Conference Sessions

Create Rich Clients with Windows Forms
Brian Randell, MCW Technologies
May 5, 10:30 a.m.
Rich Windows applications remain critical to the success of today’s businesses. Come learn how you can build client applications that are both smart looking and behave intelligently. Discover how to build nice looking UI's with GDI+ and how to configure them using XML configuration files. Find out how to work in a low-trust environment, to take advantage of new features like Isolated Storage, and how to create a front-end to multiple back-end services. Plus, look to future and see what's in store for rich clients in Visual Studio .NET "Whidbey" and Longhorn.

Application Walkthrough of "Shadowfax"
Lars Laakes, Microsoft
May 5, 10:30 a.m.
Shadowfax is Microsoft’s approach to the hot topic of SOA or service-oriented architecture. A service-oriented architecture is not new, since it is just an approach to using a collection of services that communicate with each other. But SOA has become a hot topic because of the interest in Web services. For SOA in general, communication can involve either simple data passing or it could involve two or more services coordinating some activity. Some means of connecting services to each other is needed. Service-oriented architectures are not a new thing. The first service-oriented architecture for many people in the past was with the use DCOM or Object Request Brokers (ORBs) based on the CORBA specification. Look at how Shadowfax, a reference architecture for building service oriented applications using .NET. can help you to implement SOA using .NET today.

.NET Remoting
Richard Hale Shaw, Richard Hale Shaw Group
May 5, 10:30 a.m.
Distributed applications give you scalability, fault tolerance, security, throughput and better performance for .NET-to-.NET communications. Remoting generally refers to calls made between .NET applications and components across app domains, processes or machines. In this session, we'll explore the .NET Remoting architecture, how to create remoted (marshal-by-reference) objects, publish and consume programmatically and from a .config file, and how to build how and deploy a distributed .NET application. We'll also discuss how remoting works with serialized (marshal-by-value) objects, and how to employ .NET Events.

Dynamic UI Generation
Billy Hollis, Independent Author and Consultant
May 5, 11:45 a.m.
The .NET Framework’s advanced object capabilities make on-the-fly generation of smart client user interfaces much more feasible than it was with earlier systems such as Visual Basic 6. In this session we’ll discuss adding controls to forms on the fly, and creating forms and controls that generate their own parameter-driven UI at runtime. You’ll learn how to use dynamic loading of forms and assemblies to create entire user interfaces based on database UI definitions, simplifying the development, maintenance, and deployment of complex smart client applications.

Application Design Patterns
Lars Laakes, Microsoft
May 5, 11:45 a.m.
Design patterns can be used to provide consistent, reusable results and enable applications to be built more quickly, and be made more reliable and more easily maintained. This session shows developers how to build better applications by applying proven design patterns. It explains the Microsoft Patterns Framework and also gives a roadmap to future published patterns.

.NET Framework Security
Adam Gallant, Microsoft
May 5, 11:45 a.m.
Security is important for most any application, but with the enterprise-level applications .NET is meant for, security becomes critical. Learn the security features built into the .NET framework and how to take advantage of them in your applications.

Create Windows Forms Controls
Brian Randell, MCW Technologies
May 5, 2 p.m.
Every developer working with Windows Forms will sooner or later need to create their own controls. Even if you're not a control vendor, the techniques involved in creating your own controls are vital in most Windows applications. The .NET Windows Forms package allows you to create your own controls in several different ways. Depending on the class you inherit from, you get different behaviors, and different features. This session introduces you to three different ways in which to create your own controls for Windows Forms and demonstrates why you might want to take on this important task.

Team-Based Development
Chris Kinsman, Vergent Software
May 5, 2 p.m.
Do you write code as part of a team? Developing enterprise-level applications requires more upfront planning and more procedures, not only to coordinate the larger team doing the development, but to make sure the application is maintainable and deployable. Come to this session to pick up some tips on how to structure your development environment. We will talk about how to best structure a team development environment, manage dependencies, create a repeatable build process and do basic smoke/unit testing.

