As Zach Young has mentioned, Dennis J. Bottjer, a Software Solutions Architect for Microsoft Gold Partner SpringPoint Technologies in Tulsa, OK, will be speaking at the next NWADNUG meeting. The NWADNUG group has been going through some changes over the last few months to try and allow for the group to grow and become a better and larger group.

Our group has now secured the Chapel room at the Jones Center in Springdale which will hold 337 people in theatre style seating. The room also has a large video screen and sound system for the presentations.

We have also been able to sign up a catering service for the meetings that will help give some variety to the food at the meetings. I hope all of these new changes and better venue will help drive more people to come to the meetings.

Here is the information for our next meeting:

You can also track us on twitter at http://www.hashtags.org/tag/nwadnug/

Click here to RSVP on CodeZone

Title: Tips for Improving SharePoint Performance

Description: A discussion for SharePoint Developers, Administrators and Solutions Architects focused on improving internet and intranet performance.  Tips will discuss a wide range of topics from adjusting out of the box settings to identifying memory leaks in custom code.  This discussion will benefit anyone currently design a SharePoint implementation!

Presenter: Dennis J. Bottjer is a Software Solutions Architect, for Microsoft Gold Partner SpringPoint Technologies, in Tulsa, OK.  He is a Microsoft ASP/ASP.NET MVP.  He previously worked for one of the largest US based Financial Services Companies on the FORTUNE 100.  He has an undergraduate degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Oklahoma.  Dennis served for two years as the President of the Jacksonville Developers User Group.

SWAG:

• Inside Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 ($49.99)
• Inside Office SharePoint Server ($44.99)
• Professional Team Foundation Server ($39.99)
• Hunting Security Bugs ($49.99)
• JetBrains ReSharper ($199)
• CodeSmith Studio ($99)
• Infragistics NetAdvantage Suite ($999)
• Windows Vista Ultimate ($319.99)

When:

• September 2, 2008
• 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 100

NetMeeting URL: http://snipr.com/3a50w

Click here to RSVP on CodeZone

Add to your calendar:

•  Microsoft Outlook
•  Windows Live Calendar
•  Apple iCal
•  Yahoo! Calendar
•  Google Calendar

MSDN Event (REGISTER)
4 hour MSDN Event where the presenters will cover 3 seperate sessions focusing on Visual Studio, WPF and Vista Security.

Peabody Hotel Little Rock 
3 Statehouse Plaza
Little Rock Arkansas 72201
View Map

Session 1:  Demystifying WPF

Today’s applications need to do more than simply work.  They need to draw in the user, and provide a differentiated experience. This means moving beyond battleship gray forms, boxy UIs, and providing a positive user experience.  Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides powerful capabilities to develop a compelling user interface, the kind that makes an application stand out.  In this session, we’ll examine the core concepts of WPF such as layout panels, data binding, styles and control templates, and we’ll use them to develop an application UI from the ground up.

Session 2:  Ten reasons your applications will be more secure when deployed on Vista 

Reputations are tough to shake – particularly in the software industry. While Microsoft Windows has enjoyed great market share, especially in the desktop OS space, its industry position has made it a target for hackers worldwide. Microsoft leadership recognized the need to develop a security engineering approach that could withstand global Internet scrutiny, and Windows Vista is the first desktop operating system to embody this significant philosophy shift. Vista is built from end to end with security at the very forefront of the project. In this session, you'll learn 10 reasons why your application is more secure when it's deployed on Vista. We'll also cover new capabilities designed to protect memory, minimize privilege and provide resource-oriented access control, plus a plethora of additional security enhancements.

Session 3:  Developing Applications with Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

Service Pack 1 and Visual Studio 2008 introduce a wide variety of new features for targeting Windows, Office and the Web. This includes more controls, a streamlined setup, improved startup performance, fresh graphics features, improved AJAX support, and much more. We’re also introducing the ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services, which are designed to simplify application data access by providing an extensible, conceptual model for data from any source, while enabling this model to closely reflect business requirements. Don’t miss this lively session and learn how to use these powerful new features in your applications
 

Microsoft has released a new version of the AJAX Control Toolkit - Version 3.5.20820.

