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SA Developer is running a competition along with this quarter’s MSDN Community Distribution DVD. All you have to do is to grab a free copy of the DVD (containing lots of PDC videos) and complete the quiz (http://sadeveloper.net/MSDNCommunityQuiz200812/). The random draw will take place in the first week of February 2009, and the winners notified the same week. Competition entries close on the 31st of January 2009. Prizes include: - An Xbox 360 console, a copy of Gears of War and an extra controller
- Microsoft Goodie Bag
- Microsoft Goodie Bag
You can grab a free copy of the MSDN Community Distribution DVD from the drop points listed on Eben’s blog (http://dotnet.org.za/eben/).
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Scott Hanselman of Hanselminutes fame will be visiting South Africa in December and the following two events are scheduled: - 8th December 2008 – Johannesburg (RSVP here)
- 17th December 2008 – Cape Town
Scott will be talking about ASP.NET MVC.
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When: 7th October 2008 18:30 - 20:30
Venue: Microsoft Auditorium, Bryanston (directions)
Presenter: Simon Stewart
Originally from PE, Simon Stewart is the chief architect and founder of Broken Keyboards Software in Johannesburg which focuses on custom solutions, training and general consulting.
Broken Keyboards Software has expertise in ORM components including inhouse-designed components, LLBLGen, nHibernate and strongly believe that these should be the starting point for any new development.
Other areas that Broken Keyboards Software has indepth technical knowledge include: .NET, SVG, db4o, Win32 GUI components, usability analysis, plugin frameworks, goal-directed design.
Broken Keyboards Software is a co-founder of SADeveloper, MCP and has is a former C# MVP (2003-2005).
Topic: Aspect Oriented Programming with PostSharp
RSVP: Please RSVP by replying to the post here http://sadeveloper.net/forums/thread/14761.aspx .
Overview:
Aspect Oriented Programming with PostSharp and .NET
AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming) opens the door to several very interesting architecture opportunities and using AOP frameworks like PostSharp, this functionality is easily accessible.
During the 45 minutes, you will be introduced to AOP and be shown several ideas that leverage off the power of AOP.
After this talk you will have a good overview of AOP and enough knowledge to start using it in proof of concept designs.
Technologies covered: PostSharp AOP, C#
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Calling all developers in Port Elizabeth and surrounds. You’ve asked for it in the past and community member Dave Coates has taken up the challenge to get the P.E. development community going. SA Developer .NET currently does not have a formal chapter in Port Elizabeth but if there is sufficient interest this could be the start of an Eastern Cape chapter. So spread the word and get involved - I’m sure Dave will welcome help from whoever is keen to assist him in getting this initiative going. To start the ball rolling the first event has been scheduled for Saturday the 6th of September 2008 and will be held at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU). The first talk for the day will be on Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) with PostSharp and .NET followed by a talk on Firefox addon development using XUL. You can see more details for the event as well as RSVP for it by clicking here.
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Join Microsoft for a jam-packed morning of developer technical sessions at the Microsoft Offices in Bryanston, Johannesburg. We’ve invited developer presenters to come present on their favourite topics. It’s going to be to the point, concise, each presentation limited to 20 minutes. It will be a great learning experience for all of us! And a lot of fun! For more information see Eben's blog post here and register over here.
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Ever wondered about the interopability of the Microsoft development products with other platforms like Java and PHP? Come join Microsoft, the community leads, MVPs and your fellow developers for a day workshop in Johannesburg discussing how the objective of being interoperable has now become a reality. The Microsoft MVPs from South-Africa invite you to come and discuss the world of interoperability in the development environment, exploring how we can integrate and interoperate with other technologies. The event will allow you to explore new ideas and solutions, collaborating with Microsoft Consultants, Community Leads and Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) from South-Africa who will be giving an independent and vendor agnostic view. The objective is to become INTEROPaware and INTEROPable, proving that Interoperability is no longer a technology, but a mind set problem … creating one happy technology family. The workshop is free to attend and is taking place on the 10th of June 2008 at Microsoft's office in Johannesburg. Click here to book your seat early as space is limited. 
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The focus will be on new and enhanced developer features in SQL Server
2008. The workshop will be co-presented by Peter Willmot and Eben de
Wit. All welcome to attend. Please spread the word amongst your co-workers.
Full registration and event details on
http://dotnet.org.za/eben/archive/2008/02/06/sql-server-2008-jumpstart-devchat.aspx
* Port Elizabeth - 5 March 2008
* East London - 7 March 2008
* Cape Town - 10 March 2008
* Bloemfontein - 11 March 2008
* Johannesburg - 18 March 2008
* Durban - 19 March 2008
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 Its launch time! Yes February 27 marks the start of the HEROES happen {here} launch activities around the country and the world. So what is being launched, well the 2008 wave of Microsoft development and server products namely Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008. Register on the local site but make sure you look at the global launch site as it features a wealth of extra content including some test-drive virtual labs that allow you to get stuck right in.
In case you can't make it to one of the local launch events we are planning on running some community launches starting in March. If you are keen to get involved, please get in touch with the Leads. I'd like to appeal to the entire community, family and friends to come out in support of the CANSA Shavathon this year. To make it a little more interesting we are running a lucky draw competition so we ask you to either blog a photograph of yourself or send us a photograph of your head shaven or coloured. The winner, or winners if enough enter, will be drawn on the 22nd of February. You can read more about it here. Events on the calendar from now going forward include: For those of you who work with or are interested in BizTalk you might be interested in the new South African BizTalk User Group which has recently been started. According to Ryan Crawcour, the founder, the web site is currently under construction but they are going to be having their 2nd Johannesburg meeting in March. I'd like to appeal to the community for feedback on the kinds of events that they'd like to see. Do you want more talks, socials or TechReel sessions? How about some in-person hotlabs over the weekend? If you have a moment, share your thoughts on the forum over here. We'd really like to know what you would like and when it would best suit you as we can only guess so much. That's all for this month folks, its going to be a bumper month and we look forward to seeing you. Hopefully I'll manage to get next month's newsletter out closer to the beginning of the month. If you have any suggestions, comments or feedback of any kind, please drop a note in the Site Feedback forum.
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Facebook/Silverlight Workshop
Microsoft and Mentez (www.mentez.com) will be holding two evening workshops on Facebook/Silverlight development.
We have the pleasure of inviting all developers interested in Facebook applications and using Silverlight to enhance these applications even further. The workshop will present best practices, and the infrastructure and technology required to develop the best Facebook/Silverlight applications.
Speakers for the night include Juan Franco, CEO of Mentez coming from Miami; Jason Hoffman, CTO of Joyent, a company based in San Francisco that host more than 4,000 Facebook applications; Eben De Wit from Microsoft South Africa; Armand du Plessis from Agilisto South Africa, and Joey da Silva, an Online Business & Web Technology 'Fundi'. Tyler Reed from Younique South Africa will be leading a Q&A session with a panel of experts at the end of the event.
Johannesburg
- 15 January 2008, 18:00-22:00
- Microsoft Offices in Bryanston
Cape Town
- 17 January 2008, 18:00-22:00
- Microsoft Offices in Mowbray
To register, follow the respective links above. Click on "Request Invitation" in the Facebook event information to request you seat.
Attendance is free.
Seats are limited, so book now!
