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About
this Newsletter |
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| Editor: Julia Lerman
[INETA User Group Relations Committee Co-Chair, Vermont .NET User
Group Leader, .NET MVP]
Production: Sheri
Nawrocki [INETA Marketing Commitee, Florida .NET Group
Leader, .NET Developer, Graphic Designer]
Thanks
to Sasha Krsmanovic, Greg Huber, Dave Noderer, Brian
Tinkler, Chris Pels and
Jason Bunting for their
articles.
Anyone can sign up to receive this
newsletter on the home page of www.ineta.org
Archived newsletters are available on the INETA
website at www.ineta.org/newsletters
Please send news (and pictures) from your user
group so we can include it in a future newsletter!
Contact us at:
newsletter@ineta.org.
We welcome your feedback on this newsletter.
Please contact newsletter@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
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| INETA
Membership More than Doubles in
2003 |
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| 278
User Groups joined in 2003, more than doubling the
number of member groups and bringing in over 38,000 .NET
developers as their members. INETA is now serving over
135,000 developers around the world.
| Argentina |
4 |
Egypt |
1 |
Latvia |
1 |
South Africa |
1 |
| Australia |
9 |
France |
2 |
Malaysia |
2 |
Spain |
2 |
| Austria |
6 |
Germany |
11 |
Mexico |
8 |
Sweden |
1 |
| Belgium |
2 |
Guatemala |
1 |
Netherlands |
2 |
Switzerland |
3 |
| Bolivia |
1 |
Honduras |
1 |
New Zealand |
5 |
Thailand |
1 |
| Brazil |
23 |
Hong Kong |
2 |
Norway |
3 |
Turkey |
3 |
| Canada |
22 |
Hungary |
1 |
Pakistan |
9 |
Ukrain |
1 |
| Chile |
2 |
Iceland |
1 |
Panama |
1 |
United Kingdom |
11 |
| Colombia |
38 |
India |
12 |
Paraguay |
1 |
Uruguay |
1 |
| Costa Rica |
1 |
Indonesia |
1 |
Peru |
13 |
USA |
208 |
| Croatia |
1 |
Ireland |
2 |
Portugal |
1 |
Uzbekistan |
1 |
| Denmark |
2 |
Israel |
6 |
Puerto Rico |
1 |
Venezuela |
20 |
| Dominican
Republic |
1 |
Italy |
2 |
Russia |
7 |
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| Ecuador |
8 |
Korea, South |
2 |
Singapore |
1 |
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 Boston .NET
Vendor Night a Great Success! |
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|  On November
12th the Boston
.NET User Group held a vendor
night where 20 vendors of .NET related products and
services participated. Each vendor did a brief 3-minute
presentation to the entire group of over 150 attendees
followed by a trade show with individual tables for each
vendor. Over 40 raffle prizes donated by vendors were
auctioned off to attendees. A buffet dinner was also
provided using vendor donations. The event provided a
great way for members to learn about products from a
variety of vendors in a single setting, as an
alternative to single vendor presentations at monthly
meetings. A committee of eight user group members spent
hundreds of hours planning the many details of the event
starting about five months in advance. There was a great
camaraderie amongst the committee members working
towards a common goal. The event was a huge success and
will be held again in 2004.
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| Microsoft
Canada Campus Tour with .NET Presentations |
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| Microsoft
Canada is going to be conducting campus visits to
over 30 universities across Canada during January
and February. They will be doing talks on C#, Web
Services and ASP.NET for Mobile Devices. For more
information on these events, visit http://www.dotnetstudents.ca
or contact Sasha
Krsmanovic.
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| Tour Dates |
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| Simon Fraser University |
01/06/2004 |
| University of British Columbia |
01/06/2004 |
| University of Victoria |
01/07/2004 |
| University of Saskatchewan |
01/08/2004 |
| Univesity of Regina |
01/09/2004 |
| Univesity of Toronto at Scarborough |
01/12/2004 |
| McMaster University |
01/12/2004 |
| McGill University |
01/13/2004 |
| University of Sherbrooke |
01/14/2004 |
| Sheridan College (2 Campuses) |
01/14/2004 |
| Concordia University |
01/16/2004 |
| York University |
01/19/2004 |
| Ryerson University |
01/20/2004 |
| Queens University |
01/21/2004 |
| Carleton University |
01/22/2004 |
| University of Ottawa |
01/23/2004 |
| University of Calgary |
01/24/2004 |
| Southern Alberta Institute of
Technology |
01/26/2004 |
| RCC College |
01/26/2004 |
| Northern Alberta Institute of
Technology |
01/27/2004 |
| UNB - Frederickton Campus |
01/27/2004 |
| University of Wester Ontario |
01/27/2004 |
| University of Alberta |
01/28/2004 |
| UNB - St John Campus |
01/28/2004 |
| Memorial University of New Foundland |
01/28/2004 |
| Humber College |
01/29/2004 |
| Dalhousie University |
01/30/2004 |
| University of Windsor |
02/03/2004 |
| University of Waterloo |
02/04/2004 |
| Wilfrid Laurier University |
02/04/2004 |
| McMaster University |
02/04/2004 |
| Seneca College - Finch |
02/05/2004 | | |
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In early
December, several leaders from .NET User Groups in
Ohio along with Microsoft Great Lakes Developer
Evanglist, Alex Lowe, and MSDN Regional
Director, Kevin Schuler, held a
conference call to discuss several relevant
topics. Attendees introduced themselves (some for
the first time!), and spoke a little bit about
each of their user groups. Best Practices for
running a user group were discussed. For instance,
Dan Cicerchi, who runs .NET
SIG of Greater Cleveland talked about
the importance of committing to a content
schedule. Alex Lowe, who is also a former User
Group Leader, explained howusing a paper survey is
effective for both getting feedback and running a
raffle.
The conference call meeting was a great
success, and the group decided to continue meeting
quarterly. In addition, a mailing list has been
created for the Ohio UG leaders to keep one
another updated. Another important item of
discussion at the meeting was about sharing
speaker resources. As an action item, the group is
currently creating a list of speakers and topics
(comprised of each others UG's) that can be shared
throughout the region.
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| Wisconson .NET User
Group Coordinates a Full Day Event With
Sponsorship |
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| Wisconsin .NET is
putting on a full day event with six big name speakers
for their user group for free. This event, called "Deep
in .NET" is a repeat of a similar one they did in 2003.
Here is how the event was coordinated.
- Invited speakers six months in
advance. User Group Leader, Brian Tinkler says
that he had confirmation from all six speakers within 24
hours.
- Surveyed user group members to
ensure that there would be a good match between what
members wanted to learn and what speakers could present
on with authority. Based on the survey results, the
speakers were then asked to submit their topics and
abstracts.
- Acquired sponsors to support the event and
to pay for the costs associated with the event.
The WI .NET UG developed a tiered sponsorship program
aligned with the existing annual sponsorship program.
Because this event was the only expense the WI .NET UG
faces annually, they decided to offer annual sponsorship
status to all sponsors who contributed to the day-long
.NET event. This gave the sponsors an immediate return
on their investment through the event, along with the
ongoing advertising benefit of annual sponsorship. The
WI .NET UG sought 2 sponsors at the Platinum level
($2,000), 2 sponsors at the Gold level ($1,000), and 4
sponsors at the Silver level ($500). An additional tier
was then added for recruiters at $200 support level.
- Choosing a venue. Brian and others
looked at several locations that were geographically
aligned with the membership base. Because the WI .NET UG
holds some meetings in Madison, WI and some meetings in
Milwaukee, WI, they decided to focus on finding an
appropriate venue that was on the Madison side of
Milwaukee. They ended up choosing a hotel that has been
used by Microsoft for hosting similar events in the
past. The WI .NET UG then utilized the facilities
coordinator at the hotel that Microsoft works with, in
order to ensure the highest familiarity with this type
of event.
- Driving attendance to the event.
This was accomplished by several months of announcements
at each UG meeting, mention in each monthly newsletter
from the UG, listing on Microsoft's events web site,
support from other regional UGs that are part of INETA
(including WI, IL, IN, MN, and IA UGs), and a lot of
viral marketing as most people in the WI .NET UG spread
the word and passed along information within their
respective companies and to their friends. With 2 weeks
left, there are 250 people registered for the event so
far and capacity for the event is 400.
Another benefit of the process of putting this event
together is that membership in the WI .NET UG has now
grown from about 600 people when the event announcements
were first made to about 800, proving once again that
these day-long events are huge membership drives and
help grow and strengthen not only the UG hosting the
event, but also the surrounding .NET community as
well.
