August Meeting: //Build/ Recap

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Logical Advantage on Tuesday, August 23, at 6:00 PM in the Mt. Kilimanjaro/Mt. Everest rooms of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. Didn’t get your golden ticket to //Build/? Couldn’t get the time off from work to go to San Francisco? Don’t have the bandwidth to wade through all 500+ hours of content on Channel 9? No problem, Jamie Dixon has you covered. In this talk, we will look at the highlights from //Build/, Microsoft’s premier developer conference that occurred last month. We will pick through at all of the announcements, sessions, and labs to find all of the stuff you should care about as a Microsoft developer. In addition, Jamie will give you the DL (“down low” for those of you without a teenager) on all of the hallway and happy hour conversations that he had with the Microsoft teams.

The meeting presenter is Jamie Dixon.

Jamie Dixon has been writing code for as long as he can remember and has been getting paid to do it since 1995. He was using C# and JavaScript almost exclusively until discovering F# and now combines all three languages for the problem at hand. He has a passion for discovering overlooked gems in data sets and merging software engineering techniques to scientific computing. When he codes for fun, he spends his time using Phidgets, Netduinos, and Raspberry Pis or spending time in Kaggle competitions using F# or R.

Jamie has a BSCS in Computer Science and a Master’s in Public Health. He is the former Chair of his town’s Information Services Advisory Board and is an outspoken advocate for Open Data. He also is involved with his local .NET User Group (TRINUG) with an emphasis on data analytics, machine learning, and the internet of things (IoT). He is the author of Mastering .NET Machine Learning.

Jamie lives in Cary, North Carolina with his wonderful wife Jill and their three awesome children: Sonoma, Sawyer, and Sloan. He blogs weekly at jamessdixon.wordpress.com and can be found on Twitter @jamie_dixon.

The meeting is sponsored by Logical Advantage.

Our mission is to partner with our clients to provide strategies and solutions that maximize the ROI of Enterprise Asset Intelligence and Human Capital Development. Learn more at www.logicaladvantage.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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July Meeting: Mind Blowing Internet of Things (IoT) Projects

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Signature Consultants on Tuesday, July 26, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. We live in an exciting time where more and more everyday item “things” are becoming smart! “Things” have sensors and can communicate to other “things” and can provide control to more “things”. The Internet of Things, IoT, is upon us in a huge way and makers are rapidly inventing cool gadgets every day.

See Dan’s latest IoT projects on Microsoft’s Windows 10 IoT Core running on the Rasberry Pi and connecting to services in Azure. He is using Bluetooth Beacons and Azure Machine Learning to predict the health of this pets. He is also using the Alexa Skills Kit API for Amazon Echo to send messages to a Particle Photon microcontroller (Wi-Fi) to make a servo controlled hand wave to the audience based on natural speech commands.

The meeting presenter is Dan Thyer.

Dan is co-founder and CTO of Logical Advantage, www.logicaladvantage.com. Logical Advantage has successfully delivered software and technology solutions for 12 years and was recently awarded an IT-oLogy Blue Diamond award for Human Capital Development. Dan is president of the Charlotte Internet of Things (IoT) and the Logical Advantage Tech Talks user groups and is on the steering committee of the NC Regional Internet of Things and the Enterprise Developers Guild. Dan is passionate about building cool stuff, writing articles, having fun with technology and talking about it in user groups. Dan’s articles and videos have accumulated over half a million views and Microsoft Channel 9 has featured Dan’s projects 8 times! He was recently awarded Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional award for his engagement in the community.

The meeting is sponsored by Signature Consultants.

Signature Consultants was established in 1997 with a singular focus: Provide our clients and consultants with superior staffing solutions. At Signature Consultants, it’s not just about the bottom line; it’s about the people. We focus on the relationships we have with our clients, consultants, and candidates. Our motto, “Getting IT Right,” is reflected in every aspect of our company – it guides our decisions and actions and ensures that our consultants and clients always come first. Learn more at www.sigconsult.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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June Meeting: Garbage In Garbage Out GIGO

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Logical Advantage on Tuesday, June 28, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. Inspired by a true story. Garbage In – how bad data can still get in to modern databases. Garbage Out – how that bad data can crash your production Line of Business (LOB) application. Elaine Cahill will demonstrate practical applications of defensive programming concepts with C#, JavaScript, T-SQL, stored procedures, web forms and razor views using ASP.NET and SQL Server. This is an excellent refresher course for seasoned developers and extremely useful for junior developers and students.

