CodeMash V2.0.1.2

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Advanced

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 10:45 AM

Location: Salon D

Abstract: The .Net framework provides a rich set of collection classes, but how much do you really know about them? In this presentation we’ll take a deep dive into the .Net 4.0 collection classes and examine which are best for what scenario and why. By the end of the presentation, you’ll no longer be happy just reaching for the same old collection you always have before, but you’ll be armed with the information required to pick the best collection for your needs.

Presented By: Gary Short

About the Speaker: Gary Short has 20+ years experience as a software developer and architect, working in sectors as diverse as banking, pharmaceuticals and utilities. Currently he is a Developer Evangelist for DevExpress. His interests lie in architecture, especially Technical Debt and Refactoring, as well as data mining and business intelligence.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 10:45 AM

Location: Salon A

Abstract: Last year a collective effort of the .NET community and Microsoft started a project to help make you more productive. Join one of the non-Microsoft core team members as he deep dives into the awesome of NuGet. Come find out what package management means for you and the bottom line. You don’t want to miss this!

Presented By: Rob Reynolds

About the Speaker: Rob Reynolds has been programming in .NET since the early days of 1.0. In his day job he gets his hands dirty as a technical lead in the world of crop insurance. Who would have thought his prior experiences with calculus and FFA would have ever come in handy?! Rob is a C# MVP, an MCSD for .NET, holds a bachelor's degree in MIS from Kansas State University, is active in the Topeka .Net User Group, a regional INETA speaker, an eagle scout, and a veteran officer of the US Army Reserve. Rob is very active in OSS and manages several OSS projects. Some of those projects include UppercuT, RoundhousE, Chocolatey and NuGet. Rob is the FerventCoder because he is very passionate about his craft.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 11:00 AM

Location: Salon A

Abstract: As ASP.NET MVC continues its rapid delivery pace, there are many new features to explore, including a number of updated project templates, better support for mobile applications, and support for asynchronous methods. In this session, Steve Smith (ASPInsider and ASP.NET MVP) demonstrates these new elements, as well as code generation “recipes” that can easily be deployed via NuGet. You will leave this session ready to take advantage of the latest features ASP.NET MVC has to offer.

Presented By: Steven Smith

About the Speaker: Steve is a Senior Architect with The Code Project, a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP, and founder of NimblePros. He has been a regular conference speaker since 2001 and has written or contributed to several books on software development, including 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know. Steve founded and helps coordinate Northeast Ohio's Software Craftsmanship User Group located in Hudson, OH (HudsonSC.com). Steve is passionate about software craftsmanship and architecture and design best practices. He enjoys helping fellow programmers achieve their own "ah-ha" moments through speaking, his blog (http://SteveSmithBlog.com), videos, and other opportunities. Before joining The Code Project, Steve founded NimblePros, an agile software studio focused on software craftsmanship through their work, training, and tools designed to help developers deliver better software. Steve lives in Kent, Ohio with his wife Michelle, daughter Ilyana, and son Nikita. He enjoys biking, swimming, karate, and all manner of games when he is not immersed in the latest developments in software.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Advanced

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 3:35 PM

Location: Nile

Abstract: With multi-core processors in all desktop computers and nearly every mobile device, developers must use asynchronous operations and concurrency to create responsive applications. The Actor programming model is an increasingly popular method of achieving the scalability benefits of concurrent computation without the impact to productivity that is inherent using traditional concurrency approaches. Stact is a library that enables C# developers to leverage the power of Actors, bringing the simplified concurrent programming model used by languages such as Erlang and Scala to .NET applications.

Presented By: Chris Patterson

About the Speaker: Chris is an architect for RelayHealth, the connectivity business of the leading healthcare services company in the US. There he is responsible for the architecture and development of applications and services that accelerate care delivery by connecting patients, providers, pharmacies, and financial institutions. Previously, he led the development of a new media delivery platform for TV Guide, enabling the launch of a new entertainment network seen on thousands of cable television systems. As an open-source contributor, Chris is an author of MassTransit, a .NET service bus framework, and Topshelf, a Windows service framework.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 10:45 AM

Location: Nile

Abstract: All of us who use Castle Windsor IoC Container know how easy is to configure and use. But registering classes and interfaces is just the tip of the iceberg with Windsor. Have you ever wonder how to start using Aspect Oriented Programming in your code? Well if you are using Windsor, you already could! Without any setup! What about creating factories that just wrap Windsor functionality? What if I told you that you don't need to write those classes, Windsor can do it for you! Join me for a session in which we will explore together Windsor facilities (like Startable, TypedFactory and Nhibernate, etc) and AOP functionality provided out of the box!

