On CodeGuru.com Paul Kimmel has a nice write up of what the value of being an active member of a user group in his article Exploring the Value of .NET Users Groups. I know that I have reaped many rewards from being active in the San Diego user groups and I hope this can convince every developer to get involved.

In the US if you want to find a group close to you go to codezone.com and search for a group. I like codezone.com as it has groups of all types not just the INETA .NET groups.

Do you want to know how to create Mobile Line of Business applications using the Compact Framework?

Here is your chance! Go to the site http://www.msreadiness.com/IL_abstract.asp?eid=5015201 and register using the code USPRMDEV and you can get in to the Los Angeles event for free... yes free, normal price $1,500. This is a three day hands on class in the Microsoft Los Angeles office. All food is included you just need to pay for parking if you are going drive in, I suggest the train, that is how I will be getting there.

I hope to see you there!

Are you going to MIX? Don't know what MIX is? Don't care what MIX is?

OK my first question are you going MIX? I will be there and am looking forward to it greatly, last year there were a whole slue of announcements from the product groups and many real world customer examples of usage of the technology. Please let me know if you are coming so I can look for you at the craps table ;).

So you don't know what MIX is go look at www.visitmix.com and once you figure out there is no useful information for you there then checkout last years event on Flickr and then do a live.com search and see what people said about it last time.

And last you don't care about MIX? You should! This is the event that where designers and get together and get along. As a developer I know (and have lived) the tensions between developers and designers. Check out Ryan Stewart blog posing Microsoft, Developers, Designers and Bill Gates to see what we are trying to do to make the interface for developers and designers easer and note he says that MIX should be a good show.

I know that when you say Global Warming you are told to think science but once you try to use the  scientific method to any of the environmental data you will get socially smacked down by the intelligence. At last someone has done some good coverage on the topic but don't think we will ever see it here in the US. Thanks to the Internet you too can see this information your self go to the Channel 4 web site about The Great Global Warming Swindle and then go to Google video for the full show.

The next time you see a Gore love fest like the one at the Academy Awards this year go watch this and then think except for life style how open mined Hollywood really is.

I know I have bloged about Virtual Labs in the past but now all of the .NET 3.0 labs are done including the Core Features of Windows CardSpace all of the labs are great. If you are a .NET developer this is the way to get up to speed quickly on the .NET 3.0 platform.

I would be interested to here of your experiences with the new 3.0 tools.

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.

On Tuesday night of this week I had the opportunity to present to the San Luis Obispo .NET User Group. This is a new .NET focused group in the central coast of California an aria I have only driven through at break neck speeds to get to San Francisco or back home so I was looking forward to seeing a little of the place.

The group is run by Robert Hope who has done a great job of building a community of people who are interested in .NET. The people at the meeting were quite interesting and had some great questions. I presented on the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions and ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. This was the first time I presented anything about ajax and I was impressed how well received it was received. For the demo pillaged the great content that Steve Marx did in blog post Bad AJAX jokes, good AJAX sample I also had a slide deck but it was not much if you want to see it you can get a pdf of it here.

As an aside after the meeting some of us when out for a drink and they suggested a place downtown called Mothers Tavern but a Linsey Lohan movie was being shot downtown and Mothers was rented out for crew catering. But it was quite surreal seeing how many people were just trying to get a look at Linsey Lohan... If you don't offend easily then checkout what Foamy has to say about celebrates. Yes I feel the same way he dose!

I am huge fan of RSS feeds this is my main way to read blogs and some news but the best readers have never met all of my needs. At this time I use Google Reader and love the experience except when I am not online. I saw a blog post about FeedGhost witch I will be trying next but I am interested to know about other readers as well...