Bob and Chris's MSDN Roadshow coming in May!!!

We've decided to take our long winded rants and questionable demos to a city near you. And if you were at our last event, you know the line about questionable demos is no joke!

AGENDA: AJAX, Extensible Scrubbing Bubbles and that Cross Browser Cleansing Motion

8:30am - Arrive, check in, grab a nosh and a seat

9:00 – 10:15 - XML and the Database

SQL Server 2005 offers architects and developers a slew of great features for creating data driven solutions. For this session we will focus on the XML features including XML Indexes, XQuery, the XML Datatype, the FOR XML clause and validating XML within the database using XSD. The use cases for these XML capabilities will also be discussed.

10:15 – 10:30 <Break/>

10:30 – 12:00 - What’s New From The Patterns & Practices Group?

Like doing things the hard way?  Well, unfortunately for you this session is all about making your life as a developer or architect easier.  The Patterns & Practices group keeps churning out great tools, reference code, and guidance to show you Microsoft's recommendations for designing, developing and deploying great applications.  We'll cover Enterprise Library 3.0, various Software Factories, the Guidance Automation Toolkit and more, explaining how they could fit in with your development efforts.  If you suddenly find the hard way less thrilling, don't say we didn't warn you!

12:00-1:00 -Grab a lunch and look for patterns in the hotel rug

1:00 – 2:15 - Microsoft Silverlight (aka Windows Presentation Foundation / Everywhere)

At our last meeting, we dug into the Windows Presentation Foundation, a .Net Framework development library that sits overtop of DirectX allowing one to create the next generation of Windows user interfaces using advanced graphics, animation, rich documents and multimedia along with traditional UI controls. Windows Silverlight is a subset of the capabilities of WPF that can be used within browser based applications on the PC and the Mac. This session will discuss the architecture of Microsoft Silverlight and demonstrate how to integrate XAML into your browser-based applications.

2:15-2:30 - Take a break and animate

2:30 – 3:45 - ASP.NET AJAX – Going Deeper

If you're developing applications for the web, you've likely heard about AJAX and how it can improve the usability and functionality of your site.  In this session, we'll quickly introduce the main concepts of ASP.NET AJAX and then we'll roll up our sleeves for other details that will help you when you're in the trenches with AJAX.  We'll talk about the client side library, Silverlight (formerly codenamed WPF/E) integration, enabling and invoking server methods and web services, debugging, best practices and more.   

3:45 – 4:00 - Zune Giveaway

We are visiting 5 cities in this tour. Follow the registration link for the city nearest you: