Thursday and Friday were busy days for the Regular Guys. Brendon and I started the day Thursday at 1pm by driving up to the Discover Mills AMC Theater for the MSDN event. Well, we actually started by getting to work really early, but we’re talking about the part that might be interesting to you guys, not us! Anyway, at the MSDN event, we listened to Glen Gordon give us a great presentation on Object Oriented VB.Net programming. A definite departure from the MyEmployeeObject Inherits MyPersonObject, he showed us how to create a virtual ocean using VB.Net to demonstrate all the concepts of object thinking while building a genetic algorithm. Well, genetic algorithm might be a bit strong, but it was very refreshing to see this presentation. After the tour of objects, we looked briefly at MapPoint Services and the Location Server – some very cool ideas (once they get that pricing model down – I have an idea on how to make some money out of this if anyone is interested). We also looked into optimizing performance on ASP.Net 1.1 websites and the new membership and personalization features of ASP.Net 2.0.
After the MSDN event (free black t-shirts this time) we hauled ourselves (and Harold from the VB.Net User Group meetings) downtown to the Westin hotel for the .Net to Go Mobility Roadshow. I was going to tell you how great the presentation was, but I just got this e-mail from Eric Engler (didn’t think I’d find your website, did you?). Since I’m always positive about everything, I’ll let him tell you how great this was.
<ed. Note – some links and names added for extra zing!/>
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The Mobility Road show meeting last night was cool. We got the best teacher on the subject - Thom Robbins - he was the one who designed the course material. I don't have one of these devices yet, but the emulator in Visual Studio is pretty good.
The new emulator in VS 2005 is even better, and it lets you assign a folder of your PC to act as though it were a CF card. They also let you step though code in the debugger on your PC as it executes on the handheld device. The new Compact Framework 2.0 will work on the existing handheld devices.
There was also some discussion about the RSS Readers and blogs. This is quickly gaining supporters in the .NET developer community.
The instructor Thom Robbins talked about an open source RSS reader for handhelds, and he gave us the URL of a cool open source site that has some good controls:
http://OpenNETCF.org
Check out the penguin picture here:
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS9715815642.html
The new <edit>Mobility</edit> user group will meet for the first time on NOV 15, 6pm, at the Microsoft location.
-- Eric Engler
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Thanks Eric! I think that just about covers it. I’m also posting this to the Atlanta Mobility Group forums site, so you can check it out over there.
Finally, on Friday, Brendon and I gave a presentation to our company about Windows SharePoint Services. Topics covered included MySites, Team Sites, Office Integration, MS Office SharePoint Portal Server, and how all this helps communication in an enterprise as small as ours. We also covered blogs and RSS (by special request (from the UK, no less!)). I think the presentation went well, so I’ll put the presentation materials out on the web so you guys can take a look if you want. Check back for an update with a link.
-- Matt Ranlett