Main Presentation

Be sure to join us on April 13, 2010 for the John and Jeremy show. John Oswalt and Jeremy Sharp will be taking us on a awesome ride through some of the most talked about content that was presented recently at the Microsoft Mix conference in Las Vegas, NV.

Mark your calendars and get ready for the Microsoft Mix Download!

Title: The Microsoft Mix Download

Come hear a download of the latest Microsoft technology news that was announced at the Microsoft Mix 2010 Conference. Topics will include the latest updates on ASP.NET MVC 2, Open Data Protocol (OData), Visual Studio 2010, ASP.NET 4, Silverlight 4, and the new Windows Phone 7 Development.

Presenters:

John Oswalt is a Lead Developer/Analyst for Tyson Foods, Inc. based in Springdale, AR and a Microsoft Certified Professional in ASP.NET. He is currently the President of the Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group (@nwadnug). He has over 10 years experience in developing websites and applications. His passions for programming languages include ASP.NET, C#, HTML, CSS, VB.NET, SQL, JavaScript, and many others. He is the owner of a few different types of blogs on the internet (Technology – letsblogabout.net) and (Sports – www.callthehogs.com). You can also follow him on Twitter (@joswalt).

Jeremy Sharp is a graduate of the University of Arkansas in computer science, Jeremy has devoted his entire career to the development of Intranet, Internet and Extranet enterprise business applications for both large and small corporations. Over the last ten years he has worked in a variety of industries, including consumer products, health care, education and transportation. Jeremy's client list comprises many well-known local and national names, including Tyson Foods, Arkansas Occupational Health Care, North West Technical Institute and J.B. Hunt.

When:

5:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM – Main Presentation
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM – Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where:
The Jones Center
922 East Emma Avenue
Springdale, AR 72764

Room: Kansas Room (226)

If you see this post it means that BlogEngine.NET 1.6.0 is running and the hard part of creating your own blog is done. There is only a few things left to do.

Write Permissions

To be able to log in to the blog and writing posts, you need to enable write permissions on the App_Data folder. If you’re blog is hosted at a hosting provider, you can either log into your account’s admin page or call the support. You need write permissions on the App_Data folder because all posts, comments, and blog attachments are saved as XML files and placed in the App_Data folder. 

If you wish to use a database to to store your blog data, we still encourage you to enable this write access for an images you may wish to store for your blog posts.  If you are interested in using Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, VistaDB, or other databases, please see the BlogEngine wiki to get started.

Security

When you've got write permissions to the App_Data folder, you need to change the username and password. Find the sign-in link located either at the bottom or top of the page depending on your current theme and click it. Now enter "admin" in both the username and password fields and click the button. You will now see an admin menu appear. It has a link to the "Users" admin page. From there you can change the username and password.  Passwords are hashed by default so if you lose your password, please see the BlogEngine wiki for information on recovery.

Configuration and Profile

Now that you have your blog secured, take a look through the settings and give your new blog a title.  BlogEngine.NET 1.4 is set up to take full advantage of of many semantic formats and technologies such as FOAF, SIOC and APML. It means that the content stored in your BlogEngine.NET installation will be fully portable and auto-discoverable.  Be sure to fill in your author profile to take better advantage of this.

Themes and Widgets

One last thing to consider is customizing the look of your blog.  We have a few themes available right out of the box including two fully setup to use our new widget framework.  The widget framework allows drop and drag placement on your side bar as well as editing and configuration right in the widget while you are logged in.  Be sure to check out our home page for more theme choices and downloadable widgets to add to your blog.

On the web

You can find BlogEngine.NET on the official website. Here you'll find tutorials, documentation, tips and tricks and much more. The ongoing development of BlogEngine.NET can be followed at CodePlex where the daily builds will be published for anyone to download.

Good luck and happy writing.

The BlogEngine.NET team

Come join the NWA .NET User Group on April 7th at 5:30 PM and learn the benefits of Windows Live and Mesh Frameworks!

Lightning Presentation

Title: Continuing Education in Information Technology

Description: In the IT field, you have to keep learning. Whether you keep learning because you want to, or because you have to (if you don’t, someone else will), many options exist for IT professionals to expand the breadth and depth of their skill sets. This presentation will explore several different options for continuing education in the IT field, including self-learning, traditional training, conferences, and a couple of interesting part-time graduate school programs.

