As I indicated a couple weeks ago I was going to be speaking at the Philly Code Camp 2009.2. If you weren’t there you missed a great day of learning about many of the new technologies that are going to matter to you, as a developer, in the next 12 months. Not all of the topics were Microsoft related or even Developer related, for the first time this year there was an Enterprise IT track, targeting specifically you network admins. So Code Camp next year is something you should pay attention too, even if you are not a developer.

Also the Beginner Track was broken in to two different tracks this year, Beginner I (which I was apart of) is designed for those of you who are brand new to software development and want to get a feel for the tools, Beginner II is designed for those of you who already have a handle on the tools and want to start learning a little more about developing software. Both are great tracks and both had a very good showing, so if you know a high school student, college student, or seasoned learner that wants to start developing software, they should stay tuned and check back with the Philly.NET website in late March 2010.

Also if you weren’t there, I really hope you can make the next one in April. You will not be disappointed. The two presentations that I attended this Code Camp were:

1. Al Katawazi’s presentation on using ASP.NET MVC in the Enterprise.
2. Dani Diaz’s presentation on the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)

Both presentations were interesting and engaging and I highly recommend them as speakers.

While I am on the subject, if you have a chance, and were present for my talks, please take the time to respond to the survey of what you thought about Philly Code Camp 2009.2 and specifically my talks. This is the only way that Philly.NET Users Group can get feed back on what to do better next time and what worked great this time around. I look forward to the feedback. And there is a Zune HD in it for one lucky winner.

• Code Camp 2009.2 Evaluation

As I promised in my talks here are the downloadable resources that I used as part of my presentation.

Beginner I Track – 10:30 AM – Gooey GUI… Programming in Visual Studio

• Microsoft Visual Studio Express
  http://www.microsoft.com/express/download
• Microsoft SQL Server Express w/ Tools
  http://www.microsoft.com/express/sql/download
• Sara Ford’s Blog:
  http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford
• And Sara Ford’s best selling book on the subject

Tools Track – 3:30 AM – Visual Studio 2010 Extensibility

• MSDN Visual Studio Extensibility
  http://www.msdn.com/vsx
• Visual Studio Extensibility Team Blog
  http://blogs.msdn.com/vsxteam
• Samples shown during demonstration
  http://editorsamples.codeplex.com/
• My project for the URL Rewriter showing during demonstration
  http://urlrewriter.codeplex.com/

Here is my presentation from Code Camp 2009.1:

You can download the software seen in this presentation at:

• Microsoft Visual Studio Express
  
  http://www.microsoft.com/express/download
• Microsoft SQL Server Express w/ Tools
  
  http://www.microsoft.com/express/sql/download

And Sara Ford’s best selling book on the subject, appropriately called Microsoft Visual Studio Tips.

And because she is such an awesome person all the royalties from the book are going to a scholarship fund to help pay for the the costs of sending Hurricane Katrina survivors to college. So if you are interested go pick up a copy.

Top 3 of my favorite tips from Sara Ford:

1. Did you know… You can create toolbar buttons to quickly toggle your favorite VS Settings? – #372
2. Did you know… how not to accidentally copy a blank line? – #050
3. Did you know… How to optimize Visual Studio for multi-monitors? – #381

I will be speaking at the Philly.NET Code Camp 2009.1 tomorrow. So if you read this blog, come up to me and say hi. I don’t bite.

After my presentation tomorrow on “Gooey GUI… Programming in Visual Studio”, I will be posting my presentation and links for everybody that couldn’t attend or did attend and wants a quick reference.

See you tomorrow.