4 Intensive Full-Day Workshops

Brush up on your skills at a pre-conference workshop. Then hammer home what you've learned with a post-conference workshop.

• Smart Client: Soup to Nuts
• Build a VB 2005 Application in a Day
• .NET To The Core: Designing and Implementing High Performance ASP.NET Solutions
• Hands-on Whidbey: C# 2.0 Generics, Iterators, and Framework 2.0 Features
  

Pre-Conference Workshops, Tuesday, June 28

Take an in-depth look at some of the more important smart-client design issues (UI process, collaborative applications), technologies (offline detection and data synchronization), and advanced topics (extender-providers, creating Windows forms controls), as well as some old favorites (configuration, deployment, updating, and management) in this full-day workshop.

Keith Pleas is one of the founders of Guided Design and has worked for more than two years on the team developing the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET. He is an internationally known writer and speaker and is the Editorial Chair for VBITS. Keith is also a contributing editor to Visual Studio Magazine and has developed Microsoft Professional Certification Exams. He also sits on the INETA board and is the liaison for the INETA Speakers Bureau.

Billy Hollis is an author and software developer from Nashville, Tennessee. He is co-author of the first book ever published on Visual Basic .NET, VB .NET Programming on the Public Beta. Billy has written many articles, and is a frequent speaker at conferences. He is the Regional Director of Developer Relations in Nashville for Microsoft, and runs a consulting company focusing on Microsoft .NET.

Build a VB 2005 Application in a Day
Ken Getz and Brian Randell, MCW Technologies
9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
See the process of creating an end-to-end Visual Basic 2005 application starting with an introduction to the .NET Framework, and concluding with the installation of a full application utilizing many pieces of .NET technology as can be fit into a single application. Gain insight into a variety of topics focusing on the major areas of application development on the .NET Framework. The application will include coverage of Windows applications, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Web Services, Windows Services, COM Interop, and deployment. By the time you've seen how to build the entire application, you'll have an idea of how to transition your skills from Visual Basic 6 to Visual Basic 2005, as well as a good understanding of many of the parts of .NET development.

Ken Getz is a senior consultant with MCW Technologies and splits his time between programming, writing, and training. He has written many technical books, including ASP.NET Developer's Jumpstart with Paul D. Sheriff, and is co-author of several best selling books, including the Access 2002 Developer's Handbooks and VBA Developer's Handbook. Ken co-wrote and recorded for video training several courses for Application Developer's Training Company (AppDev), including ADO.NET, VB .NET, ASP.NET, Access 2000 and 97, and VB6 seminars .

Brian A. Randell teaches Microsoft .NET curriculum using Visual Basic .NET and C# for DevelopMentor. When not teaching, he works as a Senior Consultant with MCW Technologies, a Microsoft Certified Partner, specializing in custom application development with Microsoft .NET, SQL Server, and the Microsoft Office family of products.

Post-Conference Workshops, Friday, July 1

.NET To The Core: Designing and Implementing High Performance ASP.NET Solutions
Russ Nemhauser, Nemhauser Media; and Doug Seven, DotNetJunkies
9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Cut to the core of proper design techniques, caching, and stress testing to create reliable, scalable, high-performance Web sites. We'll start by investigating application design considerations and alternatives, such as XML Web Services vs. DataSets, or two-tier vs. n-tier architecture. With our findings in mind, you'll look at some basic and advanced caching techniques in ASP.NET (both v.1.x and v.2.0), including per-request, database cache invalidation, and custom cache dependencies. Additionally, with the aid of Microsoft Web Application Center Test, Microsoft Web Application Stress Tool, and the new testing functionality offered in Visual Studio Team System, you'll be able to measure the improvement in performance and calculate the potential savings in hardware. If you develop Web applications, you need to be here.

Russ Nemhasuer is a Microsoft ASP.NET MVP and a Microsoft Certified Professional, and has served as an Architect, Developer, Team Leader, and Project Manager over the past several years. His recent projects include enterprise applications, online commerce sites, and corporate intranets for Wall Street, Universal Studios, Microsoft, Seagram, and others. Russ speaks at several industry conferences each year write for several magazines and online software community sites.

As one of the co-founders of DotNetJunkies.com, a content- based online training resource for .NET developers, Doug Seven has been building applications with the .NET Framework since the summer of 2000. He is a charter member of both the INTEA Speaker's Bureau and the INTEA-LATAM Speaker's Bureau, speaking at user groups and conferences around the country. Seven has also co-authored five books related to the .NET Framework.

Hands-on Whidbey: C# 2.0 Generics, Iterators, and Framework 2.0 Features
Richard Hale Shaw, Richard Hale Shaw Group
9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Are you ready for the new stuff? Bring your laptop with VS2005 Beta 2 (or later) installed, and we'll spend a day learning and working hands-on labs with C# 2.0. We'll start with the easy stuff: Anonymous Methods, Delegate Inferference, and Partial Types, followed by Static classes, Global Namespaces, and Reference Aliases. Then we'll move to Generics! We'll build Generic types, use constraints to configure their behaviors, and work labs for converting existing non-generic types into Generic types. Next, we'll try our hand with Generic delegates and methods, Generic Interfaces, and work with the new Generic Collections in Framework 2.0. We'll even use Reflection to retrieve type infomation on Generic types and parameters. Then we'll turn to Iterators: we'll use the new Iterator feature in C# to create custom iterators, and then combine them with Generic types. Along the way, we'll make it even more fun by utilizing some of the new Framework 2.0 library features that make .NET programming even more productive than before (such as Nullable types, Friend Assemblies and those cute new Console class features). By the time we're through, you'll be ready to start adding C# 2.0 features to existing applications compiled with the current beta, to be ready when Framework 2.0 comes out later this year.

Pre-requisites: you must already have 1 year of C# development experience (no hand-holding if you don't) and you must bring a laptop with VS2005 Beta 2 or later installed (there'll be no time to do this during class).

Richard Hale Shaw is the founder of the Richard Hale Shaw Group, which has consulted and trained software developers since 1993. He's created and chaired numerous technical conferences, including C# Live!, part of the VSLive! conference series. An articulate writer and speaker on topics dear to the hearts of software developers and an outspoken critic of broken devtools, Richard specializes in consulting and training on .NET programming in C# and COM/+ programming in C++.