The 2008-08-20 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit targets the official release of .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1.

AjaxControlToolkit-Framework3.5SP1.zip is the full release package with complete source code to all controls, the test framework, VSI, and more.
AjaxControlToolkit-Framework3.5SP1-NoSource.zip contains only the sample web site and VSI and is for people who don't need or want the source code for the controls.

To start using the Toolkit in your own web sites, please follow the instructions on the Setup Walkthrough.

To start building your own extenders, launch the VSI installers on your machine. This will install new Visual Studio templates that contain everything you need to build extenders.

To get started with source code, simply load the "AjaxControlToolkit.sln" solution in Visual Studio 2005, and run the solution. This will launch the web site and allow you to experiment with the different controls. Also included in the solution is the source code for all the controls.

Please see the sample website release notes for more details.

I blogged previously about some great Silverlight Tips of the Day that the Silverlight team has been releasing to help developers get started using Silverlight. Well, the team has released some new tips:

• GameFest 2008 - Silverlight Game Programming
• Tip of the Day #21 - How to work with Shapes, Brushes and Gradients
• Tip of the Day #22 - How to add Sound Effects, Music and Video to your Silverlight App.
• Tip of the Day #23 -How to Capture the Mouse Wheel Event
• Tip of the Day #24 - How to Apply a XAML Template to a Class
• 3D Simulated Terrain Tutorials for Silverlight Games
• Terrain Tutorial Part 1 - Creating a Scrolling Map
• Tip of the Day #25 - How to Build the XAP File to the Debug/Release Folders
• Tip of the Day #26 - How to Change the Output XAP File Name.
• Tip of the Day #27 - How to Change the Mouse Cursor

The .NET Framework 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, demos, and event materials. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the .NET 3.5 Enhancement features including: ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, ASP.NET AJAX History, ASP.NET Routing, ADO.NET Data Services, ADO.NET Entity Framework, WCF 3.5 SP1, and the .NET Framework Client Profile.

You can download and find more information by clicking here.

DevExpress has decided to release over 60 controls for downloading that are free of charge – without royalties or distribution costs. Here is a listing of the controls that are available:

WinForms Controls (the XtraEditors Library)

Embeddable Editors

	TextEdit		ButtonEdit		CheckEdit
	CalcEdit		ColorEdit		ComboBoxEdit
	ImageComboBoxEdit		FontEdit		DateEdit
	ImageEdit		PictureEdit		MemoEdit
	RichTextEdit		MemoExEdit		SpinEdit
	LookUpEdit		PopupContainerEdit		TimeEdit
	RadioGroup		MRUEdit		HyperLinkEdit
	ProgressBarControl		TrackBarControl		RangeTrackBarControl
	ZoomTrackBarControl

Controls

	XtraTabControl		FilterControl		ListBoxControl
	CheckedListBoxControl		ImageListBoxControl		DataNavigator
	ControlNavigator		LabelControl		SimpleButton
	CheckButton		DropDownButton		MarqueeProgressBar
	PanelControl		GroupControl		SplitterControl
	SplitContainerControl		XtraScrollableControl		VScrollBar
	HScrollBar

Framework Controls

XtraForm

XtraUserControl

XtraMessageBox

Controllers and Repositories

	StyleController		ToolTipController		DefaultLookAndFeel
	PersistentRepository		DXErrorProvider		DXValidationProvider

ASP.NET Controls (the ASPxperience Suite)

Components

	ASPxCallback		ASPxCallbackPanel		ASPxCloudControl
	ASPxDataView		ASPxHeadline		ASPxMenu
	ASPxNavBar		ASPxNewsControl		ASPxObjectContainer
	ASPxPageControl		ASPxPager		ASPxPanel
	ASPxPopupControl		ASPxPopupMenu		ASPxRoundPanel
	ASPxSiteMapControl		ASPxSiteMapDataSource		ASPxTabControl
	ASPxTimer		ASPxTitleIndex		ASPxUploadControl