Presented By: Amir Barylko

About the Speaker: Amir Barylko started his career in 1994 working for IBM as a senior developer while he was finishing his Masters degree in computer science. Since then he worked as team leader and architect for the past 15 years. Having started with languages like C++ and Java he spent many years coding in C# and training other developers in topics such domain modeling, abstractions, patterns, automation, dependency injection, testing, etc. Being an incurable geek, always thirsty for knowledge, his passion for technology moved him towards Ruby on Rails a few years ago, becoming an advocate of RoR web development. Also following he's teaching passion he did his first RoR training a year ago, and recently a TDD training with great reviews. Amir is a rare combination of high technical skills, lots of experience in a wide range of platforms, exceptional presentation skills and great sense of humor. His presentations are always rich in content and fun to attend.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 9:45 AM

Location: Zambezi

Abstract: Test Driven Development is more than just writing tests first. It requires a different thought process. I will show you that thought process, and how to become a more effective developer, write less code, reduce zero defects, deliver your code faster, and make it to happy hour!

Presented By: Philip Japikse

About the Speaker: An international speaker, Microsoft MVP, MCSD, CSM, and CSP, and a passionate member of the developer community, Phil Japikse has been working with .Net since the first betas, developing software for over 20 years, and heavily involved in the agile community since 2005. Phil works as the Patterns and Practices Evangelist for Telerik (www.telerik.com), and serves as the Lead Director for the Cincinnati .Net User’s Group and the Cincinnati Software Architect Group Phil is also the founder and president of Agile Conferences, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to advancing agile in all aspects of software development. In his spare time, Phil works part-time as a Firefighter/Paramedic, serves as Cub Master for his sons’ Cub Scout Pack, and volunteers for the National Ski Patrol. You can follow Phil on twitter via www.twitter.com/skimedic and read his blog at www.skimedic.com/blog.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 11:00 AM

Location: Sagewood / Zebrawood

Abstract: Microsoft Expression Blend is the premier GUI editor for WPF and Silverlight applications. In this presentation you will receive an introduction to the Blend UI and how to use it to quickly and easily build an application interface. Topics will include Configuration, Layout Controls, how to leverage Blend with Visual Studio, and more.

Presented By: Joel Cochran

About the Speaker: Joel Cochran is an Expression Blend MVP, an INETA Community Champion, and a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in Windows Forms and WPF. He is the founder of BlendSIG, a virtual Special Interest Group focused on Expression Blend and author of "Expression Blend in Action" by Manning Publications. He is also the author of "The Practical MVVM Manifesto" (http://practicalmvvm.com). He has been developing for Windows since 2003 and is a self-proclaimed "Blend Evangelist". A frequent speaker at User Groups and Code Camps, he enjoys teaching and writing about .NET and other topics. You can find him online at http://www.developingfor.net or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joelcochran. Joel has served as the Director of Operations for Stonewall Technologies, Inc., an ISV, in Staunton, VA, since 2000.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 9:30 AM

Location: Nile

Abstract: SignalR, an asynchronous signaling library, is one of the new tricks in the Microsoft web stack. Think about the possibilities available to you in a browser when you've got constant, server-initiated conversations and real-time responsiveness from within the web browser (like chat, stock updates, publish/subscribe implementations, and so on). Brady Gaster will introduce you to SignalR and will walk through the process of setting up an MVC 3.0 application to work with SignalR using both it's Hub and Connection methodologies. From the server-side implementation of each, up through the jQuery code that allows for the web content to respond to server activity, and a brief investigation into the code SignalR dynamically creates to proxy the calls will be topics covered during this session.

Presented By: Brady Gaster

About the Speaker: Brady Gaster is a Windows Azure Technical Evangelist who works for Microsoft. Brady has been working with .NET for over a decade in numerous settings - government, education, consulting, gaming, and mobile, hosting, and most recently, the cloud. Brady's core competencies include web API development and integration, middleware development, TDD, service orientation, and continuous integration. His most recent endeavors include Windows Azure, playing around with the Kinect, SignalR, AOP, Netduino, Orchard CMS, Behavior Driven Development.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 3:35 PM

Location: Salon G

Abstract: By now you will have heard many introductory talks on the subject of F#, now it’s time to take things a stage further. In this presentation we’ll have look at how I use F#. We’ll see examples of F# used to calculate values for some of the metrics that are important in my line of work. By the end of this session you will have a clearer understanding of how to use F# in your own projects.

Presented By: Gary Short

About the Speaker: Gary Short has 20+ years experience as a software developer and architect, working in sectors as diverse as banking, pharmaceuticals and utilities. Currently he is a Developer Evangelist for DevExpress. His interests lie in architecture, especially Technical Debt and Refactoring, as well as data mining and business intelligence.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 10:45 AM

Location: Salon H

Abstract: There has been a long debate lately about the similarities and differences of ASP.NET MVC and Ruby on Rails. In this session, Shay Friedman will walk you through the good, the bad and the ugly of both frameworks providing you points to consider when coming to choose one of them. Come and see how these two wonderful web development frameworks collide!

Presented By: Shay Friedman

About the Speaker: Shay Friedman is a Visual C#/IronRuby MVP and the author of IronRuby Unleashed. With more than 10 years of experience in the software industry, Friedman now works in CodeValue, a company he has co-founded, where he creates products for developers, consults and conducts courses around the world about dynamic languages and web development. You can visit his blog at http://IronShay.com.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Advanced

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 11:00 AM

Location: Salon E

Abstract: This talk will assume you’ve either been to part 1, Bill Wagner’s talk “Async from the outside” - or that you’ve used the preview builds available with async. Using async and await in C# 5 can feel like magic - much as LINQ probably did when you first saw it years ago. Does that make you nervous? Is your immediate response to a new feature always, “I must know how this works”? Do you reach for the spec or ildasm before trusting the compiler? If so, this is the talk for you. The pixie dust can all be explained away though, and in this talk I’ll do exactly that. No more Santa Clause; good-bye Easter Bunny - they’ll be replaced by state machines, continuations, pattern-based awaiting and task builders. Having moved up in abstractions when using async, we’ll have to move down to the generated code to see how it’s all implemented. Be prepared to be somewhat frazzled by the intricate dance performed by the C# 5 compiler on your behalf - and then be very grateful that the end result is that you don’t need to write such code yourself any more!

Presented By: Jon Skeet

About the Speaker: Jon Skeet is a software engineer at Google London by day, and a C# "enthusiast" (to put it mildly) in his spare time. He is passionate about the intricacies of C# as a language, and keen to share his experiences whether through his blog or on Stack Overflow. Jon's book on C#, "C# in Depth" is published by Manning and now in its second edition. (Although Jon works for Google, he does not speak on behalf of Google.)

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 9:45 AM

Location: Salon E

Abstract: Traditional async programming models produce convoluted and hard to follow code. They rely on callbacks, developer created state machines, thread marshalling and other jargon we’d rather not look at every day. That led developers to prefer synchronous APIs whenever they were available. No more. C# 5 contains new features that enable you to write async programs that are much more clear and easy to comprehend.You’ll learn how to move up the abstraction layer and spend more of your valuable time expressing what you want done, rather than concentrating on the mechanics of asynchronous programming techniques. You’’ll also learn several techniques to maximaze the responsiveness of programs that use async APIs. WIth C# 5,the compiler sprinkles pixie dust on your code and it just works asynchronously. Once you’ve learned what Async features offer for you, you should learn how the pixie dust is implemented by attending Jon Skeet’s talk “Async from the inside”

Presented By: Bill Wagner

About the Speaker: Bill Wagner, SRT Solutions co-founder, is 25-year veteran of the software industry. He’s a recognized expert in software design and engineering, specializing in C#, .NET and the Azure platform. He serves as Michigan’s Regional Director for Microsoft and is a multi-year winner of Microsoft’s MVP award. An internationally recognized author, Bill authored the bestselling Effective C#, now in its 2nd edition, and its follow-up, More Effective C#. He also currently writes a column on the Microsoft C# Developer Center. Recently, Bill was awarded the Emerging Technology Leader Award by Automation Alley, Michigan’s largest technology consortium. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 3:35 PM

Location: Salon D

Abstract: BDD has been embraced by many as the solution to "TDD drag" - helping developers keep focused on the business value of the software they create while at the same time covering their code with tests. This has been a challenge with .NET - the tools haven't been that expressive. Many .NET developers who want to do BDD turn to tools from other languages with a better history of BDD development, like Ruby’s RSpec. While such solutions work, wouldn’t it be nice to keep all the code for your domain solution and the tests in the .NET framework? Well you can and I’ll show you how.

Presented By: William Wallace

About the Speaker: William Wallace has been an IT professional since 1981, when he got paid to write software on his Apple II+ with a whopping 16K of memory. He has seen a lot of changes in the past three decades while working in both the private and public sector, writing software in BASIC, Assembly, C/C++, COBOL, Java, JavaScript, Pascal, and C#. In addition to his current day job at the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services, he has a thriving freelance consulting business that fills most of his free time. Because of all his time spent standing under the Waterfall, he is a committed Agile evangelist, earning both an Executive Certificate in Agile from the John Cook School of Business and a Scrum Master certification from the Scrum Alliance. He loves to learn and teach technology, and is currently working his way through the maze of Microsoft certifications.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 1:45 PM

Location: Salon A

Abstract: Last year Microsoft released the Kinect, a completely new way of interacting with the computer that turns the user’s body into the input device. Using XNA as a platform, you will learn about how the Microsoft Kinect SDK works and how it can be used to control the computer. You will also learn to overcome the new challenges the Kinect introduces into building a user interface in this session. The Kinect is just the beginning of “touch-free” computing. The techniques you will learn in this session will give you a jump start on creating truly natural interfaces for the touch-free future.

Presented By: Ben Barefield

About the Speaker: During the day, Ben Barefield works as a software consultant for SRT Solutions where he works with clients to transform their needs into excellent software. At SRT he has spent learning time exploring many languages and technologies and continually expands his .Net knowledge for client work. His not-so-secret evening identity as a game developer has created games that have been popular with his friends and family.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Advanced

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 1:45 PM

Location: Salon H

Abstract: Do you want to write code that adapts to code that calls it? Write C# libraries that perform actions you never thought possible in a statically typed language? This session will show you coding techniques based on Expression Trees that enable you to write meta-code that examines the code that calls it and adapts its behavior based on the caller. You’ll learn to write general purpose algorithms you never dreamed were available in C# or .NET. If your mind has been blown enough yet, we'll go into the Roslyn API set and build code that builds more code to do even more interesting and crazy things. All in the name of good, never evil.

Presented By: Bill Wagner

About the Speaker: Bill Wagner, SRT Solutions co-founder, is 25-year veteran of the software industry. He’s a recognized expert in software design and engineering, specializing in C#, .NET and the Azure platform. He serves as Michigan’s Regional Director for Microsoft and is a multi-year winner of Microsoft’s MVP award. An internationally recognized author, Bill authored the bestselling Effective C#, now in its 2nd edition, and its follow-up, More Effective C#. He also currently writes a column on the Microsoft C# Developer Center. Recently, Bill was awarded the Emerging Technology Leader Award by Automation Alley, Michigan’s largest technology consortium. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Advanced

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 10:45 AM

Location: Orange

Abstract: C# is a fabulous language. A lot of care has been paid to its design, and the specification is precise and well-written. It’s pragmatic and powerful, giving some of the features which make scripting languages terse while maintaining the benefits of static typing. So what’s not to like? Well... nothing’s perfect. In this session I’ll explore some aspects of C# which perhaps took too much legacy from C++ and Java, some “gotchas” from newer features which can cause pain if you’re not aware of them, and some aspects which are simply not quite as smooth as they might be.

