Usergroups
Because there aren't enough conferences to present at
I gave my OSWAP presentation to Vista Squad last Wednesday, where Ian Smith kindly (?) videoed it. The other speaker for that evening dropped out, meaning the poor attendees had just me to listen to as I stretched it out to about 100 minutes. The length meant that the video is in two halves. Part 1 from Vista Squad on Vimeo. Part 2 from Vista Squad on Vimeo. The presentation is the same one I gave at WebDD so the slides and code are the same. The feedback on twitter was amusing; ...
Not content with the south we’re heading h’up north to Manchester, Cheadle to be exact (so your hubcaps may be safe). The group is being run by local developers Steve Robbins and Andy Wilkinson . The group will have it's first meeting on 20th May 2009 between 7.00pm and 9.00pm in the Pennine House, Carrs Road, Cheadle SK8 2BL. The headline speaker is to announced but the subject will be as topical and exciting as the other NxtGenUG events that are held monthly around the country. There will be the usual NxtGenUG activities of eating Pizza and throwing...
The UK .NET Community’s favourite redheaded step child Phil Winstanley just emailed me to say I’ve been picked to talk at WebDD. I’ll be presenting “P0wn3d! (Or how to redirect your friend's website to katyperry.com)”. This takes the outings of my OWASP Top Ten Web Vulnerabilities talk to 5 outings over the next couple of months: WebDD09 18 April 2009 DDD Scotland 2 May 2009 VBug London 26 May 2009 DevEvening Woking 4 June 2009 Vista Squad London 17 June...
Rich and Dave’s plan for world, or at least usergroup domination proceeds apace with the start of the sixth UK region this time in Hereford. The group is being run by evil minions local developers Ryan O'Neill and Richard Wilde. The first meeting will be on 17th March 2009 between at 19:00 in the Shirehall, Union Street, Hereford HR1 2HX. The main speaker will be Guy Smith-Ferrier with a session on Visual Studio 2008 Tips and Tricks. As usual the NxtGenUG activities of eating pizza and swag overdosing will take place. To book your...
Monday sees Helen Emerson come out to Oxford to present on JSON, her very well received session first deliver at DDD. The object model in Javascript looks pretty foreign the first time you see it, particularly if you're from mainstream languages like C#, Java or VB.NET. In my talk I'm going to explore the Javascript object model, talk about the bread and butter things you need to know to create classes and objects and show you how to get the most out of some of the more exotic Javascript object features like prototyping. As...
Thursday sees the first meeting of the UK SQL user group in exciting Milton Keynes, home of, errr, concrete cows. It sees Tony Rogerson talking about common table expressions and Simon Sabin talking about new features in SQL 2008. You can find more details on the sqlserverfaq website. (If you're thinking of driving beware the M1 and its road works of doom) Technorati Tags: Usergroups,SQL Server 2008,SQL Server Usergroup
One of the sessions I’ve submitted for DDD is "So you want to be a speaker"; which has the following abstract; Is being in the audience no longer enough? Do you long for the fame, the glory, the groupies that come with being a DDD presenter? Then come along to this discussion/Q&A panel with some of the UK’s top speakers; we’ll cover topics like "How do I get started?", "Am I good enough?", "Is bad feedback the best feedback?", "Powerpoint, is it the work of the devil?", "When good questions go bad", "My demo code worked earlier" and...
FEST08 the annual NxtGenUG one-day event takes place at Microsoft Reading on Thursday 12th June (just a few days after my birthday, so bring presents). As ever it’s going to be an action packed day with great content from the likes of Mike Taulty ,Oliver Sturm , Dave Sussman and other top speakers. There is a cast iron guarantee that there will be no Information Card sessionsbut there will be swathes of swag and prizes and pizza (it wouldn’t be a nxtgen event without those). There are a few places left; it’s free to all NxtGenUG members and a mere...
nxtgen Oxford has a bunch of events to take you into summer; What:Even More Mobile with Roger WhiteheadThis talk will builds on the introductory talk Roger gave last year on Windows Mobile Development. This new talk will cover general issues when developing Windows Mobile applications as well as demonstrating specific features of .net Compact Framework 3.5 and Windows Mobile 6. Roger will use Visual Studio 2008 during his presentation and will also cover the important new features this offers for Windows Mobile developers. Roger will cover the basics of form design, navigation, data handling, unit testing and deploying Windows...
