I've just received an email detailing a number of technical events from the MSDN DPE Team (Mike Taulty, Mike Ormond, Daniel Moth & Martin Parry) at Microsoft.  They are to be held at various locations and times in September and October.  Subjects to be covered include Silverlight, Visual Studio 2008, .Net Framework 3.5, Web & Smart Client Development.

• MSDN: Building Dynamic Web Applications with Microsoft Silverlight - 25th September - Reading
• MSDN: Overview of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 - 26th September - Birmingham
• MSDN: Overview of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 - 27th September - Bristol
• MSDN: What's New in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 for the Web Developer - 2nd October - Reading
• MSDN: Overview of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 - 4th October - London
• MSDN: What's New in Smart Client Development - 8th October - Manchester
• MSDN: What's New in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 for the Web Developer - 16th October - Edinburgh
• MSDN: What's New in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 for the Web Developer - 18th October - Bradford

To find out more about these and all future MSDN events go to http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7341022

Guy Smith-Ferrier, one of the Four Chaps From Blighty, emailed this week to tell me of a new user group for the Bristol Area. Here's the information Guy sent through:

The UK has a new user group, The .NET Developer Network (http://www.dotnetdevnet.com). The .NET Developer Network is a free user group based in Bristol (England) that serves .NET developers in the South West of England. The aim is to develop and promote the .NET developers, architects and IT pros of Bristol and the South West. Through monthly meetings we expect to generate a lively community and act as a focal point for the professionals of this area.

The first meeting is on Monday 23rd April 2007 (St. George's Day) and features a whole evening with Mike Taulty (Microsoft Developer Evangelist) giving two sessions on LINQ:-

• Introduction to Language Integrated Query ? Language Changes in C# 3.0 and VB9 that facilitate LINQ
• LINQ and Advances for Data Access

More details available here. To attend you need to be a member (it's free, just register) and then sign up for the meeting (see the details on the site).

Come down to the first ever .NET Developer Network meeting and be able to tell people that you were there at the very beginning.

Today, I attended the MSDN Roadshow in Harrogate. The community was well represented with myself and Phil Winstanley in attendance on hand to answer questions and queries about how the community can assist developers. Phil is the Regional Coordinator for Manchester VBUG and is also involved with the organisation of DDD and he is one of the principal organisers of WebDD. On top of all that Phil is an ASP.net MVP and ASP Insider.

The day was split into five sessions, each comprising of 60 minutes on the following topics plus 10 minutes on Office 2007.

• Language Enhancements and LINQ (Daniel Moth)
• Ajax Development (Mike Ormond)
• Advances for Data in VS "Orcas" (Mike Taulty)
• Rich Client Applications with XAML (Mark Johnston)
• Developing for Windows Live (Martin Parry)

The sessions were very interesting and I saw some new content on LINQ and through Daniel and Mike's sessions I have been able to see how it can be used in Real World Applications as previously the sessions I've seen on LINQ have left me wondering if it can actually be used in an enterprise environment, but now I have the initial threads of interest to go and look into it further to look at how it could be implemented. Mike Ormond's session on AJAX development showed how to extend ASP.Net 2.0 applications to take advantage of the AJAX for ASP.Net 2.0 Library and how to begin to optimise AJAX enabled pages. I have been using AJAX for quite a while now, approximately 12 months (Betas, Release Candidates etc) and after this session I realised there are still some things I can learn.

Mark Johnston covered WPF and WPF/E and took delegates through developing applications for both using Expression Blend, Design and Visual Studio 2005. Mark also showed some interesting examples of how WPF is being used. Martin Parry finished off the day by exploring the Windows Live platform. This includes Live Messenger, Live Search, Live Expo, Live Spaces, Live Contacts, for more information on what's available visit the Live Developer Centre. As mentioned previously I saw a session of Windows Live at Tech Ed and it is certainly a very interesting platform to work from. It is expected there will be further detail on the platform at the upcoming MIX 07 Conference. Martin demoed building apps to make use of the SDKs for developing apps against Virtual Earth, Live Search and Live Contacts.

All in all it was a very useful and interesting day and well worth attending. I recommend the MSDN Roadshow events to anyone who can attend, they are usually very well attended and full of lots of useful information and thought provoking sessions. Keep an eye on MSDN Events for future events and why not sign up for the MSDN Flash Newsletter, which is sent out by the MSDN team fortnightly with some interesting articles and details of both Microsoft and Community events around the country.

For all of the slides and additional resources from the MSDN Roadshow go to http://www.roadshowresources.com