Toronto Code Camp wrap-up

So, yeah…in my busy haste to finish 1,001 tasks last week, prep a brand new HTML5 session for the Toronto Code Camp, speak at the South Houston .NET Users Group, and join Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell for their Houston .NET Rocks! Road Trip stop, I kinda sorta ran out of time to actually mention that I was going to Toronto this weekend to speak. So, to kill two birds with one blog post, this is both your “heads-up” post that I’m speaking at the Toronto Code Camp 2010 and the wrap-up!

I presented two sessions this weekend, and I was pleased that they were two of the most popular sessions at the entire event. It always amazes me that people are willing to stand for 75 minutes to watch a session when a room is full. You guys are hardcore and get bonus points in my book. Thanks to everyone that attended the sessions, though! I hope you took away at least one useful bit of info.

My sessions at this event were:

• Maximizing Ajax Performance – Not new, but always useful for people to see how Ajax really works and what you can do as an ASP.NET developer to get the most out of Ajax. Unfortunately, I was a bit rusty delivering this session in Toronto because I was prepping the next session…
• The Rich Standard: Getting Familiar with HTML5 – Brand new for Toronto Code Camp, I’ll be doing this session a lot this summer and fall. This is your primer to HTML5 and a must see if you A) care about standards, or B) are a web developer.

Slides for both sessions are available below. The slide notes contain a lot of links to additional resources, so be sure to check them out if you’re trying to dive deep on these topics (especially HTML5). I’ll post code soon, but it needs some tidying before it’s “download ready.”

Overall, it was a great event and more than 600 developers ventured-out for the day of learning. Other than a more than frustrating experience with Canadian immigration cops, I had a great time and would encourage anyone to attend this event in the future!

The Rich Standard: Getting Familiar with HTML5
[Slides (PPTX)]

Maximizing Ajax Performance
[Slides (PPTX)]

[Picture courtesy of Joey DeVilla’s Code Camp Flickr set]

Join me at South Florida Code Camp tomorrow

My how time flies- I almost forgot to mention my trip to the South Florida Code Camp tomorrow! This will be my 3rd consecutive trip to Southern Florida for this event, and every year it is a great time. Hundreds of .NET developers show-up early on a Saturday morning for a full day of geek learning. This year there are 12(!) parallel tracks, covering everything from "Intro to .NET" to SharePoint to Agile development topics.

I'll be doing two sessions this year, both in the ASP.NET MVC/Frameworks track:

• 8:30 AM - Being Productive with the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC
• 1:20 PM - ASP.NET Fundamentals: ViewState Tips & Tricks

Neither session is "brand new," which should mean they'll run on time and be more refined than sessions fresh off the press. Both sessions have been very popular at previous conferences, too, so if you're attending SFCC, come early to get a good seat.

I'll be giving away Telerik swag, of course, with at least 1 Telerik Premium Collection at each session. I'm not beyond bribing you to attend. Everything starts tomorrow, Saturday, February 27th at 8:00 AM at DeVry University in Miramar. Telerik is a Gold Sponsor of the event, too, look for more Telerik swag to show-up at the end-of-day raffles and attendee bags.

See you in Florida in 24 hours!

Join me Saturday for the Austin Code Camp

Do you live in Texas? Then make plans to travel to Austin this Saturday, May 30th for the 2009 Austin Code Camp. I'll be making the trek over from Houston to Austin early Saturday morning to partake in the fun, and I'll be presenting two sessions:

• ASP.NET MVC: Blue Pill or Red Pill? (9:00 AM) A fun session that provides a good overview of ASP.NET MVC and gives you the information you need to make the decision between WebForms, MVC, or a blend of both.
• Building Business Applications with Silverlight 3 (2:45 PM) A new session that highlights the new features in Silverlight 3 Beta 1 that makes it easy(er) for developers to build business applications with Silverlight.

The event gets started at 8:30 AM and runs 'til about 5:00 PM, so it's a full day of .NET fun in the Texas capital. Besides yours truly, there will be many familiar .NET speakers doing sessions throughout the day, including Jeffery Pallermo, Eric Hexter, and John Teague, covering topics ranging from MVC to jQuery to C# 4.0. The Code Camp is free, so register now, grab some coffee, and we'll see you early Saturday morning! P.S. If I spot anyone sporting their favorite Telerik t-shirt at the event, there just may be some prizes flowing their direction. So do your laundry and sport Telerik for a chance at some good prizes!

Join Telerik at the South Florida Code Camp tomorrow

Hailing all .NET developers and Telerik customers in Florida: your next chance to hang out with the .NET community and meet with Telerik has arrived! Tomorrow, Saturday, February 7th is the 2009 South Florida Code Camp. It's a free event- you can still register online- and it promises to be a great event for .NET learning. Things will get kicked-off at 7:30 AM (yay...) and run through 5:45 PM. Throughout the day there will be 12 simultaneous tracks running, covering everything from web development to business intelligence. There are already nearly 800 people registered, and if last year is any indication, I fully expect most of them to show-up and create a great event. Telerik is again a Gold Sponsor of the event and we're also sponsoring the "After Party," too. I'll be flying down this evening and delivering two sessions during tomorrow's packed agenda: one on ASP.NET MVC and one on ViewState Tips & Tricks. I'll also be hanging out at Telerik's "micro booth" throughout the day, so be sure to stop by and say 'hi.' In fact, if you ask, I'll even give you a sneak peak of Telerik's mysterious brand new product that will be launching with Q1! Go to be early and I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning at DeVry!

Future of Web Development Slides and Code

Any .NET event that gives speakers "Coders Cabernet" has to be good, right? That was certainly the case for the 2008 South Florida .NET Code Camp, an outstanding .NET community event I had the privilege of speaking at today. With over 600 people in attendance, the event was an energetic gathering of .NET developers from around the state of Florida.

For my part, I delivered a fun presentation on "ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight, and the Future of Web Development" to a standing room only crowd. Before I go any further, I want to extend a big thank you to those of you that came to today's presentation (especially those that had to sit on the floor). For everyone else, I'm making all of the slides and the demo code from the presentation available online. You can download your own copy of my materials (sans my witty presentation humor) at the bottom of this post. It's a great set of slides and code if you're interested in learning more about ASP.NET AJAX, basic Silverlight, or future web browser versions.

If I learned anything this weekend, it's that Florida has one incredibly active .NET community. I can't believe how many great .NET speakers are here in Florida and how many events like the SF Code Camp occur around the state. I had a great time speaking here and I look forward to coming back in the future! Now on to Mix, DevConnections, TechEd, and beyond...

Download slides
Download code

Join me at South Florida .NET Code Camp this Saturday

Okay, so you missed the fun Silverlight presentation in Second Life and you're wondering what your next opportunity is to hear some great .NET presentations. I've got your answer: the 2008 South Florida .NET Code Camp. Lasting all day on Saturday, February 2nd at DeVry University, the Code Camp is featuring an agenda full of great speakers and topics. There will be 12 different tracks running all day with about 6 presentations delivered in each track (that's over 70 .NET presentations in one day for those too tired to do the math)! I will be joining the speaking crew to deliver an afternoon talk in the Web Development track titled "ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight, and the Future of Web Development." It will be a fun presentation and I'll be sure to post the slides here after the event.

And as if that wasn't enough to make you register right now, Telerik is sponsoring the event After Party! What better way to help retain all that .NET learning than to relax with your fellow geeks at a Telerik sponsored party. The party details are being distributed to Code Camp attendees at the event, but if can't make the event for some reason and want to meet at the party, let me know and I'll try to help you out.

So there you have it: your Saturday plans (if you're in South Florida, of course). See you there.