It will definitely be a busy TechEd for me this year. I'll be giving six sessions at TechEd Developers Orlando in June, as well as spending a lot of time in the TLCs and at the RD booth..

The sessions are as follows:

Tue, 3 June, 11:30-12:30 AM: Vista Ask the Experts area

Doing Q&A on selecting the right client technology.

Tue, 3 June, 1:15-2:30 PM: WIN315 - Data Binding in WPF

This talk will cover the A-Z of data binding capabilities in WPF. I'll start by talking about the different kinds of data sources you can bind to and the interfaces those data sources need to support to have high fidelity data binding. Then I'll go through what data contexts are and how they allow you to flow data into you UI in a more decoupled fashion. Then I'll get into Binding objects and how you use them to hook up the data binding to your controls, and the many capabilities they expose. Then I cover navigating and filtering your data with collection views, and finally finish up with data validation.

Tue, 3 June, 4:00-5:00 PM: Vista Ask the Experts area

Doing Q&A on WPF Data Binding

Wed, 4 June, 10:15-11:30 AM: ARC304 - Selecting the Right Client Technology

This talk covers the spectrum of options that exist for building client UI applications today, helping you to make the right choice when getting started with a new UI application. I start by talking about the decision between smart client and browser based applications, drawing out the pros and cons of each approach. Then I get into each of the current technologies including WPF, Windows Forms, ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, and Silverlight, and talk about the pros/cons, differences/similarities between each of those technologies.

Thu, 5 June, 4:30-5:45 PM: WIN301 - Windows Presentation Foundation in Windows Forms and Vice Versa

This talk covers the interoperability story between Windows Forms and WPF, which is a great one. I start with the motivations of why you would want to use interop as opposed to building a homogenous application in one or the other technology. Then I show how to embed WPF controls in a Windows Forms application, and Windows Forms controls in a WPF application. If it were just about the code required to do those things, I could give this talk in about 10 minutes. But of course, there are always other considerations and hazards to be aware of when doing interop between technology stacks, so I then let you know what those hazards are and how to address them.

Fri, 6 Jun, 8:30-9:45 AM: WIN306 Building Differentiated UI Applications Using Composite Windows Presentation Foundation

I'll be joining Glenn Block from p&p to code monkey for this session on using Prism to build composite WPF solutions. I've been working with the team part time building this, so Glenn was nice enough to invite me to help present.

Fri, 6 June, 1:00-2:15 PM: SOA305 - Getting Workflows Running and Talking in Your Applications

This talk covers the hosting and communications aspects of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). You will learn how to set up the host environment for running workflows, how to leverage persistence and tracking, how to pass parameters into a workflow and get them back out when it completes, and how to make calls from the host application into the workflow. I'll also briefly discuss making service calls into and out from a workflow, but don't demo those in details because my TLC session (listed next) covers doing that in detail.

Fri, 6 June, 2:45-4:00 PM: SOA08-TLC - Developing Service Oriented Workflows

This talk shows you how to leverage the new WCF related capabilities in WF 3.5 to build workflows that particpate directly in your service oriented architecture. You'll see how to use the Receive and Send activities, the context bindings that take care of automatically routing incoming messages to the right workflow instance, and the WorkflowServiceHost class to host your workflows. This is a TLC session down on the show floor, and the rule of the game there is max interaction, and minimum if any PowerPoint. I in fact have only two slides planned, a couple architecture diagrams to couch the discussion, and the rest will be all code demos showing you how to really leverage this stuff.

I also plan to spend an hour after each session in the associated TLC area, and then most of the rest in the RD booth.

If you are going to be at TechEd, I hope to see you at one of my sessions. If so, stop by and say hi and let me know you are one of the few who actually read my blog. :)

A little late to the game, but I have been struggling with some blog configuration issues that were preventing me from posting, and have finally found time to tackle those.

I gave two talks at VS Live! San Francisco.

Here are the slides and demos:

Exploit WPF Graphics without Wounding the Eyes   Slides    Demos

Build Composite UI Applications with CAB and SCSF    Slides    Demos

 

To create the database for the music data demos, you have two choices.

1) Follow the instructions in this post to create your own music library database based on your own collection:
http://briannoyes.net/2008/02/13/BuildYourOwnMusicDatabaseForDemosAndSamples.aspx

2) Download a database backup (29MB) from here: http://www.softinsight.com/downloads/MusicLibrary.bak and restore it.

I spoke this week at DevConnections in Orlando. As always a great time and a good show. For those that attended my talks, thanks for the great participation and questions! For those that didn't, you really need to work harder on convincing your boss to send you to a DevConnections conference. The line up of speakers is amazing and the venue is always great.

 

The three talks I gave were on building custom activities in WF, WPF Tools, and Service Oriented workflows.

 

You can grab the slides and demos from the links below.

 

Custom WF Activities:   Slides    Demos

WPF Tools:    Slides

SO Workflows:   Slides     Demos

Enjoy!

I'll  be speaking at VSLive! San Francisco this year after quite a few years since doing a VSLive! conference. I'm looking forward to it.

The two talks I'll be giving are:

Exploit WPF Graphics without Wounding the Eyes

Build Composite UI Applications with CAB and SCSF

If you haven’t already registered for VSLive San Francisco, you can receive a $695 discount on the Gold Passport if you register using priority code SPNOY. More at www.vslive.com/sf

Hope to see you there!

