Dave Bost

SharePoint development is a hot topic these days. With the announcement of a new SharePoint developer webcast series, comes more content and guidance to become a better SharePoint developer. At TechEd, the new http://MSSharePointDeveloper.com site was announced. This site contains (or will soon contain) a plethora of training content around SharePoint development. It includes screen casts, samples, quickstart code, virtual labs and downloadable hands-on lab content.

MSDN is launching a webcast series this month on Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). The great thing about this webcast series is you get to hear from industry experts such as Juval Lowy, Jon Flanders, Jesus Rodriguez and Matt Milner on their experiences and guidance to using the WCF and WF technologies found in .NET 3.5.

Update: Registration is now open. Seating is *very* limited. Therefore, be sure to register early.

I’m happy to announce that we’ll be bringing our CodeFest to Madison (June 19th), Indianapolis (June 23rd) and Milwaukee (June 26th). So far we have held CodeFest events in the real world and the virtual world, and to this point they have been very well received. People like touching the bits. It’s much easier to learn while getting your hands wet with the code, and we’re doing what we can to help you along the way.

You can read all of the details of what you need to do to prepare for an upcoming CodeFest. The high-level items include:

1.) Bring your laptop (or desktop; whichever is easiest and you have access to)

2.) Download and install Virtual PC 2007. We will be using a Virtual Machine to run the labs on. You need Virtual PC install to use the virtual machine. Please pay attention to the system requirements for Virtual PC, as doing so you greatly enhance your experience. I recommend having at least 2 gigs of RAM for your machine.

3.) Download the Visual Studio Team System 2008 VPC, follow the instructions on the download page to extract and set up the virtual machine. This is a HUGE download and will take away to pull down. I suggest getting started on this one quickly. We will have some external hard drives available at each event for you to copy off the virtual machine. However, the devices are limited and depending on how many people wait until the last minute, your time at the CodeFest may be waiting for the hard drives. I suggest downloading the VPC prior the event.

4.) Download the Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit.

5.) Download the Heroes Happen Here Labs

6.) Copy the Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit and HHH Lab files over to the VPC using a USB key or Folder Sharing in the VPC.

Please note, you are not required to download the VPC to enjoy the CodeFest experience. Some people, who already have Visual Studio 2008 installed, will want to run the labs on bare metal. This is fine. However, we’ve had various issues with people doing this and its more difficult for us to support you because everybody’s machine is different. For some it was a security issue. For others, certain required components weren’t installed. To maintain an even playing field, I recommend running the virtual image. If you encounter any issues prior to the event, drop a comment here and we’ll try to sort it out.

For these events, we’re going to leave it up to an audience vote for 2 (maybe all 3 if time allows) of the following labs to choose from:

• Using LINQ to SQL (VS2008TrainingKit)
• Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008 (VS2008TrainingKit)
• Developing a WPF Application (VS2008HOLs)

Doors open at 5:00PM.

I’d like to thank everyone who joined us for the first “virtual” CodeFest that took place in Second Life today. There were a couple of technical snafu’s (as was to be expected), but all in all it turned out to be a great event. There was a total of around 60 people over two sessions. We certainly reached a global audience as I know for sure some attendees were logging in from the UK (and possibly beyond). We received a lot of positive feedback for even attempting this type of an event. If you joined us today and have any feedback on what we can do to improve on this idea, please leave a comment to this post. We’d certainly like to more of these events if it’s worthwhile to the attendees. Let us know!

As promised, here is the content from today’s session:

• Slides
• Hands-on Lab Source Files

After running through the Visual Studio 2008: ASP.Net AJAX, New Designer Features and Script Debugging Lab that we went through in today’s CodeFest, I’d recommend continuing on and completing the Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008 lab. This lab spends more time on the new CSS enhancements to VS2008.

Chances are we’ll do this again. What topics would you like us to focus on for the next one?

Once again, thanks to all who came out for this experiment. I’d like to send a HUGE THANK YOU to the leaders of the Second Life .NET Developers User Group who offered their assistance to help us pull this off. We couldn’t have done it without them! The group has events happening several times throughout the month. Be sure to check out their event calendar for the next soiree in Second Life.

As promised, we’re going to try something new. With the success around the launch of our CodeFest series, we’re going to cast a wider net and reach out to a larger audience base, all while sitting comfortably in our favorite chair at home. CodeFest is coming to Second Life.

In partnership with the Second Life .NET Developers User Group along with MSDN Virtual Labs, we will be hosting a CodeFest in the Virtual World.

Come join us on June 11th on the Microsoft Island in Second Life. The island will be the communal gathering space for the CodeFest. For this event, we will be discussing the new web development features in VS2008. We’ll meet in Wisdom Hall on Microsoft Island where we’ll start off the event with a short presentation. We’ll follow up the presentation with an instructor-led lab over at MSDN Virtual Labs. Second Life will also serve as our communication vehicle by utilizing their Voice Chat feature. Microsoft Live Meeting will be used for the attendees to follow along the instructor as they step through the lab.

We’re playing a little dangerously here by running three intensive applications at once (Second Life, Terminal Services (MSDN Virtual Lab), and Live Meeting), and we may fail miserably. However, it’s just too cool not to try. They did this very thing, sans for the lab part, at the recent Heroes Happen Here launch event held in Second Life. If this proves to be successful, you can be sure we’ll be doing similar events like this in the virtual space.

We’ll hold two sessions. One at 12PM SLT (PST) and the other at 4PM SLT (PST). This is to accommodate as many people as possible from across the world. Note: SLT is Second Life Time which is the same as PST (Pacific Standard Time).

There is a learning curve to enjoying your time in Second Life. For those of you new to Second Life, I recommend reading Getting Ready to Learn SL from the Second Life Wiki. I’d also highly recommend checking out Second Life prior to the CodeFest. You will need some time to create your avatar (part of the registration process and pretty painless) and some time to spend on the tutorials on Orientation Island to get your bearings. Here are a couple of videos to help you along: Camera Tutorial and Voice Chat. If you have other tips or tutorial resources, please share them in the comments.

Update:

Here is a list of items you need to install before attending this event:

1. Join Second Life, if you haven’t already, at http://www.SecondLife.com and download the Second Life client.  It is FREE to join.

2. Download and install LiveMeeting to view the instructors desktop during the lab portion:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101733831033.aspx

3. After you have joined Second Life and tested the waters on Orientation Island, click on this link to go to the Microsoft User Group Island: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft%20Island///