I will be speaking at the NY Metro SQL Server Users Group on Thursday at 6pm on XQuery in SQL Server. Hope to see you all there.

Topic:	Using XQuery to Retrieve and Manipulate XML Data with SQL Server 2005
Speaker:	Stephen Forte, Microsoft Regional Director
Date:	6:00 PM on October 26, 2006
Place:	Microsoft Office in Manhattan
	The Axa Financial Building
	1290 6th Avenue, NY, NY

Due to new security guidelines at the building, you will have an easier time getting in if you confirm your attendance via email to joelax@dbdirections.com. Otherwise you'll have to wait till someone comes downstairs to sign you in. Also remember to have a photo id with you.

Blogs, Web Services and general interoperability have proliferated the use of XML in recent years. With all of that XML out there, there needs to be an easy way to incorporate XML data with SQL Server relational data.

This session will look at how to use XQuery to retrieve and manipulate XML data inside the database. We'll start with a look at the new XML datatype in SQL Server 2005, then the ability to validate with XML Schema (XSD) and then creating XML indexes for use with XQuery statements. After a brief look at the W3C XQuery specification we quickly move to SQL Server’s implementation of XQuery 1.0. We'll incorporate XQuery in SELECT and WHERE clauses to retrieve information as well as see how to manipulate XML data with XQuery DML.

Pizza and refreshment will be served at the meeting, and there will be a drawing for several giveaways.   

Our next meeting is Thursday. Because of security you now have to register for this free event! Register here.

Thursday, October 19, 2006 CAB and the Smart Client Software Factory
Subject:	Microsoft Pattern & Practices Team’s Composite UI Application Block (CAB) and Smart Client Software Factory (SCSF) ease the development of modular, extensible, and maintainable smart clients. Starting with a general, theoretical overview of smart clients, we’ll quickly move into a deep examination of CAB centered on working code. We’ll dig into the anatomy of CAB/SCSF, uncovering some key design patterns used in the toolset: Model-View-Presenter, Publish-Subscribe, and Dependency Injection. Throughout the talk we’ll share best practices and consider design decisions for achieving modularity and extensibility in your own smart clients with the CAB/SCSF tools and guidance. By the end of the tour, those new to CAB should find their learning curves greatly reduced. Intermediate-to-advanced CAB hackers will take away some hard fought tips-toward and tricks-to taking their composite smart clients and plug-in architectures to the next level.
Speaker:	David Laribee, President, Xclaim Software David Laribee is President of Xclaim Software, an ISV offering document, claim, and policy management software for the commercial property and casualty insurance industry. He has 10+ years experience designing, developing, and architecting enterprise applications with Microsoft technologies. David has worked with the .NET Framework since the zero-day in internal IT, product development, and rapid prototyping contexts across a wide variety of industries. He writes about agile practices, software architecture, and the business of software on his blog at http://laribee.com/.
Date:	Thursday, October 19, 2006
Time:	Reception 6:00 PM , Program 6:30 PM
Location:	Microsoft , 1290 Avenue of the Americas (the AXA building - bet. 51st/52nd Sts.) , 6th floor
Directions:	B/D/F/V to 47th-50th Sts./Rockefeller Ctr 1 to 50th St./Bway N/R/W to 49th St./7th Ave.

 

Bulgaria has great food, beautiful women, and great rakia. Learn more from Carl.

Read all about it here.

Former President Bill Clinton, angrily defending his efforts to capture Osama bin Laden, accused the Bush administration of doing far less to stop the al Qaeda leader before the September 11 attacks. Is this guy serious? Does he believe his own hype?

Let's do the math:

President Clinton had 8 years. Bush had <8 months.

Osama bin Laden targeted the US on 9/11 because of the lack of response by Clinton. Let's review:

USS Cole: No response.

African Embassy Bombings: 4 cruse missiles (2 for each embassy bombed).

Saudi Arabian Towers: an FBI investigation, no response abroad.

World Trade Center bombing: an FBI investigation, no response abroad.

Earlier this month, Clinton dismissed as "indisputably wrong" a U.S. TV show that suggested her was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal to confront the Islamic militant threat that culminated in the September 11 attacks.

Then why did you not capture him Bill?

Those who live in glass houses should not be throwing stones...

I've been helping out with an event over in Bulgaria. Two days, tons of content. If you are anywhere near Bulgaria, it is super cheap to attend! Click here to register.

BarCamp is coming back to New York City for a second round!  I'm happy to announce that BarCamp NYC will be hosted at the Microsoft office in midtown Manhattan.  (The first round of BarCamp in NYC took place last January.)

What is BarCamp?  BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.  It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees.  Check out BarCamp.org for more information. 

I'll post more details about the event as it draws closer.  However, watch the BarCampNYC2 site for the latest information.  In the meantime, if you're interested in helping out by speaking, please visit the site and add a session to the Proposed Sessions list!  The session schedule gets hacked together on the morning of the event.