Fort Worth .NET Users Group

Technology + Biology

thoughts to blog — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:10:53 GMT

For any of you who know me and my interests, I've always held a special place in my heart (a big one) for Science and Technology... When two specific parts combine, it makes me smile: Air Art from flip on Vimeo ....(read more)

Once upon a time

thoughts to blog — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:42:56 GMT

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo ....(read more)

Fieldrunners

thoughts to blog — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:19:32 GMT

So as student in the United States Public School System, I often became bored... pretty damn quickly... So I used to do a lot of drawing... mostly vehicles and airplanes... But about half of the time, I ended up drawing military battle plans. Typically an invasion / sack scenario where the enemy is trying to sack a military base... Fast Forward 15 years and in complete surprise (no really), it became a game. Tower of Defense . Apparently I wasn't the only one doing these as a kid and now I can...(read more)

Upcoming Events in South Central – 11/7/08

Chris Koenig — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:07:33 GMT

Now that the election is over, and gas prices have started to go down ($1.95 a gallon here in Dallas!) it’s time to get back out on the road and attend some great User Group meetings! Here’s what’s on tap for the rest of November here in SCD: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 6:30 PM: GNONUG Meeting - November GNONUG Meeting - Keith Elder, Guest Speaker [ Event Details | Map & Directions | Add To Calendar ] Wednesday, November 12, 2008 6:30 PM: Caching and Exception Handling with WCF - We have...(read more)

November 2008 Meeting

sswienton — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:48:00 GMT

Our November meeting will be held on Tuesday November 11th, 2008 6pm at Justin Brands.

A local DFW resident, and annual FWDNUG presenter, David Penton, will be presenting: A New Approach to HttpRuntime.Cache Management

Meeting Sponsor
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A New Approach to HttpRuntime.Cache Management
ASP.NET has a wonderful built-in framework for managing Cached items within a website in the namespace System.Web.Caching. It is accessible from HttpRuntime.Cache (among other ways, such as from System.Web.UI.Page.Cache). You have great flexibility with the data you may wish to cache. With this flexibility, there is an extremely important piece missing from HttpRuntime.Cache - and that is thread safety. Not from inside of the Cache, but from the external code that accesses it. Websites under high load could cause a cache item to be populated multiple times. Web applications are multi-threaded (whether you know it or not!). This is wonderful and wicked at the same time. Why, do you ask? This discussion will show you how to manage safely loading items into HttpRuntime Cache. I will also describe methodologies for easily load collections in a thread safe manner.

Speaker Bio
David L. Penton (blog) lives in Richardson, TX and has a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, LA. He currently is a Lead Software Development Engineer / Performance Lead at Telligent Systems, Inc. Before that, he was a technical lead for the International Systems Group and then in Merchandising Systems at JCPenney, Inc., in Plano, TX. Before that, he was a senior business and analysis analyst for Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control in Grand Prairie, TX. During that time he has worked on various technologies. He currently spends most of his time with C# and SQL Server. Database platforms he has dealt with (development and admin) include but not limited to SQL Server, Oracle, DB2. David is a member of the ASPInsiders and was formerly a SQL Server MVP for several years.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

Directions

Mesh-enabled Applications – Part 1: Getting Started

Chris Koenig — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:24:36 GMT

This is the first in a series of posts around creating a Mesh-enabled web applications using all the new bits released at PDC 2008. the intent is to introduce you to the process of building Mesh-enabled web applications, and get your first app up and running quickly. I’ll try to be thorough about how I went about this so that once you have all the developer pieces you can follow along through what I’ve done and build your own Mesh-enabled application. I’m particularly interested...(read more)

Drop.io API Released

thoughts to blog — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:49:22 GMT

So after many months of planning and coding... and several grey hairs later. I'm excited to announce that my project at Drop.io has been released. Drop.io now has an API... We're already the simplest way to share files online privately... but now we're letting other people build applications on top of our platform! Our team at Drop.io was fantastic and brought together some real insight and code crunching capabilities... We produced a few neat apps along the way: uSend.io Collab.io haha...(read more)

For the win

thoughts to blog — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:08:34 GMT

