Rachel Hawley's DevExpress Community Blog

June 2011 - Posts

• Win an Apple iPad 2 at DEVLINK 2011!

  DevExpress are proud to have been invited to partner with John Kellar and his team to bring you DEVLINK 2011. Three days packed with great sessions, great speakers and great swag all from just $100. Tickets selling fast – book now! Conferences go through their own lifecycle, and as the years pass the organisers get a feel for high points in their registration cycle. There are just 50 days left to book your ticket for DEVLINK 2011, and as the team behind the event approach the descent into July, and the madness that comes with final event arrangements, this is where the registrations really start to kick off. Don’t hang about – be sure to register and book your ticket. You don’t want to miss out. Book before July 4th for your chance to win Today DEVLINK 2011 launched an attendee-only contest. If you book your ticket to the event before July 4th, they will enter you into a contest to win one of 3 VIP tickets to the speaker and influencer event on Tuesday August 16th, where you could rub shoulders with people who have written the articles and books that you have read, and worked on the products that you use everyday. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the small matter of your chance to win an iPad 2 during the opening keynote session with Oren Eini (aka Ayende Rahien)! Meet with DevExpress Julian, Seth and Woody will all be in Chattanooga, TN for DEVLINK 2011. If you want to meet with them or set aside some time outside of the conference to talk one-on-one then drop me an email (rachelh@devexpress.com). With so many great reasons to attend this event, you should register for DEVLINK 2011 now. You won’t be sorry! For those of you that can’t attend, why not take a look at the speaker list and let us know who you’d like to see interviewed at DEVLINK 2011 for the DevExpress Channel. Add your thoughts on topics and questions for your interviewees to the comments and we’ll send our intrepid technical explorers out to find them at the event!  Posted Jun 28 2011, 11:52 AM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, Conferences, DEVLINK

• Video: Oliver Sturm on Functional Programming and DevExpress Training Courses at NDC 2011

  Did you know that Oliver Sturm was writing a book? It took him a while, but Oliver finally completed and published it: Functional programming in C#, and it is now available in all good outlets for your enjoyment. Oliver is continuing his involvement with DevExpress as an expert consultant and trainer, but for this video I was interested in finding out what this functional programming stuff was all about. I caught up with Oliver at NDC 2011 after he had delivered his sessions on functional programming in C# and F#. The links there will take you directly to the recordings of those sessions so that you can see what you missed. In this short video, Oliver covers his upcoming ASP.NET focused DevExpress training courses, as well as the following: What is functional programming? Why is it useful? How does it differ across programming languages (particularly C# and F#) Why developers struggle to introduce new languages into their organisations Take a look and leave your feedback on anything bought up in the video for us in the comments below. Posted Jun 23 2011, 06:04 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, Conferences, ndc2011, functional programming

• Video: Barry Dorrans on security, AKA “developers doing naughty things” at NDC 2011

  It’s not an uncommon news headline, “[Organisation X] suffers security breach …” but recently, high-profile names have bought system and data security right slap-bang into the spotlight. Some of you may remember Barry Dorrans from the DevExpress webinar he presented on the OWASP Top 10 Web Vulnerabilities. The list is a perfect resource for discovering the most popular attacks against web applications on the internet right now. Back in May 2011, Sony bosses were deeply apologetic for the security breach affecting some 77 million accounts on the online PlayStation Network service. In addition, concerns were raised that, of those accounts, as many as 10 million credit card records were compromised. Not long after that, Citibank came under attack after being “hacked”. Both Barry and other Microsoft employees, including Rachel Appel, showed concerns at the success of this level of “primitive hacking”. But what do these examples tell us? Beyond the fact that these problems exist, I don’t think I am really in a position to answer my own question, but I can provide you with this short yet informative video recorded at NDC 2011. Barry presented an introduction to web security at NDC 2011, and the video of that presentation is now available to watch. But if you want a small starter before digging into the main course, why not watch this video. Have you been affected by security breaches in your organisation? Do you have a process that is already implemented to sanitise your applications for possible security issues? Leave your feedback in the comments and let us know your thoughts. Posted Jun 23 2011, 05:31 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, Conferences, ndc2011, security

• Video: Aral Balkan on Making the New Everyday Things at NDC 2011

  If there was one session at NDC 2011 that I found totally fascinating, it was Aral Balkan’s session on user experience design entitled, Making the New Everyday Things. Aral was highlighting, for this developer audience, the ways in which user design, or more specifically good user design, can help your product stand out in the marketplace and be a piece of equipment that users can derive joy and satisfaction from using. I’ll skip over all the terribly bad language Aral used () to get to a specific example that was made. On arrival into Oslo airport you can hop on a high-speed train that will take you right into the centre of Oslo City. It couldn’t be easier. The manner in which you buy your ticket for this train is so easy it is practically sublime. You walk towards the departure platforms and you swipe your credit card and the get onto the train. That’s it. You swipe your card. No pin numbers, no waiting for the ticket to print, no message saying “you entered an incorrect station – please select one of the following” … you just swipe and go. Compare this to Aral’s experience with the same machines in Sweden. Check out this bad boy: All this machine needs is a huge handle on the side and it would perform the same function as a fruit machine – it would take your money and you wouldn’t know how it happened! Aral demonstrated how the design of the machines that all airport train travellers used in Oslo was designed with the user in mind, making compromises on the business needs in favour of maintaining the most simple and easy-to-use machines. Now, I don’t know about you, not only am I not 100% certain what would happen if I put my money in the machine in the picture on the left, but I am also pretty sure that I would avoid using it if I possibly could. And as Aral says in this video, in a commoditised industry, if a user avoids using your “solution” because of complexity of design, caused by product designers satisfying inane business needs imposed by their bosses, you are going to go out of business pretty fast.  I really enjoyed this session, and you can download the recording of it by heading to the agenda page of the NDC 2011 website and clicking on “Watch Movie” underneath Aral’s Session. You’ll find it in the first slot of track 4 on day 2. (Be warned, bad language is used!) Aral stayed a while to chat to me about his session and I really appreciated his time. You can view a potted version here to get a taster of his session. Posted Jun 23 2011, 09:20 AM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, Conferences, ndc2011, user design, UX, user experience

• DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! Sydney with WP7 and Kinect SDK Hackathon

  DevExpress are excited to be supporting the second DDD! Sydney event on July 2nd and 3rd at the University of Technology in Sydney. DDD (DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper) is a string of local, regional and now international events initially developed by and for the UK developer community. When UK community leader Alex Mackey moved out to Australia for a new job, he decided to take the concept out with him, and so was born the first antipodean event, DDD! Melbourne. Not long after, Sydney-based Lewis Benge held the inaugural DDD! Sydney in July 2010. Fun-packed Agenda Lewis has prepared day one’s packed agenda with topics ranging from automated deployment to guerrilla domain driven design. DX-Squad member, Chris Walsh, will be at the event delivering  session on Windows Phone Next. Day two will be an pretty exciting WP7 and Kinect SDK hackathon, with mentors, trainers and other coders coming together to design, build and demo the most imaginative things they can think of for the platforms. Register for your spot To celebrate the release of the Kinect SDK, the day two “fun day” is being hosted free of charge – great news! There is a small covering fee for the conference day, but at only A$25.00, I’d say that was pretty reasonable. There are still spaces available, so if you are in or around Sydney’s University of Technology only July 2nd and 3rd, make sure you register. If you do attend the event be sure to seek out Lewis and congratulate him on the event and say “Hi” to Chris from all of us here at DevExpress! Safe travels! Posted Jun 23 2011, 04:00 AM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, Conferences, DDD Sydney

• Video: Rod on Ruby at NDC 2011

  While I was hanging out at the Norwegian Developers’ Conference, I caught up with a bunch of cool people who were talking about subjects that I found interesting. Rod Paddock is an editor for CODE Magazine, a Microsoft MVP and a consultant for .NET and Ruby on Rails development. I was listening in to a conversation between Gary and an old colleague of mine, Ben Hall, who has recently set up his own start up. Very brave. Ben mentioned that he had decided to convert his pre existing C# project to Ruby. Even braver. Later that day, when Rod mentioned that his business, Dash Point Software, were beginning to see more projects starting out in Ruby, I thought I’d ask a bit more about this whole Ruby on Rails thing. Take a look at the video and leave your comments below. I’d be interested to hear what you think about the Rise of Ruby. Posted Jun 22 2011, 07:41 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, Conferences, ndc2011, ruby

• Will you be getting crazy at MADExpo 2011?

  The Mid Atlantic Developer Expo will be kicking off its first ever event on June 30th. Will you be there? Why the Mid Atlantic? There are unique conferences all over the USA - think CodeMash, CodeStock, DevLINK, IndyTechFest – so why did the organisers decide to set up camp for this event in Hampton, VA? The Mid Atlantic Developer Expo was born out of discussions among the community, and a desire to combine some of the efforts and energy that drives the great user groups and code camps in the area into an event that would bring together diverse groups of developers and technologists, and provide a great environment for learning and inspiration. MADExpo – http://madexpo.us/ With a 10-strong team behind the scenes making sure everything is in place, this event has all the hallmarks of a great event. The event is being supported by a number of sponsors, including DevExpress, and with the great work that the organisational committee for this event have done means that the ticket price of just $149.00 represents great value for money – less than $75 per day of content! Come and find DevExpress Our newest recruit, Rachel Reese, will be heading out to Hampton, VA to mingle and meet attendees. She’s the face of our Rich Edit and Scheduling controls, so if you have any questions or comments that you’d like to sit down and discuss with her, she’ll be hanging around the DevExpress sponsor table during the day. If you want to contact her beforehand, you can find her on Twitter or you can drop her an email (rachelr@devexpress.com). If you can’t find her on the DevExpress booth, you might want to check the MADKidz area . It’s not too late to register There are still places available for this event. And if you are interested in HTML5, there is a full day workshop on the Thursday sponsored and run by Microsoft, to help you to reach optimal velocity! Register for your spot here. As I’ve said before, $149.00 is a steal for a conference with this level of content. If you are in the region and could benefit from this event, check with your boss and see if there is room in your training budget or team “pot” for you to take advantage of. The costs are significantly less than the major high dollar events, so see what your managers can do for you. You never know unless you ask! If you are travelling to this event, do drop by the DevExpress table and say hello to Rachel. She might even give you some swag! Safe travels! Posted Jun 22 2011, 03:14 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, Conferences, MADExpo

• Will you be at SoCal Code Camp this weekend?

  DevExpress are very pleased to be a supporter of SoCal Code Camp again this summer! SoCal Code Camp is a two-day event being hosted at UC San Diego. The event is this weekend and thanks to a number of supporters it is totally free of charge to attend. Huge Range of Sessions Just reading through the session list demonstrates what a huge variety of sessions are available to you as an attendee. You can expect all sort of topics from Android and Azure, to Scrum, SharePoint and SQL Server, and a rainbow of topics, programming languages and platforms in between! Microsoft luminary, Jon Galloway, will be there delivering some material on ASP.NET MVC. If you have questions on the prospects of cloud computing, you should seek out Brian Loesgen who is a Principal Architect Evangelist on the Azure ISV team. He’ll be presenting on Architectural Patterns for Azure as well as “What’s in it for Startups and ISVs?”. Register Now! It’s not too late to register for this event, and you’ll be joining hundreds of other like-minded people for the weekend. Head to the registration page and secure your spot for this fabulous event in Southern California. You’ll be glad you did Posted Jun 21 2011, 05:08 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, Conferences

• Enjoy Entrepreneurialism at Lansing Day of .NET 2011

  This weekend, Saturday 25th June, Lansing will host its 3rd Day of .NET event. DevExpress friend, Joe Kunk, told us a little about the event in this recent video. This year, Camtasia and Snagit creators, TechSmith, are hosting the event and sponsors, including us here at DevExpress, are helping to support Lansing Day of .NET and the many technical community members who are attending the day-long event.   Thriving Developer Community Gary and I have visited Lansing on more than more occasion, and what strikes me each time is the thriving sense of community spirit. In this state alone, and for the most part within about 1-2 hours drive, there are at least 5 user groups maintained by the community and run for the benefit of the community. Many of these groups are seeing upwards of 50 attendees every month, and the great part about it all is that after each meeting people hang around to talk to each other, mix with recruiters or local business owners, chat about work, chat about home life … Everyone takes the opportunity to squeeze as much into those couple of hours as they can. It comes as no surprise to me that when I think about many of my closest friends in the tech community, I find that a large number of them are based in and around the Greater Lansing area. Participate at Day of .NET 2011  If you are based in or near the Lansing area and you have not already sampled what this community has to offer, why not pop along for a taster at the Day of .NET event this Saturday? The event is totally free to attend, thanks to hosts TechSmith and all the participating sponsors, and the sessions represent the great mix of talent that comes from in and around Michigan. A look at the speaker list shows that you can expect some really eclectic content, including HTML5, ASP.NET MVC and Windows Phone development, as well as some all-round more entrepreneurial sessions on starting your business, making the most of diversity and also being a better developer.   Community on a smaller scale If events like this are not your cup of tea (or coffee!), and user group meetings don’t light your proverbial fire, I want to take this opportunity to introduce you to some of our friends at Gravity Works and their co-working space, Second Gear, in Lansing, MI. This is not an advertisement for their services, this is a suggestion for a way that I think you can sample what the folks in Lansing can offer you as a community-focused city. Second Gear is a fantastic space, with great facilities located right next door to creative development and design company, Gravity Works. The company was set up by a friend of mine, Jeff McWherter, and his co-founder, Amelia Marschall. The information page on their co-working space, Second Gear, resonates with many conversations that Jeff and I have had about our previous working environments. If you are based around the Lansing, MI area and your productivity cycle does not fit into the “cubical mould” then I encourage you give my friends a call and spend some time in their company. It won’t take long for you to rediscover your energy and productivity. Enjoy yourself! I can’t sing the praises of community events highly enough. They are a great educational and networking opportunity. I suggest that you head along to the TechSmith office in Okemos, MI on Saturday June 25th and sample what is on offer.  Posted Jun 20 2011, 03:17 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, events