There’s a range of events coming up in the next few months; In February we’ve got Guy Smith-Ferrier coming to nxtgen Oxford to talk about Astoria ADO.NET Data Services, and a nugget from a new speaker, Marc Gravell on adding operators to generics. If you want to come along please register first, it makes my life easier. What:Ahhh, Ahh, AstoriaThe emergence of Web 2.0 technologies has brought new opportunities and caused us to solve old problems in new ways. AJAX and Silverlight applications need read/write access to data and business objects without performing full page refreshes and without dumbing down...
Just a reminder that Daniel Moth, renowned (should that be infamous?) Microsoft DPE speaker is coming to introduce us to Visual Studio 2008 and v3.5 of the .NET framework on Monday. Daniel is always good value; and, of course, attendance is free, so register and sign up on the nxtgen website so we know you’re coming. What:VS2008 and .NET 3.5Want to know how Visual Studio 2008 differs from every single previous release of Visual Studio? Do the terms "red bits" and "green bits" confuse you? Are you having a hard time finding what exactly is new in the...
Andrew Westgarth has published the 4th VBug podcast which he did with me just before I jetted out to TechEd where I ramble on about CardSpace, identity management, women in IT (oh dear) and other bits and pieces. Poor Andy had to beep out the phrase "community whore" when I described myself; not my description of myself, that was Sarah’s description. Technorati tags: CardSpace, Podcast
Two hours in Starbucks with coffee and Mike Ormond? How could you pass that up? Microsoft is piloting a more local and informal technical event, called “Microsoft CoffeeTalks” at select Starbucks coffeehouses. Our team is excited about visiting these locations and meeting with the technical community, and we will use your feedback to determine if these events should be rolled out more broadly. So on Thursday 13th December at 17:00 in the Oxford Starbucks on the High Street Mike is coming to talk about Silverlight, what it is, where you might use it etc. If you fancy discovering and...
It appears I started a trend. Once I setup the nxtgen twitter account I sent an email to an email list I’m subscribed to which contains a bunch of other community "leaders" (I’m not so much a leader, but a community whore according to Sarah). In the hours that have followed we have VBUG, DDD and Scottish Devs all appearing on Twitter. So what do you need to do to be this trendy and web 2.0? A twitter account, an RSS feed for your user group and TwitterFeed (oh and you need an OpenID account to log in to TwitterFeed;...
Ah web 2.0 marketing; I’ve just setup a twitter account for nxtgen; it will pull in and tweet events, news and podcasts. Unfortunately this means you may see things like the ReadyBoost song for which I can only apologise. I would exhort you to follow the nxtgen account; but as Dave and Rich spread the nxtgen tentacles far and wide I’m worried about the use of "follow"; as one day soon I expect to be presented with a minion uniform to wear and I’ll be forced to stand behind Dave whilst he webcasts (using Office Live Meeting of course) demanding...
This month we have Ian Cooper, founder of the London .NET User Group coming out to the home counties to talk about MonoRail, comparing and contrasting with Ruby on Rails. We also have a new nugget volunteer, Steven Wilmot talking on how to read in C# (I guess bribing with numerous pairs of socks is finally working!) What:All Aboard The MonorailIs it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s Ian Cooper trying to stay on the Rails. Arriving by normal railway probably, Ian Cooper, London .NET User Group Leader, Speaker and long standing member of the UK Community...
We’re insidious you know. Two months, two new regions, first Cambridge now Southampton. Yes, the Next Generation User Group (NxtGenUG) is expanding faster than my waist line after working at Microsoft for a week and this time they’re heading south. The latest and warmest region of NxtGenUG is Southampton. The region is being organised and run by John McLoughlin and Rick Allen two local guys who have sourced a venue, projector, screen, pizza, swag and speakers all on their ownsome - all that a User Group needs or could ask for! As ever when a new NxtGenUG region opens...
On the suggestion of one of our members, Adrian Sutcliffe (nxtgenug - the listening usergroup *grin*) we grabbed Jean Paul Boodhoo as soon as he got off the plane from the US, putting him in the boot of my card and dragging him out to Oxford. Jean Paul is taking time out from his "Nothing but .NET" course in London to come out and cover the fundamentals of .NET programming. Not to be missed. What:Nothing But Jean Paul BoodhooInternational renowed presenter Jean Paul Boodhoo covers loads of fundamentals of .NET programming. If you’re programming with .NET, don’t miss it. Nuff...
Last night I gave a nugget on Duck Typing. The presentation deck is available, the library I talked about is from http://www.deftflux.net/blog/page/Duck-Typing-Project.aspx. What’s a nugget you say? Well at nxtgenug we encourage our members to stand up and talk, if only to allow them to escape hearing Chris, Dave, Rich, myself or any of the other organisers for months on end. The topics can be what you like, the length can be between 5 and 15 minutes. It’s a gentle introduction to speaking. Want to try? Then let us know, we’ll give you as much help as you want or need ... Technorati...
Over the weekend Rich and Dave announced the opening of a brand new NxtGenUG region - this time in Cambridge. So now developers can make their way over the fens and boards of East Anglia can gather together to learn, chat, eat Pizza and get prizes thrown at them in copious quantities. The region will be run by Chris Hay and Allister Frost who live and work in the area. Chris and Allister have put in a great deal of effort to get the region off of the ground including securing a fantastic venue, courtesy of non-other than Microsoft Research...
It’s not just socks, t-shirts and software you know; NxtGenUG is offering one lucky winner a ticket to Microsoft’s premier European developer conference : TechEd Developers in Barcelona : November 5th – 9th 2007. To be in with a chance to win the ticket register on the NxtGenUG site and enter the TechEd ticket treasure hunt. [Terms and conditions apply]. Visit the NxtGenUG TechEd home page for more details... I doubt organisers can enter though; otherwise I would view it as a swag gathering tip, errrrr, useful technical conference. Technorati tags: nxtgenug, competition, TechEd
If you missed DDD altogether or couldn't decide between my own and the other presentations on during that slot (and decided wrongly ;)) I'll be giving the presentation at the following events; What:VBUG Technical SeminarWhen:Thursday, July 26, 2007 7:00 PM to 9:00 PMWhere:New Horizons8th Floor, 207 Old StreetLondon, EC1V 9NR England What:nxtgenug "It came from outer CardSpace"When:Monday, September 17, 2007 7:00 PM to 9:00 PMWhere:Coventry Flying ClubRowley RoadCoventry, CV3 4FR England As you can see Richard Costall's naming strategy has been used for the nxtgen event. If you're not a member of either of these fine groups then I highly...
It was the NxtGen Fest07 event yesterday; but client work meant I couldn't attend, which also meant I couldn't pick up my award for Best Presentation, Oxford. Chris Seary picked it up on my behalf and (I am told) attempted to give my acceptance speech in an Irish accent (below). Someone please tell me you videoed it. Obviously would have loved to be there today; but unfortunately I’m filming the next Bond movie in the Bahamas right now, as you can see from the back drop on this video link. Actually I don’t know what the award...
If you've never seen Rich, John or Dave in action, or you wonder what the fuss about NxtGenUG is all about then you can see the terrible threesome in action; channel9 visited our Coventry NxtGenUG meeting at the start of this year, which we held inside the Argosy Cargo Plane at the Midland Air Museum in Coventry. There are three videos: In the first John Price gives Charles the low down on the group and the museum. In the second, Richard Costall interviews NxtGenUG members: Ray Starkey, Stuart Wells, Geff Lombardi, Andrew Jacks and James Coulter. Finally we get to...
Last Thursday saw Chris Seary and myself presenting at the Microsoft offices in sunny (yes, really) Edinburgh for the Scottish Developers Group. Thanks must go to Craig and John for organising. I presented an updated (trendy white on black) "Hacking Websites for Fun & Profit", "Securing ASP.NET Websites and Applications" and "An Introduction to Windows CardSpace". An audience member (sorry, I didn't catch your name) asked me to put together some resource links on SQL Injection, XSS and so on. Probably the best breakdown of SQL Injection is Chris Anley's PDF, "Advanced SQL Injection In SQL Server Applications". The XSS FAQ is...
If you missed my Introduction to CardSpace at WebDD, can't make the Scottish Developers Security Day or wanted to see it at the canceled VBug Cambridge session I will be presenting it at VBug London on the Wednesday 18th July. The session covers both accepting cards and issuing your own managed cards and how to write an STS.
Technorati tags: cardspace, vbug
Yes, I got to conferences I don't speak at (although this time I'm a helper monkey). Time is running out to register at the discount rate (tomorrow); or of course you could simply join the Next Generation User Group and come for FREE! It'll be worth it for the swag, I emptied the DPE cupboard of goodies last night ... What's FEST07 all about? It’s all about “Into The Future …”. We’ll start the day in the present, looking at Vista, and then we’ll jump forward a few months to take a look at LINQ, a great and innovative...
Poor Benjamin Mitchell. Last night Benjamin was going to present a session on Windows Workflow to nxtgenug Oxford, but the perils of calendar and travel were against him. He actually came over on Tuesday night, after a mix up over dates and we had to send him home. Then yesterday as he attempted to come out of Oxford the train gods decided it was not to be, a fire on a First Great Western train meant that all travel out of London was canceled. So I stepped up and presented my session on CardSpace, first given at WebDD. I came...
Everytime I speak at conferences or usergroups I end up using the same biography, I'm bored with it, it's so formal, staid, pinstriped and, well, as anyone who has seen me present that doesn't fit. So, I am offering you, dear readers, the chance to rewrite my biography. One of my fellow BBS inhabitants suggested; Barry's no nonsense approach to MS Veebelfetzer 2.4 installation and tuning is a refreshing change from the norm. You'll be dancing in the aisles as he explains the differences between MS Veebelfetzer 2.4 and its competitors through a song 'n dance routine straight out...
March 7th sees Benjamin Mitchell venture in Windows Workflow a programming model, engine and tools for quickly building workflow enabled applications. WF radically enhances a developer’s ability to model and support business processes. It also sees a nugget from Geff Lombardi on the Background Worker capabilities in .NET 2.0. As usual we're hosting it in the RM buildings in Abingdon, sign up for the event on the nxtgenug site.
After the last Developer Day John from the Scottish Developers Group approached myself and my colleague Chris Seary about taking our knowledge (and my unorthodox presenting style) north of the border. It took a little organisation but it's finalised. On the 12th April, at the Microsoft Offices in Edinburgh we will be presenting the "Web Security Conference Day for Windows Developers".
Attendees get a full Barry morning experience, with the now infamous "Hacking Websites for fun and profit" session at 9:00 (what a way to start the day); and "Securing ASP.NET Communications and Applications" at 11:00.
The afternoon sees Chris presenting "Code Access...
Richard has announced the first nxtgenug conference (and no, I'm not speaking *sulk*). nxtgenug have obtained Rafal Lukawiecki for the day, (voted top TechED speaker for about 7 years running). They plan to start with the usual keynote and end with another infamous swag give away in the shape of a game show. Anyone who has seen Richard and Dave "perform" know that attendee's are in for a treat. One other session which is not on the site will be a session from Microsoft Research. Richard isn't telling me what it's about; so it's a big surprise for me too. So a bit different...
I've been asked to present my WebDD presentation "An Introduction to CardSpace" at VBug, Cambridge on the 6th March at Anglia Ruskin University. For those who couldn't make WebDD the talk was outlined as
Windows CardSpace is a framework developed by Microsoft which securely stores digital identities of a person, and provides a unified interface for choosing the identity for a particular transaction, such as logging in to a website. This talk will cover how CardSpace works, how it can be used within ASP.NET applications and how you can implement CardSpace logins on your own web site.
Feedback from the presentation...
Wednesday 21st February sees both the nxtgenug and girly geek dinners. For the nxtgenug, Oxford branch, we have Ben Goetlz, taking us on a tour of BizTalk. Ben has been rather shy in his speaker biography and failed to point out he was one of the co-authors on the first BizTalk 2006 book out there. The London Girl Geek Dinners this month have Jeff Barr from Amazon talking about web services. Amazon are also sponsoring the event, so there will be a few bottles of wine knocking about for consumption. Remember if you're male you must be invited by a female...
The nxtgenug crew have grabbing Denis Cruz again for a couple of two day training courses, March in Leamington Spa and April in London. Having sat on the panel with Denis during the Ed Gibson road shows and having seen him at various DeveloperDays I can't recommend him enough (even if Dave thought we were both about to punch either other during the panel discussion <g>). He's insanely passionate about security and scarily knowledgeable. The course aims to cover such topics as Security Principles, .NET Framework Architecture, Threat Modeling, Discovering Vulnerabilities, Penetration Testing Techniques and Secure Coding Techniques. If he...
