Baltimore Area Microsoft Developer User Group

Speaker: G. Andrew Duthie

Topic: Windows Phone 7

Abstract: : Windows Phone 7 is almost here. The final dev tools have been released, and phones will be hitting the streets soon. In this presentation, we’ll take a look at Windows Phone 7, covering the device specifications, Metro UI, and other general features. We’ll then focus on developing for the platform, focusing primarily on Silverlight, and taking advantage of services the platform offers – such as Push Notification Service. We’ll also include a brief overview of XNA on the phone, and how to get your applications into the marketplace.

Bio : G. Andrew Duthie, aka devhammer, is the Developer Evangelist for Microsoft’s Mid-Atlantic States district, where he provides support and education for developers working with the .net development platform. In addition to his work with Microsoft, Andrew is the author of several books on ASP.NET and web development, and has spoken at numerous industry conferences from VSLive! and ASP.NET Connections, to Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference (PDC) and Tech-Ed. Andrew has been participating in the user group community since way back in 1997, when one of his co-workers dragged him out to the Internet Developers User Group in Tyson’s Corner, VA, and he’s been hooked ever since.

Andrew is also the creator and developer of Community Megaphone, a site designed for promoting and finding developer community events.

Andrew can be reached through his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/gduthie/. You can also follow Andrew on twitter.

Level: Intermediate

Location: System Source, 338 Clubhouse Road, Hunt Valley, MD 21031

Date: Wednesday, October 20th, networking begins at 6:30

Sponsors: System Source

Speaker: Dave Kehring, White Horse Consulting

Topic: “Real-world MVVM in .NET 4.0”

Abstract: The Model-View-ViewModel pattern (MVVM) is emerging as the architectural pattern of choice when composing non-trivial WPF and Silverlight applications. When an architect or developer begins to investigate and employ this pattern on a project it becomes apparent there are a number of common “problems” that must be solved to effectively implement MVVM.  Add to this the fact that some of these problems have multiple solutions, there is no “standard” for implementing the pattern and there are a number of MVVM frameworks available and you end up with lots of questions. In this discussion I will present how I implemented MVVM on a real-world project currently under development and how I solved some of the common MVVM challenges. We’ll dig into the code and discuss the how’s and why’s of the choices I made regarding:

• View or ViewModel first?
• Connecting Views and ViewModels
• Should the View talk directly to the Model?
• INotifyPropertyChanged and “magic strings”
• Using message and dialog boxes
• Zero code-behind?
• Loosely-coupled ViewModels
• Unit testing
• And more…

Bio :  Dave Kehring is an independent consultant, developer and software architect with 22+ years of experience. His company White Horse Consulting Inc. builds software solutions for large and small companies in a variety of industries including financial services, oil and gas, business simulation, semi-conductor, manufacturing and health care.

Level: Intermediate 

Location: Red Brick Station, White Marsh, MD 

Date: Wednesday, September 29th,  networking begins at 6:30 

Sponsors: Red Brick Station

Geoff Snowman

Speaker: Geoff Snowman, SolidQ Mentors

Topic: The Service Bus in the Sky – Connect Applications across Firewalls with Windows Azure

Level: Intermediate-Advanced

Abstract: Have you ever needed to connect two applications that are running inside different firewalls? Perhaps the applications are in different data centers within the same organization, or perhaps one end is in your customers’ or suppliers’ data centers. Maybe you even want to write a massively multiplayer game like World of Warcraft, but you don’t want to create your own server infrastructure to support it. You can solve this problem using cloud services, even if the application runs on your own machines. In this session, we’ll implement an online chat tool that works across multiple networks using Windows Azure AppFabric service bus. Most of the session will be spent building the code for the chat tool.

Bio: Geoff Snowman is a mentor with SolidQ USA, part of Solid Quality Mentors, where he specializes in cloud computing, .NET development, and service-oriented architecture. Before joining SolidQ, Geoff worked for Microsoft Corporation in a variety of roles, including presenting MSDN events as a Developer Community Champion, and working extensively with BizTalk Server as both a Process Platform Technology Specialist and a Senior Consultant. Geoff has been part of the local user group scene for many years as both a frequent speaker and former user group organizer.

Location: Red Brick Station, White Marsh, MD

Date: Wednesday, August 18th,  networking begins at 6:30

Sponsors: Red Brick Station