For those that have questioned the value of LinkedIn, it is about to receive a big boost - Microsoft Learning just announced they are going to be launching groups for Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCP, MCSE, etc). This is great news.

It is also just alittle confusing, considering that Microsoft made a huge investment in Facebook a few months ago. Why would they pick LinkedIn first? Facebook does already have a few Microsoft groups, like one for Microsoft MVP's, Silverlight Fans, Sharepoint Fans, etc, but for the most part they were created by the community. They should do the same with MCP's as well. The main difference with these groups is that only those that have achieved the respective certifications will be allowed to join the groups.

Either way, kudos for taking advantage of these tools to keep people connected and sharing!

http://blogs.msdn.com/trika/archive/2008/02/13/certified-on-linkedin.aspx

I have been in the habit for quite some time of still using the whois search by going to netsol.com (Network Solutions). For those that haven't read the Left Behind book series, there is a very similar and ironic twist to the "netsol" concept and it stuck with me.

Anyway, I just learned the hard way today, that Network Solutions is now registering domains that have been searched for via their whois tool.

I was doing some preliminary research on the replacement for this year's TulsaCodeCamp event, since I wanted to come up with something new, unique and maybe repeatable (hint). After seeing the available domain names and weighing the options, I went to register the domain I had picked using my usual registrar GoDaddy only to be informed it was no longer available.

I went back to "netsol" and this time when I searched it said "available here". Looking at their whois record and out of curiosity the whois record via GoDaddy, both said it was registered just today 1/29/08 by Network Solutions and even says "Available there".

Where is INTERNIC? This situation is only getting worse by the minute. Not only are there the lowest of the low, slimiest of the slime, cyber squatters who predatorily jump on a domain and put up nothing but a stupid search script. There's the registrars that charge exorbitant late fees (like 12x annual fees) to renew at about 15 days late, then when you don't bow to their demands, hold on to the domain for several years hosting nothing but the same stupid search scripts.

This is the one time I welcome some form of oversight, whether it be INTERNIC, the US Government, United Nations, somebody please end this. It is so very bad for the public, customers and the general internet populace.

I have become a big fan of Twitter. It helps bridge the gap between blog posts and IM. It's also a great way to keep people informed quickly and easily.

Of course, the very first thing I wanted to do was display the tweets on the various DotNetNuke sites I own and operate.

The XSLT transform that comes with DotNetNuke was pretty ugly when displaying the Twitter RSS feed, so I hacked up some modifications using Visual Studio 2008. It provides a great IDE to debug XSLTs. The only spot of this XSLT that will need tweaking for you is the TimeZone Offset (tzOffset) variable. I wanted it to display my tweets time based on my time zone CST.

Feel free to modify this to your hearts content. Let me know if you come up with any cool changes! Have fun! (You can also download it via: http://www.davidlwalker.com/Portals/1/twitter.xsl)

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform>
  <xsl:output method="html" indent="yes"/>
  <xsl:template match="rss/channel">
    <xsl:for-each select="item[position() &lt; 11]">
      <div class="twitterEntry">
        <p>
          <a href="{link}">
            <xsl:call-template name="getDate">
              <xsl:with-param name="dateTime" select="pubDate" />
              <xsl:with-param name="tzOffset" select="-6" />
            </xsl:call-template>
          </a>
          -   <xsl:value-of select="substring-after(title,': ')" />
        </p>
      </div>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template name="getDate">
    <xsl:param name="dateTime" />
    <xsl:param name="tzOffset" />
    <xsl:value-of select="substring($dateTime,9,4)" />
    <xsl:value-of select="substring($dateTime,6,2)" />
    <xsl:text>,</xsl:text>
    <xsl:value-of select="substring($dateTime,12,6)" />
    <xsl:variable name="orighour">
      <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="(number(substring($dateTime,18,2))+number($tzOffset)) &lt; 0">
          <xsl:value-of select="(12+(number(substring($dateTime,18,2))+number($tzOffset)))+12" />
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:otherwise>
          <xsl:value-of select="number(substring($dateTime,18,2))+number($tzOffset)" />
        </xsl:otherwise>
      </xsl:choose>
    </xsl:variable>

