When: Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Where: Epiq Systems World Headquarters

501 Kansas Avenue, Kansas City, KS 66105-1309

Topic: Command/Query Responsibility Segregation

More and more developers are starting to use messaging patterns and domain models in their N-Tier architectures. Many are surprised by the added complexity and beginning to wonder - was it worth it? Join Udi as he describes the missing pattern which brings simplicity back to distributed systems architecture.

Register  

WHERE: Centriq Training, 8700 State Line Road, Leawood, KS

WHEN: 6:00 PM

TOPIC: Stop Drowning in Technical Debt!
Technical Debt is a metaphor introduced by Ward Cunningham to describe the result of “Quick and Dirty” Software Design. Eventually, software projects will incur either accidental or strategic Technical Debt. What is the price of accumulating to much technical debt? How do we measure our Technical Debt? How do we pay down our Technical Debt? This session will provide the answers to these questions through a balance of presentation and real-world examples using various code analysis and metrics available within Visual Studio 2008.

SPEAKER: Dennis J. Bottjer
Dennis J. Bottjer is a solutions architect, consultant, teacher, blogger and speaker. As a three time Microsoft ASP/ASP.NET MVP, he specializes in SharePoint and Web Development. Dennis has over 12 years of industry experience with an emphasis on the Financial and Banking Sectors. As an associate for a Fortune 100 Financial Services Company, Dennis was a key contributor during the development of an underwriting system and fulfillment system. Dennis builds community by regularly participating in user groups and community events. He has been a user group president and is currently an INETA.org membership mentor. Dennis lives in Tulsa, OK with his wife Carrie, daughter Kate, son Will and three cats.

SPONSOR: Volt Technical Resources
Volt delivers integrated workforce consulting, technology management consulting, and database services that will improve your company's performance:
Human Capital Solutions
Data Management
IT Infrastructure & Support
Telecommunications
Outsourced Project Solutions
Customer Care Resources
Directory Printing 

WHERE: Centriq Training, 8700 State Line Road, Leawood, KS
WHEN: 6:00 PM
TOPIC: High Speed, Low Drag: Driving Application Quality with Minimal Friction

Software teams are continually under pressure to do more in less time, to build higher quality and ever more complex applications on ever increasing ship cadences. In this session we will use Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010 Application Lifecycle tools to demonstrate how to deliver bugs that get fixed first time, every time; how to prevent regression with Coded UI Tests and Automation for Navigation; how to streamline build and application deployment using Lab Management and virtual environments; and how to identify the source and impact of changes even when developers “forget” to mention them. Finally, we will spend some time talking about Microsoft’s own efforts to ensure the quality of our release and what we have learned through these efforts.

SPEAKER: Mark Mydland 

Mark Mydland is a Group Manager for the Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers product at Microsoft. In the past 12 years, Mark has worked as a developer and consultant across a wide variety of applications and industries. Mark first joined Microsoft in 2001 working as a member of the Natural Interactive Services Division (NISD). During his time in that group, Mark was the development manager for a team focused on analytics for assessing the efficacy of natural language interpreters with a particular emphasis on driving authoring simplification and relevance quality for user assistance. Based on this work, Mark filed numerous patents and coauthored a paper for the SIGIR journal. In 2004, Mark left Microsoft to work as a Director of Development at Getty Images where he led a change in process from a traditional waterfall methodology to a scrum-based agile approach which brought the release frequency from 12-18 months down to 1 month. Since Getty made extensive use of VSTS, it seemed a natural fit for Mark to join VSTS on his return to Microsoft in 2006. Mark received his B.S. from West Point in 1991. He has also held positions with USWeb/marchFirst and Andersen Consulting/Accenture.

 

WHERE: Centriq Training, 8700 State Line Road, Leawood, KS
WHEN: 6:00 PM
TOPIC: Microsoft's Security Development Lifecycle for Agile development

Microsoft recently added secure development guidance for agile methodologies within their SDL. During this presentation, Nick will summarize the new guidance and discuss what makes this guidance successful for Agile development.

SPEAKER: Nick Coblentz

Nick Coblentz is a senior consultant within AT&T Consulting Services' Application Security Practice. He focuses on helping organizations build mature application security programs and secure development processes. Nick has provided consulting services to fortune 500 companies within the retail, financial services, banking, and health care sectors.

SPONSOR: TekSystems

TEKsystems® is the leading IT staffing and services company. Our capabilities span a wide range of services: from technical staff augmentation and direct placement services, to full management of IT projects and comprehensive workforce management solutions.

With over 25 years of experience, we are experts at connecting technical professionals. Whether you are looking for the best IT talent, an experienced IT outsourcing partner, or a career in the IT industry, TEKsystems delivers.

 

WHERE: Centriq Training, 8700 State Line Road, Leawood, KS
WHEN: 6:00 PM
TOPIC: Extending Your Applications with MEF
If you've ever attempted to write your own custom plug in model in .net, you probably found yourself working with Reflection more than you would have preferred.  Thankfully, the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) has been created in order to provide an alternative to the traditional reflection model.  In this session, James tasks about what MEF is and why it's important.  He'll show you how to download and reference the assemblies into your .net 3.5 applications as well as how it compares to the traditional Reflection model.  Throughout the demonstrations James will provide you a number of examples on how MEF can be used in your applications to provide a robust plug in model.
SPEAKER: James Eggers
James is a Software Engineer for Archer Technologies, a division of RSA in Overland Park, KS. He's been working with .Net since Beta 2 back in 2001. He's the project coordinator for the SchemaSpy Task for NAnt project on Codeplex and a contributing developer on the .Net Migrations database migration project. In addition, he writes a number of articles on his blog located at http://RandomActsOfCoding.Blogspot.com.
SPONSOR: KForce
At Kforce, we believe that Great People = Great Results. By understanding what drives our specialty industries, becoming involved in our communities on a professional and personal basis, following a disciplined process of identifying quality candidates, partnering with employers to understand their core business and their employment requirements, and delivering exceptional service, we achieve great results for all concerned.

 

WHERE: Centriq Training, 8700 State Line Road, Leawood, KS
WHEN: 6:00 PM

TOPIC: Recap Of The Highlights From PDC
Azure, WCF RIA Services, Silverlight 4, Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0.

SPEAKER: Clint Edmonson & Lee Brandt
You know Lee as the big guy who introduces the speakers at the UG meetings and Clint Edmonson is the Architect Evangelist for Microsoft for The Midwest Region.

SPONSOR: TriCom Technical Services
TriCom Technical Services (“TriCom”) is a professional Information Technology consulting firm providing staff augmentation, permanent placement and outsource services to improve clients’ organizational performance. Since our inception in 1994, we have helped clients improve the speed, efficiency and quality of their core business processes by delivering key information technology professionals to their teams. TriCom is headquartered in suburban Kansas City (Overland Park, Kansas) and has serviced over 100 Corporate Clients in 24 different states, providing more than 2000 programming/support staff in a contract, contract-to-hire, or permanent placement capacity.

 

Topic: Automated Builds: How to UppercuT Your Code! OR “Build – it’s not just for F5 anymore.”
How you build your code and verify quality is something that is usually not thought of at the beginning of a project, but is one of the most important things you can add to code! During this session Rob will go over the conventions in building and verifying code quality. You will see a project that is using automated builds and how all of the conventions are applied. We are going to see UppercuT and how well suited it is for automated builds. UppercuT is a build framework (based in NAnt) that allows rapid and powerful use of NAnt without having to understand the intricacies of NAnt. The last thing we will do is apply UppercuT to a project to show you how fast you can go from F5 to automated builds!

Speaker: Rob Reynolds
Rob has been programming in .NET since the early days of 1.0. He is a .NET Developer at FHLBank Topeka, a bank where the doors are always locked and there’s no money inside. He holds a bachelor’s degree in MIS from Kansas State University (don’t hate!) and enjoys spending time with his wife and kid when his wife hasn’t locked him in the basement to work on any of the OSS projects he manages.

Sponsored By: Technisource

 

Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Why Kanban? An Introduction to Kanban and Lean software development.

Presented By: Troy Tuttle
Troy Tuttle is a .NET developer, a Pragmatic Agilist, and a Kanban practitioner, with a decade of experience in the software development industry.  He currently works as a Project Lead Consultant with AdventureTech Group in Kansas City..

