Well The Best of PDC event is behind us. I think it went well (at least based on the feedback I got). Thanks to Microsoft, Robert Half Technology, and TekSystems for sponsors the events location, food and snacks. A big thanks to GoDaddy for sponsors the happy hour that followed, I know I needed it.
It was good meeting up with people and discovering the few pool sharks among us.
Check out Flickr for some photos of the event: http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=PHXPDC&m=tags. If you have any picture from the upload them to Flickr and tag them with PHXPDC.
What to Expect in C# 4.0
Presented By: Joseph Guadagno:
Source Code: http://sevdnug.org/Libraries/Presentations/What_To_Expect_In_C_4_0.sflb.ashx?download=true
ASP.NET 4 and the Silverlight control toolkit
Presented by: Scott Cate
Source Code is available at http://www.codeplex.com/ScottCateAjax
Building RESTful services with WCF
Presented by Rob Bagby
http://blogs.msdn.com/bags/archive/2008/11/03/pdc-session-code-and-link.aspx
Azure
Presented by Rob Bagby's
Coming Soon!
Back in October, I was part of the first ever CodePlex town hall hosted by Sara Ford the PM of CodePlex. I gave a 10 minute demo of my open source project Task Service which is hosted on CodePlex.
Watch the video here http://cli.gs/Channel9. I appear from minutes 11 through 22, then after the 30 minute mark throughout for the open forum.
I was notified last night that I placed 8th in November on the Community Credit web site. Community Credit was founded by David Silverlight, a Microsoft MVP and an active member of the development community, as a way to reward fellow IT Professionals who have contributed toward the development community. Currently, the rewards for these contributions are simply the satisfaction of helping colleagues in the development community. Now, they can be rewarded by receiving not only geeky gifts like a Swiss Army USB Drives, Caffeinated Hot Sauce or a Binary Wall Clock, but they also receive a cool plaque to hang on their wall and impress their coworkers.
See the award here: http://www.community-credit.com/CommunityCreditPrizePage.aspx
8th Prize: Star Trek Retro Action Figures
Not in front of the Klingons
Ah, the 70s. So many things happened which affected Geekdom forever. Perhaps the most important thing to happen was the introduction and proliferation of Mego action figures. There were tons of cool figures to choose from, but the Star Trek figs held a special place in our hearts. And now the great folks at Diamond Select have made wonderful reproductions for a whole new generation of Mego fans.
In the 70s, things weren't politically correct - so Klingons were bad and that was that (and they don't like to talk about the lack of a wrinkly head, so don't ask). Both Kirk and the Klingon come with real cloth costumes, multiple points of articulation, and weapons (in UFP blue or Klingon orange). They are so much fun we can't stop playing with them. Get them now, before they are gone for another generation.
Oh, and there was one other major geeky thing that happened in the 70s: Star Wars. Ironically, Mego chose not to take the Star Wars license, and that led to Mego's eventual downfall