So even though the year is rapidly coming to a close - with tons of new technology from Microsoft coming out -- I'm very excited about all the opportunities to continue learning and applying the new technologies for 2010!  We've got lots of awesome presentations on horizon -- and even a robotics competition in the works for 2010!  So keep an eye on the schedule on the site ( www.MADdotNET.com ), and as exciting events materialize we will plug them in!

Tomorrow we have two events ---

1) Our monthly ALL.NET meeting @ Herzing College (5218 East Terrace Drive, Madison) -- Room #120 -- is tomorrow!

As always -- bring your questions / comments -- bring things to show off and / or just talk about -- bring your second wives... errr.. laptops <g> -- this is YOUR time to come and tap the minds of and share with some of the other top developers in our area!

Specifically, the topic of ORM's came up on our MADdotNET list ( which if you're not on -- go "Here to Sign up for the MADdotNET .NET Discussion Group" ) -- and I was asked to talk about Entity Framework -- so I will be briefly doing a show and tell on it.

Those that have other experience with other ORMs -- please bring code examples / your experiences.

If anyone else has worked with Entity Framework -- I know that I would love to hear your experience and see your approaches!  Also, I'm just starting to look at Entity Framework 4 ( being released with VS2010 ) -- and looks like they've filled in many of the gaps -- so really excited to get to start digging into that more.

I also have an example of some cool SQL pivot code that I had to write for the project I'm on -- so time permitting I'll show that off
Meeting Agenda

2) But even before that -- Eric and Adam have setup a Dev Lunch @ Alt-n-Backs on the Wed  the 16th starting at 11:45.  ( http://altnbach.com/ -- 2602 Whalen Lane Madison, WI ) Even has a few books to give away as door prizes!

3) Lastly, very excited to let everyone know that either in Jan/Feb our Microsoft reps have put a lot of work into bringing the PDC Roadshow to Madison!  As I get specifics -- you all will know!

Hope everyone survived being stuffed over Thanksgiving! 

Now that we're all full and happy, time to get back to some cool emerging technologies that we can apply to our every day business pursuits!

1) For tomorrow's meeting ( 12/2/2009 ), I'm really excited to have Adam Salvo presenting on SharePoint 2010 / Visual Studio 2010!

2) Remember that we also have our next ALL.NET meeting coming up on Wed, Dec 16th - looks like we may be discussing ORM's and/or some of the new things that have emerged from PDC.  Come with a topic you want to discuss -- or questions on something you're working on -- or want to work on.  The ALL.NET meetings are YOUR time to set the meeting agendas and get the benefit of all the knowledge of your peers!

Session Overview:

Come learn what’s new in the world of SharePoint development with the release of SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010. See how SharePoint is now a first class development platform with tight integration with Visual Studio, making it easier to create customized applications for SharePoint. With new support for Silverlight, Linq to SharePoint and the Business Data Connectivity tools, SharePoint 2010 provides a all the functionality needed to create a one stop shop for business workers to consume data from Line of Business Applications.