The crazed ramblings of Eric King : User Group / INETA Stuff

Easy Come, Easy Go........ (sung as "Bye Bye Mr. MVP Guy"....)

eking1013 — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 21:20:00 GMT

It was too good to last.....

Alas, Microsoft has revoked (actually just "not" awarded) the MVP award to me again this year. Oh well. I guess it wasn't meant to be. I figured receiving it last year was a fluke anyway.

Actualy...........................I'm not the only one............................

Originally, MVP awards were given to people who spent time in public newsgroups answering questions for other end users. MS wanted to reward these folks for their "free technical support" of their products.Viola! The MVP program was born. So that's basically the way it was for several years, until last year. Apparently somewhere, somehow, the "powers that be" decided to expand the program a little and include some of us folks who don't participate in the newsgroups, and work out in the community through user groups. (hence INETA) So many of us INETA folks were given MVP awards for 2004.

Well...................run things ahead to one year later..........

Things are different now. Apparently feelings have changed, and the work that we do with .NET user groups doesn't quite make the cut for being awarded the MVP this year. When I sat down the make out the list of accomplishments in the community for 2004, I was amazed at how much had occurred throughout the year, and how many people I had managed to touch. It certainly dwarfed anything that I had done in 2003 for the .NET community. I was quite proud of the list. But the things on my list don't show up anywhere on the MVP renewal checklist. Oh well. No big deal.

It was certainly neat to be rewarded for our hard work this year. But it certainly isn't why we do it. We do it because we like interacting with people, and promoting the spirit of community. And looking back, it is probably for the best because once we were all in the program, it was as if they didn't really know what to do with us anyway. So I guess I'll just keep rockin' along and doing what I do.

-Eric.

WAY to GO!! Congratz to Chris and Julie!

eking1013 — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 17:02:00 GMT

It personally warms my heart to see this:

From Bill Evjen's Blog:

"The International .NET Association (INETA) has appointed two new board members for a three year term. This brings the board membership to seven people. The two new board members are: Julie Lerman, who leads the Vermont .NET User Group. Chris Pels, who leads the Boston .NET User Group."

Having worked with Julie and Chris for the last year and half in user group relations, I can tell you that no one out there does a better job of championing the causes of .NET user groups. It will also be nice to have 2 people from our committee on the board. Either this is "hot off the press" news or they've been keeping a secret. I was in a conference call the other day with these 2 and they didn't mention a thing about this. Sneaky Kids!

And today, we say goodbye...........

eking1013 — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 19:37:00 GMT

Tonight will be my last meeting as the leader of local .NET User Group. It's been a fun year and half, but it is now time to pass the torch to a new set of leaders and let them continue what we have started here. It's been quite an adventure to go from something that was merely an idea, and turn it into a reality. From just a couple of people talking about an idea, to forming a User Group for the .NET community in Chattanooga, to my volunteer work for INETA and serving as the User Group Liaison for User Groups in 3 states, to being given my MVP award by Microsoft for my community work., and attending the MVP Summit in Redmond, and the User Group Leader Summit at TechEd in San Diego. What a wild ride it's been!!!

I'm not saying that it's all over. I will still be involved and active in the local user group. I just don't have the time for all of the administrative work. And I will definately still be the INETA Liaison for the Mid-America district. In fact, I have some great plans for the things I can do in that role. After tonight, I can finally begin to focus more on them!! Woohoo! One thing I am planning to is hold a monthly conference call for all of the User Group leaders in the region. This will give them an opportunity to share ideas, successes, and failures. I am looking forward to seeing the Synergy between the group leaders.

The last three years have taught me that I am capable of accomplishing some great things. So keep your eyes open for another idea to become a reality sometime in the future. I'm not at liberty to say what it is right now...........................................

Going to an MSDN Event?

eking1013 — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 18:53:00 GMT

Have you been to an MSDN event in the months of August or September? If so, you received some of my work. All attendees receive a DVD that is packed with various material.

On the DVD menu is a section labeled "User Groups". It is full of great stuff about INETA. There is also a section labeled "INETA Videos". That is where you'll find my work. These are videos that I shot and produced. You'll see videos that I shot with Bill Evjen, Julie Lerman, Billy Hollis, Rocky Lhotka, and Jeff Prosise.

It's pretty cool to pop the DVD in the drive and see my own work on there. The funny part to the story is that MSDN events don't actually come to my town. We're a "Tier 3" market, so it just doesn't happen. The way I was able to get my hands on the DVD is because our regional DCC was kind enough to hook me up and mail one to me.

