Back at the PDC 2009 in Los Angeles, CA, Brian Goldfarb showed off the “Microsoft Silverlight Client for Facebook Beta”. It was released by Microsoft in early 2010 and had millions of downloads for both Windows and the Mac. Over the past few months, the Facebook app has been further developed by Telerik and is now available as the first official version under its new name: Telerik f!acedeck.

Telerik has taken over the application from Microsoft and will continue its further development and support as a free application for everyone to enjoy. Telerik f!acedeck delivers a superior experience to Facebook users and offers unique features: such as drag-and-drop from the local file system, access to the video camera,  instant loading and smooth scrolling of the Facebook wall, notifications and chat.

Telerik f!acedeck Client for Facebook is immediately available from its original location on Microsoft’s website (http://www.silverlight.net/content/samples/apps/facebookclient) as well as from Telerik’s website (http://facedeck.telerik.com). The product is free and works on both Windows and Mac OS operating systems with the Silverlight 4 plugin installed.

Enjoy!

Miguel Castro: Introduction to MVVM

Subject:
You must register athttps://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=152298 in order to be admitted to the building and attend.
WPF overwhelmed us with the most powerful data binding ever released in a development platform. It seemed there was so much to learn in order to use it, but it really isn't that complicated. However, to use it to its full potential, you really do need to introduce the Model-View-ViewModel pattern. The ideas and goal around this pattern seem to vary from person to person, but the one thing that they all share is that it provides a point of binding for XAML pages. In this session, I'll show you what MVVM is and how to use it and what to put in it, in order to get maximum potential out of XAML binding. I'll even show you how to get a small MVVM Framework going for sharing across all your applications.

Speaker:
Miguel Catstro, IDesign
< Miguel Castro is an architect with IDesign with over 22 years of experience in the software industry. He’s a Microsoft MVP, member of the INETA Speakers Bureau, and ASP Insider. With a Microsoft background that goes all the way back to VB 1.0 (and QuickBasic in fact), Miguel has spoken at numerous user groups, code camps, and conferences throughout the US and overseas. He has also been featured on the technology talk shows, .NET Rocks, .NET Rocks-TV, Microsoft’s ARCast (Architecture Podcast), and The Polymorphic Podcast on numerous occasions. He specializes in architecture and development consulting and training using Microsoft technologies. Miguel is also a regular author with CoDe Magazine.

Date:
Thursday, December 16, 2010

Time:
Reception 6:00 PM , Program 6:15 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.

While I was on the road this past month, I caught up with Richard and Carl and appeared on a show of .NET Rocks. The show is about design and developers and featured Scott Stanfield, Lino Tadros, and myself. You can listen here.

Thursday, November 18, 2010
Windows Workflow 4 - Patterns, Practices and Usages

Subject:
You must register athttps://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=150257 in order to be admitted to the building and attend.
Everybody who writes code wants to build great software. If that software is a server application, part of being great is scaling well, handling large loads without consuming too many resources. A great application should also be as easy as possible to understand, both for its creators and for the people who maintain it. Achieving both of these goals isn’t easy. Approaches that help applications scale tend to break them apart, dividing their logic into separate chunks that can be hard to understand. Achieving this is a primary goal of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). This session covers some basic concepts , windows workflow 4 architecure , its best patterns and usages.
Session Includes:
1. Workflow Architecture , business problems and technical case for using workflow.
2. Best Patterns and Practices.
3. Hosting using AppFabric and IIS , contract base routing.
4. Parallel Programming in Windows Workflow.
5. Workflow as a service model.

Speaker:
Navneet Srivastava, Emerging Health Information Technology
Navneet is lead architect and manager of engineers in the Product Development division of Emerging Health Information Technology, a subsidiary of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. He oversees design and development of the breakthrough clinical intelligence application, Clinical Looking Glass, employing cutting edge Microsoft technologies and a host of best practices. In past positions, Navneet has developed other healthcare applications with national distribution.

Date:
Thursday, November 18, 2010

Time:
Reception 6:00 PM , Program 6:15 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.

At TechEd Europe 2010 in Berlin, I will be doing three breakout sessions and one panel discussion: Silverlight v HTML5.

My breakout sessions are:

• Scrum, but
• Agile Estimation

This is the first time I am formally doing the Scrum, but session, however, Joel and I did it at TechEd North America at our pre-con. We’ll (I invited Joel, even though he is not an “official” speaker to do the session with me) walk the audience through a few slides about Scrum, Kanban, XP and “Agile is about values, not rules” and the “buffet table” approach. After about 10 minutes of us blabbing, we will open it to questions. We are prepared to speak about four scenarios: Scrum/Agile in the Enterprise, Consulting, Remote (and outsourced) teams, and ISVs. Should be fun, and interactive! Bring lots of questions!!!

The Agile Estimation talk is a repeat of my talk last year and we are doing it twice since there is a lot of demand.

The session times are below. When I am not doing sessions, I will be at the Telerik Booth. You can find us at E 83+E84, very close to where we were last year. I’ll be glad to talk to you about the sessions, agile in general, or the Telerik tools. If you check out our CTP of WP7 controls now, we have a special offer for you: As a special gift to all TechEd Europe attendees visiting our booth, you will receive a free license of these controls once they are finally released, if you download the CTP now.

See you in Berlin!

There has been a lot said about the HTML5 v Silverlight debate in recent days. We have a very timely BOF session at TechEd Europe next week on this very topic. Join Tomislav Bronzin,  Mauro Sant'Anna, Joel Semeniuk, David Yack,  Daron Yondem, and myself for a smack-down no holds barred panel discussion on Tuesday November 9th. It will be moderated by Tim Huckaby.

BOF10: Silverlight vs. HTML5 - Interactive Panel

Tuesday, November 9  1:20 PM - 2:05 PM

Join Tim Huckaby as he moderates a distinguished panel of Microsoft Regional Directors and some other pillars of the industry in a interactive panel discussion around the issues, excitement, bold promise and confusion around SilverLight and HTML5.

On Saturday, November 6, 2010, we'll be holding our fourth annual Fairfield / Westchester Code Camp!  As in the past, this event will be held at the University of Connecticut, Stamford Campus.

Register now!

This year, we'll have 36 sessions (75 minutes each) across 6 tracks, given by some of the best regional and local developers, and will have topics such as WP7, Silverlight, Entity Framework, PowerShell, F#, MVC, NoSQL, SharePoint, and so much more!

As usual, we will have giveaways, food, and coffee.
Seating is limited and our focus is technology.  No recruiters, please.

I’m over in Zeist, the Netherlands speaking at the Software Developers Conference, put on by the Software Developer Network of the Netherlands. Back when this event was called CTTP, it was my first international speaking event in 1998.  I’ve been speaking at this conference every year since 1998, only missing the event in 2000. I have spoken at three other events produced by SDN over the years besides the SDN/CTTP, so this is my 15th, yes 15th time speaking at this organization’s event in the Netherlands. I have no idea why they keep inviting, me, I usually show up to sessions with beer, go to the red light district instead of my talks, or make fun of Dutch people the entire time I am here.

This year I am speaking on RIA Services and doing an Q&A on Scrum and Agile. Hope to see lots of Dutch there!