Flynny's Blog

UK Silverlight User Group - date confirmed

2008-07-21T09:42:00Z

Conchango are pleased to announce the date for the next Silverlight User Group as Thursday 14th August.

The venue is currently the Conchango offices in London Bridge, although another venue will be arranged if we are oversubscribed.

Full details to follow.

If you are interested in attending please email me on michelle.flynn@conchango.com.

Some of the Conchango team confirmed so far are: Paul Dawson, Mark Mann, Richard Griffin and Felix Corke.

A quick snapshot of Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 08

2008-07-17T16:32:00Z

WPC08 was a busy event for Conchango and we had a great team working on it, they really deserve a huge thanks and a lot of credit.

A quick snapshot of WPC08 – The Conchango Show

1. Allison Watson, Senior VP Worldwide Partner Group Keynote

Gabrielle Deeny (Conchango) spoke about the BBC Big Weekend & the Conchango DCP – Repeatable solutions delivering recurring revenue as Software plus Service. (Audience approx 14000)

2. Bob Kelly, Corporate VP Server & Tools Keynote

Mike Altendorf (Conchango) delivered the most impressive of the conference keynote presentations, referencing the works that we have done for Mclaren using SQL2008 and Visual Studio 2008, Mike demonstrated the application of technology in a mission critical solution, the in car telemetry system of the Formula 1 racing car. (Audience approx 14000)

3. Sheila Gulati, Worldwide GM for Application Platform

Paul Dawson (Conchango) delivered 2 keynote Q &A sessions –a drill down into the Mclaren solution (Audience approx 1000)

4. David Appel , DPE Platform Strategy Group

As one of 5 global partners, Paul Dawson described how Conchango have delivered S+S to our clients, integrating technology and delivery models resulting in a positive business impact. Referencing The BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend and other cutting edge engagements. (Audience approx 300)

5. Caroline Walton, Senior Product Manager & Rob Lancaster, FAST

Mike Altendorf & Mark Stone presented Conchango search solutions referencing some of the great integration work that we have done across platform – Ireland.com, FT.com, and how Conchango are breaking new ground in the use of search (Audience approx 250)

6. Kyle Cressman, Emerging Channels Manager

Paul Dawson took part in a video session for the S+S team – Project Hollywood, showcasing partners that innovate on Microsoft technology

Technorati Tags: conchango,microsoft,Worldwide Partner Conference 2008

The ALT.NET Community on Alternative .NET Tools

2008-07-14T14:29:00Z

EVENT DETAILS

Who: Gojko Adzic & other members of the ALT.NET Community

What: The ALT.NET Community on Alternative .NET Tools

Where:Skills Matter, London

When: 31st July 2008 Starts at 18:30

TO REGISTER CLICK HERE

THE EVENT

Gojko Adzic is the author of more than 200 articles about programming, operating systems, Internet and new technologies published in various online and print magazines, and has recently published his first book Test Driven .NET Development with Fitnesse.

In this session, Gojko and other well-known members of the ALT.NET community will present some great alternative .NET development tools and libraries. Ranging from open-source to tools produced and supported by Microsoft, all these tools are free and allow us to harness recent innovations, apply modern programming practises and increase prgrammer productivity, but you would not find them in a typical .NET development shop.

This session will be presented by:

Subversion - Gojko Adzic

NHibernate - Ian Cooper

PowerShell - Zi Makki

OpenRasta - Sebastian Lambla

Castle Windsor - Mike Hadlow

Rhino Mocks - Chris Roff

NServiceBus - David De Florinier

This is a session for .NET developers of all levels.

Alt.Net UK Summer Conference Dates Announced

2008-07-10T09:09:00Z

We are pleased to announce that the Alt.Net UK Conference will be returning in September, and that there will be room for more attendees this time!

The plan is host the event at Conway Hall in London and our thinking is to follow the same sort of schedule as we did in February:

- Evening planning session on Friday 12th September, following by a trip to a bar to socialise.

- The Open Spaces sessions all day on Saturday 13th September

This time we are thinking of starting off Saturday with a Park Bench to get the juices flowing.

We are very open to listening to feedback from the community if you think that there are ways that we can improve on the conference experience.

We would especially like to have more testers, technical authors and usability folk attend to foster cross-pollination of ideas.

User registration will start from Friday 11th July at 07:00 UK time so the early birds will get the worm!