Presented By: Jon Skeet

About the Speaker: Jon Skeet is a software engineer at Google London by day, and a C# "enthusiast" (to put it mildly) in his spare time. He is passionate about the intricacies of C# as a language, and keen to share his experiences whether through his blog or on Stack Overflow. Jon's book on C#, "C# in Depth" is published by Manning and now in its second edition. (Although Jon works for Google, he does not speak on behalf of Google.)

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 1:45 PM

Location: Salon H

Abstract: At its heart, much of Domain-Driven Design is all about object-oriented design. The challenge with elegant designs is that they all start out ugly. But our domain objects don't need to stay as anemic, data-centric property bags. With a small set of well-honed refactoring techniques, we can turn an ugly domain model into a wicked domain model, where our business objects respect boundaries, take our commands, and never, ever find themselves in a bad state.

Presented By: Jimmy Bogard

About the Speaker: Jimmy oversees the technical design and architecture of solutions delivered, evaluating potential technologies and increasing awareness of technologies on the horizon. Jimmy has delivered solutions ranging from shrink-wrapped products to enterprise e-commerce applications for Fortune 100 customers. He is also a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) and is an active member in the .NET community, leading open source projects, giving technical presentations, and facilitating technical book clubs. Jimmy is a member of the ASPInsiders group, the C# Insiders group, and received the "Microsoft Most Valuable Professional" (MVP) award for ASP.NET in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 4:50 PM

Location: Indigo Bay

Abstract: How do you deploy database changes with your web application today? Are you still rolling scripts by hand to move your database from one version to the next? In this session we will take a look at how to manage database schema changes in your web application through exploring the change lifecycle. We will take first version application and walk through the upgrade process showing you the tools and techniques needed to keep your schema changes reliable and consistent.

Presented By: Colin Bowern

About the Speaker: Colin Bowern is a solutions architect and coach focused on the advancement of organizational goals through pragmatic technology investments. His work spans music, financial, public sector, and technology industries including start-up and multi-national organizations like Microsoft, Bank of Montreal, and officialCOMMUNITY. Colin engages teams and executive management to boost productivity and drive innovation using user-centric design and promoting craftsmanship in software engineering. Recognized by the community for interactive contributions in public speaking, community building, and writing, Colin has been awarded a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional designation for ASP.NET/IIS for the past several years. His work appears across books, forums, and web casts. You can find out more about Colin on the web at ColinBowern.com.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 1:45 PM

Location: Salon G

Abstract: You have started developing applications that take advantage of today’s multi-core processors. Come learn how to take your parallel programming skills to the next level. This session will focus on design patterns in parallel programming. Come learn about Parallel Loops, Fork/Join, Producer/Consumer, Map/Reduce and other design patterns used in parallel programming.

Presented By: Michael Slade

About the Speaker: Michael Slade is an Applications Programmer – Lead with Progressive Insurance. Prior to joining Progressive, he was a senior software engineer with ABB, where he spent 12 years building real-time, highly concurrent Windows applications to help ABB customers automate their chemical, power, and manufacturing plants.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Advanced

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 1:45 PM

Location: Salon E

Abstract: It's been a few years since dynamic .NET went mainstream with the promotion of the Dynamic Language Runtime into .NET 4, but it's still largely viewed as a fringe technology. This session aims to change that by reviewing what the DLR is, diving into how it works with C# 4 and Visual Basic 10, and looking at some interesting applications of the DLR. In particular we'll discuss C# interop with IronPython and IronRuby; Clay, a dynamic library used by Microsoft's Orchard CMS; and simplified data access through Microsoft.Data, Simple.Data and Rob Conery's Massive.

Presented By: Keith Dahlby

About the Speaker: Keith Dahlby is a new father, Git enthusiast, .NET developer, language geek and C# MVP from Cedar Rapids, IA. He leads the E-Commerce at J&P Cycles and blogs about various software development topics with Los Techies. His open source efforts include posh-git, a Git environment for PowerShell, and FSRazor, F# support for the Razor view engine. Keith has spoken at community events around the Midwest and he studied Human-Computer Interaction at Iowa State University. His talks have been described as "terrific!", "very interactive!", and "the best I've seen all hour!".

