windows Mobile A Presentation on Developing on Windows Mobile.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Awesome time to have a Nerd Dinner again!   

It's that time again! Nerd Dinner!

I suppose we could wait a day and have a wonderfully nerdy Saint Patrick's Day, but hey, even some nerds do that social kinda thing on Friday nights. So, we'll just have to start a bit early and call it St. Patrick's Eve.

What: Portland Nerd Dinner
Where: Washington Square Food Court (Second Floor; typically, straight out from Picture People)
When: Thursday, March 16, starting around 6:30 PM
Why: 'Cuz we can't wait for St. Pat's

Be There and Be Square!

[http://nerddinner.com/blogs/portland/archive/2006/03/10/20781.aspx]

Okay, got that? Now, imagine 'driving' forward and on down the street. Without leaving your keyboard. That's the thought behind a new service on Windows Local Live. You can visit downtown Seattle or San Francisco with this and it is very cool.

I can just imagine when we have the best of Windows Local Live, Google Local, and Google Earth combined in a single product. Then, add in some live sat coverage... wait, no... that's not a good idea ;-).

[Thanks to Omar]

This is just the coolest gadget! Heavens, we've got at least a dozen of these little tins around the house ourselves.

Throw a 9v battery into the Altoids tin and you've got a quick charge for any device that can charge through a USB port.

The best part is Aaron is selling the parts for building this from his site for a very reasonable price.

Even though I don't think I have any devices that would use this, I'm tempted to pick one up to support the effort and, what the heck, just in case.

Isn't it nice to know that there are people out there thinking of these kind of things?

First, I hear about this thing a month ago from Scott'sblog entry. Then, a few weeks ago, Jesann mentions the game. Finally, I notice over my coworker Jim's (Meyer) shoulder (after hours, of course) a Sudoku board on his screen. I had to ask... and of course, he was writing it.

I asked when he was going to post it up for the world to enjoy, but it was not his intention. After a bit of chiding, though, he was willing to let me post it for him. The .zip file includes source code and the binary result along with a short description of what led to this. It begins as such:

Well, as a Goof one sunday afternoon my sweetheart and I flipped through a puzzle book and (finally) caught the SuDoku bug. After trying a few games - the first being quite a time waster - I began to itch for a hueristic to solve them. We compared thoughts on how each of us were solving them, and formulated an idea. We applied it to all the puzzles we could find and although it was slow to do by hand, it worked. 

Then - perhaps backwards - we read the flood of web pages on the subject. We learned the buzzwords, algorithms, postings on what makes a computer generated board and human-generated boards appear different, etc. It was great fun. Oh yeah, and we played lots and lots of online versions of the game. Some were very pretty, and others were simply focused on the game and minimally anything else.

Finally, we thought a fun project might be to employ both our skills (designer/programmer) on a project of our own. Our idea was to make a windows Sudoku game to give to our family as a holiday gift. We will be putting in visuals and sounds for a full game, but for now we started with a meager board, no alpha support in the drawing, no sound, and other gaps.

...

This should allow you to waste several hours. Oh, and just in case you don't already know it, the rules from Web Sudoku:

The rules of Sudoku are simple. Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces. Every row must contain one of each digit. So must every column, as must every 3x3 square.

Have Fun!

[UPDATE: Jim's got this game posted now at http://sudoku-koubou.com/. He's doing fairly regular updates, too.]