This meeting will be held at our new location (Thanks Configursoft!).  Also, June begins our first meeting of the summer which means we are switching to our summer lunch meetings.  Meeting will be held from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM - see here for more location and time details.

Matt Brown Discusses – WCF

Most people are not in a position where they need to expose public web services to clients or partners. What are some ways to utilize WCF within your internal applications and what are some of the advantages to using WCF over classic asmx web services.

Matt Brown has been working with .Net since version 1.0 and developing in Microsoft technologies for 10 years. He primarily focuses on web and backend server development and architecture in distributed systems utilizing ASP.NET, WCF, Biztalk, MSMQ, IIS, and SQL Server. He has experience building high volume e-commerce web applications and backend transaction processing systems. Matt worked for Checks Unlimited for 6.5 years before moving on to the consulting world. He is currently a partner with Thought Ascent, Inc., a Microsoft consulting and solutions provider.

Have a look at our new Member Blogs page....it's simple, it's fairly static, but it's an out-of-the-box solution from our provider.  We all know there are a million and one ways to do it better, but we are afterall run by volunteers, so this works just fine, don't ya think?

So, how do you get on this page?  Email me, Julie, at info@southcolorado.net and I will get you on the page.  For now, ordering will be on a first come basis until someone gives me a better idea (which I'd love to hear).

We call this a Member page in hopes of giving our group members some spotlight, so if you are not a member of our group, I can't put you on the page, until you join (good motivation, eh?).

Thanks- Julie

Microsoft Office as a Developer Platform - Joe Shirey

Over the years, Microsoft Office has evolved as a technology that can be used as a part of an application development effort. With the release of Office 2007 and Visual Studio 2008, there are a number of additional means for developers to leverage Office as part of their solutions. This session will focus on some of the new features of Office such as the Document Information Panel, the XML File Formats, changes to the Office User Interface, and a new version of Visual Studio Tools for Office.

Joe Shirey - Bio

Joe Shirey is a Senior Architect Evangelist for Microsoft based in the Denver area. In this role, Joe works closely with customers and the community to help them understand where Microsoft technologies fit into the architecture of their solutions. Prior to joining Microsoft, Joe was a Vice President at Interlink group where he was responsible for service and delivery for Interlink's Denver market. In the past, Joe was a Microsoft Regional Director, a member of the Microsoft Architect Advisory Board, and sat on the .NET Partner Advisory Council. Joe has more than eighteen years of hands-on technical and functional experience in project management, systems analysis, design, development, and implementation. Joe attained his Microsoft Certified Architect award in 2005.

When: Friday, April 4, 2008
Where: Compassion
12290 Voyager Parkway
Colorado Springs, CO 80921

This Community Heroes Launch Event with combine all of the new 2008 Microsoft techologies; Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008 are all here. Come to the launch event to learn all about these great products. The best part is, the event is completly free. There will be a total of 6 sessions on a wide range of interesting topics plus an opening Keynote by Steve Milroy.

See the Launch Website for more details.

This meeting will be held at our normal location and time - see here for details.

Joe Mayo Discusses – What's New in Visual C# 2008

Visual Studio 2008 is here NOW and NOW is the opportunity to get some just-in-time introduction to some of the newest features. In this presentation, Joe Mayo will do a deep dive into the new features of the C# programming language. Type Initializers, Extension Methods, Lambdas, and more. Why are they a part of the language and how can you leverage them in to be more productive in your daily work? Joe will discuss Language Integrated Query (LINQ), but primarily in the context of the new C# language features. You'll also see new features of the Visual Studio 2008 IDE. Come with plenty of questions and if you've already been working on a project with Visual Studio 2008, we'd love to hear about it.

Joe Mayo is President of Mayo Software Consulting, Inc., a custom software development company focused on delighting customers with exceptional service. He also is an author, instructor, and consultant, specializing in Microsoft .NET technologies. His books include C# Unleashed/Sams Publishing, C#Builder Kick Start/Sams Publishing, and he is a co-author of ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks and Tips. He is also a recipient of the Microsoft MVP Award.