Congratulations goes out to all of the people in the United States that went out and voted... and especially those who voted for Obama... Like this guy: It was crazy, I was at the Fort Worth Democratic Election Night Party last night and it was insane. Being in a red state, it's very exciting to see so many like-minded people... and to see that Dallas County voted blue, I smiled! Congratulations also goes out to Obama... you did it... and now the entire world is looking to you to change things...(read more)

I voted

thoughts to blog — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:35:11 GMT

(Yes I know I checked the All Encompassing "Democrat" box AND the Obama box, but I wanted to double check) So I voted... and I voted for Obama... I don't agree with most of the McCain / Palin ticket (not sure if I agree with any of their policies)... and I don't agree with all of Obama / Biden stances... But I feel as if Obama represents innovation and progress, something I hold to dearly... It's amazing to think that over 50% of every individual eligible to vote, will do the...(read more)

Live Mesh now available for Mac and Mobile!

Chris Koenig — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:16:56 GMT

I just went to the Live Mesh site and noticed that they’ve enabled functionality for Mac and Mobile! For current Mesh users, just hit http://www.mesh.com from your mobile device’s web browser or from your Mac and it will guide you through the installation process. If you’re not already using Mesh, you *definitely* need to get over to http://www.mesh.com and get started. I’ve been using it for a while now and it’s a really fantastic technology – especially considering all the announcements we...(read more)

Windows Live Mesh on Windows 7

Chris Koenig — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:07:30 GMT

For those of you attending PDC and are experimenting with Windows 7, here’s an update you’ll need to apply to get Mesh working on your new OS. Just create a REG file with the following information in it, and run it on your Windows 7 machine. 1: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 2: 3: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Moe.MoeHost] 4: @= "MoeHost Class" 5: 6: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Moe.MoeHost\CurVer] 7: @= "Moe.MoeHost.1" 8: 9...(read more)

Java and Ruby SDKs for Microsoft .NET Cloud Services

Chris Koenig — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:45:23 GMT

Look at that – I just noticed that we’re offering a Java and a Ruby SDK for our new Microsoft .NET Cloud Services announced yesterday at PDC: I didn’t remember hearing that yesterday, but this is AWESOME! Technorati Tags: Ruby , Java , .NET , Live , Cloud , Azure...(read more)

PDC Day 2 – Windows 7, Windows Live, Mesh and Office Online

Chris Koenig — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:45:00 GMT

Today’s big announcements at PDC were around Windows 7, .NET 4/VS2010, Windows Live Mesh and Microsoft Office futures. Windows 7 Both Windows Server 2008 R@ and Windows 7 will have the ability to boot from a VHD as well as mount a VHD like a normal drive or create a VHD on the fly – all from the built-in disk manager. I’d love to see them expand this to ISOs, but maybe that’s feedback we can all supply to get them to put it in the product! Multi-touch is a huge game-changer. Not only...(read more)

PDC 2008 - The Future of C#

TimRayburn.net: Blog — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:35:09 GMT

So I had a chance today to attend a session given Anders Hejlsberg on C# 4.0, and beyond. Honestly I walked out of the session going ... that's it? The feature list started with the dynamic keyword, which is cool but simply does not help the 80% of C# developers today. Most C# developers today are so bound to type safety that dynamic will give them even more heartburn than var did. Now in reality it will likely make scenarios like property movement from service contracts to domain objects easier...(read more)

Get your .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 right here…

Chris Koenig — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:03:00 GMT

Hot off the presses this morning, a VPC containing the first CTP for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 were released to the public on Microsoft Connect. The VPC is broken down into a TON of files, but Brian Keller has some instructions on his blog for those of you using a fancy download manager to make the download easier. Also keep in mind this little note I got from the Product Team: When you use the Visual Studio 2010 CTP VPC, you will encounter some Activation messages. In most cases...(read more)

PDC Day 1 – Windows Azure

Chris Koenig — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:04:27 GMT

You might have heard rumblings of secret projects at Microsoft called Red Dog, or Strata on various blog posts or Twitter feeds. Today at PDC, the covers came off these codenames to reveal Windows Azure: Originally called Windows Strata, Windows® Azure is “a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and...(read more)

GiveCamp Kiva Lending Team

TimRayburn.net: Blog — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:57:26 GMT

