I would like to thank everyone who came out for the OnRamp240 events in Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago over the past week. We had a great discussion around the Microsoft web development platform, including the greatExpression tools that are sure to please many a web developer and designers out there and not to mention taking a dip in the Silverlight waters for a brief time. There is surely more to come from these great tools and technologies.

As I was able to relay to some of you (Sorry, Indy), the Expression Web product discs are currently on the assembly line and should be shipping out around May 28th. If you attended the OnRamp240 session and filled out an evaluation, you should be receiveing your copy in the mail shortly thereafter.

There are quite a few resources I pointed out during the session and I promised all of you that I would post them here.

First and foremost, no one should miss ScottGu’s keynote from the MIX’07 conference. Scott lays out the full Silverlight story and invites a number of customer’s up on stage to show what they’ve been able to do with the technology in a short amount of time. Simply one of the best keynotes I’ve ever seen and not to be missed!

For the developers, Ihighlyrecommend viewing Omar Khan’s MIX’07 session on Using Visual Studio Codename “Orcas” to Design and Develop Rich AJAX Enabled Web Sites. The Javascript Intellisense feature and debugging support is enough for any Javascript developer to take notice.

Unfortunately we had a short amount of time to cover a lot of material. We weren’t able to go into ASP.NET AJAX as I would’ve like and some of you might have hoped. No worries, though. Head on over to the ASP.NET AJAX Community Site and check out Joe Stagner’s “How-To” video collection on ASP.NET AJAX.

For those of you looking to make the plunge into Silverlight. Everything you need can be found on the Getting Started page of the Silverlight community website. The Sprawl game, that seems to kick my butt everytime, can be found in the Silverlight 1.0 Gallery, whereas the Chess and Silverlight Airlines samples can be found in the Silverlight 1.1 Gallery.

Each month DevCares brings you the insight into the latest technologies coming out of Redmond. Through the generous support of our partners (Crowe Chizek, Information Management Group, Clarity Consulting and Inacom), we have now expanded to 6 cities and 3 states in the Midwest district.

This month we take a look at the upcoming release of Visual Studio Codename “Orcas”:

Visual Studio code name “Orcas” delivers on Microsoft’s vision for application development by enabling developers to rapidly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality rich user experiences. This next version of Visual Studio enables developers to rapidly create more secure, manageable, and more reliable applications that take advantage of Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System. This session will provide insight into the exciting new features coming in the next version of Visual Studio Code Name “Orcas” and we’ll dive deep into the new programming features “Orcas” delivers such as those found in the Language Integrated Query (LINQ).

• Session 1: A Lap Around Visual Studio “Orcas”
• Session 2: Data and Programmability in Visual Studio “Orcas”

Chicago (Loop), IL, May 8th

Downers Grove, IL, May 24

Brookfield, WI, May 30th

Indianapolis, IN, May 22nd

Appleton, WI, May 29th

Madison, WI, May 30th

Each attendee will have a chance at winning a Zune. Who knows, it may even be the recently released Pink Zune!

To see if DevCares is coming to your neck of the woods, be sure to visit DevCares.com.

There will be no Bloomington .NET Users Group meeting this month. We haven't been able to secure a speaker for this month. The good news is that I've hade a couple of inquiries to help run the group which should help out with future meeting plans. If you're interested in helping manage the group or would be interested in speaking at future meetings, please contact me.

With the coming of April, we find ourselves in the midst of Spring and new beginings. Speaking of new beginings, this month’s DevCares presents what’s new in the next version of IIS 7.0.

Internet Information Services 7.0 The future of Microsoft?s Web Server Platform is exciting for developers! The release of Internet Information Services 7.0 in Windows Vista and Server will dramatically improve the development, deployment and management of web sites and applications. This demo packed session will highlight an all new, distributed configuration system and administration tool, a new modularized core web server with powerful new extensibility support.

Most importantly, you will see how to plug in a variety of custom modules into IIS7 to enhance the functionality of your websites, as well as look at other ways to extend IIS7 including adding configuration sections to the IIS7 configuration files and extending the IIS7 management tool. The possibilities are endless for making IIS7 the web server that you need for your business scenario.

• Session 1: What?s new in IIS7
• Session 2: Extending IIS7

Also, for those of you in Wisconsin, April brings us new beginnings with the introduction of DevCares to Appleton, Milwaukee and Madison! Be sure to visit http://www.devcares.com to register for an event nearest you and the chance to win an Xbox 360!

• Chicago (Loop), April 10th
• Indianapolis, IN, April 24th
• Downers Grove, IL, April 26th
• Madison, WI, April 26th
• Brookfield, WI, April 27th
• Appleton, WI, April 30th

A couple of years ago the Bloomington (IL) .NET Users Group was bringing the goodness of discussions around .NET to the developer landscape in central Illinois. The principles from that group have moved on and so has the group. I’m happy to report that we’re bringing the Sexy.NETBack to Bloomington.

This Wednesday, March 6th, I will be kicking off the re-incarnation of the Bloomington .NET Users Group with a discussion on ASP.NET AJAX.

Along with this discussion, I will be looking for volunteers to head up the charge to make the Bloomington .NET Users Group a top notch developer community attraction for Central Illinois. Where can you help? Easy… we’ll need a leader, someone to head up the charge in Bloomington. We’ll also need someone to help that leader, a co-leader or vice-leader – you decide. We’ll also need help building out an online prescense for the group – everyone needs a website, right? And any other volunteering opportunities you can think of.

We hope to see you there!

What: Bloomington .NET Users Group 2.0
Where: Microsoft, 2203 E. Empire St., Suite J, Bloomington, IL (map)
When: March 6th, 2007 @ 6PM