    <xsl:variable name="hour">
      <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="$orighour &gt; 12">
          <xsl:value-of select="number($orighour)-12" />
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="$orighour = 0">
          <xsl:value-of select="'12'" />
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="$orighour = 12">
          <xsl:value-of select="'12'" />
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:otherwise>
          <xsl:value-of select="number($orighour)-12" />
        </xsl:otherwise>
      </xsl:choose>
    </xsl:variable>

    <xsl:variable name="ampm" >
      <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="$orighour &gt; 11">
          <xsl:value-of select="' PM'" />
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:otherwise>
          <xsl:value-of select="' AM'" />
        </xsl:otherwise>
      </xsl:choose>
    </xsl:variable>

    <xsl:value-of select="$hour" />
    <xsl:value-of select="substring($dateTime,20,3)" />
    <xsl:value-of select="$ampm" />
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Our Microsoft Developer Evangelist, Chris Koenig, just announced it on his blog - DallasTechFest will be May 3rd 2008.

Yet another city is destined for the inevitable world domination of TechFest.

All signs point to some big numbers in 2008. Since all the events have been very successful so far (TulsaTechFest, VancouverTechFest, HoustonTechFest, IndyTechFest and AlbertaTechFest), it would seem logical they will repeat next year as well. Thereby, doubling the number of TechFest events. I am proud to say TulsaTechFest is a trend setter.

I think we should all let John Kellar (Founder and Chairman of Nashville's devLink and before that Co-Founder of Little Rock's TechExpo) that the answer to his twitter "should there be a devLink 2008" is a resounding yes and no. NashvilleTechFest has a nice ring to it, eh?

This post really should have came before my TulsaTechFest.com post chronologically, but I already had that one prepared, so I picked the lowest hanging fruit first.

I had the opportunity to speak at the first annual HoustonTechFest.com on August 25th, 2007. It was a very awesome event. Michael Steinberg and the team from the HoustonDNUG did a terrific job. I got to talk to Ben Scheirman, who I got to meet recently at the OKCodeCamp where we were both presenting again as well, fellow Commodore-64 starter Scott Bateman. It's always great to see Microsoft supporting these community driven events with the likes of Chris Koenig, Zain Naboulsi, Phil Wheat and of course Brad Abrams speaking.

It was very inspiring to see that the concept I began with TulsaTechFest in 2006 has started to spread into the larger cities. VancouverTechFest was the first thanks to Rob Chartier and Richard Campbell. They even started up a manifesto for it. Which we tried to follow, but we very successfully found that only having content on weekends doesn't appear to be as successful as the weekdays (see previous post) and below numbers.

My Windows Communication Foundation Presentation:

The thing that I find most astonishing is that even after a whole year of it's release, the .NET 3.0 Framework is still unheard of by many attendees to these types of events. Therefore, even though as a presenter I feel like Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is old news, since I have been studying and presenting on it for a year and half while it was still in Beta. I will just continue to bring the personal in-depth experience on the production usage of WCF in a high volume environments as well as consistently looking for the best way to present on the technology in easy to understand terms. With nothing more than the end goal of getting developers to start studying, learning and at least experimenting/playing with this and the rest of the .NET 3.0 Framework. Do I even have to say that these things have not changed much in the newly released Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 - .NET 3.5 Framework? The tools only continue to improve thanks to the Microsoft Patterns & Practices Team and the WCF Service Software Factory project, which Nov 9th released version 3.0 - Modeling Edition! Definitely download this and the 2.0 version and start seeing what interconnected application development can do for your enterprise solutions.

With good reason, I had to delay this post. I just happened to come across Bill Steele's post regarding IndyTechFest.com! It is amazing to see an idea start to benefit all these other communities! It's a good thing I started it with pure intentions - the contribution to the community, if I had been seeking ulterior motives I would have done things a lot differently.

Here's the events in a chronological order for everyone:

1. October 14, 2006 - TulsaTechFest 2006 - 20 tracks, 119 sessions, 60+ speakers, 650+ registered, 360+ attendees
2. November 14, 2006 - Santa Fe TechFest - details unknown, info from J. Michael Palermo Blog
3. November 15, 2006 - Phoenix TechFest - details unknown, info from J. Michael Palermo Blog
4. February 24, 2007 - VancouverTechFest - 4 tracks, 28 sessions, 25 speakers, 575 registered, ??? attendees
5. August 25, 2007 - HoustonTechFest - 7 tracks, 36 sessions, 29 speakers, 865 registered, 476 attendees
6. October 13, 2007 - IndyTechFest - 5 tracks, 26 sessions, 16 speakers, 370+ attendees
7. October 19 & 20, 2007 - TulsaTechFest - 16 tracks, 100 sessions, 67+ speakers, 870+ registered, 650+ attendees on the 19th, 400+ on the 20th
8. November 10, 2007 - AlbertaTechFest - 3 tracks, 18 sessions, 15 speakers, almost 200 attendees

If there hasn't been one already in your area, why not start one? There's just a couple major differences between a TechFest and a CodeCamp - TechFest can be any thing technology oriented, Microsoft Exchange, Sql Server, Data Security, Project Management, etc, where as a CodeCamp is typically "developer centric". A TechFest can have sponsorship, vendors, etc. - why not have the funds to provide bigger prizes, T-shirts and just an all around bigger event?

www.TechFests.com will be up shortly ( it is currently redirecting to TulsaTechFest) to be the one stop location for locations, dates and details on any and all TechFests.

This is my long over due post regarding this year's TulsaTechFest. I have quite a few excuses like the long hours I worked on the MOSS and WSS projects mentioned in my previous post. Instead of spewing those, I will just try and post once a night until I get caught back up. I'm sure I'll have to skip a few, but I should be able to catch up quickly enough.

Building off last year's success for the first annual event with attendance then of approximately 360 on the Saturday only event, this year blew the lid off. This was our first attempt at charging and making it a Friday and Saturday event. We received overwhelming sponsorship support that we decided to refund the 200+ paid attendees and make the event free to all again. This pushed our pre-registration numbers to over 800. Organizers expected the actual attendance to be either evenly split or higher on Saturday and were surprisingly shocked. While we are still awaiting exact final counts, what we have so far is 650+ checked in on Friday and 400+ checked in on Saturday.  While facilities cannot be booked until after the first of the year, we are already tentatively planning the dates for TulsaTechFest 2008 to be Thursday, October 16th and Friday, October 17th. We do still plan to include some content on Saturday, October 18th, but will probably consist of some deep dive training.

Lunch for 650+ people on Friday was an interesting feat and we narrowly squeaked by with the largest Domino's pizza order ever delivered at one time of 125 pizzas. We over compensated by ordering 175 pizzas on Saturday, then as we did last year, delivered the left overs to a nearby homeless shelter.

It was not surprising the event attracted so many people from surrounding states, considering we had 5 Microsoft employees presenting, over 15 Microsoft MVP's, with a total of 69 speakers, and 100 sessions. Details can still be found at www.tulsatechfest.com and details from the 2006 event can now be found here: 2006.tulsatechfest.com.

My blog has been silent for longer than I would have liked, but for good reason. My announcement is now 4-6 weeks (at least) delayed, but we have pushed IMHO the largest public MOSS (Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server v3.0 2007) site live. FanU.com is a social networking site for collegiate football and basketball fans with a ton of unique features. Everyone who signs up has the ability to blog, upload photos and videos, plus bomb and praise others. We are still adding features, like forums, points (achieved through using the site) and games.

We put together an excellent team of 7-9 developers (with limited or no prior experience with Sharepoint) and pushed version 1 of the site in 3-4 months. They did a terrific job, as well as the designers and everyone else on the team.

Just two weeks ago now, we launched our second site using Sharepoint. This time using WSS (Windows Sharepoint Services v3.0 2007) - www.coxhelpcenter.com. If you are Cox Communications customer in the Oklahoma area then go there for your first level technical support questions and have them answered by the Virtual Cox Representative. They are pilot testing it in our area. If it achieves their goal of reducing the number of help center calls, they will increase the regions covered. This form of virtual interaction is a speciality of my employer www.winnercomm.com. They pushed their first one a few years back for www.NTRA.com as a Virtual Q & A (http://www.ntra.com/ntrau_index.aspx).

Microsoft has a survey regarding the features you want to see in the next update to the Visual Studio Class Designer! So provide it to them and help shape the future of this awesome tool by using the survey located here.

If you haven't Registered yet at OKCodeCamp.com - do it now. Jason Zander - the General Manager of the .NET Framework Division at Microsoft is giving the keynote and Raymond Lewallen has lined up an awesome Agile/ALT.NET event with a few extras!

It's already here, just nine days away!

They've got a great line up and not just because I'm speaking. Out of 10 speakers 7 are MVP's and then there's Jason Zander - the General Manager of the .NET Framework Division at Microsoft!

Register today - I'm sure it will fill up fast!

Load up and hit the road! It will be well worth it!

Here's a letter with some additional details I just received today from the OKCPro.NET President and OKCodeCamp Director - Raymond Lewallen:

First and foremost, I want to thank those who have already registered and will be attending. I also want to thank our platinum level sponsors for helping to make this event possible with a great lineup of top-notch speakers!

Also coming in as sponsors so far are FarPoint, Wrox and Infragistics, all providing some money and some giveaways as well! Please consider these companies and what they do for our communities and offer for your professional needs.

I hope this email finds you all well and enjoying your summer!  Its finally quit raining here in Oklahoma City and the sun is shining and the weather is in the mid 90s, so its feeling like summer time finally!

We have some awesome giveaways.  Over 2 dozen books, Vista Ultimate, Office Ultimate, Red-Gate ANTS Profiler, CodeRush, Refactor Pro and much more, including suites from FarPoint and Infragistics.  Don’t hold me to this, but their *might* be a Zune in the mix as well!

We were not able to work out a suitable or acceptable deal with the 2 hotels we approached about discounts.  The most we were able to get were $10 discounts, and you would have had to have reserved by the end of this week.

The Crowne Plaza hotel is where we recommend staying.  http://www.cpokc.com/  It has rooms for as little as $99 per night.  There are many, many other hotels in the area though.  Any hotel that is located on NW Expressway in Oklahoma City is going to be easy access to the code camp.  There is also 2 Marriott hotels, one called the Waterford (http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/okcwa-waterford-marriott/) and the other (http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/okcok-oklahoma-city-marriott/).  All very nice hotels.  Again, anything on NW Expressway in Oklahoma City will be easy access.

We are still looking and working to drive up the attendance, so please pass along the information about the code camp to co-workers and friends!

http://www.okcodecamp.com

Thanks again,

Raymond Lewallen

director@okcodecamp.com

I just saw from Nick Mayhew's blog, which he had found on Mark Harrison's blog where the UK Health Services just launched a new portal aiming to help the public better take advantage of their services utilizing MOSS 2007. I couldn't find any where that stated how long they and there technology partners had been working on the project.

This will not last long, my company is currently working on a very large site for a client that will definitely be ground breaking and news worthy. Sadly, I don't want to release any details yet. My blog readers will be the first to find out about it though! So stay tuned, the site is tentatively scheduled to beta launch August 15th 2008.

More news to come so stay tuned!

I have been meaning to post my two cents regarding Javier Lozano's recent blog post: Is LinkedIn a MySpace for the Business Community? I really don't see the comparisons. LinkedIn is really provides value, while MySpace, in my humble opinion, is of limited entertainment value only. MySpace is just a convoluted mess of trash, at least the small amount that I have even looked at it and quickly decided not to go back. LinkedIn however, has easily met my needs as an online address book and more. I had previously only had less than ten contacts, until after Tulsa Tech Fest 2006, when one of the few that I had added as a LinkedIn connection suddenly showed up as having taken a job with Infragistics about six weeks later. That's when I personally saw one of the great benefits of LinkedIn. As past coworkers and contacts move through out their lives and careers, it makes it so much easier to keep in touch with them! Somehow, I neglected to blog about this back then! In a nutshell, one of our speakers Ed Blankenship was up from Dallas to present with his co-worker Ed Kisinger on Visual Studio Team System where after the event he met up with fellow presenter Ambrose Little, they connected and shortly there after, Ed Blankenship went to work with Infragistics. I found out within a day or two at the most, thanks to LinkedIn. This shows me not only the value of LinkedIn, but also speaking, participating and attending any community event. You never know who you will connect with and where it could led! Potentially your dream job!

Planning is well under way for an even bigger and better Tulsa Tech Fest 2007! You will not want to miss it!

I am now an MVP for the Visual Developer - ASP/ASP.NET technical communities! My wife will tell you it was a lot of work. :)

Since everyone is limited to the same time constraints as everyone else, 24 x 7 x 365 - family, work and occasionally sleep, I am continually looking for ways to be more effective with my time and reach a larger community with as close to the same amount of time as I have been able to contribute  in the past.

I will be taking Julie Lerman's excellent and experienced advise (as she just hit MVP Year # 5!) and continue doing what I do and if Microsoft likes it I will find out next July. I look forward to working with her and every one else on the INETA Speakers Bureau of the next two years, as today also marks the official start of my role on the INETA Board of Directors as the VP Speakers Bureau, I am sure we will get the web site updated soon. Bill Wolff did an excellent job for quite awhile, and I found that I am also following in the steps of Scott Bellware as well!

Just this week I learned that I have the honor of having my session to present "Putting it all together with .NET 3.0: Presentation, Services and Workflow" chosen for VSLive! Austin (November 12-15), so I will see you there!

Jon Box recently posted this question on his blog - Where do I go instead of PDC? (Since it was canceled this year.) He lists the big events that are happening more and more frequently. One that he left out is the Heartland Developer's Conference $150 for Oct 18th & Oct 19th in Omaha, Nebraska. They consistently have what looks like an awesome event that I, as an event planner, use as a measuring stick to how well I am doing. Of course, he mentions DevLink.NET, which John Kellar and I have a healthy competition always cooking as well, after all, he and Michael Wiley are the whole reason I really pushed myself and went from "one of these days" to actually putting on the first Tulsa TechFest last year. They are always a tough act to follow.

In my opinion, to answer Jon's question would simply be that everyone should go to all of them that they possibly can. The very same applies to the normal .NET User Group meetings in your areas. It benefits everyone. The more that attend, the bigger speakers, more sponsors and prizes. Everyone benefits when everyone shares their individual experiences and perspectives.

OKCodeCamp is shaping up to be a great first time effort and not just because I'll be speaking there. As one of our members pointed out (just more friendly competitive fuel) - it should have been OKCCodeCamp -- which means it currently is okcOdeCamp. :)

Of course, I am partial, but Tulsa TechFest is going to rock this year. It only being our second one, those that attended last year will be amazed at the differences between the two events. Not wanting to give a whole lot of specific details away just yet, here's just a few:

As Jon mentioned, Jason Zander - General Manager for the .NET Framework will be delivering the very opening keynote.

Sean Alexander - Director of Microsoft Silverlight

Michael Scherotter - Microsoft Developer Evangelist from San Francisco

Markus Egger - Publisher of CoDe Magazine and President and Chief Software Architect of EPS Software Corp.,!

Wally McClure - host of the ASP.NET Podcast

Jeffrey Palermo bringing a "Party with Palermo Tulsa TechFest Style"

Bill Vaughn - SQL Server Guru of no equal and author of numerous SQL books!

Ambrose Little - Infragistics Codemunicator

The list definitely goes on and on.

Stay tuned to the web site for more updates very shortly. You can look at the details of last year's event and get an idea of what will be happening this year because a very high percentage of the speakers from last year have been contacting us ready to do it again. That speaks a volumes to the success of last year.

Oh, and Jon, we'd love for you to come and speak as well. :)

I just wish we could have one even half way close to us - Dallas even? Kirk Allan Evan's blog post makes it sound like they are marketing it to a small list of customers. I can think of a few who are deserving (like my employer!) :)

Zain Naboulsi rocked Tulsa! After presenting for four hours at the MSDN Event on Windows CardSpace and Microsoft AJAX. I had imagined that he would have been at least a little tired. But was the TulsaDevelopers.NET users group pleasantly surprised.

He came in and delivered an awesome presentation on WPF with some Silverlight thrown in. He did an excellent job of incorporating the latest and greatest like Expression Blend. He also brought to light the fact that as developers we need to not get so comfortable in the new found user interface capabilities that WPF provides and be sure to continue digging deeper. We need to continue growing our knowledge of the underlying architecture at least as much as we always have - does anyone remember bitblts and all the other crazy graphical hacks that we have had to do in the past?

So, fair warning OKC. When Zain comes to do your MSDN Event on Thursday you are in for a real treat!

He kept everyone excited and interested through out the whole day!

Michael  Scherotter was definitely an awesome add to Microsoft's Silverlight team! Check out some of the awesome things he's done in the past with XML/XSLT and what he's working on now with MindJet's MindManager XML export and XSLT transformation to XAML in a post he called "Create a Silverlight Map". - Very awesome stuff! Plus, don't just be a spectator - join in the fun, he just added a Groove workspace on the project!

You must check out his Silverlight Ribbon UI for web sites demo - www.xmldocs.net be sure to hit the Test tab and see the RSS feeds group! Very awesome.

Synergist : Why XML in Silverlight is Significant