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FREE DDD North Geek Dinner Sponsored by Devexpress

October 5, 2011 01:33 by Andrew Westgarth

After enjoying a great day at what we hope will be a fantastic first ever DDD North, please join us to enjoy a fantastic Geek Dinner at the Sunderland Stadium of Light.

Developer! Developer! Developer! North

Thanks to the fantastic folks at Devexpress we are able host a free Geek Dinner for 120 people!! We hope this will be a fantastic opportunity for speakers and attendees to chat and relax after a fun filled day of great technical content at DDD North

Devexpress

Please join us at the Sunderland Stadium of Light after Developer! Developer! Developer! North for drinks in the Sports Bar and then we will move onto enjoy a fantastic meal and relax with friends and reflect on the day.

The menu is fixed but the choices are below:

Carvery Choices (2 of the following)

Topside of English Beef

Loin of English Pork

Menu

2 Roast Meat Carvery with Yorkshire Puddings, Home Made Stuffing, Market Vegetables and a Rich Roast Gravy

Vegetarian Main Course Option

Chunky Thai Green Curry with Kai Pow Dumplings and Savory Rice

Chef's Dessert/Whole Fruit Selection

Please indicate when booking your ticket if you would like the vegetarian option. If you have any other dietary requirements please indicate too so we can do our best to cater for your requirements.

PASSWORD FOR THE REGISTRATION FORM IS devexpress

Register for DDD North - Geek Dinner Sponsored by Devexpress in Sunderland, United Kingdom  on Eventbrite

Travelling to DDD North? Directions

October 2, 2011 16:34 by Andrew Westgarth

Developer! Developer! Developer! North is this coming weekend in Sunderland, UK and is being held at the David Goldman Informatics Centre on the Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St. Peter’s on the banks of the river Wear.  There are many different ways to travel to the University and here are some guides on how to get to the campus.

By Train

Sunderland is well connected by a national rail service.  Grand Central trains run direct from London Kings Cross daily.  East Coast run services into Newcastle Central Rail Station, from here you can take the METRO direct to Sunderland in approximately 30 minutes.

By Air

Newcastle International Airport is the closest airport to the University.  The Airport is linked to Sunderland via the METRO system and is about a one hour journey time.

By Car

From North or South follow the A19 towards Sunderland and leave the A19 onto the A1231 heading for Sunderland.  For the Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St. Peter’s follow the brown directional signs for the National Glass Centre which is also located within the St. Peter’s Campus.

For Satellite Navigation Directions please use the postcode SR6 0DD.

For this Saturday only – the University has given us FREE Car Parking.

By METRO

Alight at the St. Peter’s station, go down the stairs, cross the main road at the Pelican crossing and follow the signs to your destination.  There is a metro map and journey planner at www.nexus.org.uk

By Foot

If you are staying on the Sea Front it is a short walk along the coast line and riverside to the campus.

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=t4kc5pgwk5f6&lvl=16&dir=0&sty=b&cid=F697BCD4BD5A1C5A!2194&eo=0&where1=SR6%200DD%2C%20Sunderland%2C%20Sunderland&form=LMLTCC

Map picture

Looking for Somewhere to Stay at DDD North?

September 4, 2011 07:42 by Andrew Westgarth

As the agenda is being formalised now and registration for DDD North opens tomorrow I thought it might be useful to publish some information about accommodation for DDD North.

DDD North is being held in Sunderland, which is a city on the North East coast and has a stunning coastline, so why not stay on the coast with a fantastic sea view?  Take it from one who lives here, this is one of the reasons I love living in the North East.  So I have put together a selection of hotels and guest houses to get you started in finding great value accommodation.

The first on the list is the Roker Hotel, which is likely to be the focal point for meetings outside of the University as it has a large and well stocked bar!  All of the guest houses listed along with the Marriott are within walking distance of the Roker Hotel and the majority are within walking distance of the University Of Sunderland where DDD North is being held.

