From: ugrelations@ineta.org
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 10:51 PM
To: ugrelations@ineta.org
Subject: INETA March Newsletter

International
.NET Assocation
Newsletter

March 2003
Volume 2, Issue 1
INETA Home
INETA Membership
User Group Help
UG Sampler
Digerati User Group (Ireland)
Visual Basic Learners Group  (New Orleans)
Space Coast Visual Basic Developers' Group (Florida)
Vancouver .Net User Group
.Net.NorthWest.England
Atlanta FoxPro Users Group, Inc.
NYSIA SQL Server SIG
Microsoft Project Users Group - Central Virginia  
North Florida Computer Society
EAST BAY .NET SIG
 
 

 

In this issue:  New Members, INETA's Birthday,  INETA Latam Speaker Bureau, Don Box Appearance, Norway User Group News, INETA at VSLive, India User Groups, Community Website Starter Kit, Cake (Yes, Cake), User Group Relations Committee, Newsletter Info

Newest INETA Members

19 New Groups joined INETA in February. They come from Uzbekistan, Pakistan (3 groups), Israel, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ecuador, Dublin Ireland, Sydney Australia, Toronto Canada. In the U.S there are 4 from Florida and also groups in Idaho, New Hampshire, Virginia and Rhode Island.

Happy Birthday INETA!!!

It's hard to believe, but INETA is officially one year old. Times have changed since that day in Feb 2002 when we launched with 40 charter members. We've since grown to nearly 250 member user groups, representing an aggregate membership of 80,000 developers and other professionals!

What else have we done in our first year? Here are some highlights:

  • Organization launched in Feb 12 2002 with 40 user groups as charter members

  • Launched first version of www.ineta.org

  • Creation of the North American Speakers Bureau, comprised of 28 of the top names in the industry

  • Launch of INETA-EU to serve Europe

  • Launch of INETA-J to serve Japan

  • Sent 75 speakers to speak at user group meetings in North America

  • Coordinated and shipped a "Winter Warmup" kit of vendor materials to UG leaders throughout North America

  • Launched of a content repository at ineta.org

  • Started sending out monthly newsletters

  • Hosted two UG Leader conferences (paid all expenses) to bring together UG Leaders from around the world to share best practices, training, and promoting growth of the groups

  • Launched discussion forums at ineta.org to facilitate peer information sharing

There are approximately 40 volunteers participating in the committees that have produced all these results. We've achieved a lot, and we are having a very strong impact on the community. We also know that we have a lot more to do, and we'll keep on working hard to keep delivering the programs needed to help .NET user groups everywhere thrive.

INETA-LatAm Kicks off its Speakers Bureau in a Big Way

INETA-LatAm has lined up its Speaker Bureau. It includes Guillermo Som Cerezo (Spain), Daniel Seara (Argentina), David A. Garza Marin (Mexico), Juan T. Llibre (Dominican Republic), Fabio Galuppo (Brazil) and Mauro Sant'Anna (Brazil). Also included in the Latam SB are Ken Getz, Doug Seven and Keith Pleas. All of the speakers will be attending the kickoff meeting and speaker training in Ft. Lauderdale on March 20 and 21.

While in town, local user groups like FAUSIG.NET, Florida .NET User Groups, Nova University along with Microsoft LatAm and INETA-LatAm have coordinated a very special user group event on the evening of March 20 with the INETA-LatAm speaker superstars. INETA-LatAm has scheduled Ken Getz, Doug Seven and Juan Llibre to give three special talks at the event, followed by an "Ask the Experts" panel discussion involving all the speakers from INETA-LatAm. They will be able to answer all technical questions in English, Spanish and Portuguese! This will be the event of the year!

Click here for more information on this special event

March 5th Reminder! Web Services guru, Don Box, at special Bay Area multi-User Group event

INETA is pleased to announce that they have arranged for world-famous software architect and guru Don Box to appear at a multi-user group event to be held in conjunction with current XML Web Services conference.

This event is FREE! If you belong to an INETA user group in the Santa Clara area, this is one event you won't want to miss. See the BAY.Net  User Group Website for details on Don's special presentation.

A lot of people pulled together to make this event happen. Even at the last minute, there was a scheduling emergency that was solved by a combination of Don's strong desire to do this event and some fancy footwork by his travel agent!

Although the conference will be in session by the time you receive this email, your user group members can still purchase a specially created INETA package. Just visit the "Specials" page at www.ineta.org for more info.