• NYC GiveCamp 2011 Charity Wins National Contest

  AT&T – Applications for Good Back in May, I blogged about NYC GiveCamp charity, Remás, entering their mobile currency exchange application for a national contest. This week, One Economy and AT&T announced the winners of Applications for Good. Everyone at DevExpress, as co-ordinators of NYC GiveCamp, would like to extend our congratulations to Remás as they were awarded the grand prize! Applications for Good is part the One Economy strategy to focus forward and meet people where they are to ensure everyone has access to technology tools to improve their lives. We create and support public purpose applications that promote social and economic development. A4G exists because we recognize that people are going mobile and that open data, game dynamics and social networking are emerging tools we can use to solve tough problems. One Economy Corporation – ApplicationsForGood.org Huge Boost for Continued Development The contest awarded Remás a grand prize fund of $5,000 to continue the excellent work that they jump-started at NYC GiveCamp back in January 2011. Not only did Remás receive the judges vote, but they also gained the most votes from the general public for their application, and this saw them awarded another $5,000. This means Brendan McBride and the team from NYC take $10,000 to be able to reinvest into their non-profit project! National GiveCamp – Take Two Remás were a participating non-profit in the Microsoft National GiveCamp event in NYC in January 2011, over Martin Luther King Weekend. This Fall, National GiveCamp aims to pull together 50 GiveCamps across the USA (and a team that I am part of in the U.K ) to provide developer, designer and DBA skills to even more non-profits and charities. It will take place over the weekend of October 21st to October 23rd. Are you a developer looking for a unique and exciting project? Check out GiveCamp and see if there is an event happening near you. If not, why not set up your own. I can vouch from personal experience that is was a really exciting opportunity. So much so, that I decided to get together with members of the U.K community and run our own event. If you are a non-profit or charity organisation looking for someone to help you with a technical project – perhaps you want a phone application to help people make donations to your cause, maybe you need to create or improve your charity’s website, or do you have a need to take control of your donor database and get it working for you so that you can make more of the contacts and supporters that you already have. If you do, then reach out to Microsoft through GiveCamp, or if you are based in the U.K. please contact me (rachelh@devexpress.com) for more details on GiveCamp UK.  Remás is just one of the many success stories from GiveCamp, and you can be involved to. Come on, get involved! Posted Jun 17 2011, 06:35 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Community, events

• DevExpress’ First Visit to the Norwegian Developers Conference

  Setting Sail on the DevExpress Longboat Last week, Gary and I set sail with some of our developers to make our first visit to the Norwegian Developers Conference in Oslo, Norway. We had a great time meeting developers who were making use of DevExpress technologies and those that were interested in finding out more about the products. I for one was bowled over by how friendly this conference was. The organisers told us that they had over 1500 people at the conference this year, making it their biggest to date. And they did a fantastic job of presenting the attendees with all kinds of great technical content, craftsmanship opportunities and networking activities. Even with such huge numbers of attendees, sessions and activities, everyone seemed really open to chatting and talking to a big mix of people. I really felt like it was more of a community event that a big conference. It’s reassuring to know that the organisers are still able to pitch their conference in a way that makes it welcoming and accessible to newcomers as well as regular attendees. To me, that is the sign of a great conference, just like CodeMash or CodeStock in the USA.   Getting Out and About I’ve mentioned the great networking opportunities that the conference team put on for their attendees and speakers. The .NET Rocks team hosted a fun event with chat, anecdotes and great music at the attendee party, and the speakers were even invited on an evening tour of the fjords on a boat cruise, where they were fed shrimp by the bucket load! Despite him hating boats, I managed to drag Gary along and we both really enjoyed the opportunity to relax and chat to people we already knew, and people we were meeting for the first time (*virtual waves* to Jon Skeet and Udi Dahan). Not only that, but the DevExpress team headed out sight-seeing for an afternoon just before the conference. We visited the Viking Ship Museum, the Kon Tiki Museum and the Norwegian Maritime Museum (for a cuppa ). It was while were we out-and-about that I found out that our very Roman E is a budding photographer – it’s great learning stuff about your co-workers! Photographs for You! Since not everyone can get to these conferences, we made sure to get a few pictures from the event. I’ve posted them to our DevExpress Facebook page. If you were there and you can see yourself in any of them, don’t forget to tag the picture. Back in 2012 We had a great time at NDC 2011, and we want to thank the organisers firstly for inviting us, and secondly for making it a great experience. We will be looking forward to returning in 2012, and we think that you’d enjoy it too. Keep and eye out for NDC 2012! Posted Jun 14 2011, 12:09 PM by Rachel Hawley (DevExpress) with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Community, events, ndc2011