Last evening we had our monthly installment of the Portland Area .NET User Group. We had Scott Hanselman and Patrick Cauldwell speak on creating an environment of continuous integration. To borrow from the description:

Continuous Integration is more than just a fad; it's darn near required to survive anymore.

Join Patrick Cauldwell and Scott Hanselman as they talk about one of Corillian's product's build processes. They will explore NUnit, NAnt, custom NAnt Tasks, automatic reporting of errors, and unit test failures as well as Cruise Control.NET which can enable you to create an Enterprise Wide Build Dashboard for all the pointy-haired bosses to oogle at. It'll be fun, informative, and fast pace.

Specifically, they discussed several tools that they use at Corillian to build their products. The major tools were:

• Ambient Orb - The Ambient Orb slowly transitions between thousands of colors to show changes in the weather, the health of your stock portfolio, or if your boss or kid is on instant messenger.
• Cassini - The ASP.NET Cassini Web Server Sample is a sample web server written using the Microsoft® .NET® Framework, and demonstrates hosting ASP.NET using the ASP.NET hosting APIs (System.Web.Hosting).
• CodeSmith - CodeSmith is a FREEWARE template-based code generator that can generate code for any ASCII-based language. CodeSmith templates use a syntax nearly identical to ASP.NET syntax so that creating templates should feel immediately familiar to ASP.NET developers.
• CruiseControl.NET - CruiseControl.NET is an Automated Continuous Integration server, implemented using the Microsoft .NET Framework.
• MbUnit - MbUnit is an evolutive Unit Test Framework for .Net. It provides new fixtures as well as the framework to create new ones. MbUnit is based QuickGraph, a directed graph library for C#.
• NAnt - NAnt is a free .NET build tool. In theory it is kind of like make without make's wrinkles. In practice it's a lot like Ant.
• NUnit - NUnit is a unit-testing framework for all .Net languages. Initially ported from JUnit, the current release, version 2.2, is the fourth major release of this xUnit based unit testing tool for Microsoft .NET. It is written entirely in C# and has been completely redesigned to take advantage of many .NET language features, for example custom attributes and other reflection related capabilities. NUnit brings xUnit to all .NET languages.
• TestDriven.NET - TestDriven.NET makes it easy to run unit tests with a single click, anywhere in your Visual Studio solutions. It supports all versions of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET meaning you don't have to worry about compatibility issues and fully integrates with all major unit testing frameworks including NUnit, MbUnit, & MS Team System.
• Tree Surgeon - Tree Surgeon is a .NET development tree generator. Just give it the name of your project, and it will set up a development tree for you in seconds. More than that, your new tree has years worth of accumulated build engineering experience built right in.
• Zanebug - Zanebug is an advanced tool for comprehensive unit and integration testing.

If these tools are not enough for you to satisfy your cravings, visit Scott's Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for more.

To make way for a hyperspace bypass, of course. As mentioned here, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is coming this Friday. Chris Sells has posted a note inviting any and all to the viewing at 7:35pm at the Regal Evergreen Theater in Hillsboro, Oregon.

I've seen various reviews all over the place. As pointed to here and here, there doesn't appear to be a consensus over the quality of the movie, but as Chris says, "I am really excited about this movie. I love the book and want badly for the movie to be an excellent alternate way for me to enjoy the Hitchhiker's universe." Bravo!

Come on out and join the gang.

One of our fairly regular attendees to the Portland Nerd Dinners has started his blog!

At this last week's Nerd Dinner, I was amazed that John Hann hadn't already started sharing his knowledge with the world by self-publishing on a weblog. Then, last night at the Pirillo-inspired Geek Dinner, we had a chance to talk about it and I see that he took the leap today.

Welcome, John! After what I've heard from you, I'm expecting some great material on your blog... but, no pressure .

Last night, we had a rather impromptu (to me, anyway) Geek Dinner organized by Alex Williams of Corante to welcome Chris Pirillo and his fiance Ponzi to town.

There were several local nerds/geeks that I knew there: Greg, Scott, and John, for example. But I didn't expect to see a Marketing wonk that I worked with down at InFocus many years ago. Apparently, Scott Niesen is now with a company here in Portland making software that makes one's email and blogging software just a little bit better. The company is called You Software and the products look very helpful.

It was really great to meet up with Chris, Ponzi, and other techies that are a bit outside of the 'usual' crowd. I do hope to see more of these folks in future Nerd and Geek Dinners.

Who knows? Maybe we'll stretch the rules a bit and have a PND at a location other than a shopping mall one day.

...and the adoration of all of his peers.... Stuart brought an awesome toy to the Portland Nerd Dinner tonight. All of the other nerds (and every kid in the Food Court) were jealous.

I guess this is one of the good reasons to attend shows like VSLive. Who knows? Maybe they will have some at another show on the right day for me to acquire. Heck, I'd probably pay money for this toy!

Oh, and by the way, the dinner was great! Some really good discussions on game development, Ruby [On Rails], alternate IDEs, and Paul even brought some 25+ year old copies of Electronics Magazine - "here comes the 8086," era. Cool Stuff!

As I mentioned here, I'm "hearding the nerds" tonight at Washington Square. With some luck, Jason will have acquired some Visual Studio 2005 disks to pass around !

As it happens, it looks to be a nice evening, too. If folks are up to it, we might have a bit of Nerd Drinks after dinner, too. It'd be nice to spend a little time at McMenamins' Riverwood Pub - just a thought .

In any event, it's time again to Be There and Be Square!

This has been a hilarious set of videos that Scott and Rory have put together. They've finally made it to TechEd and it looks like they will sleep right through the keynote. The expression on Scott's face near the end is well worth the viewing.