-Eric.

Kirk Evans will be here Tuesday night

eking1013 — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 21:44:00 GMT

Kirk's driving up from Atlanta to speak to our user group about SOA. He's going to break it down, and put it in perspective for everyone. Here is a brief description of the presentation:

Service Orientation: The Pipes, the Wrench, and the Plumber

Metropolis is huge, and someone’s gotta provide the plumbing. Kirk Allen Evans, .NET Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Corporation, will talk about pipes, wrenches, and plumbers while looking at what Service Orientation is all about. We will crack some jokes about septic tanks, wells, and consuming services from your county or your apartment complex as only Southerners can while clarifying the pool of concepts that form SOA. We will also look at the technologies that help us move the water.. err, I mean the data, through the pipes like ASMX, WSE, and Indigo.

I'm personally excited about this one. Kirk was the 2nd person to ever present to our user group. I have had the opportunity to interact with Kirk off and on since then at different events like DevDays, and the MVP Summit.

Presenting on Longhorn/XAML tomorrow night......

eking1013 — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 19:15:00 GMT

Tomorrow night I'm presenting to my own User Group. In our group's near one and a half years of existence, this will be a first for me. I'm no stranger to being in front of crowds, though. I've always been somewhat of a ham growing up. I enjoy being in front of the camera as much as being behind the camera. I was the music geek in High School who played Sax as well as Sang in Varsity Chorus. I did the extra curricular Jazz Band as well as traveling “vaudeville” style singing troupe (We were called ‘The Pioneer Express” - Top Hat and Cane required).

Through my IT career, I've made plenty of presentations to clients as well as potential clients. I've been an adjunct instructor and taught a 10 week course, as well as made presentations on “Intro to Java Programming” at conferences (in my previous life). Heck, I even proposed to my wife while on center stage under a spotlight in front of a crowd of about 1500. She was only slightly embarrassed, but will have that memory for a lifetime.

The main reason I'm doing this is plainly because I was unable to locate another speaker. I wanted to secure someone at least one month ahead of time. The two possible speakers I had been working on fell through at the last moment before our last meeting. So I decided that this would be the easiest solution. I find that it's actually less stressful to create a presentation and deliver it than to go through the headache of trying to secure a speaker on very short notice.

In the session I've put together, we'll touch on the 4 pillars of Longhorn: The Fundamentals, Avalon, Indigo, and WinFS. We'll touch very lightly on the Fundamentals and Indigo, just giving an explanation of what they are and the role they play. Then we'll look at WinFS and how it will allow programmers to do some cool stuff with storage. And finally, the bulk of the presentation will focus around Avalon. We'll talk about the Application and the NavigationApplication classes before we put on our wet suit and dive into XAML.

I hope that everyone who shows up will have a good time and enjoy the presentation. So far, I have always received very positive feedback in regards to our group and the way things operate. There was only one instance were someone felt compelled to post any comments that were negative. I'm all for constructive criticism, but these comments were more personal and less constructive, so I removed them from my blog and the discussion forum on our group web site. I take negative personal comments with a grain of salt, and just move on. Kevin on the other hand, took offense to the comments and decided to post his own remarks. As for me, I'll just keep on rollin and spreading the news about .NET technologies.

-Eric.

Once again, I'm proud of the Microsoft community.....

eking1013 — Mon, 14 Jun 2004 18:51:00 GMT

Thanks to Luke Hutteman for reminding me of how awesome the Microsoft community is. You'll also see a reference in there to Chris Anderson....:)

-Eric.

Spreading the Longhorn Love.....

eking1013 — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:24:00 GMT

Per Julie's suggestion, I'm posting why I decided to present to my user group next month on Longhorn. It's simple. Inspiration. I was inspired by Don Box and Chris Anderson's presentation of XAML at the MVP Summit. I thought “Holy Crap!! That's awesome! I would love to go back and share that with everyone back home”. So, now I am. Actually, for that matter, we saw TON'S of fantastic stuff at the MVP Summit. 99.9% of which was under NDA. But luckily MS publicly announced a lot of it at this years TechEd in San Diego. (i.e. Team Services) So now we can really start to spread the Longhorn/Whidbey love.......

-Eric.

TechEd San Diego Pictures.........INETA Style

eking1013 — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:35:00 GMT

I hope I'm not letting the cat out of the bag too early......

That's OK. If the only 3 people in the world who actually read my blog find out, it won't hurt anything. :)

The official INETA Photo Album is up and available for your viewing pleasure. I personally submitted 55 pictures to the album. I would also like to point out that the code for the album was provided by Chattanooga's very own David Bishop. Dave is the MAN! He hooked us up.

Dave is a buddy of mine that I work with here at UnumProvident. He and I have several common interests. Digital Video, RTS Computer gaming (WarCraft III), and good comedy. No. I said “good” comedy. Dave will tell you what I'm talking about.

So if you find yourself on Battle.NET and wanna game of WCIII, look for Deadly_B (Dave), KrazyKooter(myself), or KevinRiggs(Kevin - original eh?)

-Eric

Where'd my hat go?! Oh yeah, I threw it into the ring last night.....

eking1013 — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 14:13:00 GMT

I officially announced it last night. I'll be presenting at our next user group meeting. So if you're going to be around Chattanooga on July 13th, feel free to stop by. We will be taking a look at Longhorn, Avalon, and XAML. I'm looking forward to presenting this material. It's going to be tons of fun. We had 50 people in the room last night, and when asked if they had seen Longhorn, only a couple raised their hands. (2 of which are fellow MVP's) So this should be some new and interesting stuff for many of our members.

-Eric.

SWAGSTRAVAGANZA!!

eking1013 — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 14:01:00 GMT

We had a fantastic meeting yesterday. Jason did a great job of interacting with the crowd and delivering his presentation. We had several people in the audience who use the Infragistics product, and there was some open dialogue in the end between Jason and the users. It was great to hear their issues being addressed. It made a good meeting.

It was also a SWAGSTRAVAGANZA!! (My new contribution to the User Group Universe lexicon) We had soooo much swag between the INETA Spring Thaw package I received, the box of goodies from our District Microsoft office, and the load of stuff I brought back from TechEd. For the first time ever, we actually had left over swag. Everyone who attended the meeting (All 50 people) went home with something (or several somthings). It was awesome.

Great meeting lined up for tomorrow.

eking1013 — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 12:33:00 GMT

We'll have Jason Beres from Infragistics in the house tomorrow night. He'll be presenting on delivering rich client features with thin client delivery. It will be good to see Jason again. We didn't get to hang much at TechEd or our INETA UG Summit. Not only is Jason a Technology Evangelist for Infragistics, but he is also the co-chair for the INETA Academic committee. He is very actively involved in the Academic community.

It would be a great idea for any students in our local area to come to the meeting if they want to talk to Jason about .NET in their school, or participating in next years Imagine Cup code competition.

-Eric.

You asked for it!!

eking1013 — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 18:04:00 GMT

Many people have emailed me asking about the “silly” group picture from the INETA User Group Leader Summit we held at TechED. You asked for it, so here ya go. This one also comes in 3 flavors:

| MEDIUM SIZED PIC | EXTRA LARGE PIC |

If there is one thing to be learned from the above picture, it is that geeks aren't very creative at posing for a “silly” picture. Someone could have at least “mooned” the camera! :)

Cutting Video

eking1013 — Mon, 31 May 2004 16:05:00 GMT

Since I couldn't sleep when I came home from San Diego the other night, I stayed up and captured some footage from our 2004 INETA User Group Leader Summit. Today I've been doing some editing and encoding the footage to a Windows Media streamed format. I thoroughly enjoy this stuff. It's a real blast once you get into it. I use Adobe products to get the job done and I am NO expert at digital video, but I can do basic editing, transitioning, and DVD creation. I learn something new all the time while working with the software.

So far today, I've finished the Infrastructure Committee update, given by committee chair Devin Rader. I've also finished the Marketing Committee update, given by committee co-chairs Sara Faatz and Dave Totzke.

Although I have a P4, 2.8 Ghz with (2) 120 GB SATA Drives and 1 GB of memory, I am realizing that for heavy duty editing, I could still use at least another GB of memory. Anyone want to donate some and send it my way? :)

Remnants of San Diego......

eking1013 — Sun, 30 May 2004 05:13:00 GMT

On my last day in San Diego, I had the opportunity to hang out with Jay Miller, who is one of our INETA Liaisons for some states in the Great Lakes region. He and I grabbed a bite to eat, and then we walked towards the water. There we discovered that the boat from the movie “Master and Commander” was in port. The “Star of India” was a site to see. Here are a couple of pics I grabbed along the way.

And here are a couple of shots taken this morning as I was leaving from San Diego. Did I mention that I HATE flying? I think I left my stomach in San Diego............hey ..........isn't that a song by some punk band?

-Eric.