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Wow, its 2008 already. Happy New Year! What happened to 2007? It seems to have flown past at a blazing fast rate. Hopefully 2008 doesn't just swoosh past like 2007 otherwise we won't get anything done. The community has been rather quiet over the last month or so, I blame the end of year deadline rush and the crazy festive season. It is with sadness that I have to announce that Andre Odendaal (aka Fengol/Mailowl) has stepped down as lead of the Gauteng chapter of SA Developer .NET. We would like to thank him for his years of commitment and dedication to the site and the community and wish him every success in his future endeavours. Malcolm Wilkinson (djbiggles) will be returning from his extended leave of absence to take over his duties. At the end of February Microsoft will be launching Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 and apparently South Africa will be launching before the USA for the first time ever. Yes, the Johannesburg launch is scheduled for the 27th of Feb, the same date as the US launch in Los Angeles. However due to the nature of time-zones our launch party will be before the US. A couple of users have now asked me if there is a feed for the forums posts. Well I searched the site and eventually found that there actually is, although its not visible anywhere on the site as yet. So add this feed if you'd like to add a feed to your feed reader so you can see all new posts that are made. The events on the calendar so far include: If you are in the Johannesburg area make sure you come to Andre van Rensburg's talk this Wednesday where he will explore one aspect of LINQ (Language Integrated Query) extensibility to alter the language to better suit a specific domain. His most recent talk was a huge success and I predict this one will be one you must not miss. Last year the first Facebook Developers Garage was held and proved highly successful. If you are interested in developing applications for the social networking market or possibly have an idea for an application, why not attend the Facebook App Camp 2008 in Joburg or Cape Town where you can learn and share ideas. Till next month, happy coding.
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Facebook has become the most frequently visited web site in South Africa. And as you may already know, developers can build their own Facebook applications for the platform.
Mentez has launched a competition in South Africa in search of the best Facebook application. There are five Mentez-sponsored prizes, the winning prize being R40 000.
Microsoft has now joined in the competition with the intention of showing the value of using Silverlight to improve the end-user experience of Facebook applications even further. Microsoft is sponsoring an XBox 360 Games Console and games bundle for the best Facebook application using Silverlight, over and above the Mentez prizes.
So, what are you waiting for? Registrations close 22 December 2007.
Go register at www.mentez.com and tell everyone you know who may be interested in winning R40 000!
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Visual Studio 2008 Jumpstart DevChat
How many days before Christmas? Just enough to do another round of DevChats 
 This time round we're doing the event in every major city in South Africa. That is Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, East London, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein. I know you have deadlines to meet before Christmas. Yet, don't miss out on this DevChat. We will be introducing you to a lot of the fabulous features in Visual Studio 2008 - releasing in the next few months.
Smaller cities
Bloemfontein - 12 Nov 07
East London - 14 Nov 07
Port Elizabeth - 16 Nov 07
Larger cities
Johannesburg - 19 Nov 07
Durban - 20 Nov 07
Cape Town - 22 Nov 07
Space is limited! Book your seat today!
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JetBrains has kindly approached SA Developer .NET with an offer to give away free ReSharper Personal Licenses as prizes at our local meetings. ReSharper is a Visual Studio plugin which "brings unrivalled code analysis, a superior unit testing solution with multiple unit test sessions, Go to Symbol navigation, a handy To-do Explorer, and many other features". To win yourself a Personal License you'll have to attend your local community meeting so watch the Event forums for upcoming events.
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Based on feedback from the community it seems that the monthly newsletter has not been reaching all members due to a possible bug in Community Server's mass e-mail functionality. This is rather sad so I've cooked up a new scheme this month and subscribed all members to receive e-mails when a new post is made on the Announcements blog on the site. This should hopefully work. If you however don't wish to receive announcements like this newsletter via e-mail you can unsubscribe from it here. If you prefer you can subscribe to the RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0 feeds for the announcements blog.  It seems that the developers in Bloemfontein, East London and Port Elizabeth really enjoyed the DevChat sessions held in September. The sessions included Silverlight, the new developer features in IIS7 and the Threat Analysis and Modeling Tool from Microsoft.
Eben de Wit, Developer Advisor at Microsoft South Africa, had the following to say regarding the events, "Overall, I'm very satisfied with the outcome. We'll be back. We've started the planning phase for the next DevChat in November. It'll most likely focus on the new features in Visual Studio 2008". Generally October is a quiet month as a result of Tech-Ed, but this month sure looks busy. Here is what we have on the cards so far:  Unfortunately the MSDN Community Distribution CDs have been a little hard to get hold of lately. It seems that they are really popular and that the gremlins in the postal service were out to get us. Don't despair, together with Microsoft South Africa we have managed to get hold of the missing CDs and had them duplicated professionally. So get hold of your agent for a free copy of this exciting content.
If you are going to be at Tech-Ed this year take a moment and come have a chat in the community lounge.
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