Mark Freedman’s Blog

Fairfield / Westchester Code Camp Photos

Last week, I wrote about our second annual code camp. Here are some of Lorri’s photos of the event. Soon, I’ll post some video clips. I’ll probably have some more photos in a future post.

Please excuse my cheesy captions

Next year, my friend, Dave, will help us capture complete audio recordings of each session. In the meantime, we’ll try to get some video recording practice at some user group events, in the hopes that by 2010, we’ll be able to get a video transcript of the entire event.

 

Bill Zack gives us a ride in the cloud, with Azure

 

Rob Sedor shows us how to code and chew gum at the same time, with .NET Concurrency

 

Allan da Pinto Costa shows us the lightness of Silverlight with WCF

 

Aaron Armstrong introduces us to the ADO.NET Entity Framework

 

Dmitry Lyalin meshes with the Live Framework

 

Michael de la Maza uses games to build agile teams

 

Richard Hale Shaw shows a SRO crowd how to apply LINQ the right way

 

Bill Zack digs deeper into the cloud with SQL Data Services

 

This packed audience will go home armed with more tools in its arsenal

 

Raja Sekhar Karumuru makes his debut on the wings of AJAX and SilverLight

 

Richard Hale Shaw mesmerizes the crowd for three straight sessions

 

Sunil Kadimdiwan dazzles us with charts and gauges in Reporting Services

 

Chris Shain shows us how to pull together distributed data

 

Peter Laudati shows how to make ourselves MVPs with the MVC

 

Jason Sliss goes live with TDD in action

Fairfield / Westchester Code Camp 2 Even Better than Last Year!

At least that’s the feedback I hear so far. We had an extra track this year, and longer sessions. We had 25 in total, including a lunch session bridging the gap between a two part presentation by Richard Hale Shaw. We were hoping to get around 100 attendees this year after last year’s 80, but it turned out so much greater. 205 people signed up before we had to shut down registration due to overcrowding concerns. And even so, we had walk-ins.

Running these things are incredibly exhausting, but so, so, so worth it! The craziness is mainly early in the morning, when everyone is registering. Thankfully, Silvia Goncalves and my wife, Lorri, saved the day. It was a last minute decision for Lorri to come, so she could take photos of each session. But it turned out her help was greatly needed for registration. We did not expect the kind of rush we had, and there’s no way Silvia could have handled it on her own. Last year she had Vicki to help her. Thanks Lorri! I love you!

But the real craziness started even earlier, when we had to pick up breakfast from Dunkin’ Donuts. I had placed the order on the phone on Thursday, and clearly mentioned several times that it was for Saturday morning pickup. Of course, they called me on Friday, wondering where I was. I was afraid they’d keep the same set of food for Saturday, but, thankfully, it was fresh.

Then, on Saturday morning, Lorri and I met Rob Sedor at Dunkin’ for the pickup. We must have all been half asleep, because after thinking we filled the cars, and just about to shut the doors, one of the workers ran out with a couple of bags of Munchkins we forgot to take. We squeezed those into the cars, and took off, stopping at the red light on the corner, when I get a call. From Dunkin’. Telling me to wait. Again. With three workers running out with the bags of 120 bagels! How did we forget the bagels?!?

Of course, I left my space pen there (since their pen ran out of ink). The girl who helped us told me she put it aside for me. I just hope it’s still there tomorrow.

Either way, I think breakfast came off really well, and I definitely recommend Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast for events like this. Their coffee is great, and the food was perfect breakfast food, and everything was packed nicely.

Silvia helped us get breakfast up to the second floor, and I think I lost like 10 pounds just going back and forth to the car and up and down the stairs. Thankfully, a couple of carts and an elevator helped us finish and give my aching knees a temporary break.

It did not take long for the mad rush of attendees, well before the starting 8:00 general session. Lorri and Silvia kept them in line, and got a good flow going quickly, while Leo Junquera, Louis Edouard and Rob made sure all the rooms had working equipment, posted signs (he made some great wall posters of the schedule with a plotter), and prepared for the general session, and I ran around making last minute corrections to the signs with the marker.

I love how people naturally organize themselves at these events. Except for getting people over a few technical issues, and some coordination hot spots, after our preparation, it’s really run by the presenters and attendees.

I spent most of the rest of the day taking short videos of each of the sessions, while Lorri took photos. I’ll have them posted soon on the code camp website. Figures that her camera’s auto-focus died on her during the day. Too bad Lorri and I had to leave before the last session, the raffles, and the speaker dinner, but illness struck us suddenly. Of course, Leo, Louis and Rob brought the rest of it home.

Thanks so much, everyone! Amazing job by all! Also a huge thanks to Microsoft! I’ll try to list everyone here, in order of appearance

People:
======
Lorri Freedman
Rob Sedor
Silvia Goncalves
Louis Edouard
Leo Junquera
Bill Zack
Peter Laudati
RajaSekhar Karumuru
Aaron Armstrong
Edwin Ames
David Isbitski
Don Demsak
John Avery
Ivan Krivyakov
Rick Minerich
Richard Hale Shaw
Jason Sliss
Chris Shain
John Baird
Dmitry Lyalin
Sunil Kadimdiwan
Allan da Costa Pinto
Michael de la Maza
David Douglass
Phil Denoncourt
Andrew Novick
Louis Hendricks
Milan Negovan

Contributors:
==========
Connecticut Information Technology Institute (CITI)
University of Connecticut (UCONN)
webloyalty.com
Pitney Bowes
PartnerRe
Microsoft
Infragistics
JetBrains
Red Gate
Telerik
Xceed
CozyRoc
Kentico
Applied Innovations

Food:
====
Dunkin’ Donuts
Planet Pizza
The Capital Grille

I plan on updating my original lists I put together after last year’s code camp. We learned more this year about how to run these, and I’m sure we’ll continue to learn more each year.

Maybe, now that code camp is done, I’ll get back to more regular blog posts. But, then again, the NYC code camp is rumored for January, and I volunteered to help with that…

Mets Fans, We Aren’t Entitled to Miracles

Now that we’re at the close of another bitterly disappointing season, I think it’s time we Mets fans realize that we’re not really entitled to miracles. We’ve had our four or so miracles throughout the years. But for some reason, while other fans hope for miracles, we always expect them.

And I think that’s the crux of our problem. I think this may be why we take it so hard when we fall short. We feel betrayed by our prayers. How many other teams’ fans get so suicidal when they fall short? I don’t believe that even Cubs fans get so depressed. The difference between Cubs fans and Mets fans is that although we both always expect disappointment, we Mets fans still believe that miracles are around the corner.

We go into every season with more than just hope — we somehow always expect that although we’ll be bitterly disappointed during the course of the season, we’ll still be saved by some incredible, last-ditch act of heaven, and that we’ll somehow be bathing in the glow of smiling deities.

Face it, folks. We’re no different than any other team. We’ve had some remarkable luck — more than our fair share, but the only thing that’ll get us back to a championship is good pitching, hitting, fielding, and fundamentals.

Nothing else.

We’re not that special, and I think one of the main reasons other teams get so much satisfaction in beating us is because of our sense of entitlement.

If there’s any lesson we should learn from the past few years, it’s this: our team is mortal, they have to work just as hard as any other team, and no one can save them but themselves.

I’m hoping that if we do win again in the near future (if again in our lifetimes), it isn’t caused by what could be perceived as divine intervention.

Fairfield / Westchester Code Camp, Call for Speakers (November 8th)

On Saturday November 8th, 2008, the Fairfield / Westchester developer community will be holding our second Fairfield / Westchester Code Camp! The event will be hosted by The University of Connecticut School of Business, at the Stamford Campus.

The continuing goal of the Code Camps series is to provide an intensive developer-to-developer learning experience that is fun and technically stimulating. The primary focus is on delivering programming information and sample code that can be put to practical use. The event is free.

This is an event by the developer community, for the developer community. The content is original and developed by you. Let’s work together to make this event a success.

The call for speakers is now open! (Registration will open in a couple of weeks.)

Please submit your ideas for sessions. The topic does not have to be completely .NET specific. Although we may primarily use .NET tools, we’re often using other tools these days when they make sense for the job. Here are some suggestions:

• SQL Server 2008
• Visual Studio 2008
• Silverlight 2.0
• Web 2.0
• ALT.NET Topics
• Windows Communication Foundation
• Windows Presentation Foundation
• Windows Workflow Foundation
• Windows CardSpace
• Microsoft MVC
• AJAX
• LINQ
• Web Services & REST Frameworks
• Data Access
• OR Mapping
• Code Generation
• .NET 3.5
• Agile Development
• Benefits of Virtualization for Developers
• SOA, and What it Really Means
• Open Source Tools for .NET Developers
• Creating Usable Software
• Domain Specific Languages
• Dynamic Languages & the DLR
• Software Factories
• JSON vs. XML

Don’t forget, this is for developers. We’re looking for examples, code, experiences, tips & tricks, sample projects, etc. Less PowerPoint, and more code, examples, and discussion.

To learn more about the event please visit the website.

If you are interested in speaking at the Code Camp, please e-mail the information listed below, to:

Speakers AT FWCodeCamp.net

Please supply:

• Name
• Company
• Email
• Phone
• Track Level (basic, intermediate, advanced)
• Session name
• Session description

Based on the outstanding response we received last year, we anticipate (we hope) more speakers then we have slots for, and there are a lot of great speakers and topics. Please don’t be discouraged if we don’t select your proposed session(s). We’ll be choosing topics based upon community interest and flow. It may even be possible that we decide your session would be better off in a dedicated user group meeting, instead.

The session lengths will be a bit longer than last year’s hour-long sessions. That was the number one criticism last year — the sessions ended too quickly. We plan on three tracks, with each session lasting 1:15. So instead of the three tracks of 7 sessions we had last year, we’re probably looking at three tracks of 6 sessions, totaling 18 sessions. It’ll probably run from 8:00 AM until 6:00 PM.

Once your outline is received, we will review, choose, and provide scheduling for the selected sessions.

Female Vocalist Popularity — Industry or Personal Trend?

I was reviewing my list of album addictions since 1990, and although I’ve had a hunch that I’ve been leaning towards female vocalists over the past several years, I didn’t realize how strongly that leaning was until now. Here’s a female / male count comparison list, by year, color-coded for dramatic effect. Bands with a relatively even mix (or no vocals) are in the last column:

Interesting, eh? Well, I find it interesting. Baffling.

Since 1998, the totals are 38:15:4. 70% female.
Before 1998, the totals are 19:38:1. 34% female.

A complete turnaround. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this should be. Is it a statistical anomaly, or a significant pattern?

It may be anomaly, or shifting personal tastes. It appears that the typical range of female vs. male vocalists in people’s music collections are much lower than the inverse of these percentages. And it’s getting harder to find female singers on the charts.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been ignoring the charts and subconsciously giving female artists more of a chance, or if it’s because I’m ignoring male vocalists because I’m growing tired of them. Or are most current male artists sounding like post-grunge monotony or whiny adolescent punks?

Is it that female artists are just not getting their due? Are they just bubbling under? Is it that they’re not getting enough airplay, and the reason they’re so hard to find in music collections is because of a lack of marketing?

I’m not sure what it is, and I don’t have the answers yet. All I know is that I’m completely addicted to female artists lately, and find myself listening so often I begin to question if I’m missing out on the male-dominated bands.