I posted a couple of days ago about the Olympia VS2008 InstallFest happening on 12/11. If you want to get in on this action, register now! Don't wait and find out there isn't any more room at the party.
Jason Mauer just posted about the other InstallFests happening in the area:
* 12/4 - Portland
* 12/6 - Boise
* 12/11 - Olympia
* 12/12 - Spokane
* 12/17 - Seattle
* 12/18 - Bellingham
Go to his blog entry for more information, links to the other events and a mini-FAQ.
Seattle Code Camp version 3.0 will be held January 26-27, 2008 at DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA. Directions are here.
Want to attend or present? Go to the Seattle Code Camp page for the whole scoop.
From the announcement sent by Paul Mehner, illustrious leader of the South Sound DotNet UG:
On the Tuesday, December 11, a star named “Orcas” appeared in the evening sky over downtown Olympia, and there was much holiday rejoicing!
For their appeared on that night a most benevolent and extraordinary Microsoft Developer Evangelist. He came bearing tidings of good will, and I could swear that the twinkle in his eye glinted a little like a Microsoft Vista logo on boot up.
Yeah though it was the holidays and his good will overflowed, for he had brought food, beverages, and a copy of Visual Studio 2008 Pro to our user group meeting. But laying a finger aside of his nose and giving a nod, there appeared not one, but a whole doggone sleigh full of copies—a copy of Visual Studio 2008 for every boy and girl developer in town!
Okay, the humor is mine, so please don’t blame Microsoft! The copies of Visual Studio 2008 are still free, and I promise to keep my day job and lay off of storybook writing (and the eggnog).
Jason Mauer, our Microsoft Regional Developer Evangelist approached me this afternoon with an absolutely awesome proposal: Jason has arranged for all of us who attend the meeting… to get free copies of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 installed on our laptops (or your desktops if you want to lug one of them to the meeting)! It’s a yearend INSTALLFEST!
So tell EVERYONE that you know, even developers that hardly ever come to meetings! I want to amaze Jason by having over 100 developers show up for this event! We’ll have round tables so that you can participate in the installation experience at a table with others who have laptops even if you don’t have your own to bring. There’ll be catered food, beverages, and a whole lot of year end cheer and socializing, so you won’t want to miss this event.
So here are some things that Jason would like you to know:
People who show up will be given an eval copy of VS2008 Pro to install. We'll have power strips, etc setup so people can get the install going onsite. As they are installing, we'll have presentations about VS2008, .NET 3.5, etc. Depending on the venue we may have some other entertainment as well. Everyone who fills out an eval form will get a full licensed copy of VS2008 Pro mailed to them at no charge. (This includes the product key to activate the eval copy they've already installed.)
It's free. We'll have food/beverage/etc; some other giveaways... should be fun. Hopefully a nice way to close out the year for the UG.
· You must register for this event! Point your web browser at:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360762&culture=en-US
And here's some things from my own experience that I want to share to make this even easier:
The new capabilities of Visual Studio 2008, the .net framework 3.5, and C# 3.0 are totally fabulous! Jason’s going to show them to you while we install it on our laptops (mine already has it, but you get the picture). The copy that you’re receiving has just been released to manufacturing and is only available right now to MSDN subscribers. If you miss our INSTALLFEST event, you not only missed receiving a free copy, but you also missed getting a jump on the technology as well. Visual Studio 2008 works fine side-by-side with 2003 and 2005. I have used this configuration for many months now with no problems. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me.
Despite the ridiculous marketing name that has confused nearly everyone in town, .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5 are not new versions of the .NET framework, but extensions to the framework class libraries of .NET 2.0. All of the 3.0 and 3.5 libraries were compiled using the .NET 2.0 version of the framework. You will not be replacing what you already have installed; you will simply be supplementing it. Even C# 3.0 is just new syntax that compiles into .NET 2.0 IL code.
Of course none of us can be held responsible if you experience some difficulties with your computer (or even if your computer melts down as a result of new software installation), but hey… we are all grownup developers here, and we can all handle this stuff, right? Make sure you have several gigabytes of free space on your hard drive. The compressed image is 3.9 gigs—so probably about 10 if you install the MSDN library. If you have installed Visual Studio 2008 Beta, please remove it before the meeting as it takes a little while to uninstall.
There will still be a regular user group meeting on December 13—details to be announced separately. This “install fest” meeting is a special user group event, and not a replacement for our normally scheduled meeting. We had to make special accommodations to get a room large enough for the anticipated crowd.
So… what are you waiting for? Let’s all get loaded on December 11! (I mean our computers, silly!)
Date: TUESDAY, December 11, 2007
Time: 6:30-9:30 PM
Place: Olympia Center, Multipurpose Room “A”
Address: 222 Columbia NW; Olympia, WA
Registration: Required!
Register here: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360762&culture=en-US
For the past year or so, I've noticed that when right click on a folder in Windows Explorer, it takes forever for the context menu to come up. Forever evolved from very-slow to not at all and hanging up Explorer. I put up with it for too long and finally started to do research on the problem. As you know, half the trick of successful research is using the right search parameters.
I finally found the term 'context handlers' in one post and used them in my Google search " explorer context menu handlers slow". That led me to this entry "Right-click is slow or weird behavior caused by context menu handlers", which is an entry on Ramesh's Site, a collection of articles and resources for Troubleshooting Windows. For the problem I was facing, the recommendation was to get a utility called ShellExView: Shell Extention Manager. ShellExView was written by Ni Sofer (NirSoft).
The approach recommended by the article is to use ShellExView to scan the registry for all the shell extensions. Sort the results using "Type", so that the context menu handlers are displayed together and look for handlers you can remove. The article suggests disabling non-Microsoft handlers one-by-one until the issue is resolved. As I was looking through my list, I saw handlers for software I still had installed but didn't really use any more, those were easy choices for Disabling.
I disabled a half-dozen or so handlers and went back to my Windows Explorer, right-clicked on a folder and shazaam! problem be gone.
My thanks to Ni Sofer for ShellExView and Ramesh Shrinivasan for writing up this tip on his blog.
I have to share this because it made me laugh out loud at work this morning. I got it from the wonderful Wendy, who finds so many interesting and entertaining things in blogland. Be prepared to chortle, guffaw and even snort at the expression on Daddy Brad's face as he test drives a breast pump. Current and former breast pumping moms be prepared for flashbacks.
http://www.dadlabs.com/home/2007/10/17/101-the-lab-breast-pump-dad.html
If you don't already know about xkcd.com, go there now and bookmark it. Well, unless you're opposed to laughing out loud, or chortling softly or guffawing with utter abandon. In a couple of hours, after you've enjoyed all the comics on that site, you can come back and thank me.
Also, great t-shirts can be found there, like the one my wife got me not long ago: Stand Back, I'm Going to Try Science . Click on the Store link in the upper left hand corner.
My thanks go to my lovely wife, who turned me on to XKCD.
Ok, now it's been pushed to January. Registered campers have been sent an update and an invitation to provide feedback on some prospective dates. For more information go to the Seattle Code Camp website at https://seattle.codecamp.us/default.aspx for more information and updates.