Are you just starting out with Agile, XP or Scrum and need to get up to speed? Or do you know a thing or two about Agile but want to learn the basics so you can implement it in your organization? Then this Firestarter is for you. We’ll take you from 0 to 60 in 8 hours. Bring a laptop with Visual Studio 2008 Express edition or better for an all day hands on seminar led by some of the NY area’s Agile practitioners.

When: Saturday June 27th

Where:

Kaye Scholer LLP
425 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Time: Registration and welcome 8:30am

Cost: $8 (to cover the pizza and materials)

To Register: http://agilefirestarter2009.eventbrite.com

Agenda:

• Registration and Welcome

• Intro to Agile (Steve Bohlen)

• Agile Estimation (Steve Forte)

• Test Driven Development (Steve Bohlen)

• Pizza!

• Continuous Integration (Alex Hung)

• Refactoring (Mark Pollack)

• Dependency Injection (Mark Pollack)

• Retrospective Erik Stepp

• Wrap up

Register today, space is limited! More info is here: http://www.agilefirestarter.net

Here is the code from Mary and my session about building front ends to SQL Server with spending any money. It is an Access 2007 Front end that consumes the Twitter RESTful API and eventually allows the user to augment that data in Access then dump it back into a SQL Server table via a SQL TVP. Pretty cool.

Here is a recording of the Daily Scrum Q&A talk that Joel and I did at the Enterprise Development and Solutions Conference in New York City earlier this month.

Last week at TechEd and this week up at the Montreal Users Group (yes I spoke in French! :) ), I presented the “Data Access Hacks and Shortcuts” a session where I walk through 5 different scenarios and have 5 solutions/hacks/tips. It is a unique style of presentation and people either love it or hate it. If you hate it, well, no worries, just go find a presentation that works for you. If you loved it, here are the scenarios and download link to the presentation and code:

• Passing a custom .NET collection (that uses IEnunerable) to a Stored Procedure (SQL Server 2008 TVP)
• Using SQL Server Profiler to spy on your LINQ queries and write better LINQ queries (or debug LINQ queries)
• Modeling complex 1 to many relationships as flatter views for better data access
• Binding to REST (ADO .NET Data Services) data in Silverlight, also has a nice hack on dealing with Silverlight asynchronous processing issues
• Using reporting tables and data warehouse tables as part of your application architecture

You can download the slides and code here. Enjoy.

I am spending my off day (no panels, no TLCs, no breakouts) doing MVP interviews for the MVP web site. I have interviewed:

• Dan Griffin
• Billy Hollis
• Bill Wolf (where he trash talks the Mets and Phils)
• Richard Campbell (this is funny since he is the master interviewer)

In addition I was also on 4 panels yesterday, here are the links to watch:

• Migrating Your Data Tier to SQL Server: Strategies for Survival
• The World Turned Upside Down: Development Strategies for Lean Times
• The Data Access Menu: Making Intelligent Choices
• The Most Persistent Microsoft SQL Server Myths (And Why They Are Wrong)

Tonight is the finals of Speaker Idol, hopefully the finals will make it on the web somehow. Tomorrow is my last talk: Data Access Hacks and Shortcuts @ 10:45.

TechEd is going strong, even in this hard economy. Some of the content is already up online for everyone to watch, the first is

The Pros and Cons of Stored Procedures

and

Agile: A process or an Excuse?

More content on the way…

TechEd is about to begin and Richard and I are going to do an awesome data access keynote, all demos, this is going to be fun, no power points:

DAT403
What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Stephen Forte and Richard Campbell
5/11/2009 1:00PM-2:15PM
Room 151

An Aglie TLC, Joel and I will show off a cool new (and secret) Telerik tool.

DPR04-INT
Tools and Agile Teams
Stephen Forte and Joel Semeniuk
5/11/2009 4:30PM-5:45PM
Blue Thr 2

Two panels, should be fun, these will be recorded and you can view them online at TechEd.com (or somewhere):

PAN67
The Pros and Cons of Stored Procedures
Adam Machanic; Jeffrey Palermo; Maciej Pilecki; Michael Wang; Stephen Forte; Tobias Ternstrom
5/11/2009 9:00AM-10:00AM
501C

PAN59
Agile: A Process or an Excuse?
Chris Menegay; Joel Semeniuk; Richard Campbell; Stephen Forte
5/11/2009 11:00AM-12:00PM
501C

I will be doing 11 sessions at TechEd in Los Angeles next week: four breakouts and one TLC, plus 6 panels. I will also be a speaker idol judge. Should be a lot of fun!

Here are the sessions, notice the 9am Monday morning session on stored procedures, should be a cool discussion:

Full Breakouts:

DAT403
What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Stephen Forte and Richard Campbell
5/11/2009 1:00PM-2:15PM
Room 151

DAT312
Solve Problems without Spending Money: Microsoft Office Access and Microsoft SQL Server
Mary Chipman; Stephen Forte
5/12/2009 2:45PM-4:00PM
Room 403A

DAT401
Data Access Hacks and Shortcuts
Stephen Forte
5/15/2009 10:45AM-12:00PM
Room 502A

Technical Learning Center Session:

DPR04-INT
Tools and Agile Teams
Stephen Forte and Joel Semeniuk
5/11/2009 4:30PM-5:45PM
Blue Thr 2

On-Line Panels. If you are not attending TechEd, they usually post these online to view for free:

PAN67
The Pros and Cons of Stored Procedures
Adam Machanic; Jeffrey Palermo; Maciej Pilecki; Michael Wang; Stephen Forte; Tobias Ternstrom
5/11/2009 9:00AM-10:00AM
501C

PAN59
Agile: A Process or an Excuse?
Chris Menegay; Joel Semeniuk; Richard Campbell; Stephen Forte
5/11/2009 11:00AM-12:00PM
501C

PAN62
The Most Persistent Microsoft SQL Server Myths (And Why They Are Wrong)
Adam Machanic; Maciej Pilecki; Michael Wang; Stephen Forte; Tobias Ternstrom
5/12/2009 9:00AM-10:00AM
501C

PAN53
The World Turned Upside Down: Development Strategies for Lean Times
Armen Stein; Kent Alstad; Luke Chung; Mary Chipman; Paul Sheriff; Rockford Lhotka; Stephen Forte
5/13/2009 1:00PM-2:00PM
501C

PAN65
The Data Access Menu: Making Intelligent Choices
Kent Alstad; Paul Sheriff; Richard Campbell; Rockford Lhotka; Stephen Forte
5/13/2009 2:00PM-3:00PM
501C