I decided to get BlogJet working for my Dev Connections posts…in honor of the Smart Client tutorial I’m giving Monday afternoon. In fact, if you are wondering why I (once again) went dark on posting to the blog for a while, well, I ended up getting an extra WCF slot at the conference, along with my 5 other talks (now 6!) and tutorial…so it has been busy busy busy as usual…getting ready to head to Vegas…after all, I have to try and enjoy some time at the black jack table too!

Speaking of black jack…maybe you saw in my latest post I lost bad in the Microsoft After Dark game…but it was for a good cause…I’ll do much better in Vegas I think, I’m more careful with my own money!

So, if you are coming to Dev Connections (I don’t see why you wouldn’t, it is now the biggest and best independently run Microsoft technologies conference out there!!!) here’s what I’ll be doing…come by and say hello…maybe give me some blackjack tips!

Here are my sessions at the conference…whew…this one is going to be busy busy busy…

Monday, November 7th

VPR203: Return of the Smart Client – What the heck do I do now? (1:00 PM - 4:00 PM)
Before the Web took over, developers spent their time designing, developing and building deployment strategies for rich client applications. End-users expected that rich user interface where tab-order and keyboard-only access was perfectly tuned, and perfectly tailored controls delivered functionality and ease-of-use. At first, the masses cringed at the less functional Web experience – and then ASP.NET came along making it incredibly easy to deliver a fairly rich experience, deployed to any Internet-connected PC. Now, we face a new paradigm shift. Users want it all: rich, user-friendly interfaces; no-touch deployment; automatic updates; offline work capabilities with applications that can later connect to central data stores. The Smart Client experience promises to deliver all of these requirements and more – but, we are entering a new phase where developers have to re-acquaint with best practices for rich client user interface design, and deployment and update strategies. They also have to learn how to handle the complexity introduced by supporting offline functionality, and hosting services for connected synchronization.  This session will review the concepts every developer should know to handle the return to the new thick smart client.

Tuesday, November 8th – MICROSOFT DAY!!!

Wednesday, November 9th

VPO357: Best Practice Approaches to .NET 2.0 Localization Architecture
When the .NET Framework was released, a new paradigm for localization architecture was born – simplifying some of the tedium of loading and managing resource lifetime, and selecting the best match for the user’s selected culture at runtime. Through IDE integration, robust assembly deployment and versioning features, and built-in support from localization class libraries, both Windows and Web applications were more easily localized. Built on this strong foundation, new localization features have been introduced with .NET 2.0 to bringing strongly typed resources, tighter IDE integration, and a much better localization story for ASP.NET applications. In this session you will be provided with a step by step, best practices approach to localizing your applications. You’ll learn how to control culture selection, how to work with XML resources and satellite assemblies, and see demonstrations of best practice deployment models.

VID304: Indigo and Security: Experience the Magic
The Indigo platform will unify our programming model for how components communicate: be they distributed or not, accessible beyond firewalls, or available through interoperable interfaces. Transport level and SOAP message security features, like other aspects of Indigo, can be enabled through XML configuration or programmatically through the Indigo API layer. In this session, you’ll learn the difference between single hop and message level security; how to apply security through endpoint binding configuration and behaviors; and see first hand how quickly you can secure your messaging layer. More importantly, you’ll see demonstrations that illustrate the amount of security goo that is encapsulated in the Indigo plumbing, in particular the elegance of its Web services security implementation which shields you from the XML that handles policy exchange, message authentication, integrity, confidentiality, and key exchange.

APF301: Performance Tuning and Monitoring your ASP.NET Applications
Sometimes the smallest details can make all the difference. This statement is true also of ASP.NET application performance. This session will provide you with a checklist designed to help you squeeze every dime of performance from your applications. You’ll learn techniques for reducing pressure on the garbage collector, best practices for state management, and how to reduce page load footprint. In addition, you’ll learn how to employ output and data caching mechanisms, leverage database caching, trigger batch site compilation, and avoid common pitfalls. Lastly, you’ll see how to leverage performance counters to baseline site performance and monitor statistics to meet service level agreements.

Thursday, November 10th

VID307: Designing Services with Indigo (Windows Communications Framework)
Services are the natural evolution of distributed components and RPC, providing greater possibilities for reuse and distribution from earlier component-oriented approaches. The Windows Communications Framework (WCF) introduces interesting possibilities for enterprise system design, specifically with regards to service design. Services are not RPC or Remote objects however they do solve the same problems. With WCF a service design approach applies to accessing functionality near or far, and satisfies the same implementation goals of Enterprise Services, Remoting and Web Services all in one. In this session you’ll see several examples of exchange patterns and transfer modes and see how to apply WCF principles to system design. You’ll learn how various WCF contracts and configurations can be applied to specific exchange patterns, how application-level messaging improves upon the parameter list approach, and see how common enterprise system design practices can now be more easily approached with the progressive service design and distribution support of the WCF.

ADX352: Beyond Drag & Drop Data Access: How to Decouple ASP.NET 2.0 Data Binding from Presentation
You can build data-centric Web sites in fewer steps than ever before with ASP.NET 2.0, but as always this can lead to poor design practices. This session first shows you how to leverage Server Explorer to quickly build prototypes of your data-bound Web pages, and subsequently shows you how to shuffle generated code into appropriate layers to promote decoupling and reusability, distribution and scalability, and reduction of maintenance overhead. You will see examples that employ the richness of the new GridView and DetailsView controls; learn best practices for employing data source controls to support decoupled two-way data-binding; learn how to employ data caching for performance; and techniques for storing and encrypting connection strings – all while maintaining a level of re-use and maintainability.

AGN351: 10 Essentials for a Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Application
Every ASP.NET application should be designed with a few essential requirements in mind. With the release of ASP.NET 2.0, developers need an updated checklist for constructing applications that follow some simple best practices. In this session, you'll be provided with 10 essential guidelines for  developing professional ASP.NET 2.0 applications, including best practices for page layout and design, navigation, error handling, caching, state management, authentication and authorization, configuration and encryption, component design and deployment, component security and sandboxing, and more. At the end of this session, you'll have access to samples that demonstrate each of these guidelines, with some reusable application templates to help you build secure, maintainable and professional ASP.NET 2.0 applications.

Feel free to ask questions about what I’m covering in more detail…or tell me what you are hoping to get out of any of these sessions you are attending…see you in Vegas babies!