Tuesday, February 27, 2007

User Group Activities


I have been busy lately with my day job, my side projects (some hobby and some real ones) and the user group activities. I haven't blogged much about the user group I attend and in which I am the Speaker Chairman. This title was coined by Judy Calla, our president. It is my responsibility to arrange speakers and discuss (and suggest) topics of interest to them. What could be more fun, eh?


This year began with a bang with John Baird from Philadelphia convincing us about the Test Driven Development. It was great watching him present the topic with such a passion. John Baird had been a regular speaker at our code camps and he is indeed a great speaker.


In February, I decided to take the members for a ride on Generics. There were only 10 members who attended the session due to the bad weather (ice, wind, snow et al). But it was fun for me learning the fundamentals of Generics. Kevin Goff had done an excellent speech in applying Generics in Remoting in our Code Camp 2006. But most of the attendees (including me) had no idea on Remoting and did not appreciate it very well. And I had conveyed this to Kevin also which he took very positively.


Starting March, we have great speakers and titles lined up:


On March, we have Rachel Appel, venturing into the Data Source Controls in ASP.NET 2.0

Robert Green, INETA speaker, is flying to Harrisburg in April, with a much awaited presentation on VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office).

May is bringing Scott Allen again to Harrisburg, but for the first time to our user group meeting with ASP.NET AJAX.

June is local boy Brian Myer's. For the first time, we would have a 3.0 topic. Yes, Brian would be entertaining us with WWF and a lab.

Kevin Goff would be presenting on another 3.0 sizzler, WCF (Windows Communication Foundation).

Sahil Malik, another INETA speaker would be coming to us in August with ADO.NET 2.0.


Being Speaker Chairman for the group is an honor indeed. According to Judy, I have taken a huge burden of her, but let me say, I am indebted for giving me this opportunity.


I would be updating this blog on more coming events of our user group. Also, please dive into our web site (http://www.central-penn.net/) for more details.

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