VBUG NEWS - dedicated to supplying IT professionals with skills and knowledge.

Heading to RemixUK08? Take Part in Ready Steady Speak and win an XBOX360!

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:29:08 GMT

Ready Steady Speak is back for the RemixUK Event in Brighton on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th of September 2008. Are you a budding speaker? A Designer with a passion for what you do who would like to educate us Developers in how it's done or some other aspect of design which we really don't get? Are you a Developer who wants to get his message across to designers about just how cool the latest features in Web Development Technologies are or do you just want to share your knowledge with your fellow designers and developers? If so then Ready Steady Speak at RemixUK could be the ideal opportunity! RemixUK is all about the conversation and the opportunity for Web Developers and Web Designers to mix and discuss their roles and technologies and work together to shape the future of the Web!. Ready Steady Speak is a unique way for you to have a go at delivering a short presentation to a very receptive audience of like minded people, and hopefully once you get a taste you'll go on to deliver full presentations or more nugget style presentations at local usergroup events, Barcamps etc around the country! The full details of the RemixUK Ready Steady Speak Competition are: Contestants will present a 5 min session on a subject of their choice relating to Web Development or Web Design. They will present in front of the REMIX audience and in front of a panel of judges. If there are more than a certain number of contestants (TBD), there will be ‘heats’ earlier in the day with the winners of the heats in a ‘speak-off’ in the evening session. The ‘speak-off’ will take place as stated in the evening of the first day of MIX and the first prize is an XBox 360 + Goodies! Prerequisites: Mandatory · Speakers must NOT have previously presented ‘full sessions’ at DDD, TechEd, DevWeek, SDN, SQLBITS, VBUG Conference, NxtGenUG FEST or any similar such conferences. · Speakers must create a new session of their own with new material which can be based on existing material but cannot be a simple copy of it. · Speakers must limit their session to as close to 5 mins as possible( overrunning time will cause the speaker to be marked down.) · Speakers must not have previously won Speaker Idol or “Ready Steady Speak” UK Launch · Speakers must state their desire to enter the competition by no later than COP Monday 15th September 2008 by email. Desirable · Speakers should provide if at all possible their own laptop, but one can be provided if necessary. The speaker should notify the organisers of any software prerequisites. · Speakers should have spoken previously at a User Group meeting even if only for a 10 min mini-session or ‘nugget’. This is NOT mandatory.

VBUG'S 11th Annual Developer Conference

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:47:51 GMT

Join VBUG and a host a stars for the 11th annual Developer Conference, held at the Microsoft Campus in Reading. Keep your schedule clear for the 4th and 5th November and join us in Reading Speakers confirmed so far, include :- Ken Getz, Roy Osherove, Jeffrey McManus, Oliver Sturm and Tony Whitter. Visit the Event Booking Page to secure your place for this excellent opportunity to sharpen your axe. Location: Microsoft Reading, Microsoft Campus - Building 3, Thames Valley Park, Reading, RG6 1WG, GB Click here for Google Map Click here for Microsoft Live / Multimap Map

VBUG: Book discounts from Pearon Education - 30% available!

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:37:03 GMT

Click through on the link below to save a massive 30% on a selection of developer titles. This list is updated on a monthly basis. Just what you need for the summer, a good read while on the beach!

VBUG London, Visual Studio Extensibility

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:22:03 GMT

VBUG London this week delighted in the above presentation by Santosh Benjamin. For those of you not lucky enough to have made it along, Santosh has made his presentation available. To get a copy please just email Christian Mitchell on the address below. Did you know that Santosh was recently awarded MVP status for Biztalk? Check out his blog for more information on him..

VBUG's Annual Conference 2008

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:01:59 GMT

VBUG are pleased to announce that the dates are now set for our Conference 2008! Dates for your diary..? the 4th and 5th November. The place..? Microsoft Campus, Reading Will you be there..? Watch the website for more details ..!

Have you Xiine it? Free digital magazines

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:43:26 GMT

Experience the next generation in digital reading all for free! Just click on the link below to read CoDe Magazine and other titles. Or go 1 step better and subscriber to the actual CoDe magazine for just £21.00 for the year - delivered straight to your door! Contact VBUG on 01753 649 680 to start your subscription today

How Do I? Reference Videos for free!

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:44:24 GMT

Even if you are not an MSDN subscriber (why not..?! call me for more details!) you should definitely be regularly checking out the MSDN web pages as they contain essential news, features and help. For example did you know about the free How Do I? Videos. These short 10- to 15-minute videos focus on specific tasks and show you how to accomplish them step-by-step using Microsoft products and technologies. Great feature and they are continually added to, so for more details click on the link below. Want to know something that isn’t covered (like for example How do I actually register my MSDN license correctly??!) Email me and let’s make a plea to Microsoft!

Choose the topic for VBUG's London July Technical Seminar!

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:09:26 GMT

The choice of topic for July's meeting is going to be put to the popular vote! We are pleased to announce the speaker for the July session will be Sebastien Lambla (http://serialseb.blogspot.com/), and he has a whopping 4 sessions on offer So let's get a bit interactive here, please send your vote from the choice of: 1. Testing your webforms - The MVP model Webforms don’t let themselves be testable easily. Using the Model-View-Presenter pattern, you’ll see how you can turn an existing webforms application and extract the useful code in a testable component, getting rid of the code-behind. 2. Exposing your data in a REST fashion with ado.net data services Ado.net data services, code-named Astoria, is the most REST-y framework Microsoft has worked on to date. Discover how you can expose your data to various clients, leverage it from javascript and from rich clients, and how you can expose your existing code in a REST fashion. 3. Code-first Linq2Sql – How to write the code first and not care about the schema The traditional way to design a database involves sql scripts manually maintained in svn, and trying to keep your ORM in sync with the changes to your database schema. In this session you’ll learn how you can put things around and design your data access code first, and leverage linq2sql and msbuild to never have to care about SQL again. 4. Test-first asp.net development – Use asp.net MVC to build an Ajax website Asp.net MVC is Microsoft’s new web development model implementing the Model-View-Controller pattern. You’ll discover how to write an asp.net MVC application, what are the differences from webforms and how to implement AJAX, and how it will help you test more of your application. To vote just email either 1,2,3 or 4 to christian@vbug.com. Democracy in action..!

Developer Day 7 Call for Speakers Open

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:29:38 GMT

Developer Developer Day returns to Reading on Saturday 22nd November 2008 and the organisers have just opened up the Call For Speakers. If you are interested in speaking and submitting either a short 10 minute Grok Talk, a Full 60 minute Session or maybes even a double session (approx 120 mins) then visit the Call For Speakers URL below and fill in the short form. Developer Day events are great opportunities to gain experience in talking to large audiences and they are very rewarding. VBUG Chairman, Andy Westgarth spoke at DDD5 and found the experience very worthwhile and his key message is to relax and enjoy the experience. It was his first experience of delivering a technical presentation to a large audience and he has since gone on to speak at the VBUG National Conferences and the IMTC Conference in Dublin. At a similar community event, Vice Chairman Tim Leung spoke at the SQLBits conference which attracted over 200 attendees. He also found the experience very rewarding and was very happy to be able to share his technical knowledge amongst peers. His key message is to encourage others to submit sessions and to become involved.

New Chair and Vice Chair Update - June 2008

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:31:18 GMT

There is a new update from Chairman and Vice Chairman, Andy Westgarth and Tim Leung. This months update reviews community events such as Developer Day Scotland, read what one of our members thought of the event, and they look forward to a new evening dinner event running in the Hampshire and Surrey area.