Are you ready to gain access to the latest tools, turning your hobby into a source of revenue, or expand your network?

Stop dreaming. Start building. Join us for a new series of Windows Phone 7 Bootcamps where you can get an inside track on how to be part of the next step of Microsoft’s mobile strategy and get hands-on training for building Silverlight-based applications.  These free, live learning sessions explore the latest tools, discuss tips and technologies, and provide access to Windows Phone 7 experts.

ATTEND these special events and learn about:

• the Windows Phone 7 platform
• building Silverlight Applications for Windows Phone 7
• submitting your application to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

Take advantage of this opportunity to explore with a Hands-on Lab where you can leverage the Windows Phone 7 Experts and your peers as you build your Windows Phone 7 Application.

Events run from 8am–5pm

Seating for the live event is limited, so register today.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, you might not know that the Northwest Arkansas area hosts an AMAZING developer community that has become exceptionally active over the last 2-3 years. Along with this week’s NWA TechFest, This weekend will host their first (and hopefully frequent) CodeJam.  The CodeJam is designed to help the local developer community develop web applications for their upcoming events, which include NWA GiveCamp and the NWA CommunityCamp.  If you’re interested in helping them build out these applications to support their upcoming events, head over to Jay’s blog and get all the details as well as the link to register:

http://jaysmith.us/post/Code-Jam-1-July-11th-2010-1200-PM-to-.aspx

The time has come to add another fine event to the TechFest family – Northwest Arkansas TechFest 2010

Scheduled for Thursday, July 8th at the Center for Nonprofits in Rogers, Arkansas, NWA TechFest is a community-organized, community-staffed technical conference with a primary focus on providing training/teaching sessions that are immediately beneficial to the broadest range of developers and IT professionals in their day-to-day jobs. They accomplish this with numerous national and international speakers delivering 75 minute sessions on topics that range from Architecture, Development, IT Pro, Project Management and more!

As a proud member of the TechFest family, NWA TechFest asks only that each attendee bring 2 cans of food to be donated to the NWA Food Bank or 2 bucks to be donated to the Jones Center.

REGISTER NOW

Zain Naboulsi, John Weston and I, along with 25 of our closest friends, will be presenting sessions across the 8 different tracks. I myself will be delivering 2 sessions at NWA TechFest – one on building Silverlight Applications for Windows Phone 7, and one on the SketchFlow features in Expression Blend 4.

Follow these links to stay connected to what’s going on with NWA TechFest 2010!

Did you get to attend MIX 2010?  If so, I know you found it to be full of great information about our latest and greatest web technologies, and gave you some great insight into where some of our tools and technologies are headed.

But what if you didn�t get to go?  You could navigate your way through 141+ hours of content on the http://live.vistmix.com web site and try to pull out some of the more important nuggets (and I think you ultimately should) but that would take at least 90 hours (presuming you watch all the video on 1.5 speed in Windows Media Player having downloaded all the content the weekend before you started watching).

Another option is to attend a ugMIX event in your area.  Popular all across Microsoft�s Central Region, ugMIX is a highlight-reel of the top stories to come from MIX 2010 focusing on the key messages for developers.  Each district, and potentially each speaker, is doing something different, but all of us agree that MIX was a really important conference this year and one you should definitely catch up on.

For my part, I�ve just completed 2 of my 4 currently scheduled ugMIX talks, one at the Dallas ASP.NET user group and one at the Fort Worth .NET User Group.  I�ll be in Tulsa on Monday to bring MIX to them, and if you�re interested, we can make arrangements for me to bring it to you (see note at bottom of post).

Here�s the outline of what my version of ugMIX showcases:

• OData � a uniform way for sharing your data across organizational boundaries, the OData is your data over REST.  We�ll show what OData is, how you use it, and write some code to consume it.
• Windows Phone 7 Series � A new phone, designed for a life in motion. Calling all Silverlight developers – we�ll look at the phone design, specs and philosophy while writing some code using the free development environment (which includes a FREE express version of the Blend 4 Beta with Windows Phone 7 Series support)!
• Silverlight 4 � Overview of what�s new in the Silverlight 4 RC and show some cool code demos of those new features in action.
• Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview � interested in where IE9 is heading? I�ll show you the IE9 Platform Preview, released at MIX 2010, as we discuss the team�s plans for supporting HTML5, CSS3, in-line SVG graphics and hardware-acceleration in the browser.

I�ve shared a copy of my slide deck if you want to get a head start, but I can�t share all my demos at this time, unfortunately�  I can provide other links, though, to help you get started on this amazing new platform!

• My ugMIX deck
• Mix Session List
• OData.org
• Download Silverlight 4 RC and Silverlight Developer Tools RC
• Download the Windows Phone 7 Series developer tools preview
• Expression Blend 4 Beta
• Expression Blend 4 Beta SDK for Windows Phone

I look forward to seeing you at the next ugMIX!

Note: this offer good only in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, UK, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan.

June 12, 2010
Harrison, Arkansas
North Arkansas College

SharePoint Saturday Ozarks is a FREE, educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of topics focused on Microsoft SharePoint technologies.  If you�re a SharePoint developer, or power user, SharePoint Saturday is for you.  If you use SharePoint for your job, then SharePoint Saturday is for you.  If you want to learn more about SharePoint, then SharePoint Saturday is definitely for you. I�ve been to a couple of these events, and they�re always very well run, have great content, and fill a great void in the typical .NET developer user group meeting or community conference event.  This event is ALL SharePoint, ALL day long.

Besides, it�s being run by the SharePoint Hillbilly � who doesn�t want to learn about SharePoint from him?

http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/ozarks/default.aspx

There are quite  a few interesting (and cool) events coming up in SCD over the next couple of weeks� Check these out, mark your calendars and let ALL your friends know about them!

Launch Event � Visual Studio 2010, Office 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2

Tuesday, May 18, 2010 8:00 AM � 5:00 PM

The event date is now SOLID, but the location is not.  We�ll be showing off VS2010, Office 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2.  More to come on this launch once we have the info � I only just got the final word on dates this evening.

MSDN Events Presents: Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4.0 and SharePoint Development

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 1:00 PM, North Little Rock, AR

Join your local Microsoft Evangelism team for a lively tour our latest version of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. We�ll start with an overview the IDE and explore how you can use the latest features to develop great applications in a flash. Next, we�ll look at the newest changes to the .NET Framework and how you can leverage them today. Finally, we end the day by looking at the new tools in Visual Studio that will supercharge your SharePoint development.

SESSION 1: What�s New in Visual Studio 2010
SESSION 2: What�s New in the .NET Framework 4.0
SESSION 3: SharePoint Development using Visual Studio 2010

[ Event Details | Map & Directions | Add To Calendar ]

Software Engineering 101

Saturday, February 27, 2010 8:00 AM � 5:00 PM

This is a one-day, FREE event focused on core skills that modern developers need to have to be successful today.  This isn�t about learning the basics of Silverlight, WPF, or <insert_new_tech_of_day>, rather, this conference will help you understand how to build software that is better designed, more maintainable, and more testable. They�re spending the morning on fundamentals around object-oriented programming, the SOLID principles and a few other important skills, while the afternoon is all about hands-on skills development using Pair Programming techniques to work through a series of challenges. 

If you�re in Nashville, you can attend in person, but for those of you not in Nashville, there is still a chance to participate! The event will have an associated webcast that will allow people to play along from home.  You will need your own laptop with Visual Studio 2008  (or 2010) pre-installed before arriving.

There is more stuff on the horizon, but I�ll save that for later blog posts.  If you have any questions about these events, just let me know!

Attention all you peeps in Ft. Smith, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and surrounding areas!  Tonight and tomorrow night are the first parts of my 2010 #ugPDC tour.  Visiting the FSDNUG tonight and the NWADNUG tomorrow night, I�ll be talking about a bunch of the cool stuff announced at PDC09 including Azure, Silverlight 4, Visual Studio 2010, parallel programming features, dynamic language features, and more!  Here�s the info for each of these groups so you have absolutely no excuse to skip out!

January 11, 2010 – Fort Smith .NET User Group
http://fsdnug.org
EagleOne Headquarters
4001 Planters Rd. Fort Smith, AR 72908
Meeting starts at 6:00 pm.  Food will be provided

January 12, 2010 � Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group
http://nwadnug.org
Jones Center For Families
922 East Emma Avenue, Springdale, AR 72764
Meeting starts at 5:30 pm.  Food will be provided

There are more #ugPDC visits scheduled for next month, including the Fort Worth .NET User Group and the Dallas ASP.NET User Group.  If you�re interested in having one of our Developer Evangelists come out to your User Group during January, February or March to tell you about all the cool, new and exciting things announced at PDC, just drop me a line and let me know!

(screen shot photo courtesy of wikipedia)

Who doesn�t like the game Centipede � fast, furious action in the garden where centipedes and spiders attack you mercilessly as you dodge through toadstools trying to eliminate the unwanted pests.  Ever wonder where this game came from, and who created it?  Now is your chance to meet the creator of Centipede � Dona Bailey � at the upcoming Harrison .NET User Group meeting on November 3rd, 2009.  Not resting on her laurels, Dona has remained busy in the software industry, and will be speaking that night on  3D modeling as well as her experiences at Atari and with creating the game Centipede.

To register for this FREE event, just visit http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=141461 and sign up.

Oh � and did I mention the prize?  The User Group will be giving away a Vintage Centipede Arcade Game as the grand prize!  Here�s a picture, in case you are curious on how well it will fit in the back of your Ford Festiva: