Chico .NET User Group

The guys from the Code Trip and I made it into Chico last night, and after a night out in Chico, we’re ready for today’s event. There are still spots available, so come by BMU 210 on the CSU, Chico campus between 2:00pm and 5:30pm and meet the crew.

Microsoft’s Evangelism team will be on The Code Trip riding through the Western region of the US evangelizing new and cutting edge Microsoft technologies. They’ll be making their way to Northern California the week of 4/1/2008, and will be in Chico on 4/5/2008.
The event will be held in the Bell Memorial Union room 210.

In order to cater to the student and local tech communities, the event will be broken into two parts. The first part will be focused on Students, and will run from 2:00-4:00pm. Topics include Silverlight 2.0, Windows Live, VS2008/.NET Framework 3.5, and the new Windows Live Webmaster tools. The second part is focused on professionals, and runs from 4:00-6:00pm. In addition to topics on ASP.NET, this session will include a Q&A session and a networking opportunity.

Bring your questions, and help make this a great event.

Please register for the event for Students or for Technical Professionals

For more information, visit the Code Trip website at http://www.thecodetrip.com/

On February 19th at 6:00pm there is a chance to find out more about the local Chico tech industry. Representatives from five major local businesses will be giving short presentations on what they do, how they do it, and what they’d like to see from an ideal job candidate. Come get your questions answered and check out a possible internship or job opportunity.

Four of these five companies are big users of .NET, so this is a great chance to meet with them and start building the .NET community in the area.

Pizza and drinks will be provided. Seating for this event is limited, so register as soon as possible to reserve your spot.

This event will be held in Tehama 106 on the CSU, Chico campus. A map of the campus is available at http://www.csuchico.edu/community/map/

Visit http://chico-tech.eventbrite.com/ to register and for the latest information.

The Installfest down in Mountain View was a huge success. The attendees were glued to their seats as demo after demo ran without problem. During my presentation, I went over a fairly simple app I wrote in Silverlight to allow me to practice writing in Japanese. After my presentation, quite a few people suggested other uses for the app, including doing an online game for kids, and teaching drawing techniques. Hopefully the talk inspired some people to play with Silverlight or Ink. I’ve posted the completed demo test page at http://chiconetug.org/demos/SilverlightInkDemo/ if you’d like to take a look at it, and also have the code available for download here: SilverlightInkDemo code

Microsoft will be hosting a Visual Studio 2008 Installfest on it’s campus in Mountain View. Not only will Microsoft’s Anand Iyer be giving a talk on what’s new in the latest version of Visual Studio and .NET, but community members are invited to give a short demo on a technology of their choice. I am hoping to be able to give a quick presentation on Ink in Silverlight.

As an added bonus, attendees will be sent a free copy of Visual Studio 2008 Professional when it releases to the general public.

This is a great chance to meet members of the developer community and show them that we are passionate about technology. I have consistently had good experiences at similar events in the past. This event will allow you to make friends that you can talk to about the types of jobs in which you are interested.

This event is open to the entire developer community in the area, so you can bet it will fill up fast. Register as soon as possible if you would like to attend. Registration can be done at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360757&Culture=en-US

Due to popular demand, the talk on developing games for the Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio Express will be given once more. The talk is scheduled for Wednesday, 11/14 at 5:30pm in O’Connell 123. In the first part of the talk, I will be developing Pong. The choice of this game is to allow us to focus on the development process, rather than spending unnecessary time on game design. The second half of the talk will focus on ways you can get involved in working on a game, such as through the Imagine Cup. There will also be announcements made regarding future meetings of the .NET User Group, including the formation of a Working Group focusing on certification.