Bob and Chris' MSDN Roadshow - December Edition

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It's that time again!  Bob and I will be heading back out in December for our fourth Roadshow series, bringing another batch of technical goodness to cities across the northeast (hopefully in time to beat the snow!)

If you haven't been to one of our events before, the B&C Roadshow is all about high signal and low noise technical content, and, so we're told, our world-class senses of humor.  Relax and spend the day with us as we dive into a variety of development and architecture topics.

While the cities remain the same as last time, we've changed three of the venues (Rochester, Burlington, and Hartford,) so please note the locations carefully!

IntroducingMicrosoftSilverlight_Continuing our proud tradition of bribing, er, rewarding our audiences with giveaways, we plan to give everyone who submits an evaluation a free copy of "Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 1.0" by Laurence Moroney.  (I'll say "plan" until I physically see them in my garage.)

Each event is begins with registration at 8:30 and content from 9:00 to 4:00 (lunch included.)  Here's our schedule, with registration links:

Register soon since some locations have "sold out" in the past.

Here's the agenda for each event:

8:30-9:00 AM - Registration

9:00-10:25 AM - Visual Studio 2008: The Accelerated AP/Honors Class

Visual Studio 2008 is here, there's a lot to talk about, and we're not afraid to tackle it all at once! We'll assume you know Visual Studio and just want to hear about the deltas, so no lectures here. You'll see demos aplenty, including new features for web developers: new ASP.NET controls, integrated AJAX, CSS tools, nested master pages, JavaScript IntelliSense and debugging. New features for Windows developers: Client Application Services, WPF integration, WinForm/WPF interop, and Office development. Plus new features for everyone: unit testing, debugging to .NET Framework code, multi-targeting, and improvements for WCF & WF. We're covering a lot of ground, class, so pull out those Trapper Keepers and take good notes.

10:25-10:35 AM - Take a break and head to your lockers before the next period

10:35 AM -12:00 PM - The Multi-Tenant Data Architecture

In this session, we'll investigate the foundation for highly scalable Software as a Service (SaaS) based solutions, the Multi-Tenant Data Architecture. This approach to data architecture deals with the continuum between isolated data and shared data. We will also identify three distinct approaches for creating data architectures that fall at different places along this continuum. Next, we'll explore some of the technical and business factors to consider when deciding which approach to use. Finally, we'll look at design patterns for ensuring security, creating an extensible data model, and scaling the data infrastructure. Normally we come up with some clever attempt at humor in these descriptions but let's face it.Multi-Tenant Data Architecture is not a laughing matter. This is a very serious topic that deserves the utmost respect and decorum... stop giggling. I mean it!

12:00-12:45 PM - Lunch. Your data architecture scales, how about your appetite?

12:45-2:10 PM - "You Are the Strongest LINQ!": Effective Language Integrated Query

LINQ (Language Integrated Query) is a unified approach for querying data using coding syntax that remains consistent regardless of the data source. It WILL change the way you work as a developer and architect and this session will help you on your way to using it effectively. To understand how LINQ works, we'll first navigate the new features of C# 3.0 and VB 9.0 that enable LINQ functionality. Then, we'll dive into .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 to explore the various realms of LINQ: Datasets, XML, Database/SQL, in-memory objects, and more. By the end of this session, you'll have a solid understanding of how LINQ works and what it can do for your applications. If development were a game show, and clearly some days it can feel like one, understanding LINQ will help to keep you from being voted off early.

2:10-2:20 PM - Relax and chat with your fellow winners

2:20-3:45 PM - Expression Studio for the Designer-Wannabe

Are you a closet designer? Do you wish you could grow a decent goatee and look good in turtlenecks? Well that may never happen but you can become proficient with Expression Studio and get invited to the beautiful people parties. Expression Studio is made up of 5 products that together provide a PC based toolset for designers that allow them to work in lock step with developers who are using Visual Studio. In this session, we will get an understanding of the purpose of each of the 5 products: Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design, Expression Media and Expression Encoder. Then we will dive deeper into Expression Web (CSS) and Expression Blend (WPF/Silverlight) demonstrating the design and application of CSS and XAML.

3:45-4:00 PM - Wrap-up. Have designs on our giveaways? Just express yourself with an evaluation!

Register today and we'll see you on the road!

-Chris

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