Updated User Groups in Southern California

This is an update to my last years list of SoCal user groups, like last year I wanted to have a resource that people can go to get an idea of what Microsoft Developer focused user groups are in Southern California so I have updated the list with the best information I can find. Again I do not clam this is the holistic but I hope that others will comment about other groups.

And again this list is not in any type of order! If I have any of this incorrect or you have a group you think that should be listed please comment on this post or email me woodyp-at-microsoft dot com.

San Luis Obispo .NET User Group
http://www.slodotnet.org/

Central California .Net User Group
http://www.centralcaldotnet.com/

Santa Barbara .NET Developer Group
http://www.sbdotnetug.org/

Inland Empire .NET User's Group
http://www.iedotnetug.org/

San Gabriel Valley .NET Developers Group
http://www.sgvdotnet.org/

LA C# Developers Group
http://www.lacsharp.org/

LA Fox
http://www.lafox.org/

Los Angeles SQL Server Professionals Group
http://www.sql.la/

Los Angeles .NET Developers Group
http://www.ladotnet.org/

Los Angeles Connected Systems User Group - CS-UG.org
http://cs-ug.org/

Orange County .NET Server Users Group
http://www.ocnsug.org/

Southern California .Net Architecture Users Group
http://www.SoCalDotNetArchitecture.org/

Orange County C# Developers Group
http://www.occsharp.org/

Southern California .NET Developers Group
http://www.socaldotnet.org/

South Bay .NET
http://www.southbaynet.org

Orange County Visual Basic .Net Usergroup
http://www.ocvbug.org/

SoCal DotNetNuke Users Group
http://www.socaldug.org/

Orange County FoxPro Developers Group
http://www.ocfox.org/

Orange County Internet User Group
http://www.ociug.org/

Orange County Connected Systems SIG
http://www.ocdotnet.org/

San Diego .NET User Group
http://www.sandiegodotnet.com/

San Diego .NET Developers Group
http://www.sddotnetdg.org/

San Diego SQL Server Users Group
http://www.sdsqlug.org/

San Diego .NET User Group ASP.NET SIG
http://asp.sig.webpublishing.com/

San Diego Connected Systems SIG
http://www.sandiegodotnet.com/ConnectedSystemsSIG/

XP San Diego
http://www.xpsd.org/

The FoxPro Developers Network of San Diego
http://www.foxdevsd.org/

Hawaii .Net
http://hawaiidotnet.org/

Community TJ.NET
http://www.tjnet.org

5/9/2008 6:14:01 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  

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@shanselman Introduces RockScroll

OK I know everyone in the .NET community reads Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com but just incase you missed this you need to checkout this cool new tool RockScroll in him post titled Introducing RockScroll. It is a way cool to visualize where you are in your code page!

5/9/2008 3:30:17 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  .NET | Visual Studio | Tool

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Lying to Ourselves

Anyone who has ever gotten a ride from me in my car knows a few key things about me:

1. I am a slob!
   • I can't stand to clean my car and it's a wreck inside and out!
2. I love Public Radio

So I was shocked today to be in the car today and hear a show I had never heard before (ok maybe I just never noticed it before). It is called Radio Lab from WNYC, what got my attention was that were doing a story on Lying to Ourselves and the researchers in the story concluded that people who lie to themselfs are happier. The story was entertaining and the conduction sounded way too plausible it's an interesting show and now I know way I am doomed to my fate I am just too damn honest with myself. I guess there are worse things! ;)

5/9/2008 3:00:45 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  Personal

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Mobility Metro Materials

Last week I presented to to about 30 to 40 people in Irvine about developing applications for the Mobile platform using the Compact Framework. The audience was great, lot's of good questions and interactions, I had promised to post all the content after the class and while this fulfils the terms of that statement I am sorry it has take me this long.

There are still some Mobility Metro events scheduled see Loke Uei Tan's blog entry More Mobility Metro events for more information. I talked to Loke this week and he has assured me we will be doing more of these events in a few more months as well.

5/2/2008 3:40:25 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [1]  CF | Event | Irvine | Training

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.NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit

Wan to get up to speed on on .NET 3.5 (I know I do!) the Microsoft Corporate Platform Evangelism team released the .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit it has information on:

ADO.NET Data Services

ADO.NET Entity Framework

ASP.NET AJAX History

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

ASP.NET MVC

ASP.NET Silverlight controls

You can think of this kit as a CTP it's not to where the team wants it to be but there are a lot of people asking for this type of resource so they decided to release it now.

