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From the Board |
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The year has certainly had been challenging for all of us in both personal
and professional ways. Many members of our community have had their lives
impacted by the poor economic conditions. Many of our member groups have seen an
increase in attendance with people turning to user groups as a source of
training and career networking. At the INETA level, we have seen a large
increase over the last year in the number new groups forming as more specialized
meetings take place focusing on specific topics, resulting in more requests to
INETA for support.
Unfortunately these tough economic times have also brought with them a large
decrease in sponsorship dollars from our primary sponsor, Microsoft. This has
strongly impacted our major projects, especially the national speaker bureau
which is responsible for the lion's share of our budget. Due to these funding
cuts and ever-increasing travel costs, we've reluctantly announced major
cutbacks in the number of events that we are able to directly fund. To try to
offset these cutbacks, we've recently begun the Regional Speakers Program to
help get more great local speakers out to groups a little further away but in
their region. We are also working hard to find new and useful ways to support
local user groups, such as the special offers page for user group members
announced in this newsletter. So far we have received a great response from
other companies interested in getting involved and supporting the broad user
group community through INETA.
Many people have strong views of what INETA should and should not be. As part
of our effort to focus on how we can best support the communities we are
involved with, we've reached out to many group leaders and others to find out
what support is needed most. The responses have been extremely interesting and
far reaching. For many groups, the primary request remains our original
organizational goal – to bring expert speakers to their in-person events. For
newer groups or groups with new leadership teams, it is the INETA membership
mentors and their help in supporting the health and interconnectivity of their
regions that is the main benefit. For well established groups often little
support is needed, but a lot of experience and leadership can be shared back
with others. Finally, there are those who say INETA is no longer needed,
irrelevant or just a marketing mouthpiece. As we move forward there are some
important decisions that need to be made as to the role that INETA should play
and how we can best support you. What do you think? What would you do
differently?
Ours is a large, strong, and growing community. With more and more content
available online and an abundance of local experts in many regions, the needs of
those in this community have certainly changed over time. There are many who
continue to turn to INETA, as well as the many individuals involved in the
overall community, for much needed support.
It's important to keep in mind that INETA is a volunteer organization, made
possible by time and effort put forward from individuals within the community.
From the board members to the membership mentors and all of the project teams,
it's a volunteer effort that makes this all possible. Many individuals who have
contributed to the growth of their local INETA user groups and communities
continue to give back, helping build a strong community. How about you? Could
you volunteer to make our community stronger? Whether it is jotting down a few
ideas, getting your company involved in supporting INETA user groups, putting in
a few hours on a project committee up to a commitment to serve in one of two
recently vacated board positions, what can you do? Drop me a line and let me
know what you can do.
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Nominations Now Being Accepted for INETA North
America Board of Directors |
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The INETA NorAm Board of Directors is now accepting nominations to fill
vacancies and complete the balance of the current term through 04/01/2010 for
the following positions. General commitment is around 15-20 hours/month
including regular bi-weekly Board conference calls and up to two expense-paid,
in-person weekend Board meetings per year.
TREASURER
The Treasurer is one of four Officer positions (President, Vice-President,
Secretary, Treasurer) that are responsible for running the not-for-profit
corporation.
DIRECTOR
There is one (1) Director position available. Directors are responsible for
overseeing the operation of various projects undertaken by INETA.
Nominations must be submitted by any user group leader of a user group that
is a member of INETA or a current Board member. Nominations should include the
individual's name, email address, phone number, description of why the
individual is qualified for the position, as well as any supporting materials.
Candidates are then interviewed by and voted on by the current Board members.
Send nominations to
noram.secretary@ineta.org no later than Monday 10/19/2009.
Voting will take place on 11/1/2009.
Please direct any questions to
noram.secretary@ineta.org.
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PDC09 Birds-of-a-Feather Announces Special Lunch Sessions and Community Roundtable |
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PDC09 Birds-of-a-Feather Announced
Special Lunch Sessions
Visit www.pdcbof.com
We are excited to announce two special BOF @Lunch sessions for PDC09. On Tue
11/17 the topic will be
ASP.NET MVC – Share Your Stories from the Trenches and on Wed 11/18
Will Cloud Computing Change Your Life? Visit
http://microsoftpdc.com
for more details.
In addition, proposals for hosting sessions are now being accepted and will
be considered on a first-come, first-served basis through 10/31/2009. Details on
submitting a proposal can be found at
www.pdcbof.com.
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BOF sessions are moderated open discussions on technology related topics
proposed by developers attending PDC ’09. BOF sessions are not formal
presentations, no slides or software demonstrations. The format is casual and
open with a microphone and whiteboard available to facilitate discussions. The
PDC09 BOF sessions are organized by volunteers from INETA
www.ineta.org, the world-wide
organization for .NET focused user groups.
The sessions are an opportunity for attendees to have technical conversations
with their peers on technology related topics of interest. A topic may be
related to conference content or any other topic that would be of interest to
conference attendees. The BOF sessions are a great opportunity to meet with
other attendees that have common interests and exchange ideas. All conference
attendees with the exception of Microsoft employees are eligible to submit a
topic proposal.
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INETA BOF Community Roundtable
Have you ever wished you could peek behind the curtain and get a glimpse into
the future? Ever wanted to know why something is the way it is in the .NET
universe? The INETA BOF Community Roundtable is your chance to ask those
questions. Better yet, like all BOF sessions, you also get to hear what is on
the minds of your peers in the community.
Tuesday, 11/17/2009, 6:00-7:00 pm, Room 309, Los Angeles Convention
Center
Our flagship panel currently includes:
- David Chappell - Principal of Chappell & Associates
(http://www.davidchappell.com)
- Sara Ford - Program Manager, CodePlex at Microsoft
(http://http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/)
- Scott Hanselman - Principal Program Manager at Microsoft
(http://www.hanselman.com)
- Patrick Hynds - Microsoft Regional Director and CTO of CriticalSites
(http://www.patrickhynds.com)
- Fritz Onion - Co-founder of Pluralsight and Microsoft Most Valuable
Professional (http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/fritz/default.aspx)
The session will be recorded as a .NET Rocks! show and Carl Franklin,
Microsoft Regional Director and host of .NET Rocks!, will be moderating the
discussion.
Bookmark
this blog entry from the PDCBOF blog for updates.
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Presentation Resources for User Group
Presenters |
The .NET University site is live again (www.dotnet-u.com),
which includes about 40 full presentation kits (slides, speaker notes,
demos, demo scripts, webcast video) that may use for presentations. This
includes the things Lisa Feigenbaum and Doug Turnure from Microsoft
partnered on recently. Technically, this site is maintained by Doug and Mark
Dunn, so it is a hybrid of MS and community owned as a site.
What is .NET University? Their mission is very simple. To give you a good
developer-oriented overview of new and existing Microsoft technologies, and
empower you to help others learn about .NET-related technologies. You can use
these materials in your own presentations, or simply access the valuable
information that they contain. You can also find free, sequenced online training
at http://myrampup.com. Ramp
Up is a free, online, community-based learning program, with a number of
different tracks that will help you build your portfolio of professional
development skills.
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Community Event Reports |
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Inaugural Vermont Code Camp
Saturday, September 12, was the first Vermont Code Camp. We had
over 85 attendees, participants and speakers join us for our inaugural
event. Everyone we've spoken with has expressed their appreciation for this
event and to all of our donors who made it possible. The Vermont
Code Camp Team included Laura Blood, Rob Hale, Bradley Holt, Julie Lerman,
Carl Lorentson, Matthew Weier O’Phinney, Rob Rohr, and Margot Schips.
The event was held in Kalkin Hall at UVM's School of Business. This was a
wonderful venue with spacious, well-equipped rooms and a very large common
area where attendees could sit, mingle and eat in between sessions. The
venue itself was also one of the donations to the code camp.
We had 19 presentations on a variety of topics which ran in three
separate rooms throughout the day. One room was totally dedicated to open
source topics. Speakers in each session were given a selection of relevant
books and random t-shirts to give to attendees.
During the last break of the day, between the last two sessions, we
gathered all of the attendees into one room to raffle off all of the
software that was donated. This was a lot of fun for the organizers as well
as the attendees and each of the donated software products was highlighted
before we began calling out the numbers of the raffle winners.
While the opportunity for the community to gather, learn and network is
on its own a huge benefit to the community, enabling us to provide food
throughout the day and to have coveted books, software and magazines as well
as some very fun geeky t-shirts, to give away to the attendees gives the
event an extra level of value to attendees. We were able to provide this
great learning experience to attendees completely free of charge thanks to
the donations and community efforts. It was such a great success that
there has already been quite a lot of discussion about the next Vermont Code
Camp.
Give Camps
INETA Speaker Steve Smith has written an
informative article on holding a Give Camp. Give Camps are a
way for developers to get together for a fun weekend and use their skills
for the benefit of charitable organizations. Links to several previous
events are included as well as a link to a cookbook for holding one of these
events and sponsor information.
If you have an interesting community event
report to share, contact us at
noram.marketing@ineta.org.
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Special Offers for INETA Members |
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MaxESP-Elastic Shared Platform
Enterprise
Shared Hosting Trial Accounts from MaximumASP
We are proud to introduce MaxESP, Elastic Shared Platform, the first highly
available completely PCI compliant (web + data)
Microsoft ASP.NET shared web hosting platform. The MaxESP core focus is to cater
to all aspects of the application life cycle. MaxESP empowers you to quickly
upgrade from the standard plan if needed to make any of your websites load
balanced and more robust. Best of all this capacity expansion upgrade takes only
1 mouse click! Introductory accounts are available to INETA members FREE of
charge for 30 days and just $49 a month after the trial period. Upgrades
are available for an additional monthly fee.
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Created in IIS 7.5 and Windows Server 2008 R2 MaxESP has many exciting new
features:
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Management
- Highly available shared hosting with application aware load balancing
- Need more power? No problem. Add instances of your application to seamlessly
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- Decrease the number of nodes when not operating at peak times – or allocate
to other website(s)
- Customizable scalability right at your fingertips
As a leading Windows-based hosting provider, MaximumASP keeps up with the
latest developments in Microsoft technologies while continually seeking customer
feedback. "Windows Server 2008 R2, Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5, and
Application Request Routing, which is an IIS extension, offers tremendous
benefits to both our company and our customers in our new shared hosting
platform," says Matt Griffin, MaxESP product manager.
To learn more about MaxESP features and updates visit
http://weblog.maximumasp.com/. Reserve your trial account today at
http://www.maximumasp.com/products/sharedhosting/default.aspx.
MaxV Virtual Dedicated Platform
Check out what’s new with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V with a FREE MaxV
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Monitoring, Recurrent Backups, and Scalability
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Training and Software and Azure, Oh My |
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Dive into Azure today!
Deploy your first app in the clouds in as little as 30 minutes. Here’s how:
GET:
- Get a free Windows Azure CTP account in minutes
- Download the August version of the Azure training kit
here if
you have not already
FOLLOW ALONG:
- A 14-minute screencast on
deploying your first app in Azure by Ryan Dunn
- Use the binaries (no source) in the Azure training kit: look in Demos
folder, then open DeployWindowsAzure folder, then Assets folder
JOIN THE AZURE COMMUNITY:
| Get a Discount on Selected Microsoft Certification
Exams and E-Learning Collections |
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Stand out in this challenging economy. Whether you are looking to
advance your career or improve your current skill set, Microsoft
Certifications can give you the edge you need to succeed. And now, you
can take advantage of a special offer on selected Microsoft
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selected Microsoft Certification exams, you’ll receive 15-25 percent
off, while supplies last. You must register, schedule, and purchase your
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E-Learning Collections. Offer Available until June 30, 2010. |
SQL Server 2008 Free Software Offer Extending Through 2009
When you take selected SQL Server 2008 training through a Learning Solutions
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You can get a head start on becoming a messaging expert. Get free training on
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Exchange Server 2010 Administrator's Pocket Consultant from Microsoft Press.
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Fall Conference Discounts |
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DevConnections Fall ‘09
November 9-12, 2009
Las Vegas, NV • Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino
STAY CONNECTED & Keep your competitive edge at the Premiere Event for ASP.NET
& Visual Studio Developers
- Microsoft Corporate Vice President Scott Guthrie will present a keynote
about many of the new features coming for ASP.NET developers while Dave Mendlen,
Director of Developer Marketing, talks about the upcoming release of Visual
Studio 2010.
- Train with 125+ Microsoft and industry experts at over 200 in-depth
sessions.
- Book your hotel early and take advantage of hotel rates at Mandalay Bay that
just dropped to $129/night! REGISTER NOW to take advantage of this special rate
and enjoy a 4-star experience at a 2-star price on the Las Vegas Strip!
- You can save $100 off the regular conference price if you enter
INETA in the discount code field when you register for the conference.
You may not combine this special discount with any other discount.
TO REGISTER AND LEARN MORE:
www.DevConnections.com • 800.438.6720 • 203.400.6121
Austin's Monospace Conference - 20%
Discount
Monospace is the open source and cross-platform software development
conference for .NET and Mono, teaching .NET developers and organizations how to
use the Mono framework and Microsoft .NET to leverage existing investments in
skills and applications on a broader array of platforms for a broader array of
opportunities.
Monospace starts with two days of immersive half-day tutorials taught by
industry and open source leaders like Ayende Rahien, Ted Neward, Miguel de
Icaza, Larry Ewing, on topics ranging from iPhone development in C# using the
MonoTouch framework, to advanced NHibernate development. Check out the
conference program for all the great content offered at Monospace:
http://monospace.us/program
The conference starts on Tuesday, October 27th and runs through Friday,
October 30th. It all happens right here in Austin at the beautiful Austin
Convention Center.
For a limited time, you can claim a 20% discount on registration using the
discount code MONO199. Attendees will also enjoy discount coupons on MonoTouch,
NHibernate Profiler, and Telerik products! Sign up at:
http://monospace.us
PDC09: Register by October 13th to Save
$300
The Professional Developer's Conference is Microsoft's premier event for
leading-edge developers and solution architects. Come see the future of
developer technology, network with our big brains, and jumpstart your product
planning! Register by October 13th to save $300 on your conference pass at
www.microsoftpdc.com!
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Upcoming Speaker Bureau Events |
| Hampton Roads .NET Users Group |
Virginia Beach | VA | Rachel Appel |
10/13/09 |
| Bellingham.NET | Bellingham |
WA | Robert Green |
10/14/09 |
| Tri-Cities .NET User Group |
Kingsport | TN | Wally McClure |
10/20/09 |
| Denver Visual Studio User Group | Denver |
CO | Markus Egger |
10/26/09 |
| San Diego .NET User Group |
San Diego | CA | Michele Leroux
Bustamante | 10/27/09 |
| .NET Rockford User Group | Loves Park |
IL | Tim Rayburn |
10/27/09 |
| GC.NUG (Greater Charleston .NET User Group) |
Charleston | SC | Chris G. Williams |
11/12/09 |
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Contacting INETA North America |
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