Internalization and Globalization with ASP.NET
Kate Gregory, Gregory Consulting Limited
May 5, 2 p.m.
ASP.NET gives developers more power than ever before to create diverse, multilingual, multicultural Web sites. The Windows .NET Framework provide rich support for Number Formatting, Date Formatting and Resource-based Localization. However, localizing Web pages in ASP.NET often isn’t easy. We’ll explore the complexities of Resource Files and Satellite Assemblies and how to exploit them in ASP.NET. We’ll look at how to create a Web site with localized DataGrids, Dynamic menus, DateTime and Currency information that is localized in half a dozen languages. We’ll explore localization issues in East Asian languages, as well as Right-To-Left issues when localizing in languages like Arabic. We’ll also look at how Cascading StyleSheets (CSS) can help in globalization and applying different “skins” to global sites. We’ll dig into System.Globalization and discover the hidden culture of .NET.

Optimizing Windows Application Performance
Billy Hollis, Independent Author and Consultant
May 5, 3:15 p.m.
Windows Forms applications will typically be more distributed than VB 6 forms apps. This introduces new challenges for making Windows Forms applications fast and scalable. Attend this session for to learn techniques for making Windows Forms have crisp performance, both locally and as part of a distributed application environment.

Advanced Distributed Application Design, Parts l and ll
Rockford Lhotka, Magenic Technologies
May 5, 3:15 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
Creating distributed applications is not trivial—especially if you want high developer productivity and long-term maintainability. In this two-part session you will learn how to apply object-oriented design and programming in distributed environments to achieve this goal. We’ll discuss issues around object persistence, interaction between the UI and objects, management of object and UI state and business rule management. The focus will be on the hard problems we face, and on possible solutions to those problems that you can take back and apply in your environment.

ASP.NET DataGrid
Marcie Robillard, Datagridgirl.com
May 5, 3:15 p.m.
Join the Datagrid Girl to cover techniques and common mistakes in using the ASP.NET Datagrid, including the use (and misuse) of ViewState, performance best practices, custom Datagrid column types, and do's and don'ts for dynamically created datagrids.

Smart Client Auto-Deployment: Present and Future
Andrew Brust, Progressive Systems Consulting
May 5, 4:30 p.m.
The trend toward browser-based applications has been, in large part, driven by their ease of deployment. Meanwhile, .NET's No-Touch Deployment model allows Windows Forms applications to deploy gracefully over the Internet/intranet and Whidbey’s upcoming Click Once technology will make this type of deployment even easier. In this session, I’ll cover the mechanics of No-Touch Deployment, the upcoming features of Click Once, and the principles of Code Access Security (CAS) you need to know to make both of these technologies work safely and reliably.

Advanced Distributed Application Design, Part II.

Server Controls in ASP.NET
Chris Kinsman, Vergent Software
May 5, 4:30 p.m.
What if the ASP.NET toolbox doesn't provide just the control you need? What if you often need a particular functionality, and would like to encapsulate that functionality in a control you and your teammates can use? You have the capability to create custom controls, just like the ones you'll find in the ASP.NET toolbox. These custom controls have all the same capabilities as built-in server controls, starting with a toolbox icon down to full state management, event handling, and data management. Attend this session with a true ASP pro, and you’ll learn to create custom controls that are every bit as powerful as the built-in controls in ASP.NET.

Validating Data on the Client
Billy Hollis, Independent Author and Consultant
May 5, 5:45 p.m.
Reducing data transfer by doing client-side data validation makes your application’s perceived performance crisper, and reducing the load on the server. It also saves time and coding effort and improves encapsulation. Learn some smart techniques for how to do client-side validation, and their trade-offs to help you judge when to do it. This session will detail a set of Windows Forms validation controls that replicate and extend the capabilities of the popular ASP.NET validator controls.

Enterprise Services
Adam Gallant, Microsoft
May 5, 5:45 p.m.
IT is increasingly looked at as a provider of services, rather than a provider of applications. As IT moves toward a world of Service-Oriented-Architectures, the role of the Visual Studio developer will change. Hear how Visual Studio and .NET fit in the world of SOA.

ASP.NET Security
Chris Kinsman, Vergent Software
May 5, 5:45 p.m.
All of us have struggled with authentication and authorization issues using previous versions of ASP. With ASP.NET, new techniques are available to developers trying to build secure applications. Together we'll review several of these techniques in detail, ranging from the simplistic (for the quick and dirty application you may need to provide in a few hours), to the sophisticated.

Best Practices for Client Design
Keith Pleas, Guided Design
May 6, 10:30 a.m.
Analysts estimate that the majority of enterprise applications will continue to incorporate a rich client interface for many years to come. So how do you design your applications today to support multiple user interface technologies, or even to support user interface features that are not yet released? How do you do this without requiring duplicated effort or major re-writes? This session shows developers how to design the front end to isolate key functionality from presentation technologies while still supporting the unique capabilities of each client platform.

ASP.NET 2.0
Rockford Lhotka, Magenic Technologies
May 6, 10:30 a.m.
ASP.NET 2.0 provides substantial improvements over ASP.NET 1.0. In this session we'll dive into the key new features, including the new templates rapid development, theming and personalization, new security features, the use of Web parts to build portals, data access and binding and others. Together, these features provide improved developer productivity, administration and better support for mobile devices.

Zen and the Art of Web Services, Part I
Kate Gregory, Gregory Consulting Limited
May 6, 10:30 a.m.
What exactly is a Service-Oriented Architecture and how can you achieve it? Right now you can prepare yourself and your company for SOA by leveraging Web Services and ASMX Microsoft .NET. We'll answer the burning question "Web Services: So what?" and dig into the REAL reasons that Web Services exist. We’ll learn everything about Web Services starting with the WHY and work up through XSD, SOAP and Microsoft’s implementation. We’ll sniff SOAP traffic on the wire and explore XML Serialization. You’ll also come away with a huge list of tools to examine and test Web Services for WS-I Compliance.

Save Yourself with .NET Serialization
Ken Getz, MCW Technologies
May 6, 11:45 a.m.
Almost every application needs to save data for later use, or for transport to another application. Every developer has crafted a one-off solution to the problem, and no one will argue that this is a waste of time. Shouldn't the operating system provide some standard technique for serializing data for persistent storage and transport? Of course, the .NET Framework does. And, in typical .NET Framework style, you have lots of choices to make when deciding on a serialization. In this session, you'll learn about both formatters provided by the .NET Framework, and see how to decide which works best for you.

C# 2.0 Generics
Richard Hale Shaw, Richard Hale Shaw Group
May 6, 11:45 a.m.
The Whidbey release of the .NET Framework will proffer a number of features that'll make C# an even more powerful language than it already is: partial types, anonymous methods, delegate inference and custom iterators — just to name a few. But by far the most powerful new feature will be one of particular interest to C# developers coming from C++ backgrounds: Generics. Conceptually like C++ templates, Generics let you define types that omit specific constituent type information, and let the user of the type supply the omitted type information when the type is used. But unlike C++ templates, Generics are instantiated at runtime and not compile-time. In this session, we'll start a brief overview of the other features of C# 2.0, but quickly move to Generic syntax, and their constraints and implications in .NET. Then we'll examine how you can use them to create generic methods and delegates, and wrap up with a look at the implications of Generics on Reflection, Collections, and how they can be used in other technologies, such as Remoting.

Zen and the Art of Web Services, Part II
Kate Gregory, Gregory Consulting Limited
May 6, 11:45 a.m.
Should I pass XmlDocuments around? Perhaps DataSets? No, TYPED DataSets? Wait, what about Collections? No, a strong object model...No, just strings, yeah, that's it, strings for all! Are you confused about how to move data from Service to Service? What's a Service you ask? Well, this is just the talk for you. We'll look at how to effectively leverage .NET to move data from Service to Service in the context of ASP.NET. We'll see how to use Schema to describe objects and messages, talk about Service Oriented Architecture, and find out what the Zen Koan "Share Schema, not Type" means. We'll explore CodeSmith, a free code generator with an ASP.NET-like syntax, dig into XSD.EXE and an alternate implementation. Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced Web Services wonk, this talk will equip you with the knowledge you need to be successful.

Best Practices for Deployment
Brian Randell, MCW Technologies
May 6, 2 p.m.
This session covers the "best practices" for packaging, deploying, and
updating the .NET Framework and applications, including localized versions
and side-by-side execution. The different deployment options for clients,
servers, and database servers will be covered for applications types
including Web, service, hosted, and smart client.

Developing OLAP Applications with ADO MD.NET
Andrew Brust, Progressive Systems Consulting
May 6, 2 p.m.
Until now, from .NET, your only options for creating OLAP front-ends were ADO MD—the original COM API for OLAP—and XML For Analysis (XML/A). But now, ADO MD .NET (currently in Beta), a managed wrapper for XML/A, gives you the object model convenience of ADO MD without its COM InterOp dependency. How do you use ADO MD .NET? Should you use it? How does ADO.NET tie in with these various API choices? We'll explore these issues and more.

Exception Handling in .NET
Ken Getz, MCW Technologies
May 6, 2 p.m.
It's time to put "On Error Goto" out of its/our misery. Rather than requiring you to work with cryptic error codes and embarrassing Goto's, .NET's exception handling allows you to completely control the behavior of your code when exceptions occur. This session introduces the basics of exception handling in .NET, demonstrates best practices for working with exception handling, and shows how you can extend the basic exception handling provided by the .NET Framework. If you haven't mastered structured exception handling in .NET, you owe it to yourself and your applications to dig in now.

Building in Performance and Scalability
Chris Kinsman, Vergent Software
May 6, 3:15 p.m.
Learn how to define performance targets, measure to insure that you are meeting them and the tips to create high performance, highly scalable distributed applications with .NET.

Migrating From Classic ADO to ADO.NET
John Papa, Lancelot Web Solutions
May 6, 3:15 p.m.
The shift from developing with classic ADO to ADO.NET presents some challenges. This session will begin by examining the differences and the similarities in the ADO 2.x and ADO.NET object models. You will learn how to exploit the ADO.NET quick and nimble DataReader object as well as the more involved and robust DataSet and DataTable objects. You will see examples that will query a database using raw SQL and stored procedures that return the data to the ADO.NET objects to be manipulated.

COM Interop with .NET
Kate Gregory, Gregory Consulting Limited
May 6, 3:15 p.m.
One of the enormous strengths of the .NET Framework is that applications don't need to be ported to it all at once. Thanks to interoperability between COM and .NET, you can call your old COM code from your new .NET code and vice versa. In this session you will see how simple interop can be. Learn the best practices for a piecewise port from COM to .NET, and some of your options when deciding which components of a multi-level application should move to .NET first.

UI Best Practices for Mobile Development
Dwayne Lamb, Visual Byte Inc.
May 6, 4:30 p.m.
Before starting to plan or propose a Pocket PC or Smart Phone development project there are some important factors and differences that need to be taken into account when designing a mobile device application and it's user interface. This presentation will look at important design, UI and end-user principles as well as covering some of the Microsoft guidelines that will impact the way you design your next successful mobile device application. During this session attention will also drawn to both the similarities and differences in design elements and patterns used when developing applications for the desktop, Pocket PC and SmartPhone platforms.

Building a Multi-Tiered Application with ADO.NET
John Papa, Lancelot Web Solutions
May 6, 4:30 p.m.
This session will demonstrate how to use the DataSet in a .NET application to retrieve data, track modifications made by the user, and send the data back to the database. You will learn how to retrieve data from a business services application and load the information in the presentation tier using ADO.NET. I will walk through examples of how to save several rows to the database at one time, sending new, changed and deleted rows in one trip to the business services tier and then on to the database by using a DataSet. Code examples will also include using how to take advantage of inheritance and polymorphism.

Rearchitecting from DNA to .NET
Keith Pleas, Guided Design
May 6, 4:30 p.m.
How do you get the most out of your investment in "legacy" applications? The mechanical process of porting code is well documented, yet is often an ineffective approach. This session gives you the guidance to understand when and how to apply such techniques as wrapping, interoperation, refactoring, and ultimately redesigning to provide the greatest success when moving to a service-oriented architecture using .NET.