Sessions

VSX: Xtreme Xtensibility with the Visual Studio 2008 Shell and the Managed Package Framework

During this session we will look at ways to extend Visual Studio 2008 using the VS 2008 SDK. We will build extensions using the Managed Package Framework that access the same APIs that the Visual Studio team uses. We will explore the opportunities for distributing tools as packages to users without Visual Studio installed. Finally, we will examine the new possibilities for developing commercial software on top of the Visual Studio platform leveraging the Visual Studio 2008 Shell Isolated Mode.

Alan Stevens

Web Client Software Factory – Basics and Beyond

Ever wonder how to integrate industry patterns into your development practices? Allen Noakes will present an indepth look at the Web Client Software Factory. He will take you through the basics of creating and using the factory to speed up your development and also show ways to extend the factory for repeatable patterns.

Allen Noakes

MS Business Intelligence

A summary of the Microsoft components that make a complete end-to-end BI solution (includes Office and SharePoint integration)

Dan Evans

SQL Server 2005 Data Warehousing

Primary components (Reporting Services, Analysis Services, Integration Services, Notification Services, Database Engine) for a corporate-wide deployment

Dan Evans

Zen and the Art of Website Maintenance

ASP.NET 2.0 provides a wealth of time-saving data components, functional UI widgets, and methods for consistent template layouts.

While understanding each of the pieces is key to being a great ASP.NET developer, true mastery comes from knowing how to use them together.

This session will cover using Master Pages, Themes, Skins, CSS, Web User Controls, Site Maps, Navigation Controls, Role and Profile Providers, and Dynamic URLs together for effective website architecture. We will also look at how to get the most out of ASMX web services and how to exploit the DataSet designer to get the most out of our DAL.

Michael Neel

Structure and Guidance for Organizing Applications within Visual Studio

Visual Studio is an outstanding tool when it comes to building applications on the .Net Framework. It can be confusing for users when trying to initialize a new software deliverable though. For example, how do you name your projects? Where do you put third party assemblies so they can be re-used? How do you set things up for an n-tier architecture? And the list goes on. I've given various talks throughout the US and it never fails that I end up in a conversation with multiple people on what are the best ways to organize projects within Visual Studio. This session should answer these questions and provide some proven guidance that works. In this session we'll cover some best practices on how to organize your projects and solutions. We'll also look at some tricks and guidance on how to map your folder structure to your namespaces. During the session we are going to build a new application from scratch and cover how to initially incorporate an n-tier design when initializing your project. Even if you are an experienced .Net developer this is one session you will not want to miss!

Keith Elder

Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation

Your boss comes up to you and gives you some business logic one day at work. You spend weeks coding it. As soon as you get done he informs you the rules have changed. You want to smack him/her in the face but you politely smile and say thank you, I’ll have that done in a few weeks. Little does your boss know you’ve used workflow foundation to map out all the business logic. You quickly make the change declaratively within Workflow and go back to reading your RSS feeds. While this scenario isn’t true, it can be if you use Workflow Foundation. In this talk we’ll explore what Workflow Foundation is from the ground up so you’ll have a good sense of where to get started when you head back to the office.

Keith Elder

VB6 to .NET Migration

You have probably learned by now that all prior versions, including Visual Basic 6.0 are totally different than Visual Basic .NET. Until now, you probably read about all the nice things that .NET Framework has to offer such as visual inheritance, method overloading, exception management using try-catch-finally etc. If you are in a position where you have an existing Visual Basic 6 .0 or ASP solution under your belt, you are probably feeling, this is not such a good thing.

The first thing that you need to ask is, “Do I need to move my application to .NET?”

There is always going to be something new around the corner whether it is a new language or tool, and the person making the decision to migrate has to think ROI. If you have a solution that is already working, and your clients are happy using and working with the existing solutions, there is probably no reason for you to move into .NET. Visual Basic 6.0 is still a good product and currently Microsoft is going to continue support for it. However, if you wish to keep your solution as the latest and greatest, and it is in the best interest of your company and clients, you probably would want to migrate your applications to .NET.

Sudhir Chandrasekhar

Silverlight

Jeff Blankenburg

Configuration Management and Levels of Maturity

This presentation will cover numerous aspects of software configuration management (SCM), including source code control, the build process, reliable deployment options, continuous integration, and verification mechanisms. After reviewing 4 different levels of maturity in SCM, we’ll explore how to improve the quality of your software by ensuring that the mechanics of the build process don’t get in your way.

Dan Petit

Practical Test Driven Development

Far too often developers come to a conference, listen to a talk about TDD, and then get home with no idea how to actually implement testing on their project which, obviously, wasn't built to be testable. This session will shortly review the concept of TDD but spend most of its time showing how to use commonly available tools to test the "un-testable".

Tim Rayburn

BizTalk Server 2006 R2: An introduction

This class will take you through the basics of BizTalk Server, how BizTalk is organized, what it does, and how to start building solutions that very day. This is an introductory level talk which discusses in great depth the architecture of BizTalk.