The Metropolitan Centre (in the Grand Lecture Theatre)

333-4th Avenue SW

Calgary, Alberta

Take your queries to the next level! This session focuses solely on advanced querying techniques to get the most out of your SQL Server. You’ll see a series of real world examples to extract data from your databases in ways you’ve never seen before. Techniques demonstrated include an ultra-fast way to do crosstab queries in SQL Server, running totals and ranking. Along the way you’ll get some insight into how SQL Server works and the new capabilities in SQL Server 2005.

The Metropolitan Centre (in The Grand Lecture Theatre)

333-4th Avenue SW

Calgary, Alberta

Scott Hanselman heads the DasBlog Open Source project along with Omar Shahine, following in the footsteps of Clemens Vasters and his dramatic modification of the BlogX engine. DasBlog is now on version 1.8 and is arguably the most successful ASP.NET blogging engine for the single user. DasBlog is now the work of many folks over many years and while it has some very hairy sections of code, it's full of design techniques and reusable components that you can use in your work today. In this talk Scott will cover creative use of HttpModules and HttpHandlers, using background threads within ASP.NET, internationalization, caching, skinning, creating a macro language, Web Services that are more than SOAP, as well as other techniques that transcend blogging. Did I mention the code is all free?

Please note pre-registration is required for this event.

Please arrive early as seating is limited!

The Metropolitan Centre (in the Grande Lecture Theatre)

333-4th Avenue SW

Calgary, Alberta

Smart Client Application Development & Deployment

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 greatly simplifies the development and deployment of smart client applications targeting both the Windows and Microsoft Office platforms. The smart client application is characterized by simple deployment, access to the application in network connected and disconnected states, and a rich end-user experience at minimal developer cost. This session demonstrates how to create smart client applications using Visual Studio 2005, ClickOnce, and Windows Forms 2.0. ClickOnce is Microsoft’s new deployment technology which combines the power of Windows-based development with the flexibility of Web-based deployment.

The central message of this presentation is that end-users and developers alike prefer software that provides a rich user experience with easy to access features and updates—software that enriches and simplifies the user’s experience in the most natural way for the task at hand. Supporting themes are rapid application development as well as a natural maintenance cycle, including maintenance and updating of tool-generated code such as typed-datasets. In addition to the development lifecycle, another theme of this session is the deployment lifecycle with easy updates for subsequent versions of your applications to the clients’ machines.

Speakers:  Alberta .NET User Group 

Building Cutting-Edge Web Solutions with Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0

Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0 combine to form a rich platform for building, testing, and deploying state-of-the-art Web applications. ASP.NET 2.0 is replete with new features, from data source controls and master pages to membership and role management services—features that reduce the amount of code required to create a typical Web site by up to 70%. Visual Studio 2005 features an all-new Web development interface that speeds the development process while offering a rich design-time experience and seamless integration with Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

The primary goal of this presentation is to introduce developers to ASP.NET 2.0’s most compelling new features and to the Visual Studio 2005 features that support them. A secondary goal is to demonstrate some of the ways in which Visual Studio 2005 Team System can benefit Web developers, and to drive home the message that ASP.NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, and Visual Studio 2005 Team System offer a compelling upgrade to Visual Studio 2003 and ASP.NET 1.1. An important take-away is that these products are second to none when it comes to building scalable, high-performance, Web applications

Speakers: Calgary .NET User Group

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A THREE HOUR LONG EVENT!!!

Pre-Registration will be required for this event!

The Metropolitan Centre (Grand Lecture Theatre)

333-4th Avenue SW

AJAX is the latest buzz word in web development. With this seminar we'll cut through the hype and build some simple examples to learn how to apply AJAX for creative web solutions. The session will be focused on several coding examples including using AJAX with ASP.NET 1.x, ASP.NET 2.x, without a framework. In addition, AJAX related topics including usability, compatibility, pitfalls, and Internet Explorer 7.0 improvements will be discussed.

Pre-registration is required for this event.

Please arrive early as seating and lunch are on a first come first served basis.

The Metropolitan Centre

333-4th Avenue SW

In the Grande Lecture Theatre

This session of AB.NET will delve into the world of essential .NET Utilities.  The extensive range of tools available can quickly consume hours of time in research and testing before settling on the best tool for the job.  This presentation will simplify your search for the best tools by providing an overview, introduction and demonstration of several user friendly tools which will likely become mandatory components of your .NET developer tool-kit.  Topics to be discussed will include NUnit, NAnt and NDoc, source control tools, code analysis tools, build tools, debugging tools and essential coding tools.

Please arrive early as seating is on a first come first seated basis.

Pre-registration is required for this event.

The Metropolitan Centre

333-4th Avenue SW

In the Grand Lecture Theatre

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, code named Whidbey, is one of the most anticipated technical software releases of 2005. In this talk, we will review the major new enhancements to Visual Studio 2005, along with a hands on demo of these powerful new features. Whether you are a developer, architect or tester, there are great new features that promise to make your life easier and improve your productivity. Enhancements to Visual Basic .NET, C#, and C++ along with the core enhancements to the .NET framework will simplify and streamline your development process, regardless if you are developing client, server, mobile based or web services based solutions. Come learn more about Visual Studio 2005 to enhance your personal use of the Beta 2 release.

Pre-Registration is required for this event!

Please come early as seating and lunch are on a first come first serve basis.

The Metropolitan Centre

333-4th Avenue SW, Calgary, Alberta

(In the Grand Lecture Theatre)

We are fortunate to be able to add a bonus user group event to wrap up the AB.NET season! 

Senior members of the Microsoft Common Language Runtime development team will be in Calgary on June 15th and want to meet and have an interactive dialogue with the Calgary .NET technical community.  This event is an opportunity for the CLR team to pass on to us what’s up and coming in CLR 2.0, how to manage migration and coexistence of CLR 1.1 and CLR 2.0.  There will also be a discussion forum to allow you to ask questions of the CLR team – if you’ve scratched your head about the Common Language Runtime in the past and wondered “how come?” or “why not..?” here is the opportunity to ask!

In order to accommodate informational presentation and discussions the session will start at 11:30 and run for two hours, ending at 1:30.  We look forward to a strong turnout as the opportunity to hear first-hand and to share feedback with the CLR team is indeed unique.

Please arrive early as seating is on a first come first seated basis

Pre-registration is required for this event!

The Metropolitan Centre

333-4 Ave. SW

This event will consist of an overview of methods for interoperating between Java-based systems and .NET.  Including: XML document exchange, shared database, messaging, web services, and java to .net bridges. Also, we’ll spend the bulk of the time on a detailed analysis of the approaches and methods for web services-based interop between apps and systems running on .NET and other technologies.

Please arrive early as seating is limited

Pre-registration is required for this event

The Metropolitan Centre

333-4th Avenue SW (in The Grand Lecture Theatre)

An increasingly hostile, connected world requires bold new initiatives to protect your data stores. SQL Server 2005 is the first major release of SQL Server since Microsoft began its Trustworthy Computing.

As a server product and the foundation for business critical applications, SQL Server will have a whole new security infrastructure that will affect how you develop applications for it. Neither developers nor administrators can afford to be ignorant of security, and this new version of SQL Server changes how you handle threats in fundamental ways.

This session will look at what's new, what's easier, what's harder, and why you'll need to have a better understanding of these features than ever before.

Please arrive early as seating is limited.

**On-line registration is required for this event**

The Metropolitan Centre

333-4th Avenue SW

In the Grand Lecture Theatre

This session provides an overview of how you can use the Visual Studio .NET 2003 project templates provided by Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System to create Smart Client Solutions that use Microsoft Office Excel 2003 and Microsoft Office Word 2003.

This session will also show the value of InfoPath, how to build solutions and review many of the new features and managed code support.  Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 is a hybrid tool that combines the best of a traditional document editing experience, such as a word processor or e-mail application, with the rigorous data-capture capabilities of a forms package.