 Sponsored By: TriCom Technical Services

 

Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Getting Started with S#arp Architecture
ASP.NET MVC is all the rage lately. There are also several peripheral projects that compliment ASP.NET MVC development (MVCContrib, NHibernate, Fluent NHibernate, etc). Sharp Architecture is an opinionated framework that brings a lot of the best practices of ASP.NET MVC development together and can get you producing useful ASP.NET MVC applications quickly. We will create an application using Sharp Architecture and examine what it does for use and how to leverage its capabilities.

 Presented By: Lee Brandt
Lee is a Senior Consultant with Adventure Tech Group, Inc. in Overland Park, Kansas. He has been programming professionally for over 10 years and developing solutions in .NET and C# since the early beta releases. He is an advocate for behavior-driven development, design patterns and agile methodologies.

 Sponsored By: Aureus Group

 

Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Integrating WPF & WCF into Your Office Business Applications
This session will highlight many of the ways that the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and the Windows Communications Foundation (WCF) can be leveraged in Office applications built with Visual Studio Tools for the Office System (VSTO).

Visual Studio® 2008 introduced an array of new features aimed at a wide range of Office solution types. With Visual Studio 2008, you can build solutions that incorporate the native capabilities of the Office client applications (like Outlook) combined with the sophisticated UI capabilities of WPF that's connected to remote data and services via WCF and use the RAD features of LINQ to manipulate that data.  These new technologies provide opportunities for building powerful solutions with functionality that was previously difficult or impossible to achieve.

Now that Office has evolved into a true development platform, office-based solutions are becoming increasingly sophisticated, less document-focused, and more loosely coupled. This session will show you how easy it is to build robust solutions that leverage the latest technologies.

Presented By: Tim Huckaby, INETA Speakers bureau
Tim Huckaby is currently focused on RIA & Smart Client Technologies like WPF, VSTO, Surface, and Silverlight. He has been called a “Pioneer of the Smart Client Revolution” by the press.

Tim has been awarded multiple times for the highest rated Keynote and technical presentations for Microsoft and numerous other technology conferences around the world by Microsoft Corporation. Tim has done presentations on Microsoft Technologies at technology events like Microsoft Tech Ed, Product Launch events, Dev Days, MEC, World Wide Partner Conference, MGB, MGX, and the PDC, along with 3rd party technology conferences all over the world is consistently rated in the top 10% of all speakers at these events. Tim was selected by Microsoft as a “Rock-Star” speaker for the International .NET Association and speaks world-wide on their behalf. Tim has done keynote demos for numerous Microsoft executives including Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

Tim founded InterKnowlogy, experts in Microsoft .NET and Microsoft Platforms, in 1999 and has 25+ years experience including serving on a Microsoft product team as a development lead on an architecture team. Tim is a Microsoft Regional Director, an MVP and serves on multiple Microsoft councils and boards.

Sponsored By: Modis IT

 

Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Highlights from Mix 2009
This month Lee Brandt and Clint Edmonson will be demonstrating highlights from the MIX09 conference! You’ll get to see some of the great new technologies that were introduced at MIX09 as well as detailed information and in-depth demonstrations on the upcoming release of Silverlight 3 and Expression Blend 3. Plus we’re giving away an Xbox 360 and Zune. You don’t want to miss this special meeting!

Sponsored By: University of Phoenix

 

Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Exploring SQL Server Reporting Services
Come get a look at what SQL Server Reporting Services can do. And get some ideas of what it can do for you. We'll look at how the reporting environment is managed, how reports can be created and deployed, and a trick or two for getting the results you want in your reports.

Presented By: Timothy Wright
Timothy is currently a Software Test Engineer at CertTech LLC, but has also worked as a network consultant with particular focus on Microsoft technologies. During his time in the networking world he also took up ASP.NET Web Development as a hobby and everything associated with it including Microsoft SQL Server.

Sponsored By: TBD

 

Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Introduction to Silverlight 3

We'll have a brief overview of Silverlight, and then build a multi-page web application using Silverlight 3, see how it works, and then time permitting, have a demonstration of some of the controls used to build content in the application.

Presented By: James Hill
James started in the IT business at Sprint then worked for large companies like Delloite & Touche/DRT Systems, and Aventis for 8 YRS. After operating a family business and developing the company software for 9 years, James attended Centriq Training, where he earned an MCTS: .Net Web Development. He is currently building web sites for small businesses.

Sponsored By: Adaptive Solutions Group
ASG is a fast growing, tenacious, competent company – we will be your experts in providing the right solution for your situation. Let us get to know you and your company, and you will soon understand why others are selecting Adaptive Solutions Group as their premier IT service provider.

 

Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Dazzling SharePoint with Silverlight

Silverlight and SharePoint are two up and coming technologies in the development world. SharePoint developers can create robust applications with a variety of tools, such as web parts, user controls, and workflows. Silverlight Developers can create aesthetically pleasing interfaces by harnassing the power of Expression Blend. In this session we will discuss how to blend together SharePoint and Silverlight. We will create some basic Silverlight Applications and discuss what changes a SharePoint Server needs before a Silverlight Application is viewable in a SharePoint Site Collection. We will also discuss a search integration solution using Silverlight as the front end.

 

Presented By: Becky Isserman

Becky Isserman has been a SharePoint Developer since 2005, when she attended the Portal University with Levi, Ray, and Shoup in Springfield, IL. She is a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) and a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD). She has been a web designer/developer since she was fifteen, hand coding HTML 3.0 websites in NotePad. She enjoys working with SharePoint 2007, because she can perform the roles of administrator, developer, designer, and architect. She has presented at seven code camps, two conferences, and three user groups in the past two years. She currently lives in Olathe, Kansas working for B&R Solutions. She lives with her two cats, Gambit and Rogue, plus her boyfriend, Johnny. If you would like to contact her you can e-mail her at rebecca.isserman@gmail.com or fill out the contact form at her blog http://www.mosslover.com.

 

 

Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: SQL Server Database Administration for Developers

Many times as a developer you end up supporting their application in production. This session will cover my checklist for configuring and monitoring a production SQL Server. It will address maintenance plans, recovery models, backups, security and performance monitoring.

 

Presented By: Bill Graziano

Bill Graziano is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP. He is a partner in ClearData Consulting specializing in SQL Server performance tuning, database administration and database application development. Bill serves on the Board of Directors of PASS and is a regular presenter at their annual conference. Bill is a founder of SQLTeam.com, a web site for SQL Server professionals and has taught classes in SQL Server, Visual Basic, MSF and Windows Server.

 

 

Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Introduction to Business Intelligence

It seems that most developers only venture far enough into SQL Server to create tables, views, procedures, and functions in their day-to-day solution work while missing some of the most powerful features of the product.  In this session we will visit one of those features, Analysis Services.  Join us as Jeff will outline the basics of Business Intelligence with SQL Server and show ways that developers can use the product to enhance their software and the way we deliver statistical data to our end users.

 

Presented By: Jeff Julian, Managing Partner AJI Software

Jeff Julian is a Managing Partner with AJI Software, a Kansas City-based Microsoft partner and software consulting firm.  His ability to solve business challenges and passion for the software community was evident when Microsoft awarded him the Most Valuable Professional award in the area of XML for four years in a row and most recently SharePoint 2007 for two years.  Jeff is also the founder of the largest blogging site of Microsoft professionals named Geekswithblogs.net.  Jeff was also a co-author on the Wrox title, Professional SharePoint 2007 Development.

 

Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Developing for Microsoft Surface

This presentation introduces the newly available Microsoft Surface SDK. Hear about the unique attributes of Microsoft Surface computing, dive into vision based object recognition and core controls like ScatterView, and learn how the Surface SDK aligns with the multi-touch developer roadmap for Windows 7 and WPF.

Presented By: John Alexander, Managing Partner AJI Software

Consultant, Author, and Coach John Alexander is a Managing Partner with AJISoftware Inc, a Kansas City-based Microsoft partner and software consulting firm. He is a recognized Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD), has served as the Microsoft Regional Director for the Kansas City Region for the last ten years and was a co-author on the bestselling Wrox Press title, SharePoint 20007 Development.  Experienced in the delivery of scalable, stable, and open enterprise-level .NET Web applications, John is an industry recognized trainer, consultant, speaker and writer on the Microsoft .NET vision and implementation at both the technical and business decision maker level. He has also coached several teams of developers, including one that was directly responsible for placing that organization on CIO Magazine's Agile 100 List. You can reach john at john AT ajisoftware.com.