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 4:50 PM

Location: Salon E

Abstract: C# 4.0 introduces the Dynamic keyword. The team said it was to add better support for COM, yet we’ve already seen its usage extend to ASP.NET MVC 3 and other scenarios. The truth of the matter is, when it comes to working with things such as XML and JSON, dynamic types can really enhance productivity. If you’re a fan of static typed languages and whether or not you like dynamic languages, come to this session and learn to love the new dynamic keyword. We’ll see how you can really gain productivity and flexibility when using it appropriately. Used in quite a few OSS projects already, dynamic really has changed the scenery when it comes to writing applications in C#.

Presented By: Hadi Hariri

About the Speaker: Hadi Hariri is a developer, speaker, podcaster and Technical Evangelist at JetBrains. His passions include software architecture and web development. Book author and frequent contributor to developer publications, Hadi has been speaking at industry events for over a decade. He is based in Spain where he lives with his wife and two sons, and runs the .NET Malaga User Group. He is also an ASP.NET MVP and ASP.NET Insider.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Advanced

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 3:35 PM

Location: Nile

Abstract: C# 3.0 and LINQ gave us anonymous delegates, lambdas and closures, and C# 4.0 improved on them. But these “functional” features have applications beyond messing about with IEnumerable<T>. In this session I’ll present 10 simple and not-so-simple uses of first-class functions to help cut down on repeated code and improve maintainability, and hopefully leave the audience with a new and exciting way of approaching coding problems.

Presented By: Mark Rendle

About the Speaker: I’m currently employed as Principal Software Architect at Dot Net Solutions Ltd, where we are creating all manner of software and services on the Microsoft stack, including ASP.NET MVC, Windows Azure, WPF and Silverlight. Since April 2011, I have been a Windows Azure Development MVP. My career in software design and development spans three decades and more programming languages than I care to remember. C# has been my favourite language pretty much since the first public beta, when you had to write the code in a text editor and compile it on the command line. Those were the days. You kids today, with your IntelliSense™ and your ReSharpers, don’t know you’re born… In my spare time, I work on the Simple.Data not-an-ORM project, and build developer-centric tools for mobile devices, including the award-winning Pocket C# for Windows Phone 7. That’s when I’m not just geeking out learning new programming languages and frameworks; 2011 is the year of JavaScript/CoffeeScript, F# and Nancy.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 3:35 PM

Location: Salon A

Abstract: By day, you are a master of the TPS report creation and all things virtual that make your bosses look good. By night, you create all sorts of marvelous electronic gadgets to aid you in your secret life of fighting crime. Or at least you would, if you could just get past all the hassle of correctly connecting up all the hardware and just focus on the programming. Well now you can, thanks to Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer, an open-source toolkit for building small electronic devices using the .NET Micro Framework and Visual C#. I’ll show you how to build and program your first device so you can finally begin your career as a crime fighter. Costume, faithful sidekick and cool superhero name not included.

Presented By: William Wallace

About the Speaker: William Wallace has been an IT professional since 1981, when he got paid to write software on his Apple II+ with a whopping 16K of memory. He has seen a lot of changes in the past three decades while working in both the private and public sector, writing software in BASIC, Assembly, C/C++, COBOL, Java, JavaScript, Pascal, and C#. In addition to his current day job at the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services, he has a thriving freelance consulting business that fills most of his free time. Because of all his time spent standing under the Waterfall, he is a committed Agile evangelist, earning both an Executive Certificate in Agile from the John Cook School of Business and a Scrum Master certification from the Scrum Alliance. He loves to learn and teach technology, and is currently working his way through the maze of Microsoft certifications.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Advanced

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 4:50 PM

Location: Salon G

Abstract: The cat’s out of the bag! Not only is Project Codename “Roslyn” delivering the next generation C# and Visual Basic compilers and language services, it also provides a powerful set of APIs for building "code aware" tools and extensions. In this information-packed session, we'll explore six major Roslyn APIs in depth, covering parsing, retrieving semantic information, analyzing data and control flow, and scripting. Armed with this knowledge, we'll see how easy it is to leverage the APIs to analyze and generate C# and VB source code, add C# scripting support to an application, or even extend the existing C# and VB language service features in Visual Studio.

