Rachel Hawley's DevExpress Community Blog

March 2011 - Posts

• Thanks for joining us at the DevExpress London Mixer

  This week DevExpress attended DevWeek, and while in town we held our first DevExpress London Mixer at Amber Bar, and by all accounts it was a roaring success. Thanks for making it a huge success Thanks must go out to our contacts at Amber Bar - Karen, Carl and Julian - for allowing us to host a great event at their facility. Naturally we should thank Ray for allowing us to provide drinks and nibbles for everyone too . We also want to extend a huge thank you to all of those that attended the event and made it the success that it was. We were so pleased with the positive feedback that you provided us with as the night went on, and we feel sure that more networking and mixer events will be coming to your region in the future. Gary, Rory and myself were thrilled to see customers from a huge range of different companies – start-ups, banks and ISVs – all mingling together, discussing their work and having a good time. This was exactly how we hoped those who attended the event would choose to use the opportunity. I hope that those of you who met Ravi Mittal will join me in wishing him all the very best as he embarks on his move to California with his start-up, Blob In. All the very best of luck, Ravi! The DevExpress Mixer – Coming to a town near you! Keep your eyes on our blogs as we plan more DevExpress Mixers near you. These events are so much more than drinks and nibbles. The DevExpress Mixer provides you and your colleagues with the means to meet with DevExpress staff, mix with other customers and network with those who, like you, are working professionally with DevExpress controls. Posted Mar 18 2011, 01:14 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with 2 comment(s)

• Register for our DevExpress Mixer in London

  Celebrate Wednesday 16th March with DevExpress! After the huge success of our DevExpress Dinners and the DevExpress Mixer in New York City, Gary, Rory and I are bringing the DevExpress Mixer to London. Join us on Wednesday March 16th from 6.30pm for some free drinks and snacks after work, and a great opportunity to mix and network with other DevExpress customers and enthusiasts from in and around London. Join DevExpress at Amber Bar We’ve commandeered Milk Bar, a private bar within Amber Bar in The City. A short walk from both Moorgate Tube and Liverpool Street Station, it is very easy to reach, and with the possibility of heading home with some nifty prizes and goodies on the night, what better way to celebrate being a DevExpress customer and making it through another Wednesday? Register Now Since we’re pre-ordering some food and drinks for you all, we’d really appreciate it if you could register. It’s totally free and the drinks are on us. It’ll be a great evening, and we hope to see you there!  Posted Mar 07 2011, 04:24 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments

• Microsoft Web Camps – Free Local Training with Microsoft Experts

  What is a Web Camp? Web Camps are a Microsoft initiative aimed at developers looking to learn and build websites with ASP.NET MVC, WebMatrix and OData – all the fun stuff that we here at DevExpress are researching to make sure you get the most out of this new Microsoft technology. 2–day Web Camps cover all three of the above topics and are led by Microsoft pros including Scott Hanselman, Phil Haack and our favourite Rachel Appel. 1-day events are also available for those who want to focus on a just one of the specific topics. Where is my closest Web Camp? Web Camps are being held, literally, all over the place! From South America to Saudi Arabia. You are bound to be able to find and event happening close to you. And with a list of locations that is being added to regularly, there really is no excuse for you not to take up this great opportunity. Coming up on Monday March 7th is a Microsoft legend, double-header with both Phil Haack and Scott Hanselman at the same event. By registering for this 2-day extravaganza in Austin, TX you can learn about these technologies from the people inside Microsoft who have worked on these projects since their earliest days – it’s literally learning about tech “from the horse’s mouth”! How much will this great training cost? With such luminaries as these teaching the classes, I’ll bet you think these training events will cost you or your boss the salary of a small European country, don’t you? No. These events are totally free of charge. That’s right. Nothing to pay to attend. Am I making this clear enough? You just need to show up with a laptop, some drinks and snacks and your ID and you’ll be ready to rock and roll. Where can I find out more? I’m glad you asked. Head on over to the Web Camps site and you can find a full listing of all of the current locations for upcoming events, download materials and register for an event near you. Posted Mar 04 2011, 04:14 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments

• Register Now for Codestock 2011–Join DevExpress in Tennessee

  What is Codestock? Codestock is a long-running community-driven event co-ordinated by DevExpress friend Mike Neel. We are proud to be a sponsor of this fantastic event for the second year running. Held at the University of Tennessee Conference Centre in Knoxville, TN with the keynote in the historic Bijou Theatre, this an event on your community calendar that is not to be missed. Last year Gary and I travelled to Tennessee for Codestock and it did not disappoint. We were able to meet some great people and enjoy fantastic content. Mike describes Codestock as a “mostly” developer event. The content is largely developer-focussed, with topics ranging from Azure to XNA, but there is also a side-helping of IT Pro sessions and some entrepreneurial material for those who are interested in breaking out of their box and going independent or even creating their own company. This event is a fantastic mix of education and real-world experience coming together to create what I honestly think is a rich and wildly unique conference. When is Codestock? This year, Codestock will be coming to kick your butt over June 3rd and 4th. Registration is open and to encourage you to get in early, there is a great early-bird rate of just $60 to attend. Yes, you read that right. $60 for 2 full days of fantastic content and opportunities if you register before April 1st. How can I register? Easy peasy. Head on over to the Codestock registration page and book your seat at this great event. Tell Mike we sent you Posted Mar 04 2011, 12:42 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments

• WEBINAR REMINDER: Jon Skeet on Async in C# 5

  Calling all language lovers, let this serve as your reminder for a terrific webinar that we have in store for you tonight. All-round language lothario, Jon Stackoverflow Skeet will be presenting a session today at Midday PST (8:00pm GMT) entitled “Async from scratch, from a language lover's perspective”. Jon has promised us an enlightening exploration of what the proverbial engine inside the new async feature is doing under the hood, so to speak. This is an exclusive addition to the DevExpress Webinar Series and we are very honoured to have Jon join our host Amanda Christensen for an hour of excellent content. Webinar Description You've probably seen some of the excitement around the "async" feature of C# 5, but how does it all work under the hood? What does it mean when we say we're registering a continuation to run when a task completes? How much behaviour is actually prescribed by the language? In a shocking break from other presentations, Jon may well attempt to talk about async without the safety net of a flashy GUI. Instead, we'll create some very simple supposedly-asynchronous code, some of which won't even do anything asynchronous at all. Just don't tell the compiler. Who needs AsyncCTP.dll when we can write our own GetAwaiter method? If we have time, he'll also give some examples of extra building blocks we can use in a compositional way to make our async life simpler. Register Now Click the register button below and attend the webinar on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011 at 10AM PST: Thursday March 3rd, 2011 03:00pm EDT | Midday PDT | 08:00pm GMT Title: Async from scratch, from a language lover's perspective Date: Thursday March 3rd, 2011 Time: Midday PDT (GMT -08:00) Length: 1 hour (but may go longer) Presenters: Jon Skeet Register here - https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/968709454 Level:  200 Presenters Jon Skeet Amanda Christensen Host Register Soon What are you still sitting around here for? Go register, now! Posted Mar 03 2011, 11:14 AM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments

• Code PaLOUsa – A Louisville Developer Conference

  Yet another brand new event for the community calendar! Code PaLOUsa is the brainchild of Chad Green, who wanted to bring a conference to Louisville, KY that would offer content and speakers that were on a par with events such as CodeMash and Codestock. Chad has set up a fantastic agenda with some great speakers including Mike Eaton, Jason Follas, Sara Chipps and SourceGear Founder, Eric Sink. The team at DevExpress are excited to witness the success of this first event, and Azret Botash and Bryan Wood will be heading over to represent us. Azret will also be delivering a session titled OData Internals and Implementing Custom Providers. This should be a great session to get the event started at 8am on Friday! If you plan to attend the event, make sure to stop by the DevExpress table and spend some time with Azret and Bryan. We’ll meet you in St. Louis…ville! Posted Mar 02 2011, 08:06 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments

• DevExpress Goes to Dallas Day of .NET

  This weekend will see the kick off of the first ever Dallas Day of .NET. DevExpress are very excited to be a sponsor of this inaugural event and we want to thank organiser, Chander Dhall, for asking us to participate. Although not free training like some of the other community events I have posted about recently, Dallas Day of .NET is offering a staggering 2 full days of training from the likes of open source guru, Ayende Rahien, and Microsoft Developer Evangelist and GiveCamp Founder, Chris Koenig, as well as an exclusive keynote session delivered by Phil Haack. What’s more, all the profits from the event will be going towards helping a cancer patient. Our evangelists Seth Juarez and Woody Pewitt will also be attending the event. Seth will speak on Hands-on Design Patterns in C# on the Beginners’ track and Woody will be delivering a session entitled From Port 80 to applications - From HTTP to how ASP.NET delivers content. The agenda is looking pretty good, and with so many great speakers, the attendees will leave having been exposed to some great content. There is still time to sign up for this event. Head over to the homepage for the event and you can register using the Eventbrite facility. If you plan to be in the region please let us know. Seth and Woody would love to meet with you while they are in the area. Posted Mar 01 2011, 06:23 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments