Rachel Hawley's DevExpress Community Blog

Jesse Liberty: The Silverlight Geek UK and Ireland Tour

2010-02-23T20:20:22Z

With assistance from Microsoft UK, Microsoft Ireland, Microsoft US and Microsoft User Group Services, the UK and Irish developer community are very excited to have Silverlight guru, Jesse Liberty, visiting our shores.

Jesse is the self-confessed Silverlight Geek and Community Program Manager for Microsoft US. He’s committed, like no other, to enhancing developers’ experiences with Silverlight, and with over two decades of experience, he has got a lot to share.

Jesse’s visit will coincide with Microsoft TechDays UK, which is being held in London from Monday April 12th through to Friday April 16th and will cover topics including UI design, Windows Phone development and of course Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight. Jesse will be holding court on both the Monday and Tuesday. If you haven’t already registered for you free place at the event, head over now and grab one of the few remaining places.

Being one of the sometime volunteers for Cambridge NxtGenUG, held at the resplendent Microsoft Research building in Cambridge UK, I am very excited to say that we’ll be hosting Jesse on Wednesday April 14th for a session that will include open source application development, TDD, MEF and RIA Services … we are going to be busy!

Jesse has blogged about his visit to the UK and Ireland, and the details of all of the groups that he will be visiting can be found on his blog. Suffice to say, if you live near any of the following cities I can’t recommend strongly enough that you register for a place at one of these groups to see Jesse speak:

This really is a great opportunity for all Silverlight enthusiasts, novice or obsessive. Find your nearest group and for goodness sake register to attend one of Jesse’s sessions. Maybe I’ll see you in Cambridge!

User Group Support and Resources

2010-02-05T15:56:00Z

DevExpress is committed to trying to help as many community groups and events as we can. There are a lot of you out there, and at times the sheer number of requests that we receive can be overwhelming. But we know that with cuts in training budgets and justification for high value conferences getting harder, many of you are looking to local and regional events that can offer you great content and speakers at a significantly lower cost … if not free!

I’m pretty sure it’s not just the financial side that offers benefits. Will Charles (@DotNetWill) recently blogged about what he felt was the most important take-away he acquired from attending user groups:

“User groups aren’t just about the presentations, they are about the community and improving yourself and workplace through other people’s experiences.”

Recently active community advocates and MVPs in the UK met with Microsoft staff in Reading, UK at the Community Leaders Day.

For those that may not have attended, I wanted to draw some attention to a provision that Microsoft have facilitated with their community partners: INETA, the Professional Association of SQL Server, the Global IT Community Association and the Association of Information Technology Professionals.

The User Group Support Services offer … well, just that, support and services: publicity, resources, funding. The things that community leaders need to make sure their groups can meet. They also offer community members facilities to help find groups and events happening in their area.

If, like Will, you’re looking to find people outside your workplace to listen to, talk to and openly discuss ideas with then use the UGSS to find a group near you. If you’re a community leader and you’re trying to find support for your organisation or event drop me an email (rachelh@devexpress.com), and then be sure to register your group with UGSS to gain benefits and resources from Microsoft and their community partners.

Consider this a community service announcement :-)

CodeMash 2010 over, gotta get me some CodeMash 2011

2010-01-29T12:32:00Z

It’s a unique developer event. It covers a vast range of topics. It attracts terrific community speakers. It’s held in Sandusky, OH in January … in a water park.

Yes, that’s right, it’s held in a water park in the middle of winter. An indoor water park that is.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you CodeMash.

Jim Holmes, Jason Follas and the staff at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH did an incredible job of creating an very friendly, inclusive and yet vibrant event that catered to every type of developer, be you a networker extraordinaire or more the quiet type.

Attendees had the pick of 7 different tracks with topics covering all manner of different development practices, platforms and languages. Speakers bought sessions on not just .NET but also the likes of Ruby, Java and Clojure. And if the session format was not quite your style, there was ample (and I really mean ample!) room for open spaces chats, mini breakout sessions and even a coding dojo available for you to meet with smaller groups of equally intrigued and enthused developers to learn more about what you were seeing in the sessions. On more than one occasion I happened upon Silverlight guru Jesse Liberty hanging out in the break out areas participating in various open spaces gatherings.

Another great part of CodeMash is its family-friendly nature. KidzMash offer all day activities to mini geeks, and with the resort being so family focussed and vast in its services this offers a great opportunity to bring your family and take some time out with activities to suit everyone – water park, spa, tech conference and a great atmosphere.

The organizers put on a fantastic range of food and refreshments catering for a range of curious dietary needs, as well as bringing in the most innovative of attendee party guests that I have seen at a developer event. Enter the Haggis, a Canadian folk/rock/pop fusion band joined the attendees for a roof-raising evening at the attendee party mid-way through the event. These guys had bagpipes, I kid you not! They kicked off a phenomenal evening of festivities that ran into the small hours with new friends getting to know each other and old friends catching up.

Gary and I spent our non-exhibiting time mingling with the attendees and meeting DevExpress customers and supporters. We looked on as Keith Elder talked to attendees about CodeRush, we let Jason Follas loose with our swag (we might let him help out again, he was a pretty good “booth babe”), and we traded drinks vouchers with new friends. I’d like to thank John Prideaux for being my buddy for the night on Thursday and enjoying a bit of Enter the Haggis music with me, while I left Gary to fight off the onslaught of Chris “Woody” Woodruff’s eye-wateringly strong Long island Iced Teas.

If you have been to this event you will know how truly fantastic it is. If you haven’t, I can only urge you to join the CodeMash Google Group and keep yourself up-to-date on the plans for the 2011 event. The 700 places for the 2010 event sold out in just 32 days. I have no doubt that 2011 will sell out in record time.

This event is like no other developer event you will attend. Do not miss out on your opportunity to experience it for yourself in 2011.

I hope I’ll see you there!

[Note: Alan Barber has some great shots of the 2010 event. Check out his photographs on Flickr.]

Michigan: An educationally rich community for developers

2010-01-25T16:16:00Z

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I have had terrible trouble getting back on board with the GMT time zone these past few days. To be honest, I was very much enjoying EST and all that Michigan had to offer … lack of sleep kinda makes me want to go back again!

Gary and I have spent the past 2 weeks circumnavigating Michigan state and its surrounding area, visiting customers, attending user groups, catching up with DevExpress friends and attending the epic CodeMash conference in Sandusky, OH. It has been a non-stop rollercoaster trip that saw us cover almost 1400 miles in just 8 working days.

I would like to send out a huge “thank you” to the organizers and attendees at West Michigan .NET User Group, Northwest Ohio .NET User Group and GLUGnet. These guys were so hospitable during our trip and helped us with an inordinate amount of stuff - getting us to and from the airport, finding local hotels, introducing us to their user groups – all the stuff that really makes or breaks a business trip!

Michigan is an exceptionally fortunate state for developers. It has a huge amount of educational resources as well as willing participants that make it one of the richest developer communities I know. Off the top of my head I can think of at least six groups that can be easily reached from various towns in the state. That’s huge! Chris Woodruff, Jason Follas and Jeff McWherter are just some of the people who are helping to support a thriving developer community in this area by cross-pollinating their extensive community contacts and supporting each other’s endeavours month on month.

If you aren’t a regular attendee of one of your local user groups or if you don’t know of one near you please do a quick search to see if you can find a group that meets near you. INETA offers a vast amount of information for developers and user groups alike, and there are certainly ways and means of finding groups near you for other development platforms that you might be interested in.

The meetings put on by these groups are a great way to pick up information from interesting speakers, and, even better, they are also stuffed full of people from your area that could offer you advice, support, insights and maybe even job suggestions. If INETA can’t find one for you, then ask me and I’ll see what I can find!

Developer-led groups and events are a fun, friendly and open way of meeting other developers in your area and networking (to whatever extent you want to) with people who are as similarly passionate about what they do as you are. Even I enjoy these meetings, especially when there are delicious cupcakes on offer (thanks to Betsy Weber at TechSmith!)

And what is great about user group events is that they are completely free to attend. You get pizza, prizes and presentations all for free!

What are you waiting for? Find your local user group!

Codemash: An Interview with the Organizers

2010-01-08T13:00:00Z

Next week Gary and I embark on a perilous and snow storm ridden journey to London Heathrow … and then onto Michigan! We’re coming over the Atlantic to attend the developer event, CodeMash, in Sandusky, OH, as well as hopefully (weather permitting on both sides of the Atlantic!) taking the opportunity to meet up with some DevExpress customers and attend a few local user group sessions on the way.

For those of you that have attended CodeMash in the past, you’ll be no stranger to the sell out event, held at an indoor waterpark, with an impressive list of community speakers. For those of your that have never been, get an idea of what Jim Holmes and Jason Follas have built into an incredible developer event over the past years and mark your schedules with a plan to get involved in 2011.

The interview is only about 20 minutes. Just click the play button on the mini-audio player here:

You can also download the mp3 file to your iPod, Zune, or any other mp3 player by heading here: CodeMash_Organisers_Interview.mp3

Will we see you there?

Our “12 Days of DevExpress Christmas” Winners

2009-12-17T14:21:44Z

We had an astonishing amount of entries for our 12 Days of DevExpress Christmas contest. Thank you to everyone who took part, and another thank you to those that added notes about enjoying the contest. It was fun putting it together and revisiting all of the “Sneak Peek” blogs for DXperience v2009.3.

On this happy day, when DXperience v2009.3 is finally available to you all, I am wishing early Christmas wishes to our 12 lucky DevExpress winners.

Panagiotis Kefalidis
Kalyani Sarva
John Labrou
Paul Barnes
Claus Thor Barth
Matt Calsada
Travis Stokes
Abaid-ur-Rehman Zulfi
Martin Hill
Matthew Klein

The following 2 winners have not yet claimed their prizes. If you are reading, please do get in touch so that I can fill your Christmas stocking with DevExpress gifts.

Denise Bice
ASeker

And finally, Happy Holidays to all our DevExpress customers who are readers of the blogs. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. See you all in 2010!

The Tale of the TechEd Europe MP3 Player – Were You Our Winner?

2009-12-17T13:25:27Z

Not too long ago, before Christmas really kicked off, I told you a little tale about our Exclusive DevExpress iPod.

Our stylish blue MP3 player was up for grabs at TechEd Europe 2009 back in November, but we weren’t able to give it away onsite. Instead we waited to give you the chance to win it in.

And we can now announce the lucky winner!

Carsten Kruhs

Carsten had the lucky winning ticket – number 97 (serial number AB 829653).

Congratulations Carsten. Your beautiful blue iPod will be winging its way to you very soon.

Thanks to everyone who participated. Gary, Oliver and I look forward to seeing you at TechEd Europe 2010!

The 12 Days of DevExpress Christmas Contest

2009-12-09T21:04:00Z

[UPDATE: This contest is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered. Keep a look out, “me hearties”, for the lucky treasure winners announcement that will be out very soon.]

Earlier this week I told you to keep an eye out for out for DevExpress Company Summit Contest.

It’s here, and it’s open to everyone: our Twitterers, Facebookers and blog-readers!

We’re giving away 12 copies of DXperience Universal, including 12 months support and upgrades, to 12 lucky winners. That means you will get access to all of the new features of DXperience coming up in v2009.3 as well as any updates becoming available for the next 12 months.

We’ve got a 12-step treasure hunt through our blogs. You’ll be looking for DevExpress Christmas gifts that look like the image below, however they might be smaller so you’ll have to look hard.

Hover over the alt tag text on each of the Christmas gifts and you will find clues to the next present in the treasure hunt. All of the presents can be found in blogs that contain news of our v2009.3 release that is coming up really soon.

So to kick you off, hover your cursor over the Christmas gift image to the right and check the alt tag text. Once you have the clue you’ll need to figure out which DXperience v2009.3 blog post it is referring to, and find that post in order to find the next Christmas present in the treasure hunt.

Once you get to the final Christmas present in the treasure hunt the clue will direct you to a secret blog post. If you find the link you’ll find a message from me. Email the message to me at rachelh@devexpress.com and you could be one of our 12 Christmas treasure prize winners.

Good luck and happy Christmas present hunting!

No gambling with our customers’ future: The DevExpress Company Summit

2009-12-08T00:49:08Z

It’s day one of the annual DevExpress Company Summit here in Las Vegas, NV. I’m locked in a room at the MGM Grand Hotel with 30 men watching them fight for your features and functionality in 2010.

