Sparkles : new challenges!

Today was my first working day for my brand new company Sparkles. I'm ready for the challenge and hope this will be the start of a new inspiring adventure! In the coming weeks I will also be working on extending the consultancy offering Sparkles will provide.

For now, it seems that the Sparkles Development Assessment will be quite interesting. I already got a few requests for this job and companies tend to like the fact that it's a short assignment that delivers a roadmap for the future to improve their current software development environment step by step according to their priorities.

The Sparkles training events are also getting attention in the community and the first registrations are coming in! Dino Esposito and Michele Leroux Bustamante are of course very well known names in the software development industry.

Community Update

Yesterday I was present at the VISUG session where Yves Goeleven gave a very good introduction about Domain Driven Design. It was good to see that so many people showed up for the session : 60 people in total! It seems that Domain Driven Design is getting the attention of more and more developers nowadays and Yves did a good job to increase the appetite of the audience. All slides can be downloaded here and a video screencast will soon be available at MSDN Chopsticks. Note that previous VISUG session can also be found at MSDN Chopsticks. Shortly we will also update the VISUG website with some new events later this year, so be sure to register on time or subscribe to our feed to be the first to know!

Only one week left to Community Day 2009! The third edition of Community Day was quickly sold out and I'm looking forward to be part of it! Great agenda with lot of good local speakers! Very promising! Gill Cleeren, one of the organizers of the event, published a blog post with all the prizes that will be given away.

using ASP.NET Membership in non-web applications

It's quite easy to use the ASP.NET Membership feature in non-web applications.

1. Create a new WinForms / WPF application
   
   
2. Import the System.Web assembly
   
   
   
   
3. Configure app.config instead of web.config to use the membership feature
   
   
   
   
4. Use the Membership class to query for information
   
   
   
   

VISUG Session on ASP.NET Membership, ...

Today I delivered the VISUG Back To Basics session on ASP.NET Membership, Role Management and Profiles.

Download slides and demo stuff here [zip file : 13MB].

I will also do a follow-up post to show you how to use the Membership features in non-web applications : for example WinForms, WPF, ... Some people do think that the features can only be used in Web applications. Not!

After being sick for a few days I didn't have the optimal preparation for this session, but I'm glad I pushed through and didn't postpone it. Maybe my voice wasn't always steady, but I managed to keep it going until the end! Next please?! No, not really. It has been extremely busy with all the presentations and other stuff that's going on. I need some time to recover and to focus on my new challenge : Sparkles.

VISUG : mocking session with Maarten Balliauw online

The last VISUG session about Mocking at RealDolmen with Maarten Balliauw is online at Chopsticks! Good stuff!

Community Update

• Next VISUG Session on April 29 : ASP.NET caching & State Management
• Mocking session on May 7 will take place at RealDolmen in Huizingen - capacity increased to 100 people!
• Domain Driven Design session is rescheduled to June 16 instead of June 18. Still some free seats!
• Community Day will take place on June 25 at Utopolis in Mechelen. VISUG will deliver 3 sessions at this joint user group event in Belgium.

Update : I will be speaking at the MSDN ALM Roadshow in Belgium next month. 3 sessions on 3 occasions ... Hope to meet you there!

MVP Team System + new career challenge

A mail in my spam-folder on April 1, 2009 :

Congratulations 2009 Microsoft MVP!

I checked and double checked and ... it's real! I'm rewarded with the MVP Team System award for my engagement in the community. Nice! Thanks Microsoft and all those who supported me along the road to this award! A while ago I started a dedicated VSTS blog (intovsts.net) and this may have pulled me through ...

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who are awarded for voluntarily sharing their high quality, real world expertise in offline and online technical communities. Microsoft MVPs are a highly select group of experts that represents the technical community's best and brightest, and they share a deep commitment to community and a willingness to help others.

Currently there are 26 MVPs in Belgium and I happen to be the only Team System MVP in Belgium.

Last month I also decided to leave Compuware and head for a new challenge in my career. More on this in a later post! Exciting times!