Presented By: Dustin Campbell

About the Speaker: Dustin Campbell is a senior program manager on the Visual Studio team, where he works on the Visual Basic and C# language service experiences. Currently, he is focused on the future of Visual Basic and C# in Project Codename Roslyn. Before joining Microsoft, he developed much of the low-level plumbing of the award-winning CodeRush and Refactor! products at DevExpress. A regular speaker, Dustin is a noted authority in many advanced areas of the Microsoft .NET Framework and dives deep “under the hood” of any technology that he works with.   Dustin is a programming language nut. His favorite color is blue.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 3:35 PM

Location: Aloeswood / Leopardwood

Abstract: The use of non-relational databases is a growing movement, and can be a great solution in some scenarios. RavenDB is the foremost document database for .NET, and offers support for JSON, LINQ, a REST-ful API, automatic indexing, transactions, horizontal scalability, and many more features. In this talk we'll discuss the pros and cons of non-relational databases, explore features of RavenDB, and walk through some examples of putting RavenDB to work.

Presented By: David Neal

About the Speaker: David is a father, geek, musician, and software developer living in the Nashville, TN area. David is currently the Director of Development for Cell Journalist, an online social media service provider for TV stations, newspapers, and radio. Prior to joining Cell Journalist, David was a senior software engineer for Telligent, the premier social networking platform for .NET that powers some of the largest online communities, such as Microsoft's ASP.NET Forum, MSDN Blogs, Dell, and Game Informer. David is passionate about software craftsmanship, user experience, music, and bacon. David also serves on the leadership team for the Nashville .NET user group.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 9:30 AM

Location: Indigo Bay

Abstract: Test Driven Development can be hard. Oh, sure, it's easy to write the standard bank account tests that you see in all of the demos. But what about real life? What about that service that hasn't been developed yet? What if the code you are trying to test doesn't follow Uncle Bob's SOLID principles? I will show you how free mocking tools will brighten your day!

Presented By: Philip Japikse

About the Speaker: An international speaker, Microsoft MVP, MCSD, CSM, and CSP, and a passionate member of the developer community, Phil Japikse has been working with .Net since the first betas, developing software for over 20 years, and heavily involved in the agile community since 2005. Phil works as the Patterns and Practices Evangelist for Telerik (www.telerik.com), and serves as the Lead Director for the Cincinnati .Net User’s Group and the Cincinnati Software Architect Group Phil is also the founder and president of Agile Conferences, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to advancing agile in all aspects of software development. In his spare time, Phil works part-time as a Firefighter/Paramedic, serves as Cub Master for his sons’ Cub Scout Pack, and volunteers for the National Ski Patrol. You can follow Phil on twitter via www.twitter.com/skimedic and read his blog at www.skimedic.com/blog.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 9:30 AM

Location: Salon A

Abstract: Everyone seems to be working on a game these days. And why not? You can make some great money, have fun building something, and become famous. Many new games, especially casual games, are using the cloud. Not just to reduce their startup costs, but to innovate. Come see how you can build a modern game that uses the cloud to startup and scale. Real world gaming scenarios included.

Presented By: Brian Prince

About the Speaker: Brian H. Prince is a Cloud Evangelist for Microsoft. He gets super excited whenever he talks about technology, especially cloud computing, patterns, and practices. His job is to help customers strategically leverage technology, and help them bring their architecture to a super level. In a past life Brian was a part of super startups, super marketing firms, and super consulting firms. Much of his super architecture background includes building super scalable applications, application integration, and award winning web applications. All of them were super. Further, he is a co-founder of the non-profit organization CodeMash (www.codemash.org). He speaks at various international technology conferences. He only wishes his job didn’t require him to say ‘super’ so much. Brian is the co-author of “Azure in Action”, published by Manning Press. Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and Physics from Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. He is also a zealous gamer. For example, he is a huge fan of Fallout 3, Portal, and pretty much every other game he plays.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 4:50 PM

Location: Salon H

Abstract: The fastest query is the one never run - Using Microsoft Server AppFabric Cache you can dramatically improve the performance of your web / enterprise application without investing in big hardware or complicated programming. We'll take a real-world application with performance issues, add AppFabric cache to it to demonstrate the difference even short term caching can make to your application. We'll then walk through how you can make this effortless using code injection. The code samples will be specific to AppFabric and .NET but the concepts and approaches are common to many application platforms.

