Talk Outlines

 The .NET Framework: Past, Present and Future – Benjamin Mitchell
The .NET Framework has come a long way in the last 5 years in helping developers create a greater variety of solutions in a more productive way. Celebrating the pending release of the .NET 3.0 this talk will cover the gains delivered at the language and core-platform level with .NET 2.0 and in the application space with the .NET 3.0 technologies (Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows CardSpaces). Finally we'll look where the framework is heading in future with technologies like the Langue Integrated Natural Query (LINQ) project and others.

Flirting with AJAX – Gary Rowntree
During the session we’re going to build a web based chat thing that lives within a web page. Nearly as interactive as Instant Messenger, using Microsofts ATLAS technology to just pass the messages backwards and forwards without doing full page postback. Amazing! You’ll see how little code is involved in making your apps use AJAX! Now you can add flirting potential to all your websites.

Automating Builds using MSBuild - Guy Smith-Ferrier
MSBuild is the new build engine from Microsoft. It is included with the .NET Framework 2.0, Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft Vista and is designed to build software. The software can be based on .NET Framework 2.0, 1.x or no .NET Framework at all. This session describes how to create build scripts which will automate the building of your software for development and deployment purposes. It covers the basic elements of MSBuild project files, how MSBuild works and more advanced subjects such as writing your own build tasks. This session is relevant to all developers who develop using Microsoft platforms.

Windows Communication Foundation – Mike Taulty
Windows Communication Foundation is the new, unified technology for building distributed applications that pulls together the best aspects of the former work that has gone on in the various distribution camps of Web Services, Remoting, DCOM and so on. In this session we'll take a look at the WCF architecture, how a developer can build services and clients using the technology and how the WCF abstracts choices around transport and protocol until deployment time. We'll also look at how advanced features such as security, reliability and transactional capabilities can be added to WCF clients and services.

Workflow: Changing the Way all Applications are Built – Benjamin Mitchell
Windows Workflow Foundation is part of the .NET Framework 3.0 which provides a base for building any type of application that requires workflow. Come along and hear why this technology could be used by all applications in future and how it will fundamentally change the way applicaiton are built. This session will provide an introduction to the major components of WWF, including sequential and state-machine workflows, creating custom activities and working with the rules engine.

ASP.NET Atlas – Security Focus – Phil Winstanley
Microsoft’s latest ASP.NET addition is an amazing feat of engineering excellence, it’s very powerful and very flexible, some might say too flexible. In this session Phil will explore the security features built into Atlas showing how they work and what they deliver as well as ways in which Atlas can be exploited using cross site scripting techniques and other forms of attack.

Microsoft ASP.NET Atlas - Client-side Coding Made Easy – Steve Harris
ASP.NET has become the technology of choice for many web developers but has always been focussed on server-side coding, leaving developers to wrestle with JavaScript, DOMs and the challenges of cross-browser compatibility.
This demo-rich session shows how developers can use Microsoft’s ASP.NET Atlas framework to address this gap. Atlas provides a wealth of features to help energise web applications, all based upon AJAX principles with comprehensive cross-browser support, but it does so in a way that is both simple and easy to learn, while remaining consistent with the underlying ASP.NET structure.

Techniques for Developing against SQL Server – Tony Rogerson
In this session Tony will talk through issues that directly effect developers when implementing solutions against Microsoft SQL Server; Collations (SQL v Windows, considerations for performance, storage and joining), enhancements to FOR XML in SQL Server 2005 that will benefit you with set based concatenation and string manipulation, Programming (SET v SELECT for value assignment and associated problems, introduction to Sub-Queries, ORDER BY in a VIEW) and finally tackling scalability – a cursory discussion and demonstration on single and concurrent query testing.

An Introduction to MOSS Web Content Management - Gary Yeoman
The session will demonstrate the authoring of web content in MOSS 2007. The out-of the-box site navigation, content and resource management will also be discussed.
Lastly, the customization and design of a site with Master Pages, Custom Page Layouts and Content Types will also be demonstrated.

Improving the Performance of a Development Team and the Software they Develop. – Neil Kidd MS
A presentation on how you can use the new Team System client tools to perform scalability testing and performance tuning. We will also discuss how the Team Foundation Server can be used to improve the productivity of your development team. The main items covered in this talk will include:

• Using the Profiler to identify and eliminate CPU and Memory pressures in your application,
• Load Testing web applications and Web services using Team Test,
• The new Database professional client tools,
• and the reporting support within Team Foundation Server.

A first look at Windows Presentation Everywhere (“WPF/E”) – Mark Johnston
Attend this session to get a sneak preview of the "Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere" presentation technology which brings some of the richness of the same declarative XAML user interface model that underpins Windows Presentation Foundation to the average web browser. We'll take a look at the architecture of "WPF/E", what the developer experience looks like, what platform support is likely to be and what tools might be available for building rich browser based applications in 2007.

.NET Hidden Treasures – Dave McMahon and Richard Costall
Take a trip deep into the .NET Framework and discover 10 'hidden treasures' of .NET. This will be a fun but informative session, with lots of demos, looking at those little bits of the .NET Framework that may have passed you by in the normal scheme of things. Find out about the WebClient Class, the IComparer interface, IHttpHandler and a few other things. Some will really help you while some are just cool. No experience needed, and if you are lucky Dave might sneak in a SQL treasure too. The session will end with a vote for the 'Official Best 'Hidden Treasure' of .NET'!"

Hacking Websites for Fun and Profit – Barry Doran
How safe are your web sites? Do you know what cross site scripting is? SQL injection attacks? Search engine leaks? Learn how to check your sites for nasties by seeing how its done and what you can do to secure your sites.

LINQ: Bringing Data into Visual Basic – Rob Macdonald
LINQ is the code name for Language Integrated Query. It’s a major feature of the next release of Visual Basic that will revolutionise how you work with data. Now, I’m pretty jaded, so I don’t use words like ‘revolutionise’ loosely. LINQ makes querying a first class feature of the Visual Basic language, providing a standard syntax for querying relational data, XML or object collections. This is more revolutionary than when VB4 added OO to Visual Basic – or when VB went .NET. What does it look like? How does it change how you code? What does it mean for ADO.NET? Come along and find out!

Designing A Mobile System For Maintainability – Martin Lixenfeld
Mobile Technology is now mature enough to be a valuable business tool. This means mobile systems are moving under a support regime and need to be maintained long-term. This presentation tries to answer the following questions: How can we design maintainability into any system from the start? And what particular decisions have to be taken to design maintainability into a mobile system? We will look at non-functional requirements, desirable architectural features and best practice considerations including a brief look at Patterns, Practices and Software Factories. Lastly we will look at the development process and which decisions can and should be taken here to build and deliver a mobile system that is suitable for being maintained over an extended period of time.

Maintainable User Interfaces in ASP.NET 2.0 - Helen Emerson
Not everyone who sees your beautiful user interface will appreciate the artistic poetry of the design. Sometimes they’ll ask for changes without realizing the work involved in moving every single title three pixels closer to the first block of text. Sometimes they’ll want you to redesign the whole site just because the last developer’s bevels and drop shadows went out of fashion in the late nineties.
Never fear! ASP.NET 2.0 will come to your rescue with a heap of new features that take the pain out of changing your interface. Put away that voodoo doll and learn how you can use these new features and some old web favorites to create user interfaces that are easy to maintain. Learn to use master pages, themes, skins and cascading stylesheets and stop fearing people who come into your cubicle asking for changes.

Design, Analyzing and Development of .NET applications with PowerDesigner. – Alex Pratt
Description: NET 2.0 is a viable platform for Windows based enterprise applications development and for complex C# or VB .NET applications, the design becomes more and more important. In this session, you will learn how PowerDesigner integrates into Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Team System to deliver a complete, Enterprise-class, solution that span from analysis, to design, to development. You will also learn how to design .NET application logic, how to generate .NET code and how to combine the generated .NET code with existing components.

Don’t Tell Sid
This slot will be filled with four short 15 minute sessions presented by you. If you have discovered some neat code or a fabulous tip that you would like to share with others we would like to invite you to share your experience with us all. Your session can be 10 – 15 minutes in duration. For those who have not done any public speaking but would like to give it a go this is a chance to test the waters. To book your session call Christian on 01753 649680 or email Christian@vbug.com

 Writing Custom FxCop Rules - Guy Smith-Ferrier
FxCop is a static analysis tool which is included with Visual Studio Team System 2005 and is available for download for both Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio.NET 2003. FxCop reads one or more assemblies and applies coding rules to them. FxCop includes a library of existing rules and allows you to write your own. This session covers the subject of writing your own FxCop rules to enforce your own development standards. You will learn how to create rules using different approaches. The first approach is using a simple but laborious instruction walk. The second approach is more sophisticated and uses FxCop’s introspection engine’s “visit” methods. With this knowledge in place more custom rules are shown to illustrate how to implement many rules analyzing instructions, types and resources.