 

 

 

Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Take the fight against coupling to the Enterprise level

Presented By: Dru Sellers

By exploring a loosely coupled system built with MassTransit, learn how to build distributed applications and workflows using .NET and messaging. 

This meeting is sponsored by TriCom.

 

 

 

UPDATE: Here's a link to Clint's blog post about this event, as well as a link to the slide deck. Thanks to all who attended!

Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Topic: Advanced Object-Oriented Programming - Laws, Principles, and Idioms with .NET

Presented By: Clint Edmonson, Microsoft Architect Evangelist

This talk introduces key object-oriented laws and principles currently used in our field and provides guidance for their use when building applications on the .NET platform.

Clint Edmonson is an Architect Evangelist in Microsoft’s North Central District, working with aspiring and seasoned architects to understand Microsoft’s latest developer and platform offerings and develop strategic roadmaps for their adoption.

He is the host of NotSoTrivial.net.

 This meeting is sponsored by Modis.

 

 

 

Topic: Object-Oriented Design Patterns
Somewhere in the 1990s four guys got together and cataloged those
arrangements and designs. They wrote a book that got a lot of
programmers talking (finally) in the same language about the best
designs for certain situations. This book was "Design Patterns:
Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software", and those four guys
were dubbed the "Gang of Four". These guys, and this book spawned a
revolution (and quite a few more books) in programming and
object-oriented design.

This month, we'll discuss these design patterns. First, we'll do an
overview of all the design patterns concentrating on the most commonly
used patterns. Then, in subsequent months, we'll dive deeper into
these patterns, demonstrating ways to help you understand and actually
use these patterns in your own designs.

Most importantly, there will be food and prizes!


Presented by: Lee Brandt

Lee is a .NET Solutions Architect for Examinetics, Inc. in Overland
Park, Kansas. Lee has been programming professionally for over 10
years and developing solutions in .NET and C# since the early beta
releases. He is an advocate for test-driven development, design
patterns and agile methodologies. Lee spends most of his free time
reading about programming, discussing programming, and with his wife
Stacey and their dog Frieda.

 

Date: Tuesday, July 22, 2008, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Topic:  Windows Communication Foundation vs. Web Services

 

Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Topic:  TDD Using C#

Test-Driven development is a methodology that can help developers write solid, well-designed code. Very few developers practice it because very few understand how it works and how to make it work for them. We will discuss what TDD is, why developers would want to use it, and the basics of how to actually do it using Visual Studio 2008, MS Test and C# 3.0. Come find out what Red, Green, Refactor is all about and why you should care. 

Presented by: Lee Brandt

Lee is a .NET Solutions Architect for Examinetics, Inc. int Overland Park, Kansas. Lee has been programming professionally for over 10 years and developing solutions in .NET and C# since the early beta releases in 2000. He is an advocate for test-driven development, design patterns and agile methodologies. Lee spends most of his free time reading about programming, discussing programming and actually writing code. Any time leftover is spent with his wife Stacey and their dog Frieda.

 

 

Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2008, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Topic:  Coders 4 Charities Overview and Recap

Come get an understanding of what took place at the 1st annual Coders 4 Charities event!   Coders For Charities is a 3-day charity event that pairs charities and local software developers. The last event took place April 25-27, 2008 at Centriq Training in Leawood, KS. Charities often do not have the funds to implement a new website, intranet or database solution. Software developers often do not volunteer for charities because their skills do not apply. This event is the perfect marriage of these two needs; software developers accepting the challenge by volunteering their time to help charities, who in turn can better serve their community though the latest technology!

Presented by: the Coders 4 Charities Team

 

Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2008, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Topic:  Overview of Visual Studio 2008 (Food Provided by Modis)

Join us after the Microsoft Launch Event of Visual Studio 2008 as we discuss more topics about the product and answer questions that may have come up during the event. 

Presented by:  Doug Butscher and Jeff Julian 

Jeff Julian is a Managing Partner with AJI Software Inc, a Kansas City-based Microsoft partner and software consulting firm.  His ability to solve business challenges and passion for the software community was evident when Microsoft awarded him the Most Valuable Professional award in the area of Office SharePoint Server.  Jeff is also the founder of the largest blogging site of Microsoft professionals named Geekswithblogs.net.  Recently, Jeff was an author on the Wrox title, SharePoint 20007 Development.  You may contact Jeff by email at jeff@ajisoftware.com.