Topic:  Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation: better together

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is the new programming model for building distributed systems whether you are building web services or DCOM/.NET Remoting style applications. WCF brings with it support for many web service specifications and standards including security, transactions and reliable messaging, as well as a completely extensible and developer focused programming model. Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is a new set of tools and programming interfaces for workflow enabling your application. WF provides runtime services such as state management and rich tracking infrastructure as well as a declarative and extensible programming model to help you define and execute business processes. These two technologies are a natural complement to each other and together are more powerful than the individual parts. In this session we will cover using these two technologies together in .NET 3.0 and discuss the new features in Visual Studio “Orcas” that make combining these technologies even easier.

Speaker:  Matt Milner 

Matt is an independent software consultant specializing in Microsoft technologies including .NET, BizTalk Server, Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation. In addition to spending countless hours digging into these technologies for his customers, Matt has tried to share this knowledge with others by contributing articles to MSDN Magazine, .Net Developers Journal, and C# Today. He has also co-authored several books on .NET technologies. As an instructor for Pluralsight, Matt authored the BizTalk Server and Windows Workflow Foundation courses and regularly teaches these and other technologies to developers around the world. When he isn’t writing code, Matt can be found teaching others about it at regional and national conferences.

Topic:  Model-based testing with NMode

Model-based testing is more than another testing tool. It allows architects to assess the logic of their designs before the implementation. This presentation explores the basic concepts of model-based testing with the recently NModel framework.

Speaker:  Tom Fischer

Tom Fischer helps Magenic (www.magenic.com) clients design and build applications using Microsoft tools and technologies. And when not consulting he occasionally writes about the lessons learned using Microsoft tools and technologies.
 

Topic:  Wow, that doesn't look like a SharePoint Site 

Since Content Management Server 2002 has been Microsoft's only solution to Content Management for over six years, it has become less and less of a contender in the Content Management world. Now enters MOSS 2007, the new upgrade path for CMS 2002. We will review the ins and outs of the new features of MOSS 2007's CMS module. What's great, what just works, and the things that could work better. Find out if SharePoint is the right choice for you and your organization.

We will dispel the myth that sites running on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 have to look like SharePoint Sites. You will see how to create robust, visually attractive sites in minutes and we will look at the code that makes it all possible

Speaker:  Jerry Sevier 

Jerry is a Principal Consultant with ILM. He possesses over 14 years of diverse Information Technology (IT) experience in application architecture, development, and technical leadership. Additionally, Jerry is a technologist who keeps his skills sets up to date with new technologies including Commerce Server, SharePoint and MS CMS.

Topic:  Identity Federation - What is it and why is it important? 

In Platt's 45 minute presentation, he teaches IT and business professionals how they can improve functionality of security and business processes through use of Federated Identity. The audience will learn what the main benefits of using this approach are along with its technical and security implications. The second part of the presentation compares and contrasts the multitude of federation protocols, including SAML, Liberty Alliance, CardSpace, OpenID, and WS-Federation. This non-sales, technical presentation is ideal for business leaders looking for innovative ways to improve online collaboration and IT/security professionals that will be working on Identity related projects.

Speaker:  Darren Platt

Darren Platt is an experienced technologist and recognized authority in Identity management, federation and web services security. Darren got his start in Identity in 1996 as Securant Technologies 1st VP Engineering. Together with Eric Olden, Darren co-authored AuthXML, the pre-cursor of the widely adopted SAML standard. When RSA Security acquired Securant in 2001, Darren managed the transition of ClearTrust into RSA's product portfolio and continued to represent RSA on various standards bodies. In 2002, Darren joined Ping Identity as its 2nd employee leading Ping's technology strategy and the entire lifecycle of Ping's newly released SOA security product, PingTrust. Darren is a seasoned speaker at technical forums and major trade events. At Symplified, Darren is responsible for the development of product and the successful operation of the SinglePoint Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. Platt manages the development of Symplified's technology including product management and technology strategy.

Topic:  Introduction to ASP.NET MVC

This session will introduce the new ASP.NET MVC Framework. It will cover the core fundamentals of the ASP.NET MVC framework and will demonstrate how to build applications using it. A comparison to ASP.NET WebForms will also be part of the discussion so attendees will understand how the two technologies relate and when to use one over another.

Speaker:  Jeff Brand, Microsoft 

Jeff has been with Microsoft for over 12 years, starting with the company soon after the release of Windows 95. While at Microsoft, he has been a consultant, an ecommerce specialist, and an enterprise technology advisor. Prior to Microsoft, Jeff was in the Air Force stationed at Offutt AFB in Omaha, NE where he was Chief Network Engineer (his pre-developer days) for the USSTRATCOM LAN. Today, Jeff is a .NET Developer Evangelist for Microsoft's North Central District. He lives in Minneapolis and often travel to the surrounding states of Nebraska, Iowa, and the Dakotas. In his current role, he is responsible for working with developers and customers that are evaluating or using .NET and assisting in them in understanding and using Microsoft's developer platform.

Topic:  Microsoft Expressions Suite - Behind the Scene 

This session will cover what XNA is (and isn't) along with what's needed to develop with both XNA 2.0 and the 3.0 CTP. We will also cover key differences between the two versions along with the features and limitations of each. Target platforms of Windows, XBox and Zune will be discussed. We'll go through some demos and take a look at some code, identifying key aspects of the XNA Framework and game development. 

Speaker:  Bob Pappas, Microsoft

Bob's career started at an early age in the frozen tundra of northern Minnesota. While still in high school in the early 80's, Bob published several TRS-80 video games including porting (with no code or specs) Frogger to the TRS-80, Timex Sinclair, and the Color Sinclair. After high school, Bob moved to the Twin Cities to attend the University of Minnesota. In 1985, Bob purchased a 512k Mac and proceeded to write MacGolf, a multi-year top selling 3D golf simulation. In 1997, Bob and Doug started ImageReady with Bob as the engineering manager, a web focused image authoring tool. Bob was awarded two patents recently that were filed due to innovations in ImageReady and Photoshop – most notably the History Palette which introduced multiple undo to Adobe products. In 2005, Adobe hired Bob to come back and lead the Photoshop Lightroom engineering team, a professional photography processing and workflow application. After the successful public beta programs and Lightroom 1.0 launch, Doug lured Bob away from Adobe to join the world class team here at Microsoft and to build a world class development team in the Twin Cities.

Topic:  An Overview of CSLA Light

CSLA .NET is one of the most widely used development frameworks for .NET. CSLA Light is a subset of CSLA .NET that runs in the Silverlight environment. CSLA Light is an ongoing project, scheduled for a first release in September 2008. Come to this session to get an insiders first look at CSLA running on Silverlight, providing many of the same powerful benefits to Silverlight that CSLA .NET does for .NET itself. These include support for data binding, standardized validation and authorization and flexible support for n-tier architectural models and data access.

Speaker:  Rockford Lhotka 

Rockford Lhotka is the author of numerous books, including the Expert VB 2005 Business Objects and Expert C# 2005 Business Objects books. He is a Microsoft Regional Director, MVP and INETA speaker. He contributes to several major magazines and regularly presents at major conferences around the world - including Microsoft PDC, Tech Ed, VS Live! and VS Connections. Rockford is the Principal Technology Evangelist for Magenic (www.magenic.com), a company focused on delivering business value through applied technology and one of the nation's premiere Microsoft Gold Certified Partners. For more information go to www.lhotka.net.

Topic:  Ping Pong Pair Programming

Nick will describe and demonstrate a test driven programming technique called 'Ping Pong Pair Programming' in which one developer writes a test, a second developer codes against the test, and then they swap roles. Audience participation will be encouraged.

Speaker:  Audience Participation

Nick Nystrom will kick it off and everyone is eligible to participate

Topic:  What's this XNA thing I keep hearing about?

This session will cover what XNA is (and isn't) along with what's needed to develop with both XNA 2.0 and the 3.0 CTP. We will also cover key differences between the two versions along with the features and limitations of each. Target platforms of Windows, XBox and Zune will be discussed. We'll go through some demos and take a look at some code, identifying key aspects of the XNA Framework and game development. 

Speaker:  Chris Williams

Chris Williams is a Technology Evangelist for Magenic. He is the founder of several .NET User Groups on the east coast, and most recently the Twin Cities XNA User Group and Twin Cities Developers Guild, both in Minneapolis, MN. He is a rabid blogger at BlogusMaximus.net, author of the popular NINE Questions series and owner of the VB Community site www.ILoveVB.net. His most recent project is the Charity Fragathon, a fundraiser event for Children's Hospital.

Topic:  A lap around Microsoft .NET Services

Microsoft has joined other vendors with its announcement at the Professional Developers Conference of the Windows Azure Services Platform. The Azure Services Platform is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform which developers can use to build their applications. This session will focus on several key building block services in the Azure Services Platform: Microsoft .NET Services. You'll see how to use your WCF programming skills to write firewall friendly, multicast, web services and secure them using a variety of credentials including CardSpace, Certificates, and UserName. In addition, you will see how you can deploy workflows in the cloud to manage interactions between services. We will discuss the problems these services address and how you should begin planning for them in your application designs.

Speaker:  Matt Milner

Matt is a member of the technical staff at Pluralsight, where he focuses on connected systems technologies. Matt is also an independent consultant specializing in Microsoft .NET technologies with a focus on Windows Workflow Foundation, BizTalk Server, Windows Communication Foundation, and ASP.NET. As a writer Matt has contributed to several journals and magazines such as .NET Developers Journal and MSDN Magazine where he currently authors the workflow content for the Foundations column.