In addition there are plenty of other guest houses in the area and there is also a Travelodge in the city centre which is about 15 minutes walk from the University.

I’m adding a few more options in case those above fill up!

In addition there are two Premier Inns which are 15 mins drive to the University of Sunderland where DDD North is being held

DSC_0142 (2)

User Group Tour 7th to 11th March 2011 IIS, Media Services and IIS SEO Toolkit

March 1, 2011 13:35 by Andrew Westgarth

I’m currently in Redmond, Seattle at the 2011 MVP Global Summit but next week I’m embarking on a User Group tour back home in the UK. I’m covering a number of IIS topics including IIS 7/7.5 for Developers, IIS Media Services and IIS SEO Toolkit.  I’m starting off in Bristol at DotNetDevNet on Monday 7th March 2011 and finishing in Cambridge at NxtGenUG on Thursday 10th March.  I’m really looking forward to visiting new groups and talking to the attendees about these great sessions.

I decided to take a week off work to travel and talk to groups I usually wouldn’t be able to take time out to do so.  Hope to meet lots of new people and catch up with old friends too as I work my way back up the country!  Hope to see you there!

Event Details and Sign Up links:

Categories: IIS7 | Events | MVP | UK Community
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Great Resources for Budding User Group and Conference Speakers

February 3, 2011 13:53 by Andrew Westgarth

I’ve been sitting writing and submitting session proposals for Developer Day Scotland this evening.  I really enjoy speaking at User Groups and Conferences and am always looking for ways to improve and share knowledge.  In our User Groups i.e. North East Bytes and the Developer Community we actively encourage new speakers, indeed that was the original mandate of the DDD events.  We’re always looking to discover new speakers and to encourage new speakers, be they starting out with a short 10 minute Grok Talk or standing up and delivering a full one hour conference session.

Guy Smith-Ferrier, well respected speaker with over 20 years experience of speaking at User Groups and Conferences such as Tech Ed, has recently published a series of 8 videos on How To Give Great Presentations in addition to his paper which he has previously written on the subject.  Guy is a great speaker and these sessions address key elements of giving great presentations with plenty of tips and information which both new and experienced speakers can use to improve their presentations.  Check them out now,

Search and Deploy – Slides from NxtGen Manchester April Event

May 13, 2010 14:32 by Andrew Westgarth

Finally I am uploading my slides and links to demos from the session I delivered at NxtGenUG Manchester on the 21st April, for those who attended thanks for coming along I hope you enjoyed the session, and I’d like to offer a massive apology for taking so long to post the slides and links to the demos.  My session covered the Web Deployment Tool including the integration in VS2010 and I also covered the IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit.  Download the slides from my Slides & Resources page.

MS Deploy Resources

SEO Toolkit Resources

Three Great Events in The North East in April!!

March 24, 2010 13:50 by Andrew Westgarth

header_td

As part of the Microsoft Tech Days UK 2010, a week of free events for Developers and IT Professionals, there are three great events of note running in the North East.  The Sharepoint User Group are hosting a great night at the Cinema in Stockton, and then NEBytes are pleased to welcome Jesse Liberty for a special evening of Silverlight in addition to the Monthly meeting covering Office 2010 and Preventing SQL Injection Attacks.  Best of all- all three events are FREE!!!!

Monday 13th April 2010 – SUGUK – Sharepoint 2010 and Free Screening of Clash Of the Titans at Stockton-on-Tees Showcase Cinema

sugukMicrosoft and Combined Knowledge have funded a great evening to celebrate the launch of Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2010.  Join the Sharepoint User Group at the Showcase Cinema in Stockton-on-Tees to see a short presentation on the new features in Office and Sharepoint 2010, followed by an Open Mic “Ask the Experts” session on general SharePoint topics such as business adoption, Sharepoint designer, VS 2010 and Office focussed development in general, before settling down with Popcorn to watch a free screening of the new blockbuster – Clash Of The Titans!

