August 24, 2012 8:15 AM – 5:00 PM
University of Arkansas Global Campus Fayetteville, AR
Mark Brandon, directory of NWA TechFest 2012, has announced that the next installment of the Northwest Arkansas TechFest will be on August 24, 2012 at the University of Arkansas Global Campus in downtown Fayetteville, AR. The event is currently seeking speakers, sponsors, and attendees.
Topic areas for this years event are:
- Advanced Development
- Mobile Development
- Big and Small Data
- Collaboration/Content Management
- IT Pro
- UI/UX Design
- Cloud
- Tech Entrepreneurship Resources in NWA
You can follow the Northwest Arkansas TechFest on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or http://nwatechfest.com.
If you are a speaker and interested in submitted topics you can do so via the “Call for Speakers OPEN!” link on the http://nwatechfest.com home page.
Teresa Burger announced the Dallas Techfest 2012 call for speakers. The event will be held on August 24th and 25th, 2012 at the University of Texas at Dallas. Same location as last year. If you are interested in speaking contact Teresa Burger t.burger@live.com.
I am sure there will be future announcements for attendees so stay tuned.
Richard Banks has posted a solution to make Visual Studio 2012 stop yelling at you. In his post titles “How To Prevent Visual Studio 2012 ALL CAPS Menus!” he gives you the registry key to create to make them normal again. Thank you Richard!
I have created a registry file to import to make the task easier.
This blog is part of a series on getting started with RoundTable: Squire and covers getting everything installed. The next post in the series will walk you through the steps necessary to use Squire to start learning the C# programming language.
What is Squire?
Squire is a Round Table project that was created as a learning tool for those new to C# development. It is used as part of the Round Table training approach much like Katas in martial arts. Squire uses Kihons, a Japanese term meaning “Basics” or “Fundamentals” to provide repeatable exercises that help you learn the C# language.
Round Table Members believe that mentoring is central to learning, and even though working with Squire alone can certainly help you get a jump start with learning programming with C# we believe that establishing a relationship with a mentor is the best way to accelerate your learning. Round Table Craftsman is not only about practicing techniques, but is also about fostering the correct sprit and attitude to develop a well rounded technical expert.
Steps to get started:
Install SharpDevelop
SharpDevelop is a free integrated development environment (IDE) for C#, VB.NET and Boo projects on the Microsoft’s .NET platform. The Round Table team chose SharpDevelop because it is free, and integrates with nUnit and is a full development environment. This lowered the barriers of entry, mainly cost for those interested in learning programming with C#.
Download SharpDevelop and install it with the typical settings. At the time of this post the current version is 4.2 RC.
Install nUnit
nUnit is a unit-testing framework for all .NET languages which was initially ported from JUnit. nUnit integrates directly with SharpDevelop allowing you to execute the test and see the results without leaving the SharpDevelop IDE.
Download nUnit and install it with the typical settings. At the time of this post the current version is 2.6.
Get a Copy of Squire
Download Squire and extract it to a location on your hard drive.
Start Learning
Ok, that’s it, you now have all the tools installed necessary to start learning the C# programming language using Squire. The next post in this series will cover opening the Squire solution and running through an exercise (kihon).
The next Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group meeting will be held May 8, 2012 at 6:00 PM at Rockfish in Rogers. Jon Parker will be presenting on PowerShell for Developers.
Please RSVP before noon on May 8th so we can order enough food for everyone.
New Location:
Rockfish
3100 MARKET ST. SUITE 100
ROGERS, AR 72758
Meeting Information
Title: PowerShell for Developers
About the Presenter: Jon Parker
Jon has been programming since 2001 at BYU-Idaho. He discovered .Net in 2003 and hasn’t looked back since. While Jon started out with web programming, his current passion is tweaking applications for speed. Jon boasts taking a 30 min Unix C process to .Net that now runs in < 3 min.
Jon is currently employed at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. He is married and has 1 child. In his spare time he codes (of course) and builds tree houses.
Agenda
6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Welcome and News, Sign-in and Food
6:15 PM - 8:10 PM - Main Presentation
8:10 PM - 8:30 PM - Closing and Prize give-a-ways
Where
Rockfish
3100 MARKET ST. SUITE 100
ROGERS, AR 72758