Our customers know the Company Summit as the beginning of our internal process to take on board the feedback that you’ve been giving us in 2009, and use it to develop a plan for what you as our customers can expect from us in the upcoming year.

This year is no exception to the rule. Managers, lead developers and technical evangelists are pulling together to decide on what DevExpress customers can expect from us in 2010.

As you may have seen in Julian’s recent post on XAF, we have a number of big topics to discuss to make our commitment to you clear, and contrary to the Vegas connection, we don’t want you to feel like you’re taking a gamble with your DevExpress purchases.

Far from it!

Once our week of deliberation is over we will deliver a comprehensive roadmap to you for you to check out.

To get you excited about the prospect of 12 months of innovation and exciting new releases, we are running contests via Twitter and Facebook throughout this week.

Keep your eyes on our Twitter and Facebook feeds for details of our first contest … coming up soon.

The Tale of the TechEd Europe MP3 Player

2009-12-02T14:46:59Z

You may remember that while Gary, Oliver and myself were keeping busy at TechEd Europe last month, we also told you about a grand prize item that you could win in our DevExpress raffle. It took the form of a well-known MP3 music playing device and it was gorgeous.

I did attempt a little “winner takes all” contest of my own, but unfortunately Oliver told me that no matter how good my wrestling skills were I was not allowed to keep it.

Microsoft used their right to exercise “The Rules” at the event, and so we had to wait until we returned home to give it away. But your chance is now here!

So what do you need to do? Simple.

Take a photograph of the raffle ticket that you collected from us at the event and upload it to our Facebook page with a note saying “TechEd Europe”. Tag yourself in your raffle ticket picture (you can be in the picture if you want, wearing your DevExpress t-shirt … but it’s not obligatory!). We’ll need to be able to see the number on the ticket, naturally, so please try to make it clear.

We will gather all the tickets entered and we will draw a winner from those submitted. The winner will be announced in the newsletter that will wing its way to your inbox during the week commencing December 14th.

The Name Game: WPF naming contest results

2009-11-18T18:34:00Z

Holy cow! WPF control names really get you guys going!

A massive 147 comments were added to the contest announcement post, which as far as I can make out is some kind of DevExpress commenting record! Thank you so much for all of your suggestions. There were some really great ideas, and some particularly funny names that I would have loved to have used.

We picked out a top 6 from the entries submitted and the winning suggestion is … drum roll please …

Aaron Young with the name ThemeWheel

Congratulations! You win a a copy of CodeRush with Refactor! Pro, a DevExpress goodie bag with a t-shirt, hat, 4GB USB pen drive and an iTunes voucher. And of course not to forget, you also get the fame and glory of your suggestion being associated with a DevExpress control.

Linton also agreed with the ThemeWheel suggestion, but as that comment came in a few posts later than Aaron’s we had to take the first occurrence. However, we’ll send out a goodie bag to Linton with a t-shirt and hat as a thanks to recognise your contribution.

I also wanted to pick out some of my favourite entries. Themeweaver was certainly one of them, but unfortunately someone else thought that too and has already used it. The following entries will get a DevExpress goodie bag for their great efforts:

Brad James “TheWheelDeal”
Chris Merritt “SkinnyDip”
Jason Helman “DyeHard”
Nate Laff “DXWpfPimpatron”

Keep your eyes on the blogs for new of the v2009.3 release when the DXThemeWheel for WPF will make its debut in the DXperience control suite.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

A look back at TechEd Europe 2009

2009-11-17T18:06:04Z

Microsoft TechEd Europe had a sell out event this year. Microsoft, the sponsors and the exhibitors welcomed over 7300 people to the event. It was undeniably an absolutely massive event, and the venue, the Messe Berlin, was positively humming with activity the entire week.

DevExpress had a great event with swathes of customers coming to chat to us on the booth during exhibition hours about our plans for the future and what they can expect from our Silverlight controls that will ship with DXperience v2009.3. As expected, Silverlight was a on a lot of developers’ minds … and considering around 40% of the TechEd Europe audience were developers that’s a pretty big number of minds to be on!

Pre-con day, Monday, saw what I think was an unprecedented number of attendees coming to the Exhibition Hall. Despite the gathering crowds at Brandenburg Gate, waiting to get involved in the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, the TechEd attendees arrived at the convention centre in droves for the half day that it was open. How do I know that Day 1 was busier than usual? That’s easy, almost half of our DevExpress t-shirts we’re snapped up by early birds attending the opening day of the conference! And we spotted them around the Exhibition Hall for the rest of the week.

Gary, Oliver and myself were joined by John Martin from Professional Developer Training. John is a lynchpin in our plans for the European Training Roadshow in January 2010, where Oliver will be visiting London, Frankfurt, Zurich and Paris to deliver the DevExpress ASP.NET training course. John was a fantastic member of the team for the entire week and we were very grateful of his assistance. Anyone attending the DevExpress training courses is going to be met by a professional, affable and motivating friend for the duration of their course.

There are still spaces for anyone wanting to attend the training sessions. You can find more information and register for the sessions by clicking here.

Our technical booth staff were busy from the get-go with questions, feedback and the usual banter from the other exhibitors in the Visual Studio Partner Zone, but during the session times they were unusually quiet as they got down to planning demos for the next break in the sessions. Well at least that’s what I think they were doing. Knowing Oliver, he was probably searching Google for the best place to find a late beer for the evening.

We ran a daily prize draw during the conference and we were really pleased to see that a huge number of attendees took 10 minutes of their lunch break to come and participate. Interest in CodeRush and Refactor! Pro was big, and not surprisingly considering all the news about VS2010. We gave away copies of CodeRush with Refactor! Pro to 4 lucky winners, and one such winner was pretty excited by his prize.

Gavin Thomas had been in a session on agile development and had picked up a few tips from the speaker’s presentation about tools that could help him with productivity. Gavin came straight to us after the session closed and asked if he could check out Refactor! Pro. Luckily for him we were about to demo the tool to kick off our prize draw for the day. Gavin was made up when he won a copy of his own!

DevExpress – making developers happy for over 11 years!

More thoughts on the Microsoft TechEd Europe conference coming up later this week.

What’s in a WPF name? Why don’t you tell us!

2009-11-05T06:00:00Z

UPDATE: If you would like to submit an idea for us please put it into the comments by Friday November 13th

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be an artist. Being able to look at a blank canvas and just go to work creating something visually appealing. At school I really looked forward to Art classes … Not because I was any good at it, just because I shared a table with my best friend and it was the only lesson on the school timetable where we were allowed to sit together. It’ll come as no surprise to some of you that I was a talkative pupil, and most of my detention slips were written as a result of chattering when I should have been working. Well hey, Headmaster. Look at me now. I was employed to chatter and be nice to people!

As I have often said to our DevExpress designers, my creative talents are on a par with a puppy running riot over a sheet of paper with paint on its paws. In essence, I have a whopping “zero” creative talent.

To be a developer I imagine you need to have the ability to tune into your creative side. I’d guess that web designers certainly have a tough time on their hands as you actively have to try to create an intuitive interface and pre-empt how users will find their way around your site, creating themes and color concepts that are both pleasing to the eye but also functional and familiar to users. It’s a pretty tall order if you really want to make a great job of your design.

Luckily for our WPF developers, the DevExpress WPF team has eased the burden of color schemes design with the new Color Scheme Customization Dialog. The trouble is we think Color Scheme Customization Dialog is a pretty rubbish name for it.

Julian and I had a “name off” a few weeks back. We battled against each other’s linguistic talents and threw around some (really bad) ideas. We tried “Tint Tool”, “Color Spinner”, “Color Shader”, “Color Compass”, “Hue Hatcher”, “Theme Painter”, “Theme Artist”, … but none of them seemed to adequately sum up what this feature is all about.

Eventually, after realising that naming a feature is actually harder than it first appears, we decided that we’d ask for some professional advice.

And that’s where you come in! We want you to name this new feature.

It’s simple: if we like your name, we will use it. And we’ll give you a prize to thank you. *

Check out Julian’s posts on the new control here and also here. Get a feel for what it is for and what it could be for as it develops, and then post your suggestions for its name in the comments below this post. The winner will receive a copy of CodeRush with Refactor! Pro with a 12 month subscription (to get your hands on all the latest updates over the next year) as well as a DevExpress goodie bag with t-shirt, hat, 4GB USB pen drive and an iTunes voucher.

*Caveat: While we are really chuffed that you want to submit your name suggestions to us, DevExpress will reserve the right to select a name for this funky new feature that may not submitted as a suggestion below. We can’t really have a commercial feature named the WPF Funk-tastic Funk-a-tron Wheel just because we really like you guys … we do need to be a bit serious about it. But don’t let that stop you submitting your ideas to us!

Microsoft TechEd Europe: DevExpress Contest Time!

2009-11-03T15:14:23Z

It is now T minus 5 days until Oliver, Gary and I depart the somewhat dismal shores of the UK for fun and frolics in Berlin with the Microsoft TechEd Europe attendees. The big news this week is that the event has reportedly sold out.

The even bigger news this week is DevExpress’ daily contest and our Grand Prize Draw at the conference.

I mentioned previously that if you want to win with DevExpress at TechEd Europe this year, you will need to come prepared. Oliver, Gary and I have a stash of t-shirts for you to pick up at the booth, and you will need those t-shirts, as well as any others you might already have, in order to win big with us.

We’ll be holding daily prize draws at the DevExpress booth on the 3 full conference days: Tuesday through to Thursday at 1pm.

All you need to do to enter our contests is visit the DevExpress booth in the VSIP Partner Zone (booths V3 and V4) and be wearing or collecting a DevExpress t-shirt.

We’ll give you a raffle ticket to keep safe. At 1pm (after you’ve had your lunch) come back to the booth with your raffle ticket and we’ll be holding a daily raffle for a copy of CodeRush with Refactor! Pro and a free seat at one of our European Training Events in 2010.

And on Thursday, the final full day of the conference, we’ll add all previous winners back to the pot for one HUGE prize draw. One lucky winner will take home… drum roll please …

An exclusive 5th Generation iPod Nano
A free seat at one of our European Training Events
Plus a full DXperience Universal Subscription – which will give you access to all of the upcoming v2009.3 additions and improvements.

It’s like Christmas coming 6 weeks early! And what’s more, you can fit it all into your suitcase to take home!

BUT REMEMBER: You must be wearing a DevExpress t-shirt to win your prize!

Start packing guys and we’ll see you next week in Berlin.

Getting Into the Groove: Microsoft TechEd Europe 2009

2009-10-19T18:18:01Z

We might not have Mark Miller and John Lennon rocking out with us in Berlin for TechEd Europe 2009, but we do have your favourite Framework Duo and a whole heap of swag! The event is drawing ever closer, and with only 3 weeks to go I wanted to tell you a little bit about what the “Terrible Two-some” and I will be up to during our week in Germany’s capital city.

The Berlin Wall

TechEd Europe is going to be pretty exciting for a couple of great reasons this year. Firstly, it’s the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall so the city is going to be positively hopping. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Microsoft have some sort of evening entertainment in place that will allow us all to get involved with the festivities. I might not have a very good story about where I was when I found out that the wall had fallen (I was watching it on the TV with my dad after getting home from school … I seem to remember asking him to switch the channel so that I could watch Danger Mouse because the news was “boring”), but I’ll have a great story to tell about where I was when people were celebrating its 20th anniversary.

All the Fun of the Fair on the DevExpress Booth

Secondly, we will have a boatload of swag to give away on the DevExpress booth as always. Keep your eyes peeled for details of our in-booth contests, that’s right, I said contests. All I will say for now is make sure you bring every DevExpress t-shirt you own. Be they vintage or current you will need them, so make space in your luggage. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Introducing a DevExpress TechEd Speaker

Lastly, but by no means least, our very own Gary Short has been selected to speak. Gary will be presenting on the Architecture track on technical debt. Look out for his session titled “Credit Crunch Code: Time to Pay Back the Technical Debt”. He’ll be covering what it is, how to spot it, how to quantify it and how to try to avoid it. This is Gary’s first time speaking at TechEd, and though we’d like for him to be asked to return again next year TechEd is supposed to be a chance for you to get answers to questions that you have. So with that in mind, consider this your open invitation to ~~heckle~~ ask Gary as many questions as you like.

Our flights are booked and we’re ready to get going. Will we see you there?