Alabama Tech Events

The Birmingham Software Developers Association is pleased to host the Birmingham .Net User Group (BUG.NET) and the Silverlight Nights user group for a very special combined user group meeting. Glen Gordon, the Microsoft Developer Evangelist for the South East area, will give a presentation on new Silverlight features, and cover some of the news on Silverlight that was announced at the recent PDC.

The meeting will begin at 6:30 pm at the New Horizons facility in Homewood, AL. Food will be provided, and there will even be a few door prizes.

Due to limited space we do ask that you register for the event by going to https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=144478 . It’s free, and only takes a few minutes.

Special note to BSDA members, due to the special nature of the event we will post pone the usual January elections until the February meeting.

Join us on Tuesday the 17th at New Horizons Computer Learning Center for our November meeting. This meeting will feature two famaliar favorites, Morgan Smith and Robert Cain, presenting The Best Thing I Learned at the PASS Summit. Fresh off there trip from Seattle to the biggest gathering of SQL Server Professionals in the world the 2009 PASS Summit, Morgan and Robert will share some of there experiences the took away from the Summit for those of us who were not able to make it. 

As usual the meeting will begin at 6:00pm with a thirty minute networking session. Robert and Morgan beginning their presentation at 6:30pm.  Food and beverages for the month’s meeting will be sponsored by PASS.  If you plan on attending this month’s meeting let us know by sending us an RSVP so we can get an accurate headcount for the food.  Hope to see you there.

Prism can be thought of as a set of libraries that help Silverlight applications be scalable and testable. It has a number of features (modularity, view regions and commanding) that help with this. In this presentation, Sista SriHarsha will given an introduction and overview of Prism V2 for Silverlight 3.

As usual the meeting will take place at the New Horizons offices. Meeting will kick off at 6:30 pm, there will be food provided, and swag given away at the end of the meeting.

TechMixer University is ON! The date has been set, mark your calendars for Tuesday October 13, 2009. This year TMU will be held at the Cahaba Grand on Highway 280, close to the Interstate 459 interchange.

General registration will open soon, but we are pleased to announce our Call for Speakers is now open. If you have an interest in presenting a session, please download our speaker submission form (right click and “Save Target As”). Once filled out please e-mail us the form at tmuspeaker@gmail.com.  The form is in DOCX, however if you need a text or other format please e-mail us at the same address.

We are looking for speakers in all areas, including .Net, Databases (SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL), Open Source Development (Ruby, Java, PSP, etc), Project Management, Sharepoint, Hardware, and more.

The call for speakers will close on September 20th, last year TMU had over 400 attendees and we expect a big growth this year so don’t hesitate, this is a great opportunity.

If your business is interested in sponsoring this event, please e-mail us and we’ll contact you with details. We limit the number of sponsors, so if you want to be one of the few to get in front of a large crowd please get in touch with us soon.

Update: Due to requests from interested speakers who did not get word until late, we have elected to extend the deadline for speaker submissions. Our new deadline will be Monday, September 28th at midnight. Spread the word, and don’t forget to register at http://www.techmixeruniversity.com

The Birmingham Software Developers Association is proud to present LINQ Bootcamp. During this two day event BSDA members will present chapters from the book “Programming Microsoft LINQ” from MS Press.

The bootcamp will take place the weekend of July 25th and 26th, 2009. Both days will start at 9 am and go until approximately 5 pm. The folks at New Horizons Training are kind enough to host the event, and the BSDA wants to thank them. Just click on the link above to get directions.

The best thing about the event is it’s cost: zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. $0. Nuthin. Absolutely free!

All who volunteer to present will get a free copy of the book, courtesy of Microsoft. In addition, we have a limited number of books available to attendees. These will be given on a first come first serve basis in the order in which registrations are received. Any not distributed by 9 am on Sat July 25th will be given to attendees on first present basis.

To register, please go to http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=139378 and sign up. For more information please e-mail us at BhamSoftwareDevAssoc@live.com . Attendance is limited for this event, so be sure to sign up promptly to reserve your space.

Currently the club plans on sponsoring lunch, however if your organization would like to provide lunch on either day and get your name in front of a group of dedicated programmers, please e-mail us at the BhamSoftwareDevAssoc@live.com address.

Update: as of 7/15/09 Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12 and 13 have been volunteered for, chapters 7, 8, 11, and 14 to 17 are still open to potential presenters.

Sponsors

If you are trying to understand why Social Media is such a hot topic and what your organization should be doing about it, you want to learn from the people who know best.  Those people are the members of Social Media Club, and this is your chance to attend a workshop hosted by professionals from around the world.

Each workshop has a slightly different focus and flavor, and each workshop is hosted by a different group of leaders. But each workshop is designed with you in mind, so you not only learn from lectures, but through conversations and interactions with the leaders. Speakers will include Chris Heuer, Scott Schablow, Ike Pigott and Mack Collier.

Monday April 27, 2009  from 9:00am – 5:00pm, McWane Science Center
Event site:  http://smcwbirmingham.eventbrite.com/

The Birmingham Software Developers Association will hold it’s next meeting on Thursday, April 9th, 2009. As usual the group will meet at 6:30 pm at the New Horizons facility in Homewood AL.

Nat Thompson of EBSCO Industries will introduce us to OWASP, the Open Web Application Security Project, and focus on it’s vulnerabilities and how we can address them.

Nat has worked at EBSCO Industries since 2001, since 2006 he has been their Manager of Online Purchasing Security. Prior to his current position he has worked at such industry leaders such as IBM and Emerald Solutions. Nat has a BS from the University of Alabama and is CISSP Certified.

SPEAKER LINE UP

1. Ben Wyrosdick – flickr_fu
2. Anthony Crumley – Authentication Plugin
3. Josh Adams – Ansuz CMS

It’s not too late to present! We have room for 1-2 additional talks. If you would like to present, please contact Greg Houston (ghouston at yahoo com).

The talks begin at high noon (12pm).
Bring a lunch or pick something up at the Culinard Cafe at Innovation Depot. http://culinardcafe.com

Innovation Depot is located at:
1500 1st Avenue North
(downtown Birmingham)

Google Map to Innovation Depot:
http://tiny.cc/bnnSn

Innovation Depot has a large parking lot with plenty of room. You must enter through the doors by the parking lot and sign in at the desk. Just tell them you are there for the Rubyham meeting.
They will give you directions to the specific meeting room.
http://innovationdepot.net

2009 Rubyham Calendar

Jan 5 – Cocina Superior
Feb 2 – Innovation Depot – Lightning Talks for ~30min.
Mar 2 – Cocina Superior
Apr 6 – Presentation and Location TBD
May 4 – Cocina Superior
Jun1 – Presentation and Location TBD
Jul 13 – Cocina Superior
Aug 3 – Presentation and Location TDB
Aug 31 – Cocina Superior
Oct 5 – Presentation and Location TDB
Nov 2 – Cocina Superior
Dec 7 – Presentation and Location TDB

We look forward to seeing you there!

Click here to register or call 877.673.8368 with event ID 1032387071.  

Also, make sure to sign up to our Group in Facebook for the latest updates.

AGENDA:

Microsoft Developer Update

First, we will do a survey of the set of just-released products and how they impact developers.  See what’s new in Windows Server 2008:  Hypervisor Technology, IIS7, and others.  SQL 2008 is also packed with goodies for Developers;  see the geospatial capabilities as well as the LINQ enhancements. Don’t forget the myriad enhancements that come with the .Net Framework 3.5!

REST with WCF, ADO.NET Data Services, and ASP.NET MVC

The evolution of the web has seen many changes in patterns and standards for working with services. In a world of AJAX and other lightweight clients, not all services need to be implemented with the bells and whistles that SOAP and its many specifications allow for. And not all services need to be “transport-neutral”. An alternative architectural approach known as REST is well-suited for many web-based scenarios. You can implement a RESTful architecture using a variety of current and future Microsoft technologies. But how do you decide which ones are the best choices for your scenarios? These sessions of technical deep dives help to answer that question. We will examine implementing RESTful services with WCF 3.5, using ADO.NET Data Services, and introduce the ASP.NET MVC framework.