Please arrive early as seating is on a first come first seated basis

On-line registration is required for this event

The Metropolitan Centre (Grand Lecture Theatre)

333 4th Ave. SW, Calgary, Alberta

This presentation will focus on building Mobile applications using the .NET Compact Framework and SQL CE. It will demonstrate and review source code of a pre-built application. The session will explore:

• Using P/Invoke and why it is so important in the .NET Compact Framework
  
• Developing "Sometime Offline" Applications in the .NET Compact Framework
  
• Creating a Self-Updating .NET Compact Framework Application.
  
• Using Inheritance to create a Stream Interface Driver
  
• Consuming Asynchronous Web Services calls
  
• Best Practices for using SQL CE

Pre-Registration is required for this event.

Please show up early as seating is on a first come first served basis.

The Metropolitan Centre
333 - 4th Avenue SW
Grand Lecture Theatre

ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 (a.k.a. "Whidbey") will soon be released in beta - however, at this session of AB.NET, you’ll get an early insider’s preview of the developer conveniences and power within the next evolution of ASP.NET and Visual Studio!

Ryan Storgaard, .NET Developer Specialist at Microsoft Canada, will demonstrate some of the new features with ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005. Building powerful, scalable, and feature-rich Web applications has never been faster. Common and never-before-possible scenarios are now made simpler. With these new release features, developers will have the tools and functionality necessary for building the ultimate in web experiences.

Don't miss this sneak preview!

Our thanks to the sponsors for co-hosting this event!

Food is served on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Pre-Registration is required for this event.

The Metropolitan Centre
333 - 4th Avenue SW
Grand Ballroom

In this session of AB.NET, Mike will demonstrate and discuss the implementation of custom ASP.NET controls developed for the Pandell Liquid Intelligence technology platform.

The .NET framework ships with a selection of ASP.NET server controls used for building web applications. The standard framework controls range from straightforward mappings to standard HTML elements such as text boxes and buttons, to more complicated composite controls like the data grid, to complex validator controls that adapt to browser capabilities and render HTML as well as client-side script.

Often, developers have a need to deliver complex user-interface controls. These controls can be implemented using standard framework controls, or, by building custom ASP.NET controls. Pandell has focused on the approach of building custom controls for core user-interface elements of the Liquid Intelligence platform. These controls will be demonstrated and discussed, and lessons learned during the development and testing of these controls will be shared.

Our thanks to the sponsors for co-hosting this event!

Food is served on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Pre-Registration is required for this event.

Metropolitan Conference Centre - Grand Lecture Theatre
333 - 4th Avenue SW
Calgary, Alberta

Join us for the upcoming AB.NET event, Exploring ASP.NET Security.  The AB.NET User Group is delighted to have Doug Seven, an INETA speaker, present at this special 2-hour session.

Exploring ASP.NET Security, Part I: Preventing Malicious Input
Discover some of the more common ways that a malicious user can exploit security holes in your application. In this session, you will learn the basic terminology related to malicious Web application attacks. You'll learn how to discover and test for security vulnerabilities in your own applications, and how to close the holes. You'll learn how to prevent hackers by attacking your Web site like a hacker. Code will be presented in C# and will be available for download.

Exploring ASP.NET Security, Part II: Authentication and Authorization
Explore the authorization and authentication capabilities of the ASP.NET Framework. In this session, you will discover the basic authentication and authorization mechanisms in ASP.NET. You'll learn how to enable the easiest authentication, Windows Authentication, as well as the most common, Forms Authentication. From there you will learn how to enable authorization through the use of configuration files, as well as role-based authentication where the user credentials are stored in a database. Code will be presented in C# and will be available for download.

Pre-Registration is required for this event!

Fifth Avenue Place Conference Room

Suite 202, 420 2nd Street SW

Calgary, Alberta

In this session of AB.NET, Ryan Storgaard of Microsoft will be building upon the earlier AB.NET presentation “Business Integration: Platform Interoperability Using Web Services” by discussing Web Services Enhancements.