4/22/2008 1:50:01 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [4]  .NET | Training

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What's New In Windows Mobile 6.1?

A lot! My two big things are Threaded Text Messaging & Cut, Copy, and Paste on a Non-Touch Screen device :).

The only problem now is Version has not said it would update the Q 9m, looks like it's time to go shopping.

Windows Mobile 6.1 – New Windows Mobile Software for Pocket PC and Smartphone

4/10/2008 10:52:02 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [1]  General | Mobile

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Mobility Metro Event

Have you been thinning of ways you could create solutions for your customers or company on the Windows Mobile platform? Well you are in luck! I am going to be running two Mobility Metro Events in the Microsoft offices San Diego and Irvine on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 and Thursday, April 24, 2008. I will post the full details below... I hope to see you there!

 

 

4/7/2008 10:38:17 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [1]  CF | Event

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Let the world know what you think!

asp.netPro magazine is looking for feed back as to the best products for developers out there... check it out and lets let the venders know who is on top this year asp.netPRO Readers Choice Awards.

4/2/2008 6:11:08 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [1]  General

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Code Trip's rejected launch marketing

You will now see why we don't do the marking for Microsoft products!

Jason did a killer job editing and setting up the shots for this, good job man!

4/1/2008 3:55:10 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [2]  Code Trip | General

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IE8 Activity: "Define with Wikipedia"

While at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo I was doing a demonstration of Internet Explorer 8 Beta and showing off a new add-on type called Activities. During the demo I had a weak moment and said that it looked so easy to implement that while the bus was driving on the way to Mountain View, CA after the meeting I would implement an Activity for Wikipedia. I thought I understood what I needed to do from just looking at the Windows Live Maps sample but I wanted to make sure. So I found the current documentation Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit and the Activities white paper and gleaned the rest from the available samples. Here's what I came up with:

---

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<openServiceDescription xmlns="http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/openservicedescription/1.0">
  <homepageUrl>http://en.wikipedia.org/</homepageUrl>
  <display>
    <name>Define with Wikipedia</name>
    <icon>http://en.wikipedia.org/favicon.ico</icon>
  </display>
  <activity category="Define">
    <activityAction context="selection" >
      <execute action="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search={selection}" />
    </activityAction>
  </activity>
</openServiceDescription>

I did learn that you need to use the proper capitalization for the category so that the new Activity will be grouped with the other Activities of that category in the "Manage Add-ons" dialog.

Once you have the XML file you need to install it, it turns out quite easy to do:

<button onclick="window.external.addService('http://thecodetrip.com/common/wikipedia_activity.xml')">Add Define Activity</button>

Now a button like this oneAdd Wikipedia Define Activity (yes it's live) will show up.

So how long did this take? Including a stop at Taco Bell on the way out of San Luis Obispo this took less than an hour to implement! Now that is an easy way to improve the user's experience and help drive traffic to sites.

 

 

4/1/2008 1:08:12 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  

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IE8 Activity: "Define with Wikipedia"

While at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo I was doing a demonstration of Internet Explorer 8 Beta and showing off a new add-on type called Activities. During the demo I had a weak moment and said that it looked so easy to implement that while the bus was driving on the way to Mountain View, CA after the meeting I would implement an Activity for Wikipedia. I thought I understood what I needed to do from just looking at the Windows Live Maps sample but I wanted to make sure. So I found the current documentation Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit and the Activities white paper and gleaned the rest from the available samples. Here's what I came up with:

---

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<openServiceDescription xmlns="http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/openservicedescription/1.0">
  <homepageUrl>http://en.wikipedia.org/</homepageUrl>
  <display>
    <name>Define with Wikipedia</name>
    <icon>http://en.wikipedia.org/favicon.ico</icon>
  </display>
  <activity category="Define">
    <activityAction context="selection" >
      <execute action="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search={selection}" />
    </activityAction>
  </activity>
</openServiceDescription>

I did learn that you need to use the proper capitalization for the category so that the new Activity will be grouped with the other Activities of that category in the "Manage Add-ons" dialog.

Once you have the XML file you need to install it, it turns out quite easy to do:

<button onclick="window.external.addService('http://thecodetrip.com/common/wikipedia_activity.xml')">Add Define Activity</button>

Now a button like this oneAdd Wikipedia Define Activity (yes it's live) will show up.