Presented By: Kendall Miller

About the Speaker: Kendall Miller is one of the founding partners of Gibraltar Software, an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) that develops and markets commercial applications for .NET developers, including: Gibraltar – an application logging and monitoring platform; and VistaDB – a small-footprint, SQL Server-compatible embedded database engine. Both products are used by customers around the world ranging from individual consultants through Fortune 100 companies and governments. Before starting Gibraltar Software, Kendall worked for multiple startups leading their technology development from concept through profitability. In each case, he's focused on translating enterprise-level performance and capabilities down to smaller companies. Using multiple generations of Microsoft technologies over the past 15 years, Kendall is experienced with the details of modern .NET development as well as the challenges that have stayed the same for generations. You can follow his blog at rocksolid.gibraltarsoftware.com or on Twitter (@KendallMiller).

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Friday January 13, 2012 @ 9:30 AM

Location: Salon G

Abstract: In this session we will explore writing an English-based rules engine that allows developers to create domain-specific rules for an application that can be easily understood by anyone. We will use a combination of C# and the DLR (dynamic language runtime) with IronRuby on the .NET platform to create a way to write, manage, and process rules for an application.

Presented By: Keith Elder

About the Speaker: Keith Elder is the co-host of the popular online technology podcast Deep Fried Bytes. He is also a Director of Software Engineering at Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest online mortgage lender based in Detroit, MI and is the founder of the Hattiesburg, MS .Net User Group called Hub City NUG. Keith is an experienced technologist, systems administrator, software engineer, speaker, trainer and all around geek. As an experienced educator, trainer and speaker he has logged thousands of hours in front of the classroom teaching students of varying ages from the 6th grade to the college level. He has trained countless developers from various business sectors ranging from top auto manufactures, fortune 500 companies and Universities. As a Microsoft MVP he speaks throughout the United States at major technical conferences, Code Camps, and .Net User Groups. Keith’s ability to explain complex topics with a friendly common sense southern attitude make him a highly regarded speaker at technical conferences. You can read more about Keith’s interests, hobbies, rants and raves on his blog at http://keithelder.net/.

Technology/Platform: .NET

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Start Time: Thursday January 12, 2012 @ 9:45 AM

Location: Orange

Abstract: Oh yes. Building web applications on the Microsoft stack continues to evolve. There’s lots of great tools to leverage but it can be difficult to keep up with all the options. In this technical and fast-paced session, you’ll learn from Scott Hanselman how the pieces fit together. We’ll look at The Next Version of Visual Studio, ASP.NET MVC 4, WebForms 4.5, NuGet, Scaffolding, Web API, SignalR, Entity Framework Code First (Magic Unicorn Edition) plus Migrations, jQuery and lots, lots more. We’ll also see how many times Scott can say “unobtrusive” in a single talk. You’ll leave this session with a clear understanding of the technology options available on the Microsoft Web Stack. What’s changed and why? What direction are we going? Let’s see what we can build in an PowerPoint-free hour with the Microsoft Web Stack of Love. We’ll also talk about how you can use the Next Version of Visual Studio to work on and enhance your existing .NET 2, 3 and 3.5 apps as well. Two weeks of content in one hour. Guaranteed.

Presented By: Scott Hanselman

About the Speaker: My name is Scott Hanselman. I work out of my home office for Microsoft as a Principal Program Manager, aiming to spread good information about developing software, usually on the Microsoft stack. Before this I was the Chief Architect at Corillian Corporation, now a part of Checkfree, for 6+ years. I was also involved in a few Microsoft Developer things for many years like the MVP and RD programs and I'll speak about computers (and other passions) whenever someone will listen.