2010 Talks

2010 Talks

January: Design Patterns in VB.Net with Phil Huhn

January 6, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

Phil will be covering the following VB.Net design patterns:

• • Singleton

  • Strategy

  • Observer

  • Template Method

And a mention of:

• • Bridge

  • Abstract Factory

February: PostgreSQL with Aaron Thul

Feburary 3, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

Overview and what is new with 8.5

How I learned to love PostgreSQL by fundamentally doing everything wrong. Common solutions used in the world of database design go beyond sub-optimal to downright awful. Many times they carried over from early years of database design work, or learned from working on poorly implemented solutions. This talk we discuss many of the common faux-pas, focusing not only on the bad, but hopefully providing better solutions to use in their place.

About the Presenter

Aaron is a technology enthusiast who has presented at technology events from Portland to Ottawa. Aaron enjoys the challenges of bringing open source tools to bear on problems in industry. Perl, PostgreSQL and Linux are among his favorite problem-solving implements. Aaron's passion for promoting open source technology led him in 2006 to become Con Chair of PenguiCon 4.0, which is the first convention ever to bring together two disparate communities that sharea love of innovative thought: the open source community and science fiction fans. PenguiCon is currently one of the largest technology events in Michigan.

March: SQL Server 2005/8 Features with Phil Huhn

March 3, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

SPECIAL: Board Member Elections

Phil plans to talk about the new features of SQL Server 2005 including:

• • Try/Catch

  • VarChar(MAX)

  • Top Variable

  • Table Value Functions (TVF)

  • Cross Apply (TVF)

  • Cross Apply

  • Outer Apply

  • Common Table Expressions (CTE)

  • Rankings - Row Number

  • Rankings - Dense / Rank / NTile

  • XML Support

  • C# / VB.Net Support (SQL/CLR)

and in 2008

• • Table Value Parameters (TVP)

  • Spatial.

About the Presenter

Phil has been a programmer for more than 25 years. He first started working with SQL with Informix in 1988, and with SQL Server in 1998 on a Y2K project. At U of M, he worked on a project that lead to his first AACS talk on Data Transformation Service. He later worked on the M-Reports project which lead to his Business Intelligence talk in November. This talk comes from a recent book purchase at Borders.

April: A2Fiber: Status of Google Fiber in the Ann Arbor Region with Dan Rainey

Wednesday, April 7th · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

The City of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan are partnering to apply to Google's Request for Information (RFI) (http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi/) to build ultra-high speed broadband networks in communities across America. The April presentation will cover the following:

• • Google’s Fiber for Communities Initiative

    • • University of Michigan and City of Ann Arbor Partnership

      • Response team members and roles and how we got there

      • Response plan components

  • Why Ann Arbor is a perfect fit

    • • Technology acumen and culture

      • Economic Development

      • Infrastructure Resources

      • The intangibles

  • What would Fiber to the Home mean?

    • • For citizens

      • For businesses

      • For students

      • For government

      • For me

About the Presenter

Dan Rainey serves as Information Technology Director and Chief Information officer for the City of Ann Arbor, MI.

During his short tenure at the City, Dan has transformed the City's IT department into a creditable and respected City service. In 2009, the City’s IT department received numerous local and national technology and leadership awards including a second consecutive Digital Cities Survey Award, given by the Center for Digital Government in recognition of the pervasive use of technology across the City and the quality of the City’s Information Technology Department.

Dan has over 20 years’ of information technology experience, including fifteen years in the private sector, where he held a variety of positions, including his last assignment overseeing a multi-million dollar outsourcing agreement for a local insurance company.

Dan holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Computer Science from the Wayne State University, participates on various intergovernmental collaboration committees throughout the state and is a member of the Society for Information Management, the Public Technology Institute and the Metropolitan Information Exchange.

May: User Experience in the Software Development Process with Jason Withrow

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

User Experience (UX) focuses on designing systems and interfaces that are intuitive, facilitate task completion, and minimize user errors. This talk will introduce the core concepts and deliverables in UX, placing them in the context of waterfall as well as agile software development processes. Real-world scenarios will illustrate how UX fits into the software life cycle.

About the Presenter

Jason Withrow is the president and founder of Usable Development, which provides user experience (e.g., information architecture, usability, interaction design) and SEO consulting as well as accessible, standards-compliant web development services. He has been an instructor in the Internet Professional program atWashtenaw Community College for nine years; his background also includes years of experience as an information architect and business analyst.

