Pgh .NET UG Meeting – Deep Dive into Atlas Controls and Toolkit — Building Applications

The next meeting for the Pittsburgh .NET User Group (Pgh.NET) will be on Wednesday, November 8, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and is presented in partnership with the International .NET Association (INETA). Jason Beres from the INETA speakers bureau will be our presenter.

Deep Dive into Atlas Controls and Toolkit — Building Applications
This session dives into the control details in the Atlas toolkit.  At the end of this session, attendees will have a full understanding of the data binding in Atlas, the Atlas Update Panel and other controls, such as the AutoComplete Extender.  In addition, the presentation will look at how all of the controls can be used to create business applications and “mash ups” using XML Web Services.

About Our Presenter
Jason Beres is the author of Teach Yourself Visual Studio .NET 2003 in 21 Days; the co-author of the Visual Basic .NET Bible and the C# Bible; and a contributor to SQL Server 2000: The Complete Reference and ASP.NET @ Work: 10 Enterprise Applications. Jason has been a featured speaker at Microsoft Dev Days, the largest regional developer-centric conference that Microsoft has each year.

Dinner and networking will run from 5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., with the presentation beginning at 6:00 p.m. The meeting will take place at Microsoft, 30 Isabella Street, North Shore.

Please RSVP to Council Events or 412.918.4229, so that we have an accurate count for dinner.

Thank you,

Jared Roberts
Director, Member Programs
Pittsburgh Technology Council
412.918.4243

Requiem for Brad Will

I found out today one of my fraternity brothers was killed in Mexico over the weekend.  Brad and I had rooms next to each other as freshmen, and we could talk through the hole in the wall for the radiator pipe at night (which annoyed his roommate to no end).  He had the greatest collection of Doors albums, and we spent hours jamming.  Later, we pledged the same fraternity, and lived in the house for the next couple of years.  Brad eventually went his own way, leaving the fraternity and Allegheny College.  We lost touch after that.  He went goodness knows where, and I went to Alabama for graduate school.

Brad’s easygoing nature often belied just how smart he was.  He was one of those guys who could instantly find a hole in any argument, but wouldn’t argue the point.  Brad was a good talker, and relished good, thoughtful conversation.  Instead of being an arguer, he’d lay out what he was thinking and why.  Sometimes, he and I saw eye to eye on issues, and sometimes we were polar opposites.  No matter, he was respectful of you, even when you disagreed.

It wasn’t much of a surprise to find out he was a videographer for Indymedia.  That just suited him perfectly.  The photo below is part of the story of his death at http://www.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/849305.shtml, and is a great image of Brad.  This was his thoughtful conversation look, and is a good way to remember him.  If you never knew him, this photo’s all the introduction you need.  There’s some more story at http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/feeds/ap/2006/10/29/ap3128352.html.

Brad Will

BADNUG Speaker Change

Mike Snell is being pulled away for a business meeting, but Geoff Tewksbury will fill in for him.  Geoff will be presenting an overview of the new features in SSRS 2005, and an overview of Windows Workflow Foundation.  Same time (6–8 pm) and same place (Communifax).

Orb and Treo 700w

I’ve heard of Orb, but wasn’t fully aware of its capabilities.  Seems
like a good way to access photos and such from your home PC, but if you have a
Media Center or record video to your PC, you can stream that to your Treo 700w
as well. 

Orb is both the name for the service and the software itself. You
install it on any Windows XP-based computer, and it transforms your computer
into a powerful solution for serving up your media from any browser, anywhere
– including the one found in your Windows Mobile device. The service was
initially fee-based at launch, but is now free and advertising supported. Orb
is made even more useful when installed on a computer with a TV tuner as I’ll
explain below, but will work fine without one.

Full story at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/articles/orb.mspx.

Orb also gets a mention in an episode of Hanselminutes (http://hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=11). 
If Hanselman uses it, it must be good.

Upgraded CleanTownUSA.com

is Pittsburgh’s favorite car wash.  It’s an amazing 16,000 sq ft facility, with two giant conveyor belts that move your car as a team cleans the interior.

The first website was a highly stylized design that provided a retro-futuristic feel, but took forever to load, and the navigation was not very user friendly.  It was also a pain to update, since every page was created by slicing apart Photoshop files and touching up the HTML in Dreamweaver.