For more information and to register - http://suguk.org/forums/thread/23041.aspx

Friday 16th April 2010 – NEBytes – Jesse Liberty – Silverlight Geek – Newcastle-upon-Tyne

nebytes-logo-final On Friday 16th April 2010, NEBytes are pleased to welcome Jesse Liberty, the self styled Silverlight Geek and a Senior Program Manager in the Silverlight Development Team at Microsoft, to Newcastle as he makes his way round the UK as part of his UK Tour .  Jesse will be delivering the following session:

Building A Highly Extensible, Decoupled Silverlight Open Source Application with MEF and RIA Services using Lean, Test Driven Development, An International Team of Volunteer Programmers,  and lots of Advil.

This talk will use the Silverlight HyperVideo Platform open-source project on CodePlex as a case study in building highly extensible Silverlight applications. Among the topics we will focus on are:

  • New features in Silverlight 4 and how they made life easier
  • The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) added to Silverlight 4
  • WCF RIA Services for connection to a back-end db
  • Handling inter-module communication when the requirements are that modules cannot assume which other modules will be created, there can be no dependencies on order-of creation and unanticipated modules must be able to communicate with existing modules.
  • Using Markers, Injected Markers and polling to trigger events while viewing a video.
  • A Quick introduction to Lean, TDD and Kanban.

NEBytes are also looking at putting on a Geek Dinner afterwards, so if you’d be interested in attending let us know when you register for the NEBytes – Jesse Liberty – Silverlight Geek Event

Wednesday 21st April 2010 – NEBytes -  “Office 2010” and “Preventing SQL Injection Attacks” – Newcastle-upon-Tyne

nebytes-logo-finalOn Wednesday 21st April 2010 NEBytes will be holding their regular monthly event and will be covering the topics of Office 2010 and Preventing SQL Injection Attacks.  We are pleased to welcome Colin Mackay to cover Preventing SQL Injection attacks and we are very pleased to have NEByte’s very own Jonathan Noble and Ben Lee covering Office 2010 at the event:

Office 2010 - Ben Lee and Jonathan Noble

This summer Microsoft will release Office 2010. While this is more of an evolution from Office 2007 rather than the revolutionary jump from Office 2003 into the world of the Ribbon UI, there are still a number of new features in the desktop applications that make this release interesting. In addition, 2010 sees Office head into the cloud with the all-new Office Web Apps. In this session, NEBytes' own Ben Lee (@Bibbleq) and Jonathan Noble (@jonoble) will highlight their favourite new features across the whole suite and also demonstrate how to manage, secure and deploy Office 2010 to the desktop, including delivery using App-V.

SQL Injection Attacks and Tips on How To Prevent Them - Colin Angus Mackay

In light of some recent events, such as the man who was convicted of stealing 130 million credit card details through a SQL Injection attack, it is imperative that developers understand what a SQL Injection Attack is, how they are carried out, and most importantly, how to defend your code against attack.

In this talk Colin Mackay will demonstrate a SQL Injection Attack on an application in a controlled environment*. He’ll show you where the vulnerable code lies and what you can do to harden it.

Although this talk uses C# as the application language and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as the database engine many of the concepts and prevention mechanisms will apply to any application that accesses a database through SQL.

* Demonstrating an attack on a system without the owner’s consent is a breach of the 1990 Misuse of Computers Act, hence the controlled environment.

Colin Angus Mackay is a Software Developer living in Glasgow. He has been programming since the age of 9 starting with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. He became a professional software developer in 1994, using a Smalltalk based language called Magik. In 1996 he started using C++ commercially and in 2002 migrated to the emerging language of C#.

Colin has received a number of awards including Code Project MVP (for 5 years) and Microsoft MVP (for 3 years). He is a member of the British Computer Society and a Member of the Institution of Analysts and Programmers. He is currently the chairman of Scottish Developers and has organised the last two Developer Day Scotland conferences (with a third in the works).

You can find out more on his blog at: http://blog.colinmackay.net.

Go to the NEBytes April Event Registration Page and sign up now!

Introducing North East Bytes (NEBytes) a new Microsoft Usergroup for the North East of England

January 4, 2010 14:39 by Andrew Westgarth

nebytes-logo-final

I’m pleased to announce a new User Group in the North East of England, based around Microsoft Technologies, North East Bytes (NEBytes) – http://www.nebytes.net .  We have decided to start this group in order to help Developers and IT Pros in the community with the constant battle to learn, stay current and broaden their knowledge.

We run monthly meetings every third Wednesday of the month (except on the second Wednesday in December – to allow time for Christmas parties and shopping!) at Newcastle University.  Each meeting consists of two one hour presentations (one Developer topic and one IT Pro topic) and we have refreshments, food, giveaways and prizes.

Attendance at our meetings is completely FREE!! The venue is provided kindly by the University, our Speakers kindly provide their time for free, and we as organisers provide our time for free to organise the events.  We will provide refreshments and we also provide hot food, all we ask is if you would like to partake in the the hot food, please make a small donation towards the cost via the open contribution box at each meeting.

Our Launch event is to be on Wednesday 20th January 2010, we are delighted to have Mike Taulty visiting to cover Silverlight and James O’Neill to cover Hyper-V.  We are really looking forward to this great event and hope to see lots there to help us celebrate our launch!

Andrew, Jon, Damien and Ben.

DDD8 – 30th January 2010 – Call For Speakers Open

December 11, 2009 03:18 by Andrew Westgarth

Yes folks, the date has been announced so put it in your calendar!!  The eighth Developer Day Event at Microsoft’s UK Campus in Reading has been announced for Saturday 30th January 2010!  Call for speakers has now been open so if you’ve always thought of submitting a session – get to it!!!   It’s a really rewarding experience and a great way of getting experience.

I’d better get writing my abstract(s) for submission!  The link to submit yours is - http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/ddd8/

Black Marble and Microsoft – Free Visual Studio/ALM Event in London 17th Dec 09

December 8, 2009 05:46 by Andrew Westgarth

Black Marble and Microsoft have announced details of a FREE event covering Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Application Lifecycle Management in London on Thursday 17th December 2009.  Full Details are below:

Microsoft and Black Marble present Visual Studio 2010 and Managing the Application Lifecycle.

Click here to register for this event

Date - 17-Dec-2009

Session - All Day

Time - Registration from 9:30am, Event Starts at 10:00am. Lunch at 12:30pm. Event ends at 4:30pm.

Location - Royal College of Physicians, 11 St Andrews Place, London NW1 4LE

Type - Seminar

Welcome to the Microsoft/Black Marble exploration of developer tools and application lifecycle management, now taking place in London for your convenience.

Visual Studio 2010 is being designed inside and out to give developers and development teams every advantage in getting the next ground-breaking application to market – quickly. The upshot is that your business gets to reap the rewards of tomorrow's efficiency today.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010 will deliver new capabilities that embrace the needs of the users in the application lifecycle – from architects to developers, from project managers to testers.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is the coordination of all aspects of software engineering - including the formulation and communication of business and technical requirements, code design and architecture, project tracking, change management, coding, testing, debugging, and release management - by using tools that facilitate and track collaboration among and within work teams.

Application development is one of the most strategic activities in IT. Whether the business goal is improving customer satisfaction, streamlining operations, or extending into a new market, the applications that underpin business initiatives and provide differentiation are critical to success. Application development teams that predictably deliver business-critical applications can help a company maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace and drive top-line growth.

Come along and find out how Microsoft's Developer Tools are changing as well as how Team Foundation Server, Best Practice and Testing can be implemented to help your business manage its application lifecycle successfully.



MCTS

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The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.

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