So how long did this take? Including a stop at Taco Bell on the way out of San Luis Obispo this took less than an hour to implement! Now that is an easy way to improve the user's experience and help drive traffic to sites.

 

 

4/1/2008 12:56:06 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  Code Trip | IE8

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The Code Trip Is Coming!

That's right the Code Trip is coming to Southern California we will be doing some fun events while the bus is here. The bus will be coming from Phoenix to San Diego on the 24th some time in the early evening. We will be keeping the bus at my families winery in Rancho Bernardo (Bernardo Winery) where it will stay  until about 4:30p on the 25th where it will be heading to the San Diego .NET Users Group meeting in Scripps Ranch Library where we will get to hear from Michele Leroux Bustamente and Jon Galloway on SilverLight and WCF. We will have Pizza and a bunch of giveaways!

That night we will be driving to Irvine and staying at the Hyatt next to the Microsoft Office where we will have the next event on the 26th. We will hear from John Bowen about the iZooFari project and David Robinson about SQL Server Data Services. This event is being sponsored by speakTECH!

On the 27th the Code Trip is earning it's pay! We have three event we will be at:

Cal State Fullerton
USC
LA Geek Dinner

At each we will have different things going on so any of them will be a good place to catch us!

On the 28th we have a special party at RedBull planed we will hear again from David Robinson and we will see some cool SilverLight applications but mostly we will be socializing and getting to know other developers in SoCal. Space is quite limited so please register soon!

And finally we will be stopping at Cuesta Community College in San Luis Obispo where we will speak to a few classes and have a community meeting as well.

I hope if you are in SoCal you can make one or more of these events I am sure you will see some new stuff and have a bunch of fun!

3/21/2008 4:02:00 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  Code Trip | Event | General | Irvine | San Diego | Silverlight | User Group

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The Code Trip Map

W00t late last night Jason got the Code Trips home page to be the map that we had originally wanted to to be there. You need to check it out! When we have Internet connectivity we publish to the server once a minute the potion of the bus and every 2 minutes any client looking at the map will poll for the current location.

Good job Jason!

3/12/2008 8:07:54 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [1]  Code Trip

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Great send off for Gary Gygax

I am a D&D fan, the original D&D books were some of the fist non school books reading I ever did. The creator of the original game was Gary Gygax and I found out yesterday that he had died. I did not know what a good tribute to him would be but today from Scott's web site I saw this cartoon from xkcd.

3/7/2008 10:15:30 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [1]  General

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The Code Trip Bus ROCKS!

This morning Tim, Jason & myself got up and walked a few blocks from the Venetian and found the Code Trip bus and all I can say is WOW! I was more than a little skeptical about the bus but all my doubt was totally erased. This bus evidently just came off tour with the current incarnation of Styx and has been used at the Super bowl (not sure I want to know what for) there are six bunks and a back a front lounge and a small frig and sink crammed in the middle. Each bunk has a DVD player and can watch the TV station that is being watched on the DirectTV throughout the bus (as seen below). I am now way excited to get this trip going and I hope everyone can make a little time to come out and see this insanity as it rolls along!

The bus as we first found it

one of the bunks with TV folded down

3/6/2008 12:56:28 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [2]  Code Trip

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Is your IDE Hot or Not?

I was looking for a Visual Studio settings file to get stared with changing my environment and I found this great site Is your IDE Hot or Not? so far my favorite and current environment is Jon Perot's but I am sure I will try many more.

3/4/2008 10:30:39 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  Visual Studio

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The Code Trip fun starts

At TechReady in Seattle (A Microsoft internal training event) Tim Heuer and Jason Mauer made the introduction video for the Code Trip that is now posted on the Code Trip site. Check it out The Code Trip, film at 11 - The Code Trip.

3/2/2008 3:41:27 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  Code Trip

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dotNetTips.Utility

My good friend, MVP and super user group leader David McCarter  just released the first version of his long term code base dotNetTips.Utility on CodePlex. It is worth a look to see what little helper functions it has and please give him feedback!

2/29/2008 9:17:30 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [1]  .NET | MVP | CodePlex

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Cool Office Developer Map

Do you have a big .NET framework poster or some other post showing objects and methods hanging someplace? I do I am a total geek that way but I also thing that it helps to visualize the objects you work with. Well the Office dev group has out done that and created the Office Interactive Developer Map, it's a WPF application that lets you explore the Office object model. Way geeky!

