Working with data is core to what we do as developers. With the release of the Microsoft SQL Azure Database cloud offering, developers have a new set of options and features that make it possible to take full advantage of the scalability and availability of this platform. In this session, we take a look at what SQL Azure means for developers and show how to create and manage a database in the cloud. We also explore the tools and the practices for using the tools.

This presentation will be an interactive session covering dimensional modeling as taught by Ralph Kimball. We’ll talk about what makes up a dimensional data warehouse, including fact tables and dimensions. We’ll compare a star schemas with a snowflake schema, and talk about what makes a conformed dimension. This will be mainly a whiteboard talk with few if any PowerPoint slides. I’ll expect lots of discussion and interaction with the attendees. Towards the end, we’ll break up into small groups for a hands-on exercise in dimensional modeling.

Relational databases have dominated as the solution for data storage and retrieval for decades in application development. But, all along in the fringe and recently rising to popularity are a whole class of alternatives. This session covers the range of technologies that are going under the banner NoSQL (Not Only SQL). Find out what makes these different from the SQL database systems you're probably more used to and where they fit as solutions and whether something like RavenDB, DB4O or MongoDB might work for your next project.

You know Open Data Protocol or OData. It’s a Web protocol for querying and updating data that provides a way to unlock your data and free it from silos that exist in applications today. OData does this by applying and building upon Web technologies such as HTTP, Atom PublishingProtocol (AtomPub) and JSON to provide access to information from a variety of applications, services, and stores.

 SELECT Opinion FROM Presenters WHERE PersistanceOptions IN('SQL','NOSQL') AND Presenters.TwitterHandle IN('@bphogan', '@jwynia')

The Managed Extensibility Framework ships with .NET 4 and Silverlight 4 and is heralded as a way to build extensible applications. Come to this talk to discover some beyond-the-basics scenarios you can enable using MEF and Silverlight 4. We will cover runtime Recomposition, Export Providers, Portable Assemblies, and much more.

 We've come a long way since the DOS command prompts when they were the most popular way to interact with your computer... Once the mouse went mainstream in the 1980s, we started interacting with our computers in a whole new way. I believe that multi-touch is the next big step in our user experience with machines. Microsoft has given us development tools and libraries to build engaging user experiences for our applications. Manufacturers are shipping devices with multi-touch features built-in. For my presentation, I'm going to talk about the touch interfaces on Windows platforms including Windows 7, Windows Phone, Zune HD, and .NET Micro Framework. I'll show you how to write code to access the touch events in your .NET applications.
 

Over the last few years the spectrum of development tools and technologies, especially in the Microsoft world, has expanded into every aspect of business, government, and domestic life—even into the complicated depths of the entertainment world. With such an array of choices for developers and decision-makers, many practitioners have become overwhelmed and confused by the choices, and are unsure of where to start, where to focus, what skills and tools are important today—and more importantly what investments will remain relevant over the next few years. This session will help attendees understand why the strategies and core concepts of Microsoft’s Silverlight platform still remain central, and provide real world direction and development expertise for the road ahead.

This is a presentation from a developer in the trenches of Azure and how the platform/services were leveraged to provide a scalable, reliable, robust commercially available application. In this discussion:

· Lap around Azure

· Lap around 3M's Visual Attention Services

· How VAS uses Azure

- Why VAS uses Azure

· Q/A

Cloud computing is going to make a significant impact on IT. It’s only a matter of time. The question is, "Are you ready for the cloud?" In this session, we’ll take the first steps toward finding an answer. We’ll explore the primary cloud platforms (Microsoft Window’s Azure, Amazon’s EC2, and Google’s App Engine). We’ll look at the features of each platform and how they stack up (or don’t) against one another.

Microsoft recently shipped version 1.0 of the Dynamic Language Runtime that allows dynamic languages to be implemented on the .Net Framework.  One of these languages is Ruby.  In this talk Keith will provide an overview of Ruby, Dynamic Language Runtime, IronRuby, and Rails. He will provide examples on how you can use IronRuby with Ruby specific tools such as Cucumber to perform BDD style automated UI testing, as well as how you can use IronRuby on the .Net Framework including Windows Phone 7.
 

Inversion of Control aka Dependency Injection is a major technique in software design. This discussion will cover what it is and how it works, with examples in Java. We’ll talk about Spring the main IOC container for Java, and the implications for test driven development and design patterns. We’ll finish up with a real world example that illustrates the power of this technique.

Have you ever felt like your day job just might not be for you? In this session, Avonelle Lovhaug will cover all the basics that you need to know to start your own freelance programming business. You'll learn how to find your perfect client, some non-sleazy marketing techniques, and how to get paid what you're really worth. We’ll also cover setting rules and boundaries for your business, and some ideas for regular income that can help you to avoid the feast or famine cycle that plagues most freelancers.

If you’re a new agile project manager, Scrum Master or just a developer interested in running your next project with agile/Scrum, don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to get your project started on the right track. This session will introduce how to conduct an Agile Planning Workshop using a step-by-step approach that has proven successful on many real world projects. While all projects are unique the techniques you will learn in this session will certainly help anybody starting a new agile project.

"Speed is not just a feature of Web Applications, it is the #1 most critical feature"

- Fred Wilson Venture Capital Investor www.avc.com

Analyzing and Improving the performance of your app is no longer something you can defer 'until it hurts'. Improving your performance can drastically reduce costs, increase user acquisition and retention, and make the difference in success between you and your competition.

This talk will cover the philosophies and tools in play in today's landscape, and go over the essential components of a Performance Checkup including page load performance, javascript, app server performance, and database fundamentals.

Questions you'll be able to answer after attending this talk:

1. What is our average response time and average throughput?
2. What are our Yslow/Page Speed scores? (how do we compare to others in our industry?)
3. Where does the system spend most of its time?
4. Do we need to Scale up, or Scale out?
 

 You’ve learned how to get set up to develop for the Android platform and how to publish an app. Eclipse is all ready to go and you’ve got a killer idea. Now what? In this session, we will talk about many of the key concepts you will need to understand to develop good applications for the Android platform. We will discuss concepts such as layout, styling, asynchronous tasks, lifecycle management, menus, dialogs and custom graphics. This will be a code-heavy session where we will be getting our hands dirty to illustrate these concepts in action.

The future of web development is upon us. Learn how to leverage HTML5 and CSS3 to improve your web applications and your users' experiences *right now*! In this session, you'll see how to use new markup, local storage, web sockets, graphics on the canvas, advanced CSS3 selectors and you'll also see how to gracefully degrade so that Internet Explorer users aren't left behind. We'll also discuss hidden benefits, such as improved accessibility.

jQuery is an extremely popular and fast growing Javascript Library that focuses on cross-browser support and simplifying the act of writing client-side scripting. This small Javascript library packs a big punch for HTML developers looking to add increased client-side functionality to their web sites. jQuery features simple HTML DOM element selection and traversal, event binding, CSS manipulations, animation, and AJAX functionality.

 This session will introduce how to develop applications on Windows Phone 7 with a focus on Microsoft Silverlight. Starting off with an overview of the Windows Phone Platform, attendees will be shown the how to get started with app dev using Silverlight. The session will also cover some of the built-in capabilities available to developers such as Application Bars, Isolated Storage, and cloud services like the Notification and Location Services.