I have to agree with others:

1. This series should continue to be a part of our Dev food indefinately. Make More!
2. A DVD would be an ideal gift for the nerd one loves
3. That DVD should include a lengthy section of outtakes

Scott mentions the release of this here and you can view it here. Let's hope they take this beyond just the TechEd video series and make this a more regular feature of our blog experience!

Back in November, I got around to using Scott's cool routine for resizing DataGrid columns automatically. Now that I'm using it more often, I decided I wanted to make it a little more generic so that I didn't have to rewrite it for each DataGrid that I used it on.

With a simple change to using the 'sender', I no longer need to do any editing. Drop it in and wire it up! it's ready to go.

If you missed the chance last month to meet Jason Mauer, Microsoft's new Developer Evangelist (formerly Jim Blizzard, the father of the Portland Nerd Dinner), then you really need to come this month. This guy is Great! He's going to rock our development world in all new ways.

So, with that quick introduction, let's all have a Nerd Dinner!!

What: Portland Nerd Dinner
Where: Washington Square Mall food court
When: Tuesday, April 19, starting around 6:30 PM
Why: 'Cuz it's Spring, baby and we've got a new DE in town!

Be there and be square.

Spread the word!

Hello Everyone! Spring is in the air!

It's once again, time to let everyone know what we have planned for the PADNUG meeting. I have to say how excited I am for this months presentation. Not only will the subject be interesting, but I've seen a lot of presentations from both of these gentlemen and know they are great to see and hear.

Clear your calendar now! You really want to be here for this one.

My gosh! I can't believe our very own Rory Blyth is ready for the big step. It's been wonderful watching him grow from a timid young blogger into an internationally known blogger extrodinaire. Now, he's ready to take that final step to completely fulfill his life.

During their little vacation to Fiji, he asked Aydika the question. Although he doesn't explicitly say so, I think we can presume she said "yes," too.

Great big warm and fuzzy Congratulations to you Rory! You've made an excellent decision!

Poor young Scott. He's been able to avoid it to this point, but after an ambush in the halls, he's no longer allowed to resist. He gets the KoolAid.

Rory wants to help, but is held back by the thugs.

You can be a witness to it all by visiting the third in the TechEd video series from these guys. Another funny clip!

Another funny item via Steve Bass' Tips & Tweaks column on PC World:

[Rod Shelley]

These images are the result of 8 years in the retail computer industry - 8 years that are thankfully behind me. I used to work in the service department in a retail store of a very famous computer company (think cows...). During this time, I was able to observe (and preserve for posterity) the aftereffects of the - shall we say - "technology challenged" folks. My friends and relatives couldn't believe the stories I told - thus this collection of photos.

Check it out!

So the remaining question is: When will the DVD be released?

Scott and Rory thrill us again with their grand understanding of all things .NET and development orienting. Of course, they get a really important lesson in K.I.S.S. If only they could go to TechEd and learn more about this stuff! Oh wait, they are going!

Go check out the fabulous video/ad.

[Some slightly gory detail, but not too bad]

It's coming to the close of flu and cold season around these parts and as is the norm, I couldn't resist getting a little bit under the weather. As Jesann pointed out, with all the stuff going on around here, I'm probably in a bit of a weakened state.

But...

In all my years, somehow I've managed to avoid very serious stuff. Technically, I suppose I'm not too bad off now, either, but it turns out I have walking pneumonia. It just seems strange to consider. I've been coughing for two weeks straight. Yesterday, when I started coughing up blood, I thought it might be important to talk to the doctor.

After a quick examination, she sent me down for a chest x-ray. Sure enough, they found my lungs cloudy (or whatever tips them off). I got my prescription (which I can read much better with the experience I've gained at Daverci), ran to Costco to pick it up (>$50!), and started the regimen last night.

I expect that I will be feeling myself by the weekend. Just knowing that makes me happy.

I know - this is so '90's. Back in the summer of '99, I decided to participate in that little thing called SETI@Home. I had several computers under my influence and figured, what the heck? I might as well keep the dang machine busy while I'm away.

I just noticed a link to my blog this evening from SETI@Home's 10,000 Page. I was surprised, to be sure. I hardly even notice the little shell window up at the top of my third monitor anymore.

Sure enough, though, I reached the 10,000 mark yesterday. Only 27,287 people have 'analyzed' more data units than I have putting me nearly to the 99.5^th percentile.

Shouldn't I get an automatic boost in my Nerd Score for this?

Spring has come early to us here in the Northwest. In fact, we have nearly the same weather that Jim is having way down there in Tampa, Florida. Darn it all! Let's celebrate!

It's time to have another Nerd Dinner!

What: Portland Nerd Dinner
Where: Washington Square Mall food court
When: Thursday, March 24, starting around 6:30 PM
Why: Because we miss Jim L

Be there and be square.

Spread the word!

Rory and Scott have been busy fellas lately. I've seen them in the planning stages - all animated and excited. It has now come to fruition. They are pimping for TechEd.

This is funny stuff. Heck, even my wife got a kick out of it and she doesn't even know who Don Box is; and her perspective of Chris Sells is "Naked Chris".

Yes, that's Rory in a men's room. Need I sell it any more?

I happened across a keyboard shortcut that I've wanted to know for a long time but didn't take the time to search for. By hitting <ctrl>*, you can turn the paragraph marks on and off quickly and easily.

Having spent a good deal of time in Word (tech writing classes, physics labs, etc.), this is one of those things that I should have taken a few moments to seek out. Today, purely by accident, I found this shortcut. I don't want to forget this one.