Chicago MOSSCamp

Ok so we had Silverlight DevCamp and now we are onto a MOSSCamp. What is that you ask? Well let me tell you never having been to a *DevCamp before, I am not quite sure what to expect totally. It is considered to be an unconference. That is it is pretty much no rules, just kick back, drink beer and learn all about a topic. Ok maybe not drinking beer, but it is fairly laid back, come as you are type of event. In this case its MOSS 2007. Now I am stoked about this one and will be attending the event. Head on over to their registration site and get hooked up. Its guaranteed to be a great time. 

Basic Details

Date

Friday, November 9th

Time

11:00am ish – 5:30pm

Location

Clarity Consulting

1 N. Franklin St., Suite 3400, Chicago IL 60606

Register to Attend MOSSCamp

Please register to reserve your place at MOSSCamp.

 

-paul

Technorati Tags: MOSS , SharePoint , Chicago , MOSSCamp , DevCamp

TeamSpec review

Last night I had the opportunity to demo a new product coming from Personify Design called TeamSpec. Some of you may have heard of these guys as they also created a TFS plug-in for Outlook called TeamLook. Ok so I really wanted to put their new product through its paces. This tool plugs into Word 2007 and allows you to create and manage workitems using Word. It is just another way to show how the TFS API allows for some really cool extensions. The scope of the product is to provide a “rich project management requirement experience”. I believe that it will do that. I say will because the product is currently in a CTP/Beta mode so it is not completely ready for prime time. If you have not looked into this product and you feel that TFS is short in this area, then you really need to test drive the product. I will say that I was disappointed that I was not able to use a new template, or what they call a Skin, using the tool. The tool kept crashing on me and although it created the Skin, it never allowed me to use it in the document. Think of the Skin as the template by which you lay out your requirements in the Word doc. All in all it was a good demo, most of the functionality worked as advertised and the product was well received by the group. So much so that a few said that they would like to play with it in a more realistic environment.

So it seems that the folks at Personify Design are well on track to creating another great tool that will allow anyone who works with documentation and TFS to do so in a more seamless manner. At least the Requirements gathering can now take place in Word, where most folks will do it, and be able to push that right into TFS and eliminate the need to re-key all the info. I am really looking forward to the finished product.

 

-paul

Popfly beta and Mashup contest

I was notified by a good friend Dave Bost that Steve Ballmer had mentioned the open beta of Popfly at Web 2.0 today. Apperently there are having a Popfly and Mashup contest. This is a contest for the best Popfly creations. Dave is hoping that he can get a winner out of the Midwest district so those of you who may read this, ping Dave if your interested.

 

-paul

Technorati Tags: Popfly , Dave Bost , Bost , Web 2.0 , Mashup

IndyTechFest Wrap-up

Well the first annual IndyTechFest was yesterday and I must say that I am in total awe that the event went off without a hitch. I mean this was a day filled with World-Class speakers covering all sorts of topics. from SilverLight to AJAX, VSTS to WPF.The event opened the doors and 8:00 am and by 7:45 the line to enter was out the door and into the parking lot. The first 400 attendees received nice laptop bags filled with some cool swag.

The keynote was interrupted for a time being by none other than Buck Foley – Motivational Speaker. If you have never seen this guy then go to http://buckfoley.com/ and check him out.  

There were 5 tracks with 5 sessions in each. The only problem was trying to figure out where to go since all the tracks and sessions were so good. The speakers as mentioned were top notch coming in from as far as Hawaii. In between sessions folks could be found milling around or playing XBox on one of the three XBox setups or getting a chair massage or going to ChalkTalks.

I was happy to see that my session on the ALM in VSTS was well received and the folks had many questions. In fact they had to pull the plug and get me out of the room for the next presenter. I was really encouraged by this. I also had to chance to see friends speak that I have not see do so in some time. Guys like Bill Steele, Larry Clarkin, and Dave Bost.

 

The grand finally came when Josh Holmes from Channel9  CodeToLive came by on his way through town from Nashville, Tennessee to help close out the event. Check out the site and see what they are doing. There was also a ton of cool giveaways at the end including some XBox consoles and of course tons of books.

This event was really a great time and I know that next year we are going to be doing it again. I just want to personally thank all the organizers for there hard work and dedication to the event.

 

Speaking of VSTS…….

 Well its been a bit since I decided to write anything so here goes. October is going to be a month of talks for me. Tomorrow Oct 11th I am speaking at The Indianapolis DotNet User group(IndyNDA.org) on the Designers in VSTS. Then on Saturday I am going to be doing a presentation on ALM in VSTS at the First Annual IndyTechFest. This event is going to be a great time. 25 sessions, chalk talks, etc.. on all the latest and greatest technology coming out of Microsoft. The event is sold out with 400 attending. I am completely stoked for this one. The last talk is at the monthly IndyTFS SIG meeting. I am going to dive into Requirements Gathering with VSTS and TeamSpec. Team Spec is a product coming out from PersonifyDesign. This will be a nice change of topic for the group. Come check it out if your are around. http://indytfs.org/sig/Home/tabid/36/ModuleID/414/…

Back to IndyTechFest for a moment. The folks that are going to be attending are have having a little pre-fest party at a place called Chammps on Indy’s northside. I decided that I better get directions to this place (not like I cannot find it on my own) so I followed the “Get Directions” link they provided.  Check it out for yourself. http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?addtohistory=…

 I was a bit suprised to see that MapQuest puts Chammps somewhere in the Gulf of Guinea off the African coast. Now I am one travel great lengths for a good cause, but this is a bit much. Maybe Google will get me a bit closer to home and i will be able to attend after all.

Please if you are in Indy and planning on attending IndyTechFest, please come on by to Chammps 8711 N River Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46240.

 

-paul