For more information on this event, please visit the
WI .NET UG site at www.wi-ineta.org or
e-mail Brian
Tinkler with any questions at president@wi-ineta.org. | |
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| Arizona
.NET User Group Raises funds for Needy
Families |
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|  Scott Cate,
User Group Leader of AZDNUG found a way to
have his user group help needy families in their area
during the Holiday season. Scott arranged with a local
c-Tech to donate a voucher for a free training class
(any class at all whether it was one day or a whole
week) and auctioned the voucher off on E-Bay . The auction
raised over $1,000 and Scott's company, KBAlertz, matched
those funds with another $1,000. The money was used to
assist local families. You can read more of the very
touching details on AZDNUG's site here. http://www.azdnug.com/2003-12-Families.aspx
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This
Month, Jason Bunting interviews INETA Speaker Sam
Gentile
editors note - For those of you who have
wondered, it is pronounced
"Gen-TILL-ee"
JB - How long have you been
using .NET technologies?
SG - I have
been using .NET technologies since the initial
Alpha, when it was still called NGWS. One of the
greatest things to happened to me (and my career)
was to be a member of the .NET Early Adopter
Program (EAP) in 2000 while I was architecting my
first .NET product for NaviSite. So I got to go to
Redmond and learn C# from Eric Gunnerson and
ASP.NET from Scott Guthrie and so forth. Since
then I have shipped 5 professional (for sale)
products based on .NET into the marketplace for
various companies.
JB - What do you feel are the
most compelling things about .NET?
SG -
Clearly what I see in many of my clients is
radically increased developer productivity. Since
there is one type system, CTS, one class
framework, FCL, and there is many CLR features
like garbage collection, developers write code in
a fraction of the time that they did for C++/VB
6/Windows DNA world and it is a lot less code
since you don't have to explicitly manage memory
or handle low-level nuances of COM.
JB - What do you feel is the
most significant news to come out of the
PDC?
SG - For me,
it was a total shock to see just how far along
Longhorn really was and the advances in it. With
all the hype, I was fully expecting vapor slides!
But to see it running and how much has been done
already is significant. Of course, there is lots
of other significant things like ASP.NET 2.0
reducing your coding by more than 70% but I knew
that already from the alpha-)
JB - What is your favorite
presentation when speaking to user groups?
SG
-By far, my favorite is "Overview of the .NET CLR
and Friends" where I give the history from Windows
DLLs to COM to COM+ to .NET and explain all those
acronyms like CTS, CLR, BCL, ECMA, CLI, Rotor and
so forth. It was extremely well received when I
gave it to VTDOTNET, Julie's group, by far the
best reception I have ever had for a
presentation.
JB - Was "LOTR: Return of the
King" everything you had hoped it would be?
SG -
And more! Unlike the Matrix movies which had one
great movie degenerating into clichés and
foolishness by the end, all of the LOTR movies
have been amazing; even arguably getting better
with each. Any fears that Jackson would hold back
like the above named movie are quickly dashed;
this is a stunning and deeply powerful conclusion
fully realized in what must be looked as as a
trilogy that is one of the major achievements of
film history. Simply put; one of the best movies I
have ever seen. Sean Astin's Sam, of all people
really stands out in this movie as the leading
candidate for an Oscar.
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| MSDN
News to Share with your User Group Members
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| ASP.NET Webcast Week - January 19-23,
2004
 Learn about
ASP.NET from the experts! These free events are live and
interactive. Live code demos and attendees asking in
depth engaging questions are all part of this live
event. This is a great way to get educated, engaged, and
enlightened on Microsoft developer tools.
Starting on Monday January 19th there will be 19
different webcasts
on ASP.NET topics. Some of them will even be presented
by INETA Speakers Michele Leroux Bustamante, Ken Getz
and Jeff Prosise. Check out the schedule and get signed
up for these awesome presentations.
blogs.msdn.com
Using Scott
Watermasysk's .Text
program, over 150 Microsoft bloggers can now be
found at blogs.msdn.com. This is
sure to be not only a wealth of interesting technical
information, but additionally a way to really get to
know many of the developers who are working at
Microsoft. It's sometimes difficult to remember that
these folks are developers, just like you. You will find
blogs from well known devs at MS such as Scott Guthrie,
Rob Howard, Chris Anderson, Yasser Shohoud and Paul Vick
as well as Program Managers and people who work on MSDN.
Some blogs are "team blogs" such as the BCLTeam and the
C++ Testing Team. Not only do you get lots of great
info, but some fundamental insight to how things work at
Microsoft and how you can be involved in the
process. | |
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