David Chappell in Norway

From Andreas Eide, leader of the Norwegian .NET User Group in Oslo, Norway

On January the 28th we had this year's first user group meeting. This time we had the pleasure of having an international speaker present to us, none other than David Chappell. David Chappell is a well-known author and presenter and he is also on the INETA speaker bureau. David was touring Europe and we got hold of him for one hour before he had to leave for the airport.

David's topic was 'Beyond SOAP'. He explained the new specifications that are building on the foundation of SOAP such as WS-Security, DIME and WS-Transaction. David Chappell is an excellent speaker and presented good insight into the web service space. Thanks to Microsoft Norway for making it possible for us to have David at our meeting and for sponsoring pizza in the break.

After the break Trond Nilsen from Accept Data presented the Mono project and demoed .NET running on Linux. Although work still remains I think many were surprised how far along this project actually is.

Another good user group meeting that was well received among the 90 attendees in the packed conference room.

INETA at VS Live

Returning to the conference where INETA launched last year, INETA was front and center at the Microsoft booth. Brian Loesgen and Devin Rader manned the booth and walked the show floor at VS Live, along with many members of the INETA Speakers Bureau.  They had a chance to see old friends, and meet new ones, as they helped spread the word about INETA.

.NET User Groups in India

Anand M, who runs the Chennai.NET User Group in India also helps out the User Group Relations committee with new user group approvals from India. Anand is an .NET MVP. He has shared with us a little about the .NET phenomenon in India.

India has one of the largest developer groups outside the US and a really large .NET developer population. But the concept of a User group has not been available here. It is more common to find people meet online in forums or in groups in offices to try to  solve technical problems. Microsoft provided an impetus to the community in India by bringing the MVP program to India for the first time in 2002. The number of MVPs in India has now gone up to 32 and they have been instrumental in creation of four User groups in India. The user group movement has now started
gaining in popularity here and INETA has been helpful in providing further impetus to the same.

The Chennai .NET User Group was one of the first user groups in India, formed in Chennai in South India. This being something new had its share of problems getting started. This included finding a suitable place to host the groups meetings. But it was also very surprising that a lot of people did come forward to help get this experiment started. A computer major, Satyam, also came forward to sponsor the snacks and also to give us the place to conduct the meetings at one of their premises. The Chennai .NET User Group currently has been successfully going for six months and after nine meeting is attracting new members at a tremendous pace. We have had an average of three inquiries a day for the last two weeks.

Community Websites now available from www.asp.net

During the VS-Live conference in San Francisco last month, Microsoft announced availability of the Community Starter Kit, a framework for building community websites for user groups, developer websites and news sites. The starter kit, one of several offered on the ASP.NET website (http://www.asp.net), includes six content modules and features the capability to send newsletters, create voting polls and provide now popular RSS news feeds.

User Groups can download, install and customize the Community Starter Kit to meet their specific needs. Customization may be as simple as choosing a different theme or as complex as adding custom modules and content sources. The content modules included in the kit are Articles, Links, Downloads, Photo Gallery, Events and Books. Visitors to the Starter Kit homepage will notice the INETA Member logo included in the sample website accessible from the information page.

What we are especially thrilled and proud about is the fact that INETA Speaker, Steve Walther, and User Group Relations Committee co-Chair (and Dot Net Users Group  leader) Ruth Walther are the creators of this startup kit. 

To find more information or download the Community Starter Kit, visit http://www.asp.net and click the Starter Kits tab. The ASP.NET website also has a forum for discussing the starter kit.

Let them eat Cake!

At their February meeting, the Vermont .NET user group celebrated their first anniversary. VTdotNET member, Laura Blood, baked us a cake and we wanted to share it with you!
And it was delicious, too!

About this newsletter

Anyone can sign up to receive this newsletter on the home page of www.ineta.org.

Archived newsletters are available on the INETA website on the Repository page.

Please send news (and pictures) from your user group so we can include it in a future newsletter! Contact us at: ugrelations@ineta.org

We welcome your feedback on this newsletter. Please contact ugrelations@ineta.org.

Read our privacy policy on our website.

To contact INETA: Be sure to check the appropriate tab on the www.ineta.org site to see who is the correct contact for your areas of interest. Forums are open to all, but to post, you must sign in with your User Group's login and password
Charter Sponsors
Microsoft and MSDN are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries and is used under license from Microsoft

Hosting Sponsor