Random .NET Ramblings

I just got the exciting new that Central Coast Code Camp will be returning! This will be the second time for the Central Coast Code Camp and if it is anything like last year it will be a blast. Robert Hope did a great job putting it on and I am sure he will do another great job! I hope if you can find an excuse to make it that you do.

Check out the web site for more information www.centralcoastcodecamp.com.

The PDC team just listed some of the sessions that will be at PDC08… I can’t wait, read the titles and descriptions and you too maybe able to figure out what the big news at PDC will be ;).

PDC2008 Sessions Overview

If you are going to TechEd this year you should also check out ]inbetween[ my counterpart in Florida Joe Healy AKA devfish and the local Florida community is putting on a great event the weekend between the two weeks of TechEd. I had not wanted to go to TechEd until now but my team is out of budget for T&E for the year so I will have to miss this.

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.

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!

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!

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

Last night I got to be the local lead for the Halo 3 launch event in the SoCal Irvine office and WOW what I hot event! OK that was a reference to the non-existent air conditioning but event with no air conditioning every one had a blast. We had 6 XBoxes running Halo 3 and one running Garter Hero. 130 people from all parts of SoCal (San Diego, Santa Monica and further) lots of good gammier food (pizza, chips, candy etc.). At one point we had one team of 4 get ganged up on by two other teams because they were just too good :).

I have posted some pictures on flickr with the tag "halo3irvine" check them out and please add your own if you have some.

I would like to point out this event was a huge effort and all I had to do was setup the local hardware and host the event. Many many people (Erin, Jason, Yesenia, Scott, Matt, Jas, Shaina and Chris) made this event happen you all are the reason that working here is so much fun!

Anyone up for a geek diner in Honolulu? I happen to be going to Honolulu to give a talk on Windows Mobile development to the Hawaii Telecommunications Association conference. The local .NET users group will not be meeting while I am there so we are getting together for a geek dinner on October 10th at 6pm at Compadres Bar & Grill if you can go please go to upcoming and let us know you are coming. There are only 40 seats available.. It's simple, RSVP yes, show up, eat, drink, pay for your stuff, meet awesome people, have great conversations and a great time!

I hope to see all the local geeks there!