Just a quick update , that several of the micro-finance loans I made as part of the GiveCamp Kiva team have recently made their first payment back, which allowed me to begin to re-invest most of those funds in another loan. I'm backing the Yon Dial 2 Group, from Senegal. Here are their details: Palmarin (http://www.sem-fund.org/palmarinfr.php) is a village rich in fruits and vegetables. Nevertheless, lack of structures specialized in transformation incite people to import fruit and vegetables...(read more)

Fury Shirts

thoughts to blog — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:46:20 GMT

My friend Matt has put together an awesome little company... and I'm completely jealous that he has gone independent... so please, everyone go and check out Seventh Fury ... Fury Shirts At any rate, I snagged some shirts and wanted to give a quick review of what I thought of them... We took the t-shirts out for some BBQ and let me tell you, they are comfortable. They come printed on American Apparel cotton tees, love it. They are soft, stay soft, and hold their color really well. The designs...(read more)

New .NET Logos announced today!

Chris Koenig — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:07:22 GMT

.NET is getting a logo facelift! This is not something I had planned to blog about – it just arrived in my inbox tonight while I was working on the other postings and I decided to see if I could be one of the first ones to talk about it :) Anyway, this is the new logo for Microsoft .NET and for the horizontally inclined: Some of you might be asking, as I was, “Why Change?” Here’s a pseudo-quote from the mail I got tonight announcing the new logos...(read more)

MSDN Developer Conference – Bringing PDC Home!

Chris Koenig — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:57:18 GMT

Coming soon to a classy venue near you is the Microsoft MSDN Developer Conference. Modeled after the extremely popular MSDN events and stuffed full of the hottest PDC content. Come to the MSDN Developer conference and attend these great sessions: Cloud Services Client and Presentation Tools, Languages and Framework Lap Around Cloud Services Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) Roadmap The Future of Managed Languages: F#, C# and Visual Basic Developing and Deploying Your First Cloud Services...(read more)

Get ready for MIX09

Chris Koenig — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:24:31 GMT

I know that PDC starts on Monday, but it’s never too early to start thinking about MIX! Those of you who went last year know what an amazing conference MIX is, and those that didn’t should definitely make plans to attend this year. Held every year in the spring at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, MIX is a special conference for web designers and developers, information architects, UX professionals and digital marketers, or anyone that cares about building innovative web sites using the...(read more)

First Days with Rails

thoughts to blog — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:45:24 GMT

I remember my first day with Ruby on Rails ... back in June 2005 Neil, John, and myself decided to enter a 24 hour competition to hack out some Rails code. I read my first pages of the "book" the day before we started... It was my first day with Ruby AND Rails... We created a social networking app (yeah in 2005, cause it was "so new" /sarcasm)... that was focused on families... sharing photos, birthdays, anniversaries, and other tidbits of family oriented information. It felt...(read more)

Defend Stuff: A Silverlight 2 Game

SilverlightAddict.com — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:34:00 GMT

Defend Stuff is a tower defense game written in Silverlight 2. There is this ‘stuff’ that you are supposed to protect from the ‘bad guys’. You have rocket turrets, machine guns, and a seismic disruptor thingy. You can place turrets throughout the map as long as you do not block all paths preventing the enemy from getting to the stuff. Yes, the goal is to stop them, but blocking them would be rude. You need to blow them up instead. Click HERE to play....(read more)

AgileDotNet Conference 2008

Chris Koenig — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:52:52 GMT

I usually start out these posts saying "I don't typically link-blog", but I've said that so many times now, that I think I'll just say "I've found another occasion to link-blog something", this time from my good friend Todd Girvin at Improving Enterprises . I'm helping Improving host a conference specifically targeted at helping .NET developers discover and grow their understanding of Agile Software Development. More information can be found on the Agile.NET...(read more)

Hard Rock Cafe and Silverlight Deep Zoom

Chris Koenig — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:30:15 GMT

Our friends at Vertigo Software have updated the Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia site with some new features as they migrated the application to the released version of Silverlight 2. The new features include some AMAZING performance improvements in addition to almost twice the number of pictures as before. Check it out! Technorati Tags: silverlight...(read more)