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There are several very nice events in the Central Florida area for developers in the upcoming months and 2012 year. The 1st (2) events below are *free* so there is no reason not to attend them if you are within a 50-75 mile range and are able to make it. The latter (2) are phenomenal conferences for the .NET and Microsoft Community and do have a registration fee, so see if your employer will put out for some training!
Orlando Code Camp: March 31, 2012 at Seminole State College, Sanford, FL.
This will be my 3rd year at CodeCamp and I have to say how impressed I am by the volunteers of the community to put on a 1st class event like this. It is every bit on par with a paid conference like VSLive and in fact has some of the same presenters like John Papa. If this is the only event you can attend in a year it will be well worth your Saturday. The event is free.
Windows Developer Camp: April 11, 2012 at the Royal Pacific Resort, Orlando, FL.
This touts itself as a Windows 8 event helping developers to get primed on technologies like Metro Apps, HTML5, JavaScript, XAML, and much more. The event is free and a meal is included.
Microsoft TechEd: June 11-14, 2012 at the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL.
This is a premier Microsoft sponsored event for the development and IT industry as a whole. I have not attended the TechEd conferences before, but I know many of the elite in our industry do and it is sure not to disappoint.
Visual Studio Live!: December 10-14, 2012 at the Royal Pacific Resort, Orlando, FL.
This is a 5 day full conference that I have attended 4 times in the past. It does have a registration fee, but if you sign up early you can save money. Their site describes the conference best: "This event offers 5 days of over 60 educational sessions in tracks such as HTML5, Cloud Computing, Windows 8 / WinRT, and — of course — Visual Studio 2010+/.NET4+. Attendees receive a first-rate education, along with exclusive networking opportunities and one-on-one time with speakers that prepare them for what's now, new and next in the .NET development platform."
In addition to the live events above you can always check out the plethora of online training and content available from Microsoft below:
Microsoft Events
Visual Studio Live Orlando is just about here, and if you have not attended before or are a past attendee, check it out!
It’s a great opportunity to interact one-on-one with industry experts and Microsoft insiders, like Rachel Appel, Andrew Brust, Scott Cate, Billy Hollis and Rocky Lhotka on everything from .NET 4/Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight to cloud computing, Windows Phone 7 development and HTML5. Plus, why wouldn’t you want to escape the December cold and be here in sunny Florida? Can you handle the ordered up weather below for this upcoming week at the conference?
This will be my 4th time to VSLive! and I think the knowledge and networking opportunities gained are worth the conference price 10 fold. I am asked so often how from new or junior programmers about how they can grow and advance their career. Attending a 1st class conference like this and learning from the experts is definitely a step in the right direction.
Interested in attending? There is still time, and if you are a programmer local to Central Florida come and see just how great this conference really is. Check out the special group rates offered for companies that bring 3 or more people. Register today at http://bit.ly/VSLOL11Reg.
5 days of practical and immediately-applicable training for developers, programmers, software engineers and architects in Visual Studio, Silverlight, WPF, .NET and more. And it all takes place on the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, October 17-21! Check it out at: http://tinyurl.com/3bn4by9
If you are a .NET Developer I highly recommend any of the VSLive! conferences, and where better to be then in Redmond with the gang from Microsoft.
If you’ve never been to Visual Studio Live, it offers developers, programmers, software engineers and architects an unbiased blend of practical and immediately-applicable training in Visual Studio, Silverlight, WPF, .NET and more. Plus, there will be 2 new tracks on mobile development and HTML5 this year! Check out the Visual Studio Live! Agenda at http://bit.ly/VSLiveTrks.
Another beautiful and informative day here in Orlando, FL at Visual Studio Live 2010. I would have to pull my old conference materials for comparison, but I really like the 4-5 class per day format. I seem to remember 6 or more classes per day in the past which can maker for a really long day especially if learning new concepts. However, this format has been perfect.
Had great classes with industry leaders like Leonard Lobel, Gus Emery, and Jason Bock. I also must note that one of the best byproducts of these conferences is the side conversations and networking that occurs informally. Everyone at these conferences is here for one reason: they are the leaders of their respective teams or companies in reference to software development and related ares and love what we do. For this reason, everyone is eager to chat, talk, and discuss their jobs, work, applications, etc which is quite nice.
One new product I learned of today was Microsoft WebMatrix. http://www.asp.net/webmatrix This is an all inclusive tool to rapidly build web applications using shared pre-built components built by the development community, and hosted on IIS Development Express. What I was instantly amazed by was how Rabi Satter (@rsatter42) wrote in '1' line of code (no joke) a Twitter client that searches for a keyword that took me probably 500-1000 lines of code (between Silverlight client and WCF proxy service) to do essentially the same thing. OK no denying that is nice, and the technology offers more of the same (Twitter, Facebook, Wiki, Blogs, PayPal, etc). It is still in Beta and will probably not revolutionize web development and having everyone run away from their current platforms, but it certainly will have a presence.
Lastly, I had the unique and great pleasure of dining this even with 2 prominent leaders of our industry, Rocky Lhotka and Jason Bock. Seeing how I have listened to them speak, read books from them, Twitter feeds, blogs, etc. it was a real nice experience to hang out with not only some top echelon developers, but also some just really cool guys. Everyone at dinner liked the band Rush (hey, who doesn't) which made for some good conversation as well. I hope to hook up with you guys more in the future and highly recommend those of you in the industry to check these guys blogs out as well: http://www.lhotka.net/ and http://www.jasonbock.net/JB/Default.aspx
This is my 3rd Visual Studio Live (formally VSLive!) and I am enjoying it as much as ever. If you ever get the chance to attend one of these events (Orlando, Las Vegas, Redmond, etc.) try and do it. The information is terrific and the insight from experienced presenters, peers in our industry, and general networking make it all worth it.
Today I attended the workshop named "Making Effective Use of Silverlight and WPF" with Rocky Lhotka (@RockyLhotka on Twitter) and Billy Hollis (http://slmasters.net/). Talk about (2) all-stars of our industry. Billy's knowledge of UI design with Silverlight and WPF (and other UI technolgoes too WinForms, etc) combined with Rocky's experience being an experienced OOP and Architecture engineer (research CSLA.NET) makes for a wonderfully informative day.
I had the pleasure of being on the front row for the presentation and enjoyed the back and fourth complimentary knowledge of .NET technologies. Unfortunately for me, I asked a question regarding a .xap being downloaded to the client, potentially exposing sensitive code (for a small % of shops, or developers still using antiquated architectures with wayyy too much code in the UI including sensitive connection strings, password, etc.) and made me sound like a noob. People were coming up to me at break telling me, "Just leave that code on the server and make a WCF call..." Yep, I know. Just was trying to raise a quick conversation for ex-web developers to understand Silverlight's deployment. Ow well. :)
Rocky (4th time attending presentations) and Billy (2nd time hearing presentations) can offer a lot of knowledge for those wanting to a lot about A+ presentation design (Billy) or OOP and .NET Technologies (Rocky) and should be checked out this week. If you are attending Visual Studio Live I highly recommend any presentations by either these (2) presenters. Nice job gentlemen.
