On March 2nd, 2010 I will be speaking at the Central Maryland Association of .NET Professionals about the new Visual Studio 2010 IDE and the *goodness* it brings to .NET developers across the globe. I am really excited to be doing this talk at CMAP because I have never spoken at this User Group, and secondly because I get to share some exciting new features of VS2010 with the audience. I hope you can make it there; here is the abstract: A Sneak Peek of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Rumor has it that Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 is riding the nex... [More]

That’s right folks, it is time for another MSDN roadshow, this time focus on Windows Azure. The first events will take place next week, kicking off with Richmond on March 3rd. Read on for dates, locations, and registration links. [More]

Last week, the Microsoft Visual Studio team released a new Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4 Training Kit that works with the Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate. The training kit This includes 17 presentations, 22 Demos and 32 Hands-on Labs. I am also particularly excited to see content added for Visual Basic,  as well as Office, SharePoint and Application Lifecycle Management! This kit is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2010 features and a variety of framework technologies including: C# 4.0 Visual Basic 10 F#... [More]

Please note: This is a cross-post from my blog on DotNetNuke.com Last week I announced the release of the BETA of DNN Blog. Since then there has been a “silent” release of BETA 3, which included some fixes to bugs, and issues found by beta testers as well as some that we found ourselves internally. In this blog post I want to share a SQL script that we included in the Beta releases, one that received very little press, and as a result probably one that you never (rightfully so) paid attention to. The SQL script in question is located in the following folder: “Desktop... [More]

Please note: This is a cross-post from my blog on DotNetNuke.com Hello folks and happy new year! A ton of progress has been made on this module since my last blog post back in September ‘09. That being said, I know how you feel, and that unless you have a functional version running on your own DotNetNuke instance you are bound to be a skeptic. Hey, I sit on the other side of the fence too, when it comes to modules that I am not involved in -  so believe me, I understand. If it serves for nothing else though, at least this announcement should put your min... [More]

I can hardly believe that a year has already passed by… Exactly a year ago I was blessed with what I thought was the best start to the year 2009. Last January 1st, 2009 I received an email from Microsoft awarding me the Microsoft MVP status; I was psyched to the say the least. While the rest of 2009 is history, I am pleased and blessed to say that 2009  continued to be a good year for me and my family; I can only pray (and work hard) that 2010 will bring us the same joy and happiness that 2009 did. This January 1st, 2010 I am blessed with another great star... [More]

First, a big thank you to all the 70+ people who came out to CapArea.NET to watch this presentation. I hope that you enjoyed the event as much as I did. I posted the presentation slides on SlideShare for your viewing pleasure. I also posted them on my SkyDrive account along with the code samples; you can download them by clicking the folder icon below:     Finally, I do appreciate feedback, good and/or bad. Please feel free to let me know how I can improve on both this presentation as well as on my presentation skills using the comments section below. ... [More]

In the past 4 weeks I have given the Mash-Up Your DotNetNuke Using RESTful APIs presentation at the following three user groups: 10/21 - Capital DotNetNuke User Group (CDUG) 10/28 - Frederick MD .NET User Group (FREDNUG) 11/10 - Orlando DotNetNuke User Group (ODUG) Needless to say it has been a very busy couple of weeks, but I truly enjoyed speaking at each of them and will certainly consider doing it again. The topic was also popular and well received by many, so much so that Will Strohl of ODUG wrote a very flattering blog post about the event in Or... [More]

Get ready folks, the Microsoft Software Developer Network (MSDN)  has announced a new set of upcoming roadshows for the last quarter of 2009. The following is a list of locations and dates scheduled for the Mid-Atlantic region: 11/12/2009 – Pittsburgh, Pa 12/1/2009 – Harrisburg, Pa 12/3/2009 – Reston, Va 12/8/2009 – Roanoke, Va 12/10/2009 – Malvern, Pa The MSDN “Mid-Atlantic” Roadshow is piloted by G. Andrew Duthie, Dani Diaz, and Dave Isbitski and they are great events for learning about what Microsoft “is up to” without having to trave... [More]

Earlier this year I decided to switch Blog platform partly in an attempt to force myself to learn something new. I chose BlogEngine.NET. I chose it over anything else in the blog-app-sphere because it is open source, and appeared to be amongst the most popular and mature. It also met my #1 requirement that it had to be based on the Microsoft .NET Framework. Soon after installing BlogEngine though, I realized that none of the included themes inspired me all that much. They all looked *ok*, but none looked quite complete to me.  A search for BlogEngine themes lead... [More]

On December 15th, 2009 I will be speaking at the CapArea.net User Group about the new Visual Studio 2010 IDE and the *goodness* it brings to .NET developers across the globe. I am really excited to be doing this talk, first, because I have never spoken at this User Group (which happens to be my home group), and secondly because it forces me to dig deep into Visual Studio 2010 to find some hidden gems that I hope to share with the audience. I hope you can make it there; here is the abstract: A Sneak Peek of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Rumor has... [More]

If you are a regular reader of this blog then you probably noticed that the design and layout has changed considerably. The fact is that the changes actually go much deeper than that, as I’ve gone as far as switching the platform entirely. I recently decided to explore other Open Source platforms, and the final choice of blogging platform chosen is BlogEngine.net. I will be sharing my reasons and thought process about this change (and others in the works for other application types) in another blog post. When moving a blog there are several things that need to fall i... [More]

As I sifted through my inbox for the VB-Insiders list emails the other day, I wandered how many of those VB MVP’s and insiders shared their thoughts, knowledge and random comments on Twitter. I decided to send out an email to the VB-Insiders distro asking everyone who had a twitter account, and who wanted to be listed on this Tweeps List to send it to me. The response, and you can see from the list below was great. (For the record, there were a few who still felt that twitter was pointless and a waste of time; I still cannot disagree with them 100% – w... [More]

Yesterday afternoon Hal Hayes and I were invited to speak at the SharePoint Technology Conference hosted and organized by the SharePoint User Group DC (SUGDC). The following is some information about the event: For two exciting days, you'll be eating, drinking,  talking and living Microsoft Office SharePoint  with Microsoft's Most Valued Professionals (MVP's) from across the country. There are tracks for developers, users, managers, and administrators. There will be time to network with some of the areas top employers where you will discover just how much ... [More]

While the first half of 2009 is almost behind us, there is a lot more community work left to get done. As I try to arrange my life-work-community schedule I see that I have quite a busy couple of months coming up yet. I am still waiting for responses from other community leaders and events such as the SDN/Open Force Europe, so I won’t list those here just yet. Meanwhile, here is what I’ve got lined up. 6/26/2009 Sharepoint User Group DC Session: Sharepoint VS DotNetNuke (3:00pm – 4:00pm) Prepare for the battle of the titans! Which platform is ri... [More]

Earlier this year the Microsoft Visual Basic team conducted several interviews with VB MVP’s. I just received an email from Lisa Feigenbaum that my interview was posted on the Visual Basic Team’s website. Check out the interview here and learn just a tad more about what I do, and why I LOVE VB. [UPDATE 6/27/2009] Other Resources: I’m a VB Blog Website (www.imavb.com) Visual Basic Team’s website Lisa Feigenbaum’s Blog My Interview

On June 26th, I will take the stage once again at the Regional SharePoint User Group. I will be joining Hal Hayes in a battle that from the looks of it may rival “David and Goliath”. The event topic is labeled as follows: Prepare for the battle of the titans! Which platform is right for you? Each one has its uses depending on the audience. If you are interested in watching this battle in real-time the register for this event and join us on June 26th between 3:00PM and 4:00PM. Here is some more information: For two exciting days, you'll be eating, drin... [More]

MSDN road shows are FREE events organized and managed by the Microsoft Developers Network to educate, train, and share knowledge with everyone and anyone interested. I particularly like this event as it is a one day event packed with lots of valuable information. I’ll be attending the event in Reston, VA on June 2nd. Here is what’s in store: AGENDA Session 1: Developing on Microsoft Windows 7 Building applications that are easy to use, visually appealing, and offer high performance is a challenge that developers face every day. Innovative applications can greatly i... [More]

I was recently working on implementing Twitter integration features to the DotNetNuke Blog Module (I’ll write up the details about these features in another blog entry) when I quickly ran into the requirement of having to shorten the blog entries’ URLs. As you may or may not know, Twitter requires that messages be less than 140 characters in length and when you include a link and a title, among other things, character real estate  quickly becomes precious. As it turns out, there are several services out there that provide just this service, for example TinyURL.c... [More]

Yesterday I wrote about how the Microsoft P&P folks released a QuickStart and Tutorial in Visual Basic, and today I happy to say that the Silverlight team has followed suit by adding Visual Basic code samples to their toolkit in the March 2009 Release. Here is a quick blurb from their announcement: The Silverlight Toolkit March 2009 release is enhanced with Visual Basic source code for both Silverlight 2 and Silverlight 3. The Toolkit is a collection of controls, components and utilities made available outside the normal Silverlight release cycle. It includes f... [More]

Traditionally Visual Basic has been missing from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices’ (P&P) QuickStarts and tutorials. The P&P team has received lots of feedback on that and I am pleased to say that they listened. The P&P team, has now released VB versions of the QuickStarts, Hands-On Labs, and How-to Topics! The first VB P&P release is Visual Basic QuickStarts and How-to Topics for the Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight - February 2009 - English This download is provided to help the Visual Basic developer use the Composite App... [More]

It’s about time I wrote a little bit about my experience at my very first MVP Summit, so here I am. First of, so much went on, and so much was learned, that I could not possibly cram everything into one single blog post… well I could, but then it would be too tedious for me to write and for you to read. So what I plan on doing is to write a series of blog posts, each about a specific event that I felt was worthy of a post. The first in the series is about the VB-Insiders Party. The VB-Insiders party (oh, and everyone was welcome to attend, by the way, not just VB’ers... [More]

At last month’s Capital DotNetNuke User Group (CDUG) meeting we had the pleasure of having Tom Kraak give us a great presentation on Search Engine Optimization with DotNetNuke. Tom took the train down from his home town in Connecticut just to make the event – thank you Tom! Tom also accepted my invitation to spend the night at my home, but little did I know it would turn into an interview, and a long night! Tom and I share quite a few things in common, the most common one being our passion for DotNetNuke and Technology. The outcome of our conversation is a transc... [More]

I am very pleased to announce yet another exciting Capital DotNetNuke User Group (CDUG) event. Next week, on Wednesday February 18th, 2009, Seablick Consulting’s very own Tom Kraak will be driving down from Connecticut to give us an Intro to Search Engine Optimization with DotNetNuke. Here is a quick abstract and bio: Database-driven websites and content management systems such as DNN are traditionally labeled as "hard to optimize" or "outright bad" for search engines by many “SEO experts.” Don’t believe the hype! Explore how the basics of... [More]

I am pleased to announce the publication by Wrox Press of Wrox Blox Done in 60 Minutes:  Building a Custom DotNetNuke Membership Provider by yours truly. In this publication, I put down into more detail the topic which I presented at last year’s OpenForce08 / DevConnections conference. In this eBook (Wrox Blox) I demonstrate how to build and configure the DotNetNuke (DNN) Membership provider without modifying any core DotNetNuke (DNN) code.  By reading this publication you will soon see what a powerful tool this can be for gaining control over the DNN mem... [More]