To provide greater functionality, better navigation and quicker load times, we decided to use as the basis for the new website.  The included calendar, photo gallery and blog functionality are nice additions to the site.  Gift card sales are enabled by , and custom information forms are handled by XMod.  We compromised on the design to provide layout flexibility, and the default blue skin fit the company perfectly.

You can see the upgraded site at www.CleanTownUSA.com.

Welcome to the Hidden Network

You’ll see some changes to the skin in the coming days.  I need to get a better design anyway, plus I’ve joined the Hidden Network.  What is the Hidden Network?  I totally ripped off the following text from the website, but it’s the best explanation.

Hidden Network Defined

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, seventy-five percent of employees are seeking job opportunities at a different company. Thirty-five percent rely on tools such as job boards to find opportunities. The rest utilize their professional network of colleagues and choose from the opportunities that come to them. These “networked employees” rarely, if ever, look for a job on the market and represent the best of their profession. They are the Hidden Network.

Hidden Network Established

Hidden Network was established in 2006 by Alex Papadimoulis and his company, Inedo, LLC. Its goals are not revolutionary: help strong organizations find excellent talent. Its methods of achieving its goal are what truly set Hidden Network apart.

Hidden Network Accessed

Prior to the Hidden Network, top talent was accessible only to organizations with the financial resources to acquire it. The $20,000 fee assessed by many placement firms for a strong software developer is indicative of just how difficult this search truly is. The Hidden Network puts top-talent within reach by advertising job listings through a network of high-quality on-line publications (“weblogs” or “blogs”) written by professionals for professionals.

Why Blogs?

Professional blogs are quickly becoming the new venue for trade news and articles. The authors (“bloggers”) behind these publications are generally experts in their field who use their free time to write about their field. They are driven by the same motivation as their readers: a passion for their industry and profession. Our ad serving technology prominently places appropriate local and national job listings throughout our network of professional blogs.

Why Inedo? We Know Employers

We know firsthand how challenging it is to find good talent. Not only are we an employer ourselves, but one of our primary goals at Inedo is to help organizations develop software better. To develop excellent software, a company needs excellent people and Inedo works closely with our clients to find and assess candidates. We’ve found that the truly excellent candidates are the ones who are passionate about their work and keep up to date with technology through blogs and other publications.

We Know Bloggers

Alex Papadimoulis (the principal member of Inedo, LLC) is a well-known blogger. As the editor of The Daily WTF, Papadimoulis shares stories of poorly written computer code, poorly designed computer applications, and ignorant programmers with an estimated 300,000 readers. Papadimoulis is also the author of another blog where he writes about .NET and other technology topics.

DotNetNuke Tip: Change “Unit” to “Apt/Unit” in User Profile

When users register, the profile page asks for a Unit, right above the
Street.  A better label would be “Apt/Unit”, since this is the place to put
in an apartment number.  You can’t change this label in the
Manage Profile Properties, so you need to do a little editing.

There are at least 4 places you can change this text, but the only one that
affects the public view of a user’s profile is
~/admin/Users/App_LocalResources\Profile.ascx.resx.  Edit this file in a
text editor, find “Unit:” and change it to “Apt/Unit:”, then save it.  Your
registration and profile pages will now show the new label.

The label in the Manage Profile Properties won’t change (and I haven’t found
that edit yet), but your registration and user’s Manage Profile pages will all
show this change.

Fox uses Treo to break N.Y. plane crash news

I keep telling people how much the Treo 700w rocks, but here’s more proof:



Scott Wilder, a cameraman for the network, had been about 20 blocks away on another assignment when the crash occurred. Wilder ran uptown and reported live from the scene using a hand-held Palm Treo smartphone that uses the existing mobile network to transmit video to the Fox News control room. From there, Fox News sent it out live on TV to supplement other video being shot by local traffic helicopters



CometVision runs on a Palm Treo 700-series PDA via the Windows Mobile operating system. The technology is able to transmit video over non-3G networks, using much less bandwidth than would normally be needed, Comet CEO Howard Becker said.


Full story at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061013/wr_nm/treo_dc.