2/26/2008 11:16:48 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  .NET | General

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Look ma I'm famous...

OK maybe not so much but it was kind of spoke to open my copy of the MSDN Flash today and see my own ugly mug staring at me. This was the first time that I submitted content to the Flash news letter so I did not know what to expect (ok so I did not submit it my boss did for me as I was disconnected when this content was due). But from the first day reactions I think I will keep this up, I have received a lot of email from my community and friends saying this is a good thing so look to see my face looking at you if you have customized the Flash for SoCal.

If you are new to this blog (from the Flash or not) welcome, you will note that I am quite inconstant on posting here but I consider it reducing the amount of noise on the web ;).

This is the fist post have done it quite some time, there has been many reasons for this (death in the family, being sick, traveling too much and more excuses) but I will be keeping up some constant blogging for a while if not here that on thecodetrip.com. I am about to get on a "Rock Star" buss with other geeks on my team for a 40 day code trip (d'oh). We will be going all over the western states and talking to people about the latest technology that Microsoft is announcing at MIX 08 in Las Vegas. We will have a lot of activities in the places we will visit and we will be posting a lot of content to the web site. If you want to know what we are up to go to the web site and subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you have anything you would like to see in future issues of the SoCal edition of the flash please let me know but the lead time is quite long 2 to 3 weeks so let me know sooner than later!

2/25/2008 8:53:35 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  General | Code Trip

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New Online Recourses for Visual Studio 2008

Microsoft Learning just released some new resources for all of us who are starting to get up to speed.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 – Learning Portal is the place to learn more. I am quite excited by the availability of the free e-book that is posted there.

1/21/2008 9:24:51 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [1]  

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Microsoft SharedView Beta

I had not seen this until today but if you want to have an online meeting with up to 15 people here is a great way to do it. It's almost like LiveMeeting but free!

Microsoft SharedView Beta

12/21/2007 9:23:58 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [1]  General

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There is no bubble in Technology!

I found this way too funny not to pass on!

UPDATE: looks like there a some "issues" with the photos used in this video so YouTube has removed this video but for now you can still see it here. If you want to know the issue around the content Scott Beals has a good blog post about here.

UPDATE #2: The video is back up on YouTube, I don't know the back story of it getting back up but I changed my link above to link to it again.

12/9/2007 1:42:45 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [1]  General

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Contagious Curiosity : Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest - Irvine, CA

Lynn (my local counter part) did a great blog post about the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest that I put on on Wednesday night in Irvine, CA. It was a hot night (no I am serous the air conditioning could not keep up) but much fun was had!

Thank you to all the user groups in SoCal for getting there members out to the event, I am just sorry we did not have more room, we could have had double the people if we had more room.

I hope to have more events in late January and early February.

Contagious Curiosity : Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest - Irvine, CA

12/7/2007 9:46:56 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [2]  Event | General

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Blend 2 December Preview is here

The Expression team just released the Dec Preview if Blend 2 to see what's new check out the teams blog to download go here.

12/6/2007 1:24:29 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [1]  General | Silverlight

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New Virtual Labs

If you have not figured it out I live the MSDN Virtual Labs, they are a quick easy way to lean about stuff with little impact to your system. A few new labs were recently released, use them in good health.

What’s new in C# 3.0?
What’s new in Visual Basic 9?
Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008

12/3/2007 1:09:50 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [3]  C# | Training | VB.NET

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A comic non-tech friends

I was at SliverLight training all last week with a group of Developer Evangelists and we could not stop laughing about the xkcd.com comic below. I know it's way geeky but wow I had no idea how geeky, after half an hour of trying to explaining it to my wife it finally sunk in just how geeky.

12/3/2007 1:04:07 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [1]  General

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IE vs. Firefox security study

I have not read the entire document yet (I will save that for the flight home today) but this is an interesting report. This shows why I have a job, MS has made huge investments in security at all levels but the worlds perception is that we still are not secure, my job to help show the world what the investments we have made mean for users of our products.

Download the report here: Internet Explorer and Firefox Vulnerability Analysis

11/30/2007 10:56:26 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [5]  General | Security

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Wow we have a lot of .NET goodness today

Just announced Parallel Extensions to the .NET Framework I had n