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!

I recently able to help the Southern California DotNetNuke Users Group to host a virtual presentation by Shaun Walker the dotNetNuke projector founder. We used Microsoft Live meeting to project Shaun's slides and show is real time demonstrations to the group in Buena Park, CA while he was at his home in Canada.

To get all the information about the meeting and how you can view the recording go to Michael Washington's blog post entry about the meeting on the dotnetnuke web site.

I am on a plain back from Hawaii which means I am done with all the launch events in SoCal and Hawaii... I know you say how could it have been that bad if it ended in Hawaii but I assure it was a boat load of work. And the Hawaii was a 72 hour trip with 12 hours on a airplane and much work. 

It stared with the "Key City Launch" in Los Angels where we had a great set of presenters in including Michele Leroux Bustamante and Tim Huckaby. We had a great turnout and with good feedback. Then we had three SoCal (Ontario, San Diego & Anaheim) events and finally Honolulu Hawaii. These events were done by the Microsoft Across America team. At each event I got to meet several MVPs that are based in each location. Wow what a great group of people, they know the Microsoft better then some of the product group people. All the MVPs that helped out at each of the events were invaluable in making each event a success my only regret was that I never got to spend the amount of time with any of them that I wanted.

The best part of the events was I got to work with a new team member, Lynn Langit who is the new SoCal based Microsoft Across America (MSAM) Developer Evangelist. I am so excited to have someone else local in SoCal with me and the best part is that with the normal Microsoft reorganization she now is part of my west region team so we will be able to work closely together. If you did not get a chance to come see Lynn at the launch events you need to come check her out at the next set of MSDN sessions in SoCal.

Some of the feed back I got at the events was first WOW! Second "I can't wait to start working with .NET 3.0 and SharePoint 2007. If you did not make any of the events check out Lynn's blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/socaldevgal/) about the session she did. She has done a great job of capturing all the resources and references to information about the information she covered.

The next meeting of the Orange County Windows Mobile User Group on April 6th will feature Martin Smekal, the CEO of Tablet Kiosk, he will be showing the EO V7110 so if you want to see the future come on by.

Microsoft is hosting two SDL Workshop (Secure Development Lifecycle)

OK so what the heck is that?

2-day workshop which will include a detailed overview of how MSFT conducts threat modeling of line of business applications and utilizes threat models to avoid costly development cycles late in the SDLC.  This event reviews Application Threat Modeling and Secure Application Development and is delivered by Microsoft’s Application Consulting & Engineering (ACE) team.

 

So what dose that mean? If you register quickly you can get exposed to some great methodology and tools that you can use to help ensure you make good secure decisions if your architecture and code.

 

Dates:

March 29-30, 2006 – Microsoft Irvine

April 27-28, 2006 – MSFT San Diego

 

To Register: (OK this is an IQ test!)

Go to the MS Events site then search for:

Irvine: 1032291896

San Diego: 1032291895

 

OK so you are lazy or failed the IQ test:

Irvine

San Diego

 

I am trying to see if there is any interest in doing a special Developer Security event in San Diego… Now I know what developers say “security is boring and my code is not vulnerable” (come on you know you think it). I want to know what would motivate you to come out for such an event. I would love to have people stand-up and tell some war stories about security, I would giveaway some good books and I hope have a lavish dinner… so would you come?

I am currently looking at doing it May 1st.

I got to participate in the 2006 MVP North American Engagement Tour in Microsoft's San Diego office. As a result I am going making a new feed category for MVPs so they can subscribe only to content that I think they will be interested in. The propose for this is so I can hopefully start working with Southern California MVPs to get them engaged in the local community as well as the excellent work they do online.

Don’t know what a MVP is? Check out the MVP site on Microsoft.com http://mvp.support.microsoft.com