The next meeting of the nxtgenug Oxford branch covers "Object Orientation";
Have we got object-orientation all wrong? "Object Thinking" (ISBN 0-7356-1965-4) by David West asserts that we have. Alan Dean explores this assertion, and demonstrates self-describing objects / self-evaluating rules with code examples.
The meeting will be held at the Research Machines offices, Abingdon on January 17th. If you want to attend please register and sign up on the nxtgenug web site. As a bonus we've finally gotten Dave Oliver to do some real work and he will be presenting a nugget on some of the BI tools that come with SQL...
So the Channel9 camera made an appearance again in the UK, this time at DDD4 and yes, being the media whore that I am, I appeared, this time with Sarah to keep me in check [watch]....
Well in check up until the poor MS guys got called away and we "borrowed" the camera...
Video: DDD4 : "Borrowing the C9 Camera"
I'm trotting out that old favourite "Hacking Websites for fun and profit" for the December meeting of the Next Generation Usergroup, Oxford Branch (Wednesday 6th December, Research Machines offices, Abingdon). The session aims to cover the safety of your ASP.Net web sites by looking at parameter munging, cross site scripting SQL injection and information leakage with demonstrations on how exploits are used ran against some deliberately bad code.
Chris Seary will be presenting a nugget on "Securing Web Services with WSE".
Attendance is free, there's even pizza (if the delivery guy can find the RM offices, he got lost last time) so...
Chris Seary, Dave Oliver and I kicked off the Oxford branch of the Next Generation Usergroup last night. Chris press ganged me into giving a nugget, a quick presentation, on ASP.Net's membership database. I attempted to show how easy it is to add membership facilities with a couple of clicks and a drag. I got a laugh when I pointed out the login and registration controls use table based layouts, bad Microsoft, bad!
This was followed by pizza and then Tony Rogerson gave a stunningly detailed presentation on developing for SQL server including how to track deadlocks, how...
The Next Generation User Group, started by Dave McMahon and Richard Costall, is now spreading to the Oxford region.
Chris Seary, Dave Oliver and myself will be running the show with the first gathering on the 1st November. I've pressganged Tony Rogerson, the UK's leading SQL Server MVP (when do I get lunch again Tony?) to present "SQL Server 2005 for Developers". I will be attention whoring and presenting a nugget on ASP.Net membership.We will be the Research Machines offices in Abingdon (map), starting at 7pm running till around 9pm., so if you're around come help us shape our branch...
More presentation dates for your diary
"Hacking Websites for Fun and Profit": VBug London, 13th September
"Building ASP.NET Web Controls": VBug Reading 21st September
"Building ASP.NET Web Controls": NextGenUG, Coventry, 16th October
"Hacking Websites for Fun and Profit": VBug Annual Conference, 17th-18th October
Feedback from the last presentation of "Hacking Websites for Fun and Profit"
"Excellent presentation, thoroughly gripped all the topics and scared me witless"
"Very entertaining"
"Very informing & interesting"
Feedback from the initial presentation of "Building ASP.NET Web Controls"
"He's Mad - loved it ! Don't change a thing."
"Very good session ... very popular and the room selected wasn't big enough"
"Great overview...
Microsoft UK's new Chief Security Advisor, Ed Gibson is on the road in a series of free events organised by the Scottish Developers and NextGenUG. The events are trying to raise awareness of the issues surround computer security for both business and developer communities.
Ed's new role comes on the heels of his retirement from a 20-year career as a Supervisory Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). During this period, Gibson was a recognized expert in investigating complex, international money laundering schemes, asset identification and confiscation, and intellectual property theft. While assigned to FBI Headquarters, Washington, DC, Ed...
My presentation of "Hacking websites for fun and profit" for VBUG's Reading group has been rescheduled to 13th June at Bracknell Leisure Centre. For further details contact Emma.
Two presentations in two weeks; can I justify purchasing one of Logitech's nifty presentation devices.
I'll be giving my well received presentation "Hacking web sites for fun and profit" at a VBUG meeting in Reading on the 17 May. One of my colleagues is presenting Code Access Security at April's meeting.
If you missed the presentation I gave on "Hacking Web Sites for Fun and Profit" at the first Developer! Developer! Developer! day I'm presenting it aain on the 14 September at Anglia Polytechnic University through vbug. vbug started as a VB organisation I'm a member despite using C#. They arrange technical talks all around the country which are normally free for members, as well as lots of other benefits included discounted Microsoft Software, MSDN magazine subscriptions and, ummm, people like me I guess.