June: Project Management in the Online World with Jason Fitch

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

In an era of instant gratification, technology provides a double edge sword for the project manager and the project team. While potentially improving efficiency of a team, technology can conversely increase work load, induce huge levels of stresses, and destroy a team and project. Lets travel the road from the letter, phone, fax days to age where instant messaging, video conferencing, and even social networking are interlaced within our normal day.

About the Presenter

Jason Fitch has been a project manager developing software applications with small and large teams for close to two decades. Applications range across the spectrum including school management systems, an organ transplant system, and creating a natural gas liquids logistics web site. He has played leading roles in large projects for Covisint, GM, and Delphi. While always wearing his project manager’s “hat,” he believes in consistently walking in the shoes of the customers, key stake holders, and various team members in an effort to better mold the project logistics around the project deliverables.

Jason holds a Bachelor of General Studies degree from the University of Michigan. He is PMP certified through the Project Management Institute, a Toast Masters junkie, and a recent convert into the Ann Arbor Computer Society.

July: Wii Will, Wii Will, Rock You! Version II with Aydin Akcasu

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

Did you know the Wii communicates via a Bluetooth wireless link? Using C#, and a bluetooth adaptor, see how easy it is to communicate with a Wii Remote, and access many features of the device. This includes buttons, LEDS, IR sensor data (actually a IR camera). Most interesting, though, is accessing the 3-axis linear accelerometer, which allows sensing motions and movements. Join Aydin and see how easy it is to read data from a Wii Remote and control a remote Dragonfly. In addition to the Wii Remote, Aydin has added interfacing to the Wii Balance board as well as using the Wii Motion Plus addition (gyroscopes).

About the Presenter

Aydin Akcasu is the founder of A Vision, Inc (http://www.A-V-I.com). He has over 20 years of experience, and provides innovative solutions using technologies such as WPF, Sharepoint, Java, JavaScript, ASP, Visual Basic, VB.Net, C#.Net, ASP.Net, Flash, XML, XSL. He is a part time ‘C#.Net’ instructor at Washtenaw Community College (www.wccnet.edu), and ‘Advanced C#.Net’. He has given many presentations and classes to local area groups, as well as a few in Bangalore, India, in topics such as: ‘Help, I need to learn Javascript’, ‘Cover you ASP’, ‘VB- What is it good for?’, ‘FLASH-in-the-Pants?’, ‘C#, ASP.Net on a Budget’, ‘Introduction to ’C#.Net’, ‘AJAX – A What’, ‘Google Maps API-Wheres’Waldo?‘, ’Wii Will Wii Will Rock You! !! !!!’. He is a frequent speaker at Day Of Dot Net (http://www.dayofdotnet.org) (‘Kids Programming Language’, ‘Introduction to Object Oriented Programming Using C#’, ‘Microsoft Virtual Earth, Now in 3D’).

August: Joomla! Web Content Management System with Harry Pannu

Wednesday, August 04th, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

What is Joomla!?

"Joomla! is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone."

What will be covered?

In this presentation, Harry Pannu will start with a very brief introduction of web content management systems in general, list some of the open source options out there and then move on to describing Joomla! CMS in particular. The presentation will be a hands-on demo of Joomla! installation, its configuration, and basic administration. Along the way Harry will give you significant hints based on his experience with a large number of Joomla! projects over the last 5 years.

About the Presenter

Harry Pannu is a software engineer developing and supporting web applications over the last 5 years. His development work is primarily on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) platform using open source solutions, though he has worked in popular web technologies like classic ASP, .NET, J2EE and RoR to develop and support content management solutions, blogs and eCommerce applications. Harry has extensively developed Joomla! based solutions at Stone Interactive Group in Ann Arbor over past 4 years where he holds the position of Director of Technology / Lead Developer.

Harry's total IT experience spans over 14 years covering a variety of gigs including DB2/ODBC support at IBM, RF test automation at Research In Motion (C++), real-time application development in C, network administration and system administration. He graduated from the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) in 1998 with Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Software Engineering, Honors. Harry can be reached at harry@pannu.com or (734)288-8332.

