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

Birds of a Feather at TechEd

Following the .NET Rocks session on Sunday and continuing on Tuesday and Wednesday nights are a series of topics that will be of interest to many TechEd attendees. These informal sessions are not presentations and have been designed to allow interaction between people with similar interests (although opinions may vary!!).

Other scheduled topics include: The Smart Client is Back, Code Generation: So What?, Defensive Development with .NET, The One Armed Bandit, Virtual Server and Server Migration, Application Security - Developing Code Without Administrator Privileges, Object-Relational Persistence for .NET, Design Considerations for Tablet PC Applications, Continuous Integration in .NET, Integrating Unit Testing tools and practices into the Software Development Life Cycle, RFID and how it can benefit consumers and businesses, Home Automation with .NET, What really annoys me about .NET the most!, Thawte Notarization & PGP Key Signing Party, Microsoft.Com Technical Communities, Teaching .Net beyond VB.Net, Service Orientation vs. Object Orientation, Patch Management, .NET Speech, Authenticating and Authorizing Web Users, Implementing Microsoft Content Management Server 2002, The One Armed Bandit, Women Who Code : TechEd Edition, SAP .NET Connector, Working with Oracle on Windows and .NET, ISA 2000 and ISA 2004 Insiders.

Time slots are still available if you want to host your own session. Visit www.ineta.org/bof, select TechEd 2004 and submit an idea for a session. You can also see the pending and approved session topics.

To see the latest session schedule visit the TechEd site at: http://www.msteched.com/content/breakouts.aspx , you can also find the sessions in the attendee calendar tool.

Finally we will be needing volunteers to help cover the sessions each evening.

If you have any questions or would like to volunteer, please contact Dave Noderer.

Another User Group Born in Toronto, Canada

On April 20th another brand-new .NET User Group was born in the Greater Toronto Area. (That's in Canada). The Toronto area is quite large and though there are five other INETA groups in Toronto, some of these groups are 100 miles apart. This new group services the Eastern areas of Toronto, and as of yet does not have a name, but the working title is "East of Toronto". Group founder and first-meeting speaker Kate Gregory led the meeting to a smashing success. EDS provided the training room and refreshments, and after bringing in a few extra chairs from unsuspecting employees' desks, we had seating for all 35 attendees, plus one chair for Kate's giant laptop bag. EDS has a strong commitment to developer community here locally, so their involvement was a big help, particularly with infrastructure, not only in the form of meeting space, but also the website, and registrations. An EDS staffer even emailed each registered attendee to make sure they were still coming to the first meeting after the Toronto Maple Leafs inconveniently scheduled one of their playoff games to conflict with our meeting night.

Kate's topic was an Introduction to .NET, which attracted a nice beginner's crowd, many of whom were quite eager to begin .NET development but haven't yet had the opportunity to do so in their workplace. The question and answer session following the 2-hour intro seemed informative and beneficial to all.

We've lined up a larger room for the group's second meeting next week, so there is plenty of room for growth. Speakers are already booked for the next 6 months, including Ed Musters, Scott Bellware, local MS Developer Evangelist Adam Gallant, Dwayne Lamb, Marcie "Datagrid Girl" Robillard, and Jason Beres of Infragistics. Check out our website for the latest info: http://gtaeast.torontoug.net

Speakers Corner

JB: What do you feel are the most compelling things about NET?

GAD : Probably the most compelling is the productivity of the platform, followed by the enhanced security. Because the entire platform follows an object-oriented model, with all functionality accessed through classes rather than the hodge-podge of APIs, COM interfaces, etc. that preceded it, .NET allows developers who become familiar with one part of the framework class library to have a head start on understanding how to use other parts of the framework as well. And the fact that nearly all of the functionality of the framework is available to all .NET languages means that you no longer have to know a specific language to access certain functionality.

With respect to security, the Common Language Runtime (which hosts all .NET managed code) provides a whole range of security-related services, from the Code Access Security subsystem, to type safety, that can make managed code inherently safer than unmanaged code. There are also built in cryptography classes, and other security features that make developers' lives easier while not requiring them to reinvent the wheel with every application.

JB: How did a music major end up in software development?

GAD: Music and Theatre, dual-major, actually. I spent about 6 years out of college working in technical theatre (building scenery, hanging lights, etc.), and realized that while I enjoyed what I was doing, the effort vs. the reward in that industry is sometimes a little out of whack. I knew I liked computers, so I talked with a relative who had his own software company about how to get into the field, and he suggested certification as a way to get a foot in the door, particularly since I'd been working with computers on my own for a while at that point. Six months later, Windows 95 certification in hand, I got my first help desk job, then graduated to a job at the Pentagon training end-users in Windows 95. I later decided that programming was more interesting to me than network administration, and having written some BASIC code in my youth, I started working on teaching myself Visual Basic 4, and got my certification in that shortly thereafter. The rest, as they say, is history...

JB: You were in a band called "3 Square" what does that name mean?

GAD: Nothing, really. It just sounded good when we were desperately searching for a name for the band, and lent itself to the pithy catch-phrase, "Be there or 3 Square!"

JB: What has your experience been in speaking to user groups as part of the INETA Speakers Bureau?

GAD: It's been a very positive thing for me, though I don't get to do it as often as I'd like. Whether large or small, talking to user groups is a good way to share information, and also to find out more about what people are doing in developer communities across the countryb&how people are using .NET, are they using .NET at all?, etc.

JB: What is so wrong with running a box with administrator rights on a daily basis?

GAD : Hah! Had a feeling I'd get that question. There are two problems with running a machine on a day-to-day basis with elevated privileges. The first is that you make yourself vulnerable to malicious code. If you are running everything with administrative privileges, including applications, you are providing a much larger attack surface for hackers to come after. All it takes is a click or two on the wrong link in your browser, and you are executing malicious codeb&with Administrator rights. Which means your machine isn't yours anymore. It now belongs to the person who wrote that code. Your best bet at that point is to reformat the machine and reinstall everything.

The second problems with running as admin is specific to developers. If you are developing software while running with administrative privileges, unless you are very careful to test your code extensively (including running it using non-admin accounts), it is likely that at some point you will introduce bugs that only manifest themselves when running with non-admin privileges. When your users encounter these bugs, they will in all likelihood solve them by...running as admin. And when they get hacked because of that, it will be *your* fault.

JB: Has your becoming a father changed your work habits, and if so, how?

GAD: Absolutely. Becoming a parent changes almost everything. Work habits. Sleep habits. Priorities. I've definitely found that I make more of an effort to look for work opportunities that will maximize my ability to spend time with my family. My most recent contract work has had me traveling quite a bit, so when possible, I've taken my family along with me, so I get the best of both worldsb&doing the work I enjoy, while still spending as much time as possible with my family.

Andrew blogs at "A Blog for Graymad" and you can read more about Andrew's consulting services, ASP.NET books, and conference speaking at his company website, Graymad Enterprises.