Coding, content and startups

It looks like the Atlas preview site is now live at http://atlas.asp.net/ … time to start getting my AJAX slides updated!

Sarah Blow is also organising a “Geek Dinner” so that people can get together after DDD to socialise for a bit – great idea! Check out http://www.thehughpage.com/DeveloperDayGeekDinner. (This will also be co-ordinated with whatever Microsoft is planning to do after the event)

If you haven’t yet registered for the second DDD day to be held on 22nd October at Microsoft in Reading, then do it soon, as the event is almost at capacity.

Hope to see some of you there!

Visual Studio 2005 RC is now available to MSDN Subscribers. That’s all! :,,)

Want to dynamically load your two-way data bound templates rather than having to specify them inline? Well, unfortunately there’s no LoadBindableTemplate method in ASP.NET 2.0, but I’ve described a possible workaround at http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/show/4721/.

I also demonstrate how you can use this to load one portion of a two-way data bound template from one file (ie a common set of input fields), and then a second portion from elsewhere.

Comments welcome, as always.

After some discussion over at the MsWebDev mailing list, I’ve now decided to launch an equivalent list for UK developers that want to discuss Windows Forms related and other .NET topics.

For more information, go to http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/mailinglists/winforms.aspx. Eventually we hope to offer NNTP and searchable Forum access to this courtesy of Community Server too.

Please spread the word!

I gave my first ever presentation yesterday at the London .NET User Group (held at Microsoft’s offices in London) on their “Open Mic” night yesterday. The talk was on “AJAX in ASP.NET” and I amazed myself and actually really enjoyed the experience! A number of people commented on my decision to write code as I talked in the demo (rather than pasting it and talking people through it), and by the sounds like this was a good option (provided you remember what you’re writing!) – but you’re obviously fairly limited on the amount of code you’re going to be getting through. On the other hand, if you can’t write it in the timescale of the presentation, then maybe the demo’s too complicated anyway! For anyone who’s interested, I put the slides and demos online here.

Anyhow – my thanks go out to Ian Cooper for giving me the chance to take part – and everyone attending for being so supportive. I’d really urge anyone who’s got a topic that they’re interested in and knowledgeable in to think about giving speaking a go – if I can do it, anyone can! :-,,)

Next stop… the DDD day in October. Hopefully!