September: Commercializing Open Source Software: Barracuda Networks Style with Sean Heiney

Wednesday, September 01th, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

Building Great OSS products in Ann Arbor

A look at how to marry Open Source Software with a commercial product solution.

CudaTel and FreeSWITCH

A look at the CudaTel solution and how it relates to FreeSWTICH and how it differs, and a focus on:

• • Barracuda Backup Service

  • Barracuda Message Archive

  • Cacti

  • Barracuda Spam Firewall

About the Presenter

Sean is Barracuda Networks Director of New Product Initiatives. Sean has built and acquired multiple products for Barracuda Networks, including the Barracuda Load Balancer, Barracuda Link Balancer, Barracuda SSL VPN, and most recently focused on the development and delivery of CudaTel. Sean also founded the Barracuda Networks Ann Arbor Research and Development Center, a engineering R&D think-tank featured in a global ad-campaign by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Previously, Sean formed Periscan, a managed security software company specializing in VISA/Mastercard PCI Compliance, acquired by Catbird Networks. From 2001-2003, Sean was a principal IT security consultant for Andrews, Hooper & Pavlik - servicing many banks, universities, and businesses throughout the Great Lakes region. In high school, Sean lead the foundation of ShiaNet, a community ISP sold to Earthlink (ELNK) in 2000, and founded Owosso Networks, a web hosting provider sold to ITS in 2001.

October: Inventing the Next Business Programming Language with Richard A. Green

Wednesday, October 06th, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

How does one design a programming language for business processing?

Why are today's popular languages (Java, Python, C++, COBOL, …) poorly matched to today's environment?

Our tools shape our thinking about solutions.

How might our tools be getting in the way of better thinking?

A programming language cannot be understood separately from its run-time platform. Nor can it be understood separately from its people. Programmers create their own culture and that, more than anything else, channels the evolution of the language.

To demonstrate how these principles apply, Richard reviews Hum, a business programming language designed for today's environment with some extensions for future user interfaces. Hum enables a kind of natural language syntax. It delegates persistence, messaging, fuzzy-arithmetic, and accounting to the run-time

About the Presenter

Richard Green is a software architect currently employed by DTE Energy.

Previous roles have included enterprise architect, project manager, chief programmer, methodologist, and consultant.

He has designed and delivered business systems, statistical analysis tools, and computer aided software engineering (CASE) tools using Java, Smalltalk, C++, C, C#, Pascal, PL-1, COBOL, Visual Basic, ForTran, and Assembler.

November: Windows Communication Foundation: Hosting in VB.Net with Phil Huhn

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

• • Introduction

    • • Web Services

      • WCF

  • Demonstrations

    • • Simple WCF Demo, client consumption of service, via a library

  • Various Utilities

  • Hosted Implementation:

    • • Command Line

      • Hosted Web App

      • Windows Service / Windows Activation Service

About the Presenter

Phil has been a programmer for more than 25 years. In that 25 years, he has been a Programmer Analyst, Data Comm Systems Engineer, DBA, Windows and Unix Sys Admin and Programmer / Consultant / Mentor. Phil is currently Programmer/Analyst and Technologist creating web application in Novi Michigan. In 2008, Phil was a programmer/consultant/mentor at the University of Michigan working with ITS (formerly MAIS) on the M-Reports project. M-Reports is a web reporting portal, using Web Services.

December: SQLite3 & Balsamiq : Mobile programming with Dan Hibbitts

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010 · 6:00 PM at Atomic Object

SQLite3 I got your data right here! And Here! And HERE! AND HERE!

From the SQLite.org web page: "SQLite is a software library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine." It allows for structured data storage and is supported on almost every platform imaginable. We'll take a look at SQLite from an iPhone and Mac and Windows perspective, cross platform compatibility and even briefly tip-toe into CoreData (which can use SQLite). (and it even works on Windows!)

Balsamiq Creating wireframe mockups for mobile apps using Balsamiq

A key success factor for creating great mobile applications is getting the user experience right. Sketching out the interface is critical but understanding, defining and documenting the interactions and flow of an application can be cumbersome. This talk will demonstrate a light-weight tool that allows sketches to be quickly developed and then animated for validation and demonstration. (and it even works on Windows!)

About the Presenter

Dan Hibbitts is a consultant who provides solutions for iPhone, Android, and other popular technologies. Dan has over 20 years of software development experience and has been an advocate for mobile technology for over ten years.