When Web Services first emerged as a truly interoperable way to communicate between disparate systems, many believed there were some key features missing. A Granular security model, the ability to route soap messages, and the ability to add binary attachments to the SOAP message were a few of these concerns. In addition, there was apprehension that each of the vendors in the Web Services space would create their own solutions to handle these problems and, therefore, break the best part of web services—interoperability.

Web Services Enhancements (WSE) are a series of specifications that are jointly authored by the major Web Services vendors to provide a standard approach to routing messages, ensuring reliable delivery and coordinating distributed work using compensating transactions. In his presentation, Ryan will provide an overview of Web Services Enhancements, detail why WSE is important to developers, and provide examples and demonstrations to illustrate how developers can start working with Web Services Enhancements immediately.

Fifth Avenue Place Conference Room
Suite 202, 420 - 2nd Street SW
Calgary, Alberta

In this session of AB.NET, James will explore the extensive Microsoft .NET Framework Class Library. The .NET Framework provides a rich set of interfaces, as well as abstract and concrete (non-abstract) classes. The .NET Framework types are the foundation on which .NET applications, components, and controls are built. James will give you an overview of what functionality the classes offer, as well as demonstrations showing how you can leverage these thousands of classes with little work. During his presentation, you'll witness how the .NET Framework truly simplifies application development!

Registration for the event starts at 11:30 am, please come early as seating and lunch are on a first-come, first-served basis.

Metropolitan Conference Centre
(Grand Lecture Theatre)
333 - 4th Avenue SW
Calgary, Alberta 

Corporations frequently need to send critical information to customers, partners, and employees in a timely manner. Microsoft SQL Server Notifications Services and .NET Alerts provide a framework to meet this critical communication need. Effective notification of target events will allow organizations to provide more tailored and timely services to customers. As well, through the use of SQL Server Notifications Services, organizations can make employees more effective by providing them with the information they need, whenever and wherever they need it.

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Notification Services provide organizations with a high-performance platform for building scalable notification applications which generate customizable messages for specific information requirements. The information and event notification users receive can originate from a variety of external sources, such as external data feeds and internal business systems. In addition to standard email notification, messages can also be delivered to various mobile devices, including cellular phones and Pocket PCs via .NET alerts.

Register for this upcoming AB.NET session to learn more about this exciting technology and how it can be used to your organization’s greater advantage.

The Metropolitan Centre
(Grand Lecture Theatre)
333 - 4 Ave. SW
Calgary, Alberta

The Metropolitan Centre
(Grand Lecture Theatre)
333 - 4 Ave SW
Calgary, Alberta

The Metropolitan Centre
(Grand Lecture Theatre)
333 - 4 Ave. SW
Calgary, Alberta

In this edition of AB.NET, Grant Albrecht of Quadrus Development Inc. will be presenting on "Charting a Course of Learning through .NET". When dealing with new technologies one of the biggest hurdles is knowing how and where to start. The vast and rich offerings of .NET can be a bit daunting to navigate when one is first entering the domain. Grant draws from his experiences delivering .NET solutions to highlight the challenges and considerations of learning .NET and outlines some options and resources to effective ramping on various aspects of this new and exciting development platform.

Congratulations to Keith Nicholson, the winner of the XBOX giveaway!

Bow Valley Conference Centre
3rd Floor, Bow Valley Square 2
205 - 5 Ave. SW
Calgary, Alberta

Bow Valley Conference Centre
3rd Floor, Bow Valley Square 2
205 - 5 Ave. SW
Calgary, Alberta

This session demonstrates a variety of advanced techniques you can leverage to build more powerful and scalable ASP.NET web applications and XML web services. We’ll cover debugging on the server side, application tracing and profiling, and event logging. We’ll examine the use of performance counters to find bottlenecks, and how ASP.NET and robust exception handling change error handling for web applications. The session will walk through code to demonstrate how to programmatically send email and upload files. We’ll finish with an intensive look at Web Forms and how they maintain their state between pages and we’ll exploit the new, improved Session object.

This session will cover: