SA Developer .NET

Site downtime, upgrades and viruses

CraigN — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:59:13 GMT

For those of you that have had issues trying to get to the SA Developer site over the last few weeks the good news is that its all back up and working again.

At the beginning of March we experienced some downtime due to a faulty server power supply. This was brought to our hosting company’s attention and after some troubleshooting and server hard reboots it appears to be stable now.

During March the site also underwent a major software upgrade from a rather out-dated Community Server 2.1 installation to the latest Community Server 2008 release. This upgrade has been a long time in the making and most users I’ve chatted to welcome the new functionality and new updated theme. If you are good at Community Server theme design please get in touch as we are looking for volunteers to assist with developing a unique and fresh site theme.

Today reports started coming in of the site theme looking squished up in Safari and Google Chrome. A quick check revealed an extraneous JavaScript link being inserted into the HTML page. After much hunting and suspecting that Community Server had been compromised, it was tracked down to what looks like two Trojan injections that had slipped past the Trend Micro ServerProtect antivirus that was installed. To mitigate the risk the IIS service was shutdown while the infection was dealt with. Avast Antivirus Server Edition was installed and quickly fixed the infections which had replaced part of the Windows TCP/IP and was injecting the erroneous script tag into the served content as you can see below.

Lets hope that this is the last of the site downtime for a good while now.

What’'s Happening in February

CraigN — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:04:00 GMT

Just a quick heads up on events coming up around the country this month. Remember that all events are free to attend unless otherwise stated.

KwaZulu-Natal:

12th - 18h00 – 20h00 - Gail Shaw - The dirty dozen... 12 Ways to write badly performing T-SQL (RSVP)

Gauteng:

11th - 18h00 – 20h00 – Juval Löwy - Introducing the .NET Service Bus (register)
17th – 18h30 – 20h30 – Inus du Preez - 6 reasons why SQL Server 2008 must run on Windows Server 2008 (RSVP)

Western Cape:

11th - 18h30 – 19h30 – Nicholas Goossens - Entity Framework: A scenic tour (RSVP)

March is going to be a busy month with DevDays ‘09 happening around the country. Watch this space for when the final dates and registration links are announced.

And the winners are…

CraigN — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:04:23 GMT

In December we announced the MSDN Community DVD competition and I’m pleased to announce that the results are in. And the winners are:

Iwan de Beer takes first place winning an Xbox 360 console, a copy of Gears of War and an extra controller. Runners up are Brett Upton and Riccardo Spagni who both take home a Microsoft Goodie Bag. Microsoft will be in contact with you to send you your prizes.

Congratulations to all three of you and good luck next time to everyone else.

MSDN Community DVD competition

CraigN — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:03:07 GMT

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/).

Scott Hanselman events in Johannesburg and Cape Town

CraigN — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:46:59 GMT

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.

Reminder - Talk on the 7th October / AOP with PostSharp

MaLio — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:47:00 GMT

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#

Calling all developers in Port Elizabeth

CraigN — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:08:23 GMT

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.

Devs4Devs

CraigN — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:22:20 GMT

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.

MVP InteropAbility Workshop

CraigN — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:14:30 GMT

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.

SQL 2008 - Event Specifically for Developers - Dev Chat

AngelaG — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:17:00 GMT

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

February 2008 Newsletter

CraigN — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:16:58 GMT

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:

13 Feb - Gauteng - An Overview of XP Embedded
13 Feb - KwaZulu-Natal - What to expect for 2008
16 Feb - All - CANSA Shavathon 2008
20 Feb - Gauteng - Building Custom LINQ Operators (Part 2)
27 Feb - Gauteng - HEROES happen {here} launch
04 Mar - Western Cape - HEROES happen {here} launch
05 Mar - Gauteng - BizTalk User Group meeting
05 Mar - Port Elizabeth - SQL Server 2008 Jumpstart DevChat
07 Mar - East London - SQL Server 2008 Jumpstart DevChat
10 Mar - Western Cape - SQL Server 2008 Jumpstart DevChat
11 Mar - Free State - SQL Server 2008 Jumpstart DevChat
12 Mar - KwaZulu-Natal - HEROES happen {here} launch
18 Mar - Gauteng - SQL Server 2008 Jumpstart DevChat
19 Mar - KwaZulu-Natal - SQL Server 2008 Jumpstart DevChat

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.

The Microsoft 2008 Launch Wave

AngelaG — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:45:00 GMT

The South African launch event of Windows Server® 2008, Visual Studio® 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2008 is happening in March. Exciting Stuff!!

Facebook/Silverlight Workshop

AngelaG — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:34:00 GMT

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!

January 2008 Newsletter

CraigN — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:17:39 GMT

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:

09 Jan - Gauteng - Building Custom LINQ Operators
15 Jan - Gauteng - Facebook App Camp 2008
17 Jan - Western Cape - Facebook App Camp 2008
27 Feb - Gauteng - Launch party
04 Mar - Western Cape - Launch party
12 Mar - KwaZulu-Natal - Launch party

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.

Facebook App could win you R40 000! Interested?

AngelaG — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:59:00 GMT

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!

Visual Studio 2008 Jumpstart DevChat

AngelaG — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:37:00 GMT

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!

ReSharper License giveaways

Fengol — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:50:00 GMT

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.

October 2007 Newsletter

CraigN — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:02:00 GMT

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:

04 Oct - Gauteng - Using Windows PowerShell
06 Oct - Gauteng - Dinner with Angela Gerber
10 Oct - Gauteng - Using an object database in your next .NET application
10 Oct - Western Cape - Cubana social
17 Oct - KwaZulu-Natal - Know your tools
17 Oct - Western Cape - OBA Part 2
20 Oct - Gauteng - Dinner with Willie Roberts
21 Oct - Gauteng - Tech-Ed 2007
22 Oct - Gauteng - Tech-Ed 2007
23 Oct - Gauteng - Tech-Ed 2007
24 Oct - Gauteng - Tech-Ed 2007
25 Oct - Gauteng - Inside track on Windows Live
27 Oct - KwaZulu-Natal - Ster Kinekor social

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.

September 2007 Newsletter

CraigN — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:32:00 GMT

I should start this months newsletter off with a correction and an apology. Firstly I incorrectly listed Peter Willmot as an MVP for Visual C# which was a copy and paste error and he is actually a SQL Server MVP. The apology is for me being slack and not getting an August newsletter out. So this month its a bumper one.

On the community front I'd like to congratulate Willie Roberts (Diago) for being appointed Lead of the KwaZulu-Natal chapter for SA Developer .NET. Willie has been a forum moderator since the beginning of 2007 and has been organising community meetings and socials down in Durban for most of the year.

Each year Microsoft South Africa run the Project Firefly Cup locally. The winners go on to represent South Africa in the Imagine Cup. This year was a little different and a team comprising Davide de Caires, Nicholas Goossens, Claudie Ferreira, Grant Lindner and Tarryn Ferreira was chosen from multiple universities to represent South Africa in the Imagine Cup 2007 in Korea.

The team developed and presented a generic education institution management system built using VB.NET, ASP.NET and SQL Server 2005 and a wealth of technologies such as AJAX, biometrics and short message notifications.

The team manager, Ruari Plint, had the following to say, "Ok so South Africa did not make it through this year, better luck next one, BUT considering all the challenges that the South African Team faced leading up it was well noted that they are indeed fantastic ambassadors to South Africa and I am very proud of their commitment and contributions to a most fantastic event."

I don't believe anyone can call this time of year dull, there are so many events going on with Tech-Ed 2007 at Sun City which is already sold out and many more regional events on the go. Take a look at what's currently scheduled:

01 Sep 2007 - Gauteng - Spring Day social
05 Sep 2007 - Western Cape - Social
06 Sep 2007 - Gauteng - TechReel
08 Sep 2007 - Gauteng - Building Data Interfaces for .NET
08 Sep 2007 - KwaZulu-Natal - .NET Framework workshop - What it is
12 Sep 2007 - Gauteng - Type Metadata & Internet Addiction
13 Sep 2007 - Bloemfontein - DevChat
13 Sep 2007 - KwaZulu-Natal - TechReel - The Microsoft website
18 Sep 2007 - East London - DevChat
19 Sep 2007 - Port Elizabeth - DevChat
19 Sep 2007 - Western Cape - Continuous Integration
22 Sep 2007 - KwaZulu-Natal - Ster Kinekor social - Ratatouille
27 Sep 2007 - KwaZulu-Natal - C#, VB.NET and ASP.NET - The Showdown!
21 Oct 2007 - Gauteng - Tech-Ed 2007
22 Oct 2007 - Gauteng - Tech-Ed 2007
23 Oct 2007 - Gauteng - Tech-Ed 2007
24 Oct 2007 - Gauteng - Tech-Ed 2007
25 Oct 2007 - Gauteng - Inside Track on Windows Live

Developers located around the country don't often get to experience the major Microsoft events like DevDays and Tech-Ed, but this year its going to be different. Microsoft will be touring the country every quarter and touching base with developers around the country. The content will be 80% technical and target developers. You can read more about the schedule on Eben de Wit's blog here. Book your seat early to avoid disappointment!

Those that are unable to attend Tech-Ed this year and are going to be in Johannesburg in October are in for a treat. Angus Logan, Senior Product Manager for Windows Live, will share an Inside Track on Windows Live with the communities. Be sure to book your seat early as I'm sure its going to be an enlightening evening.

And with that, let me wish you a fabulous Spring Day tomorrow as our bodies start to thaw from the cold.

New SA Developer .NET Lead - Willie Roberts

Fengol — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:36:00 GMT

Please will you join me in welcoming Willie Roberts (Diago) as a Lead of the KwaZulu-Natal chapter. Willie has been a forum moderator since the beginning of 2007 and has been organising community meetings and socials down in Durban for most of the year. With a new lead in the region be sure to check out the KwaZulu-Natal events forum for all the meetings, socials and events happening down by the coast.

Being a lead is more than just being someone to hand out prizes and free give-aways; it requires a character who can organise and co-ordinate venues, speakers, catering, sponsorship and notifying members, all while continuing their daily job and family life. There is noremuneration for being a lead of SA Developer .NET and Willie Roberts has persistently shown he cares and is passionate about driving the community around him.

Willie Roberts continues the legacy of some excellent leads we've had in Durban.

Imagine Cup Team Coaching

Fengol — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:18:00 GMT

UPDATE: This event has been cancelled.

Come and support the Project Firefly team prepare for the Imagine Cup competition in Korea by sitting in on their dry-run presentation on Monday, 30th July 19:00 - 20:00 at the Microsoft offices in Bryanston, Johannesburg. Microsoft is asking the community to help give the varsity students the exposure and feedback.

"The SA Firefly winning team is preparing for the Imagine Cup finals in Korea.

We want to win! To win, we want to give them enough exposure and feedback on their presentation skills.

Their presentation is about 15 minutes.

The DPE Team at Microsoft will review their presentation. However, we felt the community will also be able to provide valuable feedback and pointers to them.

The meeting should not be any longer than an hour. We value your input.

NOTE: Anyone from the community that you guys feel will be able to contribute, is welcome to attend"

Find more information on Gauteng events forum

July 2007 Newsletter

CraigN — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 06:39:00 GMT

Its hard to believe that half of 2007 has gone by already, it seems like it was summer just a few weeks ago and now the polar bears are knocking on our front doors as its too cold outside.

Microsoft has appointed 4 more MVPs for South Africa, bringing the total up to 14. Congratulations to Ernst Kuschke who has been re-nominated as Visual C# MVP and the new MVPs:

Mario Lionello (Visual Developer - Visual C#)
Arno Nel (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)
Ayal Rosenberg (Visual Studio - Solutions Architect)
Peter Willmot (Visual Developer - Visual C#).

Last month's REMIX '07 event in Johannesburg was by all accounts a resounding success. The event attracted both web designers and developers and it was a pleasure to see more women in attendance. Microsoft Silverlight was the headline of the show and attendees witnessed how the new Microsoft Expression Studio and Microsoft Visual Studio products enable designers and developers to work together effectively.

The KwaZulu-Natal chapter is looking for a suitable venue for Wednesday night talks in the Musgrave area. If anyone has a suitable venue with a projector please send Diago a private message.

Johannesburg members should look forward to Andre's talk on Silverlight as its a technology that you really should start exploring as I believe the new technology is set to revolutionise web development and increase the user experience expectations of our customers.

Its time for some fun social activities again so we're running a go-karting social at the end of the month. Its on a Sunday and members are encouraged to bring family and friends to come and spend some quality time together with the community. If the weather is suitable we will also have a braai outside.

Next month we've got Armand presenting Ruby on Rails so in preparation my TechReel session will try and introduce members to the Ruby language.

A summary of upcoming events include:

07 July - KwaZulu-Natal - Social
11 July - Gauteng - Silverlight - Using .NET in the client-side browser
18 July - Western Cape - Social
19 July - Gauteng - TechReel
19 July - KwaZulu-Natal - TechReel
21 July - KwaZulu-Natal - Social
28 July - Western Cape - Developing SharePoint Solutions and Office Business Applications (OBA) using .NET
29 July - Gauteng - Social - Go-karting
09 August - Gauteng - TechReel - The Ruby language
15 August - Gauteng - An introduction to Rails - Web development doesn't need to hurt :)

That's all for this month's newsletter folks. If anyone has any feedback on this newsletter or would like to suggest content for future editions, please use the Site Feedback forum on the site.

Want to join the Microsoft community speaker panel?

Fengol — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 06:35:00 GMT

Want to present topics at large Microsoft events? Eben De Wit, Microsoft Developer Advisor, has put together a guide on joining the Microsoft community speaker panel which you can download from the SA Developer .NET downloads section.

Growing the Speaker Panel 1.2 is a collaboration document from Microsoft and community influencers to establish a transparent and helpful guide for community members who want to grow as a speaker and present at Microsoft events like Dev Days and TechEd. It includes what Microsoft is looking for in a speaker and steps to becoming a presenter for Microsoft.

For more information about becoming a speaker for Microsoft, the speaker panel or any other related queries please email Eben De Wit edewit@microsoft.com

Be the first to know about Tech-Ed 2007

AngelaG — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:53:00 GMT

Be the first to know about Tech-Ed 2007.. Subscribe here:

https://msevents.microsoft.co.za/Teched2007/

Dates: Sunday, 21 October – Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Venue: Sun City

June 2007 Newsletter

CraigN — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 01:04:47 GMT

While Dev Days 2007 must still happen in the Western Cape at the time of this writing, there has been a good response received from SA Developer .NET members in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng regarding what is probably the largest, free, developer-focused event by Microsoft. Of particular interest this year were the AJAX talks and a lengthy look into the next version of Visual Studio, code-named Orcas. The keynote was particularly long this year as it covered a wide variety of new an interesting technologies coming from Microsoft and they all received a solid sounding applause from the audience.

Microsoft was also kind enough to actively promote SA Developer .NET; asking the leaders of the community to show themselves during the keynote and allowing us to add a pamphlet about our updated web-site and activities to the packs the attendees received when they registered. In all we think it was a worthwhile event to attend this year and we hope you enjoyed it too.

However if you missed Dev Days this year then you will be excited to hear that Microsoft is bringing the renowned MIX event that was held in Las Vegas in May this year to Johannesburg. The event is called REMIX '07 and brings the latest and greatest news from MIX '07 to local web designers, developers and decision-makers. The event will feature a packed day with two tracks focusing on the developers and designers respectively.

A summary of upcoming events include:

05 June - Western Cape - Developer Days 2007
05 June - Western Cape - Developer Days 2007 After Party
13 June - Gauteng - .NET data binding interfaces
14 June - Gauteng - Pirates of Silicon Valley
21 June - Gauteng - TechReel
26 June - Gauteng - REMIX '07
29 June - Gauteng - Social

Do you battle to download and keep up-to-date with all the latest development resources coming out of Microsoft and MSDN? Now you can get a copy of the bi-monthly CD from MSDN Community Distribution agents around the country. Simply look at the agent list and get in contact with one of them and they will be more than happy to give you a copy of the CDs. Currently agents have the February 2007 and April 2007 CDs which include the Visual Studio and SQL Server Express service packs, Microsoft Robotics Studio, ASP.NET AJAX 1.0, XNA Game Studio Express, Windows PowerShell and loads of extra Webcasts and documentation. Agents should have the June 2007 disc available very soon.

That's all for this month's newsletter folks. If anyone has any feedback on this newsletter or would like to suggest content for future editions, please use the Site Feedback forum on the site.