BugSplat

NO on 8!! Because everyone should have the right

Now is the time to donate. Let your support be known.

What's the Big EFing Deal?

Here's the description for my upcoming Code Camp presentation:

What's the Big EFing Deal? Even Newbies can do Entity Framework\

Have you done anything with Entity Framework yet? Have you heard of it? Curious about it? if you're new to EF and want to do some coding utilizing it, this is the session for you. Come and see what a newbie (you and your presenter) can do with EF after only a few short lessons. Bring your laptop loaded up and ready to go and follow along, building your own simple applications using EF.

Software requirements to follow along with the presenter: Visual Studio 2008 SP1, with .NET 3.5 SP1, SQL Server 2005 and a copy of Adventureworks or AdventureWorksLT.

Seattle Code Camp v4.0 is approaching quickly, submit your sessions if you have 'em and register to attend. Remember it's Free! Free! Free!

Breast Cancer Awareness, You Can Help

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and here’s an easy way to get involved:

The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on ‘donating a mammogram’ for free (pink window in the middle).

This doesn’t cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors /advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here’s the web site!

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/

code camp presentation: choosing a name

I've decided to go for it and do a presentation at the Seattle Code Camp (v4.0, Nov. 15/16). I can't say I've been completely bullied into it (Paul!) but I've definitely been strongly nudged. I know I want to do something on Entity Framework, but I'm certainly no expert. In fact, I'm a relative newbie. My experience comes from serving as a technical reviewer on Julie Lerman's book Programming Entity Framework (now available through O'Reilly's Safari Rough Cuts). So, what can I present on? Various titles come to mind:

Even Newbies Can Do Entity Framework

What's the big EFing Deal?

and variations on that theme. My idea is to demonstrate some basic scenarios and have interested audience members follow along on their laptops. I won't be discussing the merits of NHibernate vs. EF, that's for others with more experience and more tolerance for discord. My angle is this "You've been hearing about EF. You haven't done much or anything with it, let's check it out together."

I've only got about a month to pull it together, wish me luck.

Mark Your calendars: Seattle Code Camp v4.0

Chris Kinsman sent this out today:

It's that time of year again... Time for a Code Camp!

We are holding Seattle Code Camp November 15-16, 2008 at the DigiPen campus in Redmond.

You are getting this email because you have attended a previous code camp in Seattle. We would like to invite you to come back and help make the 2008 Code Camp a great success.

Please pass this notice on to folks you think are interested in either attending or speaking.

Speaking of speaking we are looking for speakers. If you hit the code camp site at https://seattle.codecamp.us you will see that we don't have sessions or tracks listed at this point. This code camp is a blank page at this point that needs to be colored in.

This is a great venue for presentations. If you have something you are passionate about but have never done any public speaking I encourage you to give it a try. If you are an experienced speaker this is your time to get involved in your local community and share some of your experience.

What types of topics are we looking for? Pretty much anything goes as long as:

1. It involves code

And

2. It isn't a direct advertisement for a product or service.

Yep that means that this isn't limited to .NET or even Microsoft technologies. Past code camps have included sessions on XBOX 360 development, Java, PHP, and Rails. Submit your sessions at https://seattle.codecamp.us/registered/submitsession.aspx

Alternatively if you have no desire to get up in front of a bunch of developers and impart your wisdom we could still use your help. Please promote this code camp at your user group meetings, post it on your blog, email it to interested locals and encourage your friends and coworkers to submit sessions.

Finally if you plan on attending please head to https://seattle.codecamp.us/register.aspx and register so that we can get some idea of the required space and food needs.

Looking forward to seeing you in November!

Thanks,
Chris Kinsman
Code Camp Organizer

Next SSDotNet meeting, Oct. 9th with Stuart Celarier

Please join us on Thursday, October 9th, for our next South Sound DotNet meeting featuring Stuart Celarier and his Whirlwind Tour of C# 2.0 and 3.0 – The New Programming Model

Presentation Summary

From its beginning, Microsoft has been working to change how we write and think about code. Many C# developers today continue to use only the original C# 1.0 features, frequently unaware of the features introduced in C# 2.0 and 3.0, or unsure about how or when to use them. This fast-paced session examines every new feature of C# which changes the way we write code. The effect of this whirlwind tour is to appreciate the evolution of a modern programming language, understanding where we came from and how and why we got here. The tour culminates with the dramatic introduction of a new declarative, data manipulation feature, Language Integrated Query (LINQ), but there's a lot to see along the way. Fasten your seatbelts and don't blink: we're going for a wild ride!

Speaker Bio

Stuart Celarier is a Microsoft MVP on Connected Systems and a software architect working on online banking systems at Fiserv (formerly Corillian) in Portland, Oregon. He is a frequent speaker at regional .NET user groups, Code Camps, and other events. He's chaired Birds-of-a-Feather tracks at several major Microsoft conferences on behalf of INETA. He has spoken at the South Sound .NET Users Group on two previous occasions: Identity and CardSpace in 2007, and Service Oriented Architecture in 2005. Stuart blogs on technology at http://visualstuart.net.

Meeting Specifics
Oct 9th, 7 - 9 pm
Olympia Center (222 Columbia NW)
All attendees are eligible for the prize drawings. Past prizes have included technical books, passes to Devscovery, copies of Visual Studio, Vista, Office 2007 and more.

Don't forget to let your friends and co-workers know about this meeting. Feel free to forward this email and/or direct them to www.ssdotnet.org for more information.