Topic:

“You live a new life for every new language you speak.
If you know only one language, you live only once.” — Czech proverb

It’s good to learn new languages and environments. Different languages solve the same problems in different ways. By learning several different approaches, you can help broaden your thinking and identify the right tool for the right job.

As someone who has spent the last few years using both environments on a daily basis, we will compare and contrast web development in the Microsoft .NET world vs. web development using the Ruby on Rails stack. We will compare the languages, the tooling, the communities, and the frameworks. This session will help the .NET developer get started down the Rails rabbit hole.

Bio:

Jamie Wright is President of Brilliant Fantastic, a software development consulting service provider and an ISV for software management applications. He has over ten years of software development experience in Microsoft technologies and 3 years development experience in Ruby and Ruby on Rails. He specializes in application architecture, design patterns, object-oriented design, and test driven development. He blogs at brilliantfantastic.com and is currently seeking help for his gadget addiction.

Website URL: http://brilliantfantastic.com

Topic:

Code First Migrations allow for database changes to be implemented all through code. Through the use of Package Manager Console, commands can be used to scaffold database changes. This gives the developer complete control over database migrations within code files. In this presentation, we’ll look at these PMC commands for generating code.

Bio:

Sam Nasr has been a software developer since 1995, focusing mostly on Microsoft technologies. Having achieved multiple certifications from Microsoft (MCAD, MCTS(MOSS), and MCT), Sam develops, teaches, and tours the country to present various topics in .Net Framework. He is also actively involved with the Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group, where he has been the group leader since 2003. In addition, he also started the Cleveland WPF User Group in June 2009, is the INETA mentor for Ohio, and an author for Visual Studio Magazine. When not coding, Sam loves spending time with his family and friends or volunteering at his local church.

Topic:

Effective communication is a pivotal component of a success. Be it presenting at a user group, assisting with a Sales demo, or simply justifying to your boss the purchase of IDE upgrades, you will give a presentation in your career. But the effectiveness of your presentation is not just about being well-spoken and having a prepared outline; the quality of a slide deck has as much impact on a presentation as the quality of the speaker. Slides can destroy. Slides can invigorate. Slides can shape the mood of your audience and bend it at will. Learn to harness this power; use it to tell your story effectively, persuasively, and leave your audience inspired.

Bio:

Jay is a code wrangler, software consultant, and president of Arana Software. He has been developing on the web for over 15 years, since the Blink tag lured him away from Visual Basic 3 in 1995. With a career focus on user experience, he has a passion for practices that improve quality and usability, and is an expert in continuous integration and in performance analysis and optimization. Jay is also an active contributor and speaker in the developer community, a Microsoft MVP in C#, ASPInsider, INETA Mentor, and an organizer of many conferences and user groups in the Ann Arbor area.

Originally from Rochester, New York, he and his wife, Amy, have lived in Michigan since 2003. They like Michigan, but still consider themselves tourists, and probably always will.

Topic

One of the most misunderstood concepts in JavaScript is prototypal inheritance.  Prototypal inheritance is nothing like classical inheritance but is actually quite easy to grasp once you let go of the bounds of classes and instances.  In this session we will explore the nature of JavaScript objects, how they inherit from one another, and why everyone thought this prototype stuff was so hard in the first place.  If you want to up your game and really understand how JavaScript inheritance works, come check out this session.

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Topic

CSS Scaffolding systems have some a long way since Blueprint and 960gs. Bootstrap extends beyond the basic grid system to provide a beautiful and powerful design framework, and its power increases tenfold when combined with LESS, the dynamic stylesheet language. Spend a session learning about simple, reusable, variable-based CSS with LESS, and the beautiful, responsive designs that you can build off of it when combined with the Bootstrap framework. When you walk away from this session, you too will want to Bootstrap All the Things (with LESS).

Bio:

Jay is a code wrangler, software consultant, and president of Arana Software. He has been developing on the web for over 15 years, since the Blink tag lured him away from Visual Basic 3 in 1995. With a career focus on user experience, he has a passion for practices that improve quality and usability, and is an expert in continuous integration and in performance analysis and optimization. Jay is also an active contributor and speaker in the developer community, a Microsoft MVP in C#, ASPInsider, INETA Mentor, and an organizer of many conferences and user groups in the Ann Arbor area.

Originally from Rochester, New York, he and his wife, Amy, have lived in Michigan since 2003. They like Michigan, but still consider themselves tourists, and probably always will.

Topic

This presentation gives an introduction to distributed version control systems in general as well as git in specific. In addition to covering how to get started with git on a green-field project it will also cover strategies on how to migrate or co-exist with an existing source control system

Bio:

Magnus Stahre is a software craftsman doing application development for 13 years.

He is currently an Agile craftsman at Pillar Technology where he solves difficult problems while coaching others on techniques and toolsthat help developers work better.

He is also a dedicated Unix lover, having started his career as a sysadmin.

Registration required for this event: a2win8installfest.eventbrite.com

Win a Microsoft Surface!

We have a Surface on order to give away at this event. Attendees will receive one ticket to win for attending the Install session and another ticket to win for the presentation session. If the Surface does not show up before the event (highly likely) we will make sure it gets to you.

Developers in the Microsoft space just got a whole new bag of toys. This month, we will be helping to get you up to speed on developing for Windows 8 with Visual Studio 2012.

Get Windows 8 installed on your machine.*

You are among fellow developers, you can admit you want the latest running on your hardware. You want to see what is different and how it works. Update, Repave, or set up with Bootcamp. Perform your installation with a group of people that have done it before. We are here to help

Get Visual Studio 2012 installed on your machine.*

Did you know that Visual Stuido 2012 can open Visual Studio 2010 files without changing the solution and project files. This means there is very little risk to upgrading even if you use Visual Studio 2010 for most of your development work. Get your machine up to date with the latest development tools

Get the Windows 8 Developer Tools installed on your machine.

We will have experts in Windows 8 development available so that you can get up to speed as quick as possible.

Work through the Windows 8 Development Labs.

Maybe you already have Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 installed, but you have not had a chance to start doing some development. This will be a great chance to work through the labs while there are people available to help.

Learn more about Windows 8 development.

After the Install Fest, we will have the regularly scheduled monthly meeting with several 15 minute topics related to Windows 8 development or new features in Visual Studio 2012

*Yes, you have to bring your own license or trial edition. (unless there is an Express Edition)

We will have USB drives with Express Editions of Visual Studio 2012

Topic

Developers have been enticed by the promise of cross-platform software development frameworks for over two decades.  The mobile space is no exception.  With the dozens of cross-platform options available to the mobile developer, it can be a daunting task to make sense of them all.  This high-level session will guide you through your options and compare the pros and cons of the more popular platforms available.  In the process, we will dig a bit deeper into two of the more popular options: Cordova (PhoneGap) and Titanium.  We will discuss when it might make sense to employ a cross-platform solution and when it is time to write native applications.  When we are done, you will have a good understanding of the cross-platform mobile landscape and some real-world examples to work from.

Bio:

Brian Genisio is a passionate software consultant at SRT Solutions in Ann Arbor, MI and an active member of the Midwest software community. For over 12 years, Brian has worked with countless languages and technologies. Currently, he is focusing on web and mobile-based technologies while playing with frameworks such as ASP.NET MVC, Rails, Flex, Node.js, iOS, PhoneGap, Titanium and Backbone.js. He loves to learn new technologies and he also loves to talk about testing philosophies and methodologies. He can talk your ear off. Just humor him. In his spare time, he enjoys being a cooking nerd which includes traditional barbecue, baking bread, brewing beer and making as much as he can from scratch.

Topic

Since last year’s Build conference, .Net Developers have been inundated with new information about things like Windows 8, Visual Studio 11, the open sourcing of the ASP.NET Web Stack, etc.  One could be forgiven for sleeping on the C#/VB team’s Compiler as a Service effort, dubbed “Roslyn”, or for not downloading the Roslyn Community Technology Previews.  In this session, we will check out some of the interesting features already provided by the Roslyn June 2012 CTP, explore what the current APIs have to offer, and discuss what possibilities might be in store for the future of C# and VB.NET development.

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