Presenter: Jeff Mullins is a faculty member and Associate Director of the Master of Information Systems program for the Information Systems department in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. Prior to his move into academics, Jeff spent more than 10 years playing various roles in the IT department at Tyson Foods, including .NET and Java application development, business analysis, and project management. Jeff also recently founded Windsong Solutions, a small IT consulting, development, and training firm.

Main Presentation

Title: Lap Around the Live Framework and Mesh Services

Description: Learn about the Live Framework, our latest offering for developers programming against our Live Services from any device, platform, runtime, or programming language. See new and future services (such as Mesh Services), protocols, APIs, and tools which enable your web, service, or client applications to access, store, and synchronize user data with Live Services, obtain audience analytics data, and more

Presenter: Chris Koenig is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft, based in Dallas, TX. Prior to joining Microsoft, Chris worked as a Senior Architect on the Architecture Strategy Team for The Capital Group in San Antonio, and as an Architect, Developer and Development Team Lead for the global solution provider Avanade. As a consultant, Chris worked with a variety of clients from many vertical markets, ISVs and other solution providers on enterprise-class Windows and web-based applications. Today, Chris focuses on building, growing, and enhancing the developer communities in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas. Chris is a devoted husband and father of four awesome children who keep him very busy. In his spare time, Chris serves as Scoutmaster for his oldest son's Troop, and Committee Chair for his youngest sons' Pack. Chris also enjoys traveling, cooking, camping and playing guitar.

You can contact Chris through his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/chkoenig, via email at chris.koenig@microsoft.com, or via Windows Live Messenger at chris@koenigweb.com.

Swag:
JetBrains ReSharper License
Infragistics Resource DVD
Infragistics NetAdvantage
Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation
Application = Code + Markup A Guide to the Microsoft Windows
Presentation Foundation
Microsoft 6 Office Business Application for Office SharePoint Server 2007
Programming Microsoft Office Business Application

When:
5:30 PM - 5:45 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
5:45 PM - 6:00 PM - Lighting Presentation
6:00 PM - 6:10 PM - Intermission – Presenter switch over
6:10 PM – 7:30 PM – Main Presentation
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM – Closing and Prize give-a-ways

Where:
The Jones Center
922 East Emma Avenue
Springdale, AR 72764
Room 130 (Generations Room)

NetMeeting URL: http://snipr.com/nwadnug
Link RSVP URL: http://snipr.com/epmzx

Check out the new ASP.NET MVC Training Kit being provided by Microsoft. The ASP.NET MVC Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, demos, and event materials. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize ASP.NET MVC.

You can download and find more information about the kit by clicking here. 

I found out about a great piece of Mockup software to quickly generate a mockup screen for your applications called Balsamiq Mockups. The software is distributed as an Adobe Air application that you can install locally to your PC.

Mockups For Desktop allows you to work on your UI wherever you are, regardless of your Internet connection. It works on planes, at coffee shops, and wherever you like to do uninterrupted work. Import and Export features ensure seamless integration with all the other versions of Mockups, for when you get back online. Plus you can load and save multiple mockups files, use all keyboard shortcuts and lots more.

Here is an example screen mockup that you can create in the software:

I was able to quickly create a web page template as a demo for a project that I am working on in only a few minutes of work. The Balsamiq Mockup software has many templates to use to create mockups. You can even create your own templates or download more at http://www.mockupstogo.net/.

I have not had any problems with the application so far and would recommend you trying it out on your next project as a quick way to mockup a screen for a presentation to your customers or to be used by your developers to create the real screen.

As Jay Smith stated, Ryan Wells has announced the next meeting of the Northwest Arkansas CocoaHeads group.

CocoaHeads is a group devoted to discussion of Apple Computer's Cocoa Framework for programming on MacOS X. During monthly meetings, members present on their projects and offer tutorials on various programming topics.

To find out more about CocoaHeads visit their site at http://cocoaheads.org/.

The next meeting of the Nwa CocoaHeads will be March 12, 2009.  Ryan has encouraged everyone to to bring their favorite Xcode tips and tricks and come ready to learn.

This meeting will be held at Arsaga's Espresso Cafe (map), Mission & Crossover, Fayetteville, Arkansas,  http://cocoaheads.org/us/FayettevilleArkansas/index.html

You can also so monitor #nwacocoa on twitter.