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.

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.

AADND Success

Well, what can I say? AADND was a huge success. I haven't kept close track of the numbers in the past, but we were pretty close to a record turnout. Of course, when Matt Winkler is you speaker, there isn't much selling you have to do. And he certainly did deliver. Windows Workflow is really going to change the way you architect your applications and you need to know how. Doing so with Matt just makes the process a bit more clear and a lot more fun. If you were in attendance last night, you certainly know what I am talking about. Look for his slide deck at AADND later today.

Just a couple of "thank you"s before I end this post...

• Dave Redding - worked hard on promoting this and has proven to be a strong leader.


• Dave Baldwin - Keeps right on top of the website and has some fantastic - and very aggressive - ideas.


• Dave Pease - Created the flyers that we posted around U of M and WCC. Defintely a future Board member.


• Scott Zischerk - Yet another future board member. Great ideas.


• Bill Wagner - He's the president - and my boss - who was there the for much needed advice.

and our Microsoft folks...

• Josh Holmes - Thanks for booking Matt when you were still program chair for AADND and staying involved in the group


• Drew Robbins - Thanks for the pizza!


• Jennifer Marsman - Thanks for getting Matt to the meeting on time.


• Gautam Reddy - We've only just begun using his expertise

AADND Announcement

Tomorrow is the first meeting of the Ann Arbor .NET Developers User Group of 2007 and we are kicking it off in style with Matt Winkler (see previous posts). But as a voracious reader of my blog, you already knew that. Let me tell you something you don't know. Following the meeting, we are going to have a get together at one of my favorite gathering places, the Ann Arbor Brewing Company
where we will be talking about how we can continue to grow our group. One of the things we want to discuss is how we can increase our student presence. I truly - strongly - feel that our group should reflect the community that we live in. And if you've ever been to the Ann Arbor, you know that students make up a big chunk of that population. So all of you students in Ann Arbor (and Ypsi, WCC students) make a point of being at the user group meeting and our influentials meeting tomorrow night. Remember, 6:00 pm.

I actually wanted to announce a our new points program, but it appears my good friend Dave Redding has already beat me to the punch as well as making a very bold promise. Go read his blog to find out how you can get your prize winning AADND logo tattooed on his arm.

Matt Winkler Speaking at AADND on January 10

That's right. Matt Winkler, Technical Evangelist for Windows Workflow, will be speaking at AADND on January 10, 2007 in downtown Ann Arbor, MI. You've heard me prattle on and on about WCF, but WF is equally cool - maybe even more so. This is really going to change the way you architect your applications. Come and check it out.

A little about Matt...
Matt Winkler is the Technical Evangelist for Windows Workflow. He was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, home of Budweiser, the Cardinals and toasted ravioli. After college at Denison University, he returned to work for a consulting firm and a software development firm. For the last few years he has been focused on integration and workflow technologies, so he's very excited about Windows Workflow, and looking forward to finding many different cool uses for it.