I did another .NET Rocks! interview with Carl and Richard last week and it has gone live. You can find it here. We discussed a lot of tangential aspects of WPF including adoption rates, UI patterns, the WPF Composite (codename Prism) work I am doing with Microsoft patterns and practices, and a lot more.

Check it out if you have an hour to kill away from the keyboard.

I recorded a DNR TV episode back in December that took a little while to hit the site, but is up now. This episode walks through the data binding features of WPF and shows how to set up basic data binding, converters, work with data contexts and more.

http://www.dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showNum=101

I gave a talk on WPF for ASP.NET developers this evening at the .NET SIG in Cleveland. Good size crowd and great questions. It was a challenging talk because of trying to cover all of WPF and Silverlight for ASP.NET developers and for those in the crowd who were Windows Forms developers.

I covered the various deployment models of WPF including:

- Windows Application

- XAML Browser Application (XBAP)

- Plain Old XAML Page (POXP?)

- Silverlight App

Whenever I present this stuff, the overwhelming reaction is: Stop giving us so many choices!!! We can't figure out what to use when!

There is also often a desire for a conclusion to be drawn that one of these will be the end state and all UI will be written in it. I just don't think that will be the case. I think that maybe 5 years from now, if the tools come along a lot farther than they are now, and if the control suite grows, the list of options could shorten to just WPF Windows App, Silverlight App, and ASP.NET AJAX app. But I don't think it will shrink beyond that. Windows Apps make sense when you control the desktop to take maximum advantage of the client platform and give the best user experience. Silverlight makes sense for broader reach while sticking to the same tools and programming models. ASP.NET AJAX will be broader still and will address the platforms that Silverlight can't reach, and will also (like Windows Forms) be more evolved for data over forms apps for a while to come.

Anyway, here are the slides and demos for those who are interested:

Slides    Demos

A quick ditty on what sessions I'm presenting at DevConnections this week. Expect sample code in a couple days.

NOVA Code Camp coming in April

Slides and demos from VS Connections in Vegas

Some thoughts on the relative importance / need for adoption of WCF, WF, WPF, and CardSpace

Quick summary of what was covered, slides and demos links for the WF and WPF talks on our roadshow

Some thoughts on the complexity of WF basics...

Sign up for the .NET 3.0 Roadshow!

Slides and demos from the webcast

Slides and demos, get yer red hot slides and demos...

For my students in Linkoping Sweden this week, thanks for attending!

Here are the demos and labs: Download Here

Slides and demos from TechEd talks last week

Demo code and lab code for WinFX students in DC this week

Mid Atlantic Code Camp 10 June - schedule posted and volunteers needed.

Slides and Demos from the Software Developers Conference in Arnhem, Netherlands from last week

Slides and demos from DevTeach

Seats still available for Code Camp!

Demos from my Adv Master Class last week

DC Code Camp 10 June - Reston VA

Get your red hot slides and demos for ClickOnce, VS 2005 Settings, DAAB, and Connecting Smart Clients with WCF right here

Slides and demos from SDDev.net talk

Slides, Demos, and lessons learned getting the demos running on the Feb CTP of WinFx

I recorded a DNR and DNRtv last week in New London and they are already up on the site.

You can download/listen to the .NET Rocks! epsidode here: http://www.dotnetrocks.com

And the DNRtv here: http://www.dnrtv.com

In the DNR episode, we talk about data binding, ClickOnce and a few other related topics.

This DNRtv shows how to do some of the data binding stuff in the designer. Keep your eyes out for another episode in a week or so on ClickOnce deployment.

Come on out to learn about Windows Communications Foundation at MICSUG.

I went up to New London this week and taped two episodes of DNRtv and one DNR with Carl and Richard. The DNRtv episodes should go up in the next two weeks, one on data binding and one on ClickOnce deployment. The DNR will air on 22 March. Check them out!

I gave a talk on data binding in NYC this Thu night. Had a great time. Lively crowd as always, lots of good questions and interaction.

Here are the slides and demos:

Slides    Demos

For the folks from my Master class in CA this week, here are the live demos. Anyone's welcome to grab them, most have project names that indicate what was being demoed.

Slides and demos from my WPF talk last night

Slides and demos from my Data Binding talk

DC VS 2005 Launch Event (the last US one) complete!

Looking for speakers for 2006 for the CapArea.NET UG

Instructions on how to deploy and launch unmanaged applications with ClickOnce.

Demos from my ClickOnce webcast yesterday

Demos from my MSDN Webcast today

Slides and demos from my talk on Connecting Smart Client Applications with Windows Communication Foundation at Boulder.NET Users Group on Tuesday

Just a little written explanation of a sample I usually give in our master classes that demonstrates the one of the benefits of interface-based programming. It demonstrates using a factory (in this case a generic factory that can load any type and return it through an interface reference) to dynamically load components that are expected to implement an interface contract, so that clients can be coded with no specific type coupling (other than the interface contract) to the components that satisfy the contract.

In class demos from Linsoft class

Slides, demos, and brief overview of sessions today

Slides, demos, key takeaways from my ClickOnce talk yesterday

A quick overview of my session, a fix for a last second demo that went awry, and some good related references.

Describing the learning process of getting to know Indigo / Windows Communications Foundation

A quick overview of DevConnections and the sessions I'll be presenting.

I'm giving two MSDN Webcasts: Presenting Rich Tabular Data with the DataGridView Control and Deploy Smart Client Applications with ClickOnce