Another AADND Success

We had another great night at AADND! On Wednesday night, Jennifer Marsman kicked off our meeting by introducing us to some of the basics of 3D graphics in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). She introduced us to XAML - the markup lanuague behind WPF - and introduced us to some of the considerations we are need to be aware of (camera angles, lighting, etc.) before introducing 3D graphics into your applications.

Drew Robbins finished the meeting by transforming a dull and unwieldy application into a visually appealing and very user-friendly application without touching any of the underlying functionality of the code! Drew guided us through some of the new user controls that will be available to us as well as more XAML. The most impressive portion of the demo was when he took a basic listbox with the file paths of individual photos and changed it into a series of thumbnails that responded intuitively to mouse movement and clicks. In short, if you develop user interfaces, you want to spend some time with WPF.

Jennifer Marsman at AADND!?!

First Drew Robbins and now Jennifer Marsman will be speaking at the Ann Arbor .NET Developers Group. They decided that they would team-up with Jennifer doing the tutorial session and Drew doing the main session. In my last post I talked, I mentioned that Drew would be covering Windows Presentation Foundation (his talk is entitled, "Layouts, Styles and Templates in Windows Presentation Foundation"). Jennifer will be preceding his talk with "3D Graphics in the Windows Presentation Foundation". Both talks promise to jump start you into the world of .NET 3.0. Can't wait to see you there.

Here's Jennifer's Bio:

Jennifer Marsman is a Developer Evangelist in Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism group, where she educates developers on Microsoft’s new technologies. Prior to becoming a Developer Evangelist, Jennifer was a software developer in Microsoft’s Natural Interactive Services division. In this role, she filed two patents for her work in search and data mining algorithms. Jennifer has also held positions with Ford Motor Company, National Instruments, and Soar Technology.

Jennifer earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering and Master’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her graduate work specialized in artificial intelligence and computational theory.

Drew Robbins Speaking at AADND

Drew Robbins, Developer Evangelist from Microsoft and the scary looking dude you see to the left, will be speaking at our next AADND meeting on February 14th. The topic is Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and if you haven't seen it in action, now is the time. I've also heard a rumor that Jennifer Marsman, Drew's co-Evangelist, will be doing a tutorial session. I don't have a bio for Jennifer yet - I'm sure she will be sending it soon, but here's the bio for Drew.

Drew Robbins is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft in the Heartland District. Drew has over 12 years of experience using Microsoft products as both an IT Professional and Application Developer. Before joining Microsoft, Drew was already very active in the developer community on both a local and global level. He served in central Ohio as a Microsoft Regional Director (honorary Microsoft position), establishing a major user group and working in several enterprise accounts. Drew was also recognized as a Microsoft MVP for his role in community and expertise in Visual Studio and ASP.NET. Drew mobilized the global developer community through blogging websites that drove buzz and participation in conferences such as TechEd, PDC and DevDays. Drew is a regular presenter at local and regional events on Microsoft technology and development methodology.