HHH Microsoft Event Launch '08 Ft Lauderdale

Hey Now Everybody,

I attended the Microsoft Event Launch 2008 in Ft. Lauderdale HHH(Hero's Happen Here) this month & had a great time. There were some great sessions & presenters including Joe 'Dev Fish' Healy , Jonas Stawski, Max 'Put it together, Powershell guru' Trinidad, Blain Barton & Glen Gordon.
The events topics was Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 & Visual Studio 2008. I recieved a copy of all of these along with Vista ultimate, which was a very nice gift. I'm building a PC that I'm planning to install Windows Server 2008 & I'll post on soon including the 8 gigs of ram I plan to place in there.
There were quite a few people I got to see there such as Dave, Larry, Morgan along with many other people I have met & it's nice to talk technology with people at these events & .NET user groups. Check out a couple quick clips I posted.

All comments welcome!

That's all there is, there is no more.

Bye for now!

Catto

Catto's 2008 2nd 1/4 Tech todo list

Hey Now Everybody,

I'm going to list some personal technical topics I plan to focus on for this year's second quarter. I love lists, I used them often @ home & work. The reasons I feel lists work well for me are since I stay focused on what I need to accomplish by spending my time efficiently & when I get some of the items done there is a sense of accomplishment.

Catto's 2008 2nd 1/4 Personal Tech List


1. Chris Catto .com's permission based authentication
* Improve my domains authentication & authorization. I've made some big improvements recently where the public can create a user. The next step I want to make is to place some better content that an authenticated user can view.
2. .NET Code Catto Blog @ Chris Catto.com
* As many of you may have seen in the beginning of the year I had a .NET Code Catto Blog that was run on Blog Engine .NET from Codeplex. There was an adjustment made by my hosting company & now the blog doesn't display on the screen only the yellow screen of death. There is an issue with full vs. partial trust levels, therefore my goal here is to research & resolve this issue & get my blog up & running again on a subdomain as part of my domain such as http://Blog.ChrisCatto.com/NetCodeCattoBlog/.
3. MCTS 70-536 Exam Prep
* I've been thinking about studying for a certification & have decided on the MCTS Web Dev Cert. There are two exams & I've started studying for on of the exams. I'd like to continue this & prepare to pass the first exam.
4. Argotic Syndication Framework on CodePlex
* There is a new release of the Argotic Syndication Framework & I'd like to create some flix similar to the DNRTV episodes on the Framework.
5. Adjust My Commenting Frequency
* I really enjoy reading blogs & have learned a great deal from them. I also like to comment on many blogs however I feel this can take up some of my time & it's not the most productive for myself. I plan to cut back on commenting on blogs for the next three months to improve my time management & spend the time on my own domain & exam prep.
6. Blog Content
* Assuming the Blog Engine issue is resolved I plan to continue posting on my blog & place some different type of content up there. The content I'd like to have is some exam topics, browser topics & a photo tutorial. The photo tutorial is how to upload & print pix @ Wal-mart or Kodak, this is a request from my Mom & I feel others will find it useful too.

All comments welcome!

That is all there, there is no more!
Bye for now,
Catto

Argotic Syndication Framework release 2008.0.0.0 on CodePlex

Hey Now Everybody,
I’ve been loving Codeplex lately & I’ve joined a stellar project which is the Argotic Syndication Framework. The main developer on the project is Brian Kuhn and has even been DNRTV. There is a new release so be sure to check it out! I hope to make some flix someday that will be similar to the DNRTV’s but shorter. I personally think Brian's development is only the tip of the iceburg on this project.

The project summary:
The Argotic Syndication Framework is a Microsoft .NET class library framework that enables developers to easily consume and/or generate syndicated content from within their own applications. The framework makes the reading and writing syndicated content in common formats such as RSS, Atom, OPML, APML, BlogML, and RSD very easy while still remaining extensible enough to support common/custom extensions to the syndication publishing formats. The framework includes out-of-the-box implementations of 19 of the most commonly used syndication extensions, network clients for sending and receiving peer-to-peer notification protocol messages; as well as HTTP handlers and controls that provide rich syndication functionality to ASP.NET developers.

Some new features in this release include:
a) Targeting of both the .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5 platforms
b) Implementation of the APML 0.6 specification
c) Implementation of the BlogML 2.0 specification
d) Native support of the Microsoft FeedSync 1.0 syndication extension
e) Simplified programming API and better online/offline examples

All comments welcome!
That’s all there is, there is not more.
Bye for now!
Catto

Sleepless in Dallas – SharePoint Weekend Hosted by Infusion & Microsoft

Hey Now,
I just had an indescribable weekend at the SharePoint Sleepless at Dallas event . This was an event that had training all day on Saturday then there was a coding completion where we were coding all night developing SharePoint features for the CKS. It was a stellar event thanks to Infusion & Microsoft where they provided food, facilities & gifts. I also visited my brother which was really nice too went to one of the best steak houses ever called Saltgrass with a fun Texas atmosphere. The events agenda went as follows

Saturday 9am Greeting/meeting everyone & breakfast. Saturday there were sessions went on all day including SharePoint form Sheldon Fernandez & Nadeem, Matt Ordish OBA, Matt McDermott.on Master Pages & real usable tools (sweet session), Chris Koenig. on Silverlight, Tim Gade on MSOffice, Zain ‘Is This Thing On’ Naboulsi. was there too. Among many other skilled people I’ve read a couple other posts Fluckiger's regarding the events.

‘SharePoint is a game changer’ I heard from Sahil on DNR & it’s so true in my opinion especially after attending, it’s the fastest selling MS Server. I was on a teamed up with a great guy & our presentation went alright we just didn’t have a good enough quality features developed to show the judges. Our goal was to implement a feature on SharePoint to provide the user hotkeys. So when you press & hold the alt button down on the keyboard the letter of the hotkey would be underlined. I learned a ton & especially that fact that deployment in SharePoint has many more processes & more permissions are needed on the server than traditional ASP.NET. We ended up not winning & were awarded ‘Most Improved’. Good luck to the team going to Cali who was made up of some good people & very skilled. I hope you 3 win (Ricky Derek & Michael ) .

I can’t speak for everyone but I sure had a great time & really enjoyed the competition portion best. We stayed up all night coding. The flix (120 sec) below are in my opinion show how much fun we were having. I think when you view it’ll make you laugh or at least smile. All comments Welcome

Big shout to T for the support & making this weekend possible.

That’s all there is there is no more, Bye 4 now,

Catto

List & SharePoint - Sleepless the Ultimate Developer Weekend

Catto’s List 1.22.08

I love lists & use them often. They help me get things done. I feel good too when I look back and a few things are marked done. Here is a current list I have:

Infusion – SharePoint Sleepless the Ultimate Developer Weekend. I entered the sleepless in New York contest last year (received a thankyou email) & this year I’ve entered again for the roadshow contest. I got an invitation! It’s a weekend of SharePoint Training & a competition.. It’s seems to be the ultimate developer weekend. I'm going to Dallas this weekend to compete & learn.

Silverlight Slide.Show – I’m so happy I have my first Silverlight project public. Check it out. My favorite blog codinghorror author Jeff Atwood works for Vertigo which produced this open source image viewer available on codeplex. I used the code & impleneted it on my site. I really like it & think this is currently best way to view images on a web page.

BlogEngine.NET 1.3 – I have moved my web hosting & want to have my own blog engine not one from blogspot or any other public. I think if I host it then I have more control over it & I”ll have all my posts in my database for my historical records. I’m workinking on implementing BlogEngine & hope to have my blog back at my domain soon.

Code Camp 2008 South Florida – Whoo Haa! Last year I heard of code camps via the best podcast DNR (check it out #219 my email is read).. I attended the Code Camp last year it was great. I think since then I’ve learned so much & really looking forward to attending this year.

Entity Framework – I attended a recent Fla .NET user group meeting where Shawn 'The ADO Guy' Wildermuth presented the Entity Framework. It was really good, saw a couple of my friends there Dave, Jonas & Max. I learned quite a bit about the Entity Framework & Shawn signed the book I’m currently reading which he co-authored. .NET Framework 2.0 AppDev Foundation (I plan to blog more on this book this year)

Whew! Honestly sometimes I don’t get things done on my list so I hope that placing my list on my blog will help me & I hope that you enjoy seeing what I’m think and working on. All Comments Welcome

That is all, there is no more,
Bye 4 now,
Catto

Hot Click / Mouse Gesture IE7Pro

Hey Now,

If you don’t know now you know, I love hot keys / shortcut keys. When I found this add in for ie7 I thought it was the best thing since sliced fresh basil. IE7Pro has many features & my favorite is the hot clicks. A hot click is using the mouse to perform a function. The way to perform a hot click mostly is by the right click button on the mouse. An example is to right click, hold & drag to the left then release & it will perform the same function as Alt+ or the back button. So instead of moving the mouse all the way to the back button you only have to move the mouse a ½ and inch. It’s pretty slick. Check out my short video with some examples. Other features of IE7Pro are spell check, ad block & super drag & drop. I think everyone falls into one of the following: use hot clicks, use hot keys, five button mouse or slow old fashion mouse user. That is all there is and there is no more. Comments Welcome

Bye for now,
Catto

Insalling Visual Studio 2008 RTM VS08

Hey Now,
Whoo Haa! I just installed Visual Studio 2008 VS08 (11.20.07). I was glad to see da Gu’s post that VS08 & .NET 3.5 was realeased on Monday November 19, 2007. I downloaded the file 3.31G. I installed the 3.5 Framework (~45min). I burned the iso file on a DVD (~20min). Then I installed VS08 (~45min). I think this tool is probably the most important tool for a .NET developer & I’m glad to have it. I’ve been using VS05 & have learned many of the new features in VS08. I think the split screen is a feature that I will use right away & very often. Other features may take me a little while to get to such as Silverlight & LINQ. Below is one of my flix on the installation. I know some people have been waiting for my hot clicks / mouse gestures post but this month I really thought this topic was a great one to post on. All comments welcome. Thx 4 stopping by.

Bye for now,
Catto

This is my post on Chris Catto .com