The meeting presenter is Elaine Cahill.

Elaine Cahill received a Bachelor of Science from North Carolina State University in 2008 — Go Pack! Microsoft Certified Professional 2000. Microsoft Certified Solution Developer Visual Studio 6.0 2001. Experienced manager and full stack .NET/SQL developer 10+ years. Work experience using web forms, MVC, C#, SOA, jQuery, HTML5 and a bit of everything in between. American Citizen but grew up in Manchester, England.

The meeting is sponsored by Logical Advantage.

Our mission is to partner with our clients to provide strategies and solutions that maximize the ROI of Enterprise Asset Intelligence and Human Capital Development. Learn more at www.logicaladvantage.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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May Meeting: Do you have syrup with your Full Stack of Pancakes?

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Signature Consultants on Tuesday, May 24, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. A revolution is at hand. The development world is changing everyday it seems and you are the synergy of those changes.

  • New frameworks popping up
  • New NuGet packages showing up
  • Open-Source projects staying open and offering business licensing
  • Microsoft coming into the Open-Source world
  • JavaScript is a norm for back end development
  • NoSQL databases are now accepted
  • Content Management Systems are more and more a necessity
  • Big Data science brings us into a new world of analytics
  • Platforms we develop for are not just computers , tablets, and phones
  • And the list goes on…

The technologist we were a year ago are not the technologist we are today and will not be the technologist we are tomorrow. Are you ready for your stack to change? Is your tool belt large enough to grow? Do you have what it takes to add that special sauce to your current and next project?

Come join us and learn more where we see our technology going and break out into small groups to pick the brains of experts like yourselves. Hear Chris Sigmon shares almost 20 years of changes to the full stack and full cycle of development and the future of development.

The meeting presenter is Chris Sigmon.

Chris Sigmon is a Solution Architect for Hedgehog, a full software and design firm with primary focus on Content Management Systems for fortune 100 companies. With over 20 years in technology, developing and managing cutting-edge eCommerce and multi-system technologies with experience in  system architecture, designing, and developing small business applications and enterprise solutions, Chris’ primary desire to assist companies leverage their internal systems via a unified framework customized for their success. He has a unique ability to translate the big picture into functional, feasible, applicable solution. As a huge fan of open source technologies such as ServiceStack, multiple JavaScript frameworks and other NET technology, he is always learning new technologies.

The meeting is sponsored by Signature Consultants.

Signature Consultants was established in 1997 with a singular focus: Provide our clients and consultants with superior staffing solutions. At Signature Consultants, it’s not just about the bottom line; it’s about the people. We focus on the relationships we have with our clients, consultants and candidates. Our motto, “Getting IT Right,” is reflected in every aspect of our company – it guides our decisions and actions and ensures that our consultants and clients always come first. Learn more at www.sigconsult.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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April Meeting: Working with Azure IoT Hub and Stream Analytics

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Cardinal Solutions on Tuesday, April 26, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a new and exciting technology that is generating a lot of buzz. In this presentation we will talk about what IoT is and demonstrate how to quickly implement a customer tracking solution. The tracking software consists of a Univeral Windows Platform Application running on Windows 10 IoT Core on Raspberry Pi hardware. The backend software is utilizing Azure IoT Hub with Azure Stream Analytics.

The meeting presenter is Jason Petrin.

Jason Petrin is a software engineer with nearly two decades of experience developing enterprise solutions. For the past 10 years he has been working as a consultant in the Charlotte area. Most recently, he has been focused on delivering Cloud based solutions.

You can follow him on Twitter at @jpetrin.

The meeting is sponsored by Cardinal Solutions.

Cardinal Solutions is an IT consulting firm that provides custom solutions, strategic guidance, and client training. Cardinal’s Application Development practice has expertise building high quality and innovative applications that can run on any platform and device.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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March Meeting: Practical Sass/SCSS for Web, Mobile, & Desktop Development

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Logical Advantage on Tuesday, March 22, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. Sass is CSS with superpowers. It has been actively supported for 9 years. In this session we’ll cover Sass basics: installation, pre-processing, variables, nesting,  partials, importing, mixins, extending, and operators. Topics will be taught by creating a real-world application layout; we’ll cover common UI scenarios you face everyday in your development. You’ll quickly grasp the value and simplicity of Sass/SCSS. We’ll compare how developers write CSS today, and the benefits of using Sass/SCSS over plain CSS.

The meeting presenter is Karl Shifflett.

Since 1989 Karl has architected and developed desktop, web, and mobile software for: retail, warehousing, manufacturing, small-medium city governments and water authorities, Tax Assessment, and DIY projects. He worked at Microsoft as a Program Manager on the WPF and Silverlight Designer Team for Visual Studio 2010, as a Program Manager for the patterns & practices team on Prism and Web Guidance projects.

His passions are Cross-platform development, Aurelia, Nodejs, ES6, Electron, WPF, ASP.NET, AngularJS, Cordova, IoT, Ionic, Firebase, creating Visual Studio tools, software architecture, designing frameworks, and mentoring.  You can follow him on Twitter at@kdawg02.

The meeting is sponsored by Logical Advantage.

Our mission is to partner with our clients to provide strategies and solutions that maximize the ROI of Enterprise Asset Intelligence and Human Capital Development. Learn more at www.logicaladvantage.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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February Meeting: Power BI – Architecture, Integration, & Implementation

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and TEKsystems on Tuesday, February 23, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. In this session we will review Power BI V2 architecture and integration points with corporate data sources, SaaS services, Azure, and third party apps. We will examine and demonstrate key capabilities in the Power BI web-based service, Power BI Desktop, Excel, and mobile apps. Implementation options for Power BI involving cloud, on-premises, and hybrid approaches will be explored. Finally, the concept of “Bimodal BI” will be introduced with use cases for how Power BI might be utilized for both self-service BI and certain corporate BI initiatives.

The meeting presenter is Melissa Coates.

Melissa Coates is a solution architect based in Charlotte, NC. As a BI Architect with BlueGranite, she specializes in delivering BI and Data Warehousing solutions using Corporate and Self-Service BI tools, on-premises and in the cloud. Formerly a CPA, Melissa is ridiculously proud to be an IT geek and downright giddy to be a Data Platform MVP. When Melissa steps away from the keyboard, you can probably find her hanging out with her border collie, paddle boarding, playing in the garden, or with her nose in a book. You can read Melissa’s blog at www.sqlchick.com and follow her on Twitter at @SQLChick.

The meeting is sponsored by TEKsystems.

By working for TEKsystems you become part of our dedicated Microsoft Technologies Practice. Since its inception our Microsoft Technologies Practice has helped hundreds of Microsoft Specialists to find the most ideal job opportunities in the marketplace. Our program at TEKsystems specializes in the cornerstone technologies of the Microsoft stack – .NET, SQL Server and SharePoint. Our team consists of Delivery Experts, in key market geographies, with ties to the most cutting edge work opportunities.

As a member of the TEKsystems Microsoft Technologies Practice you will have access to a Market Delivery Expert that focuses on Microsoft Technology jobs around the clock in your local region as well as across the US. In some cases you will be afforded the opportunity to become a full time employee of TEKsystems and work as a Microsoft expert on our staff or at our key clients. Be sure to speak with your local TEKsystems contact Lindsey Thomka, Samantha Reinbold, Cody Bunnell, and Victoria Jorio about our Microsoft Technologies Practice and how it can benefit your career.

People are at the heart of every successful business initiative. At TEKsystems, we understand people. Every year we deploy over 80,000 IT professionals at 6,000 client sites across North America, Europe and Asia. Our deep insights into IT human capital management enable us to help our clients achieve their business goals – while optimizing their IT workforce strategies. We provide IT staffing solutions, IT talent management expertise and IT services to help our clients plan, build and run their critical business initiatives. Through our range of quality-focused delivery models, we meet our clients where they are, and take them where they want to go, the way they want to get there. Learn more at www.teksystems.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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January Meeting: Introducing Aurelia

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Logical Advantage on Tuesday, January 26, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. It seems like the landscape is constantly changing for front-end frameworks and what we will be looking at is no different. However, this may be one of those frameworks that you take a look at and decide that it is just the right thing. It incorporates ES6 and pieces of ES7 and makes developing in JavaScript a pleasure…well, almost.

We will take a look at what Aurelia has to offer and how you can get started building our rich enterprise applications. We will also identify some of the cool features ES6 provides in building your applications.

The meeting presenter is Matt Duffield.

Matt Duffield is a software architect designing and developing enterprise applications. He runs a small consulting company, Duffield Consulting. He specializes in enterprise solutions using the latest and greatest technology available. He also provides training and mentoring on .NET, WPF, Windows 8/10 development. He is also a Microsoft MVP in Windows Development. You can read his blog at mattduffield.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter at @mattduffield.

The meeting is sponsored by Logical Advantage.

Our mission is to partner with our clients to provide strategies and solutions that maximize the ROI of Enterprise Asset Intelligence and Human Capital Development. Learn more at www.logicaladvantage.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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December: No Meeting

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

As you know, the Enterprise Developers Guild does not meet in December. (Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 26, 2016.) However, we do want to extend season greetings to one and all. We also want to thank all our sponsors and volunteers who work all year long to help make the Guild a success.

From all of us on the Board to all of you and your families, we send you best wishes for a beautiful Winter Solstice, an enlightening Chanukah, a merry Christmas, an uplifting Kwanzaa, a delightful Boxing Day, a happy New Year…and we’ll see you in January!

November Meeting: From Difficult to Delighted

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Signature Consultants on Tuesday, November 24, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. Do you ever feel like your customers or team members are tough to work with? In this session we will talk about how to get them to hear your point of view; how to find out what they really want (hint: It’s NOT what they are demanding); and how to get them to be your advocate instead of your enemy. You’ll leave the session with some new ideas and an action plan to connect with even the most challenging team members or clients.

The meeting presenter is Tom Cooper.

Tom Cooper has spent more than 20 years as a hands-on technologist. During those years, he says he made just about every mistake possible when working with difficult customers. Over the last several years, Tom has been working with his clients to help them communicate, delegate, manage conflict and plan.

The meeting is sponsored by Signature Consultants.

Signature Consultants was established in 1997 with a singular focus: Provide our clients and consultants with superior staffing solutions. At Signature Consultants, it’s not just about the bottom line; it’s about the people. We focus on the relationships we have with our clients, consultants and candidates. Our motto, “Getting IT Right,” is reflected in every aspect of our company – it guides our decisions and actions and ensures that our consultants and clients always come first. Learn more at www.sigconsult.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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October Meeting: Async and Await on the Server

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Logical Advantage on Tuesday, October 27, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. By avoiding the client side discussions around the UI and parallel processing, we can focus on the environment in which most of us live and have both an introduction and deeper dive into how it all works. This talk’s about how we can all use the feature RIGHT NOW to write better performing code.

The meeting presenter is Doug Jones.

Doug Jones has been developing software for about a decade. He is currently a developer at Lending Tree and has spent most of his career in financial organizations. He has been a proud member of the Enterprise Developers Guild for many years now, and most importantly, he has learned the wrong way to do things so you don’t have to!

The meeting is sponsored by Logical Advantage.

Our mission is to partner with our clients to provide strategies and solutions that maximize the ROI of Enterprise Asset Intelligence and Human Capital Development. Learn more at www.logicaladvantage.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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September Meeting: Azure App Service – Building Enterprise Apps in the Cloud

Posted on by Mark A. Wilson

Join us and Signature Consultants on Tuesday, September 22, at 6:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) of the Microsoft Charlotte Office. Azure App Service is a one-of-a kind solution that brings together the tools you need for building enterprise-ready apps around a common development, management and billing model. You can choose from a rich ecosystem of pre-built apps and API services as well as a unified set of enterprise capabilities including mobile backend services, turnkey connectivity to SaaS and enterprise systems, and workflow-based creation of business processes.

Azure App Service frees developers to focus on delivering great business value instead of needing to worry about repetitive tasks such as stitching disparate data sources together or dealing with operational and compliance overhead. This unified approach lets you take full advantage of the service while helping you meet your company’s concerns about security, reliability, and scalability.

In this session, we will create an enterprise class web application and deploy it using Azure App Service. Once deployed, we will explore extending our application by integrating third party services and automating business processes.

The meeting presenter is Richard Taylor.

Richard is an experienced, dedicated, detailed-oriented technology and management professional with a career reflecting strong leadership qualifications coupled with “hands on” technology experience. Knowledgeable in the design, development, implementation, support, and management of computer systems. Focused on achieving results while utilizing advanced technologies and business solutions to meet a variety of needs. You can read his blog at www.rightincode.com and follow him on Twitter at @rightincode.

The meeting is sponsored by Signature Consultants.

Signature Consultants was established in 1997 with a singular focus: Provide our clients and consultants with superior staffing solutions. At Signature Consultants, it’s not just about the bottom line; it’s about the people. We focus on the relationships we have with our clients, consultants and candidates. Our motto, “Getting IT Right,” is reflected in every aspect of our company – it guides our decisions and actions and ensures that our consultants and clients always come first. Learn more at www.sigconsult.com.

Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

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