I gave 4 sessions at the Software Developers Conference 2005 in Arnhem, Netherlands yesterday and today. Great little conference and a lot of fun to get to speak at.

Here are the slides and demos from the sessions:

Smart Client Offline Data Caching and Synchronization:  slides   demos

Extending ASP.NET with Custom Handlers and Modules:  slides   demos

Smart Client Communications with the Middle Tier: slides   demos

Tackle Complex Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0:  slides   demos

This is kind of cool. Fire up Visual Studio today, and my article on Configuring ClickOnce Trusted Publishers is the third item in the list of MSDN resources on the start page. I've arrived in life. I can die happy now. :)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnwinforms/html/clickoncetrustpub.asp

 

Yesterday I attended an all day event at the local Microsoft Office called the MVP Engagement Tour. This was put on by the team at Microsoft that manages the MVP program, and they are hitting about 20 major cities around the country and getting a chance to talk with the MVPs in that area (both developer, IT Pro, and End User app) about the program and what they are doing right or wrong.  It was a great event and a good chance to find learn more about the program and how to optimize my role in the community and with Microsoft as an MVP.

Besides learning a lot and getting to network with the other MVPs in the area, they gave us a nice little gift for participating - A Suunto SPOT Watch with 3 months free MSN Direct. NICE. I had pondered getting one of these little beasts before, but couldn't quite justify another $200 gadget. Now that I have it, maybe I will actually play around with creating some app for it.

Being an MVP and having early access to bits and great channels into the Microsoft product teams is reward enough for the time I spent speaking and writing, evangelizing Microsoft products and educating the community on them. But I'm always a sucker for cool toys too. Thanks MVP Team!!!

I attended a developer dinner put on by the local Microsoft office (G. Andrew Duthie specifically) last night that was truly excellent. David Chappell was the speaker and I enjoyed his talk immensely, as I do all his talks. The talk was a basic intro to Indigo, and even though I was up to speed already on most of the content, it is always entertaining and educational to watch a masterful speaker spin his web. He did a great job explaining some of the more complex aspects of Indigo in ways that anyone could get. He has been doing a road show with this talk across the country and will be going to Atlanta next, so if you have a chance to see it there, you should.

For those who attended, I hope you had a good time! Andrew did a great job putting the code camp together, and it seemed to go well all day.

Here are the slides and demos I gave:

Smart Client Offline Data Caching and Synchronization: Slides   Demos

Secure Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce:  Slides   Demos

Complex Data Binding in Windows Forms 2.0: Slides    Demos

Another semi-major milestone in life complete - another graduate degree. As of today, I'm a graduate of University of Colorado Boulder with a Masters of Engineering in Computer Science. I should probably be a little more excited about this, but after 6 years of slugging through the course work in my precious-little spare time, I'm just glad to have the darn thing done.

This is my second master's degree, I already had a B.S. and M.S. in Aero Engineering (U.S. Naval Academy and Naval Postgraduate School Monterey).

So why did I bother with a second masters? Great question, but the truth is if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't bother. I decided to pursue it 6 years ago when I was transitioning out of the Navy into a full time job as a developer, and wanted to have a sheepskin to back up the knowledge that I thought I already had from self study over many years, and working on software development projects within the Navy. Within a year of starting it, I had already realized that knowledge and ability is what matters in this industry, not academics, and so I really didn't need the degree to get the kinds of jobs I wanted. And after six years of study, I found that I was pretty much right - I already knew most of the useful information that was contained in my course of study. Sure I learned a few things along the way and refined some knowledge I already had, but for the most part, it was just an awful lot of work. And I can say with convinction that if I had spent that same amount of time doing my normal course of self study, I would have acquired vastly more knowledge.

The other thing I found challenging (in a bad way) and frustrating about the degree was that it is really difficult to go from having an engineering degree and being a practicing engineer for many years to studying a science degree. Way too much time was spent covering things that may have been "academically interesting" but in reality have no practical value in industry.

Don't get me wrong, CU Boulder is a great school, and their distance learning program CAETE through which I did the degree is top notch. If you don't already have a masters and want or need one, this is a great place to look. But for me it was mostly just a large waste of time.

So that is at least one major distraction that won't be on my plate anymore! Good timing since I have a major and much more important distraction these days:

 

My article on Configuring ClickOnce Trusted Publishers went live this week on the Smart Client Developer Center on MSDN Online:

http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnwinforms/html/clickoncetrustpub.asp