New Board of Directors Members Elected

The Board of Directors of INETA NorAm is happy to welcome a few new people. Paul Comeau was elected to the open spot as Treasurer and Julie Yack and Joe Guadagno were elected to Director positions. We'd like to thank all of those who participated in the interim election either by running for a position or for nominating such a well qualified slate of candidates.

Regional Speakers Program Continues To Grow

The Regional Speakers Program continues to grow. There are now nearly two hundred community-minded individuals available to be requested for YOUR user group meetings. When you need to fill in a speaker spot for a meeting, check out the list of people and their topics and make a request.
http://ineta.org/RegionalSpeakers/SearchRegionalSpeakers.aspx

For more details on requesting a regional speaker or signing up to be a part of the program yourself, get more information online at http://ineta.org/RegionalSpeakers/SearchRegionalSpeakers.aspx

Community Champions

Submissions should now be made for the fourth quarter.  Register yourself and let us know how you have been contributing to the user group community.  Or nominate your local champions for the Community Excellence award. This is a lifetime award designed to recognize outstanding individuals who, year after year, have gone above and beyond to lay the foundation and provide the structure for building our community and to keep it vibrant and growing. Submit your nominations today!  The deadline for the fourth quarter is 12/31/2009 for both nominations and champion submissions. 
http://www.inetachamps.com

Update: New offers have been added for INETA members from ComponentOne and Wrox and for user groups from Intertech. Check them out.

Two new pages have been added to the INETA website to serve as a clearinghouse for special offers to INETA members and user groups. The members page includes offers for training, components, conferences and books from several well known companies. The user group leaders page has offers for meeting give-aways and includes contact information for participating companies. If you know of other companies that would be interested in adding an offer to either or both pages, please ask them to contact us at noram.sponsorship@ineta.org. Note that unless the offer specifically states, there are no geographic limitations on these offers.  Be sure to check back often as new offers may be added at any time.

Check out the new pages for members (http://www.ineta.org/offers/default.aspx) and user group leaders (http://www.ineta.org/offers/leaderdefault.aspx).

Looking for a little free publicity for your free community event? Email Chris Williams with your event details (including: name of event, website, date, city & state) and he'll add it to the event listing at the bottom of his new, ongoing Embracing Community column in CoDe Magazine.  Just remember, this is a bimonthly publication and print media lead time is about 2 months.  Event submissions for Jan/Feb 2010 are already closed.  If you are planning something for the March, April, May 2010 timeframe, you have until late December to submit your info.

Special Event:  INETA BOF Community Roundtable 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 17, 2009 Join David Chappell, Scott Hanselman, Patrick Hynds, Fritz Onion, Miguel de Icaza, and Sara Ford for an open discussion on anything technology related. Carl Franklin will moderate the discussion and be recording the event as a .NET Rocks! show. PDC09 Birds-of-a-Feather @Lunch Featured Sessions Visit www.pdcbof.com Will Cloud Computing Change Your Life? Co-Hosts: Simon Guest, David Pallman, Aaron Skonnard and Michael Stiefel ASP.NET MVC – Share Your Stories from the Trenches Fear and Loathing in IT Security Co-Hosts: Patrick Hynds, Duane Laflotte and Chris Bowen

Birds of a Feather Sessions Claims-Based Identity  Host: Keith Brown Exception Management - Handling and Reporting Exceptions Effectively  Host: Paul Sheriff Should I use Silverlight, MVC, and Web Forms for Web User Interface Development? Host: Ben Hoelting and Todd Anglin Developers on Better Design, User Experience and Why It Matters Co-Hosts: David Kelley and Jason Beres Behavior-Driven Development vs. Test-Driven Development: What's What? Co-Hosts: Dennis Doomen You can find the Birds-of-a-Feather sessions in the online scheduling tool for PDC.  Stayed tuned to the PDCBOF blog (http://www.pdcbof.com) for announcements on more sessions.

Update: Two new Powershell for Developers presentations have been added to .NET University in October.

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.

St. Louis Coders 4 Charities

The first Coders 4 Charities St. Louis event was held by the St. Louis .NET User Group the weekend of October 16-18. Nine local charities had sought assistance with their web sites or other applications. Over 50 volunteers from St. Louis metropolitan area participated in the 48 hour event.  They kicked off the event on Friday evening with pizza.  The teams were formed and introduced to the existing applications from the various charities.  The teams planned and worked until midnight and returned bright and early Saturday morning to continue. On Sunday evening, the teams gathered together for a show-and-tell of their projects.

The charities were happy with their projects and the team members enjoyed working for a good cause and learning along the way. More details about this event can be found at http://www.c4c-stl.org/Home.aspx http://www.notsotrivial.net/blog/.

If you have an interesting community event report to share, contact us at noram.marketing@ineta.org.

Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4 Training Kit
The October preview of the Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4 Training Kit has been released. The content in this training kit has been tested with Beta 2 and is ready for you to use. Download: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit
Training Course on Channel 9
Channel 9 has launched an online learning center that will play host to developer focused training courses created by developers for developers.  Channel 9 has always been about giving direct access to the engineers and future technologies from Microsoft.  These videos and labs, with links to extensive training kits, allow developers to get started on hands-on-learning about emerging technologies at your own pace.  Explore Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 with a new training course on Channel 9 The developer evangelists who bring you the 10-4 Show are providing videos and labs for you to get familiar with .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010. This exclusive opportunity lets developers access free courseware online in a self-paced learning experience. The online training course allows developers to search for and browse the content without downloading the full training kit. Browse: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Course
How to Download and Install Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is here! In this episode of 10-4, Brian Keller takes us through downloading and installing Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 and Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server Beta 2. This time-compressed video will take you through all of the key things you need to know to get up and running quickly with beta 2. Watch: Brian’s 10-4 Episode on Channel9

Imagine Cup is a technology competition in which students are asked to create an innovative solution using our technologies to address the UN´s Millennium Goals: hunger and poverty, child health, gender equality, among other challenging topics. There are different categories they chose from: Software Design, Game Design, Web Design, IT Challenge, and Digital media.

At the end of this competition, students find Imagine Cup to be one of the best experiences of their lives, their careers are ramped up, and more importantly they immediately become users and advocates of our platform and tools. (You can listen to feedback directly from them: students and faculty )

Register on Imagine Cup and you´re in the run for the cash (and a Halo ODST). It´s simple, fast, and there´s no catch. The Imagine Cup student competition offers an exciting opportunity to gain real-world experience and boost your resume to stand out from the crowd. Change your life and the lives of others by solving problems and working with a team to design software, games, and web sites that help make a difference on global issues.

http://bit.ly/2BF2cx

Spread the word—there’s a contest for developers blazing trails with the .NET Framework and Visual Studio, Windows, Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server, or SharePoint.

We’re looking for interesting, powerful and unique solutions based on the latest Microsoft technologies. And the winners get their choice of a 15 day Galapagos Islands Adventure or a new Smart Car!

Two ways to win!

Judges Choice: Impress the panel of technology industry leaders and Microsoft gurus for the trip, the car, a home entertainment system or an internet tablet PC.

People’s Choice: Get friends, family and colleagues to vote for your solution. Receive the most votes and win one of three ARCHOS 320 GB Media Internet Tablet PCs.

Our current campaign site ‘Expect the Unexpected’ features some unique developers and their amazing solutions. Check them out at www.DotNETstories.com.

But we’re looking for more great solutions!!! Have you used .NET Framework to create an amazing app? Are you doing remarkable work in the market with a solution built with Microsoft dev tools? Give us the details and you could win a prize worth US$12,000. The contest launches Wednesday, November 4th so submit your story at www.myDotNETstory.com and spread the word!

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

PDC09

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 for your conference pass at www.microsoftpdc.com!

CodeMash

Registration is open for CodeMash. What is CodeMash? CodeMash is a unique event that will educate developers on current practices, methodologies, and technology trends in a variety of platforms and development languages such as Java, .Net, Ruby, Python and PHP. CodeMash will take place in Sandusky, OH, at the Kalahari Resort January 13-15, 2010. Early bird pricing of $175 is available until November 30. http://codemash.org

Upcoming Conferences

DevConnections	Las Vegas	NV	11/09-12/09
PDC	Los Angeles	CA	11/17-19/09

Code Camps and Other Events

Desert Code Camp	Phoenix	AZ	11/07/09
Augusta Code Camp	Augusta	GA	11/07/09
Tampa Code Camp	Tampa	FL	11/07/09
Fairfield/Westchester Code Camp	Stamford	CT	11/07/09
Tulsa TechFest 2009	Tulsa	OK	11/07/09
Iowa Code Camp	Des Moines	IA	11/07/09
CMAP Code Camp Fall 2009	Columbia	MD	11/07/09
Tech Valley Code Camp	Albany	NY	11/07/09
SharePoint Saturday Philly	Fort Washington	PA	11/07/09
SharePoint Saturday Raleigh	Cary	NC	11/07/09
Chippewa Valley Code Camp	Menomonie	WI	11/14/09
SharePoint Saturday Cleveland	Independence	OH	11/14/09
SharePoint Saturday San Antonio	San Antonio	TX	11/14/09
Twin Cities Give Camp	Bloomington	MN	11/14/09
SharePoint Saturday Tampa	Tampa	FL	11/14/09
SharePoint Saturday Birmingham	Birmingham	AL	11/21/09
SharePoint Saturday Phoenix	Tempe	AZ	11/21/09
SharePoint Saturday Richmond	Richmond	VA	11/21/09
SoCal Code Camp	Los Angeles	CA	11/21-22/09