The following social hubs have also been set up: Upcoming, Facebook, FriendFeed and LinkedIn. Don't forget that you can subscribe to the AltNetUk News River.

Conchango and redgate have generously agreed to be launch sponsors.

Finally, we are currently looking for sponsorship, so if you know of an organisation that would be interested to be associated with the conference in return for a little lucre, we would love to hear from you / them! (The conference is non-profit).

Alan Dean, Ian Cooper, Ben Hall & Me

VBUG Bracknell: Creating Silverlight apps using Blend & VS'08

2008-07-09T14:52:00Z

Silverlight developer Tim Hustler and Expressions Blend designer Simon Sturgess plan to do a 2-hour how-to on creating Silverlight apps using Blend and Visual Studio 2008.

They'll incorporate LINQ-to-SQL via a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service as well as add animations and events to some custom control created specifically for the seminar. Both of them have been following Silverlight from the off and they recently won a competition ran by Microsoft, the Web Harmony 'Be all you can be challenge'

Date: Tuesday 12 August 2008 from 6:00 PM to 09:00 PM

Location: Bracknell Leisure Centre, Bagshot Road, Bracknell, RG12 9SE

Click here for more info.

The next London .Net User Group

2008-07-09T10:50:00Z

The next London .Net User Group will be hosted by Skills Matter on 24th July @ 6:30pm.

Ian Cooper will be talking about Domain Driven Design (DDD).

Click here to register for the event.

Conchango Summer Fun Day

2008-07-08T14:00:00Z

Last Sunday 6th July Conchango hosted their annual Summer Fun Day at Windsor Race Course.

All of the Conchango team, their partners and children were invited to enjoy a BBQ, Pimms, Bouncy Castle, Bungee Trampoline, Arcades, Indian Head Massage, Face Painting and much more.

Even with the rain we still managed to make the most of the day and here are some of the photos for you....

London .Net User Group tonight

2008-06-25T15:57:00Z

Conchango again have the pleasure of hosting the London .Net User Group with Ian Cooper.

It is in our Southwark Bridge Office.

See you here at 6:30

Free Event for Designers

2008-06-20T13:49:00Z

Tricky (Director of Tricky Business) is hosting an event on the 10th July in association with screenedit.com and encourage you to register here before we announce the event to the general public. Spaces are extremely limited.

'Screenedit Sessions' is an exciting new evening event for designers; speakers include Brendan Dawes from Magnetic North and designers from All of Us. Incredibly, this FREE event also features an 'Xbox lounge' where you can kick- back, enjoy some FREE alcoholic beverages and hang-out with other designers before being inspired by our fantastic speakers!

Nobody will leave empty-handed but a few lucky designers will go home with one of these fantastic prizes:

- A ticket to Flash on the Beach worth £500

- An Xbox 360 with GTA VI

- A Wacom graphics tablet

- Screenedit Sessions registration

- Facebook event page

- Upcoming event page

- Screenedit blog for news and updates

If this is of interest to you then also worth joining the Silverlight User Group Mailing List.

UPA Careers Event

2008-06-17T15:20:00Z

Conchango are one of the event sponsors for the UPA Careers Events on Thursday 3rd July.

The event aims to bring together User Experience companies, practitioners and students. It is suited to anyone looking for good people or a good role, or anyone just looking for the opportunity to network with peers.

The evening will begin with a short panel discussion which our own Paul Dawson will be sat on, which will be followed by a couple of hours of networking. Conchango will have a dedicated area where we will display some of our work and be available to chat.

Drinks will be provided.

Details:
Date: Thursday 3rd July 2008
Time: 6.30 for 7pm.
Location: LBi, Truman Brewery, 146 Brick Lane, London, E1 6RU

Click here to register.

Conchango hosts the next London .Net User Group

2008-06-11T12:59:00Z

Alongside Ian Cooper, Conchango will be hosting the next London .Net User Group on Wednesday 25th June.

Full details of speakers and times to follow but we will be running Ben Lamb's highly rates "How to write crap code" session, a reverse look at best practices.

If you want to sign up please join the list on the site.

Alt.Net UK Summer Conference

2008-05-16T11:08:00Z

Many of you will have either heard of or attended our inaugural Conference in February, hosted in the Conchango London offices by Ian Cooper, Alan Dean and Ben Hall!

Planning has now started for our Summer Conference and the organisers would love to have some help ...

The web site needs an overhaul (many thanks to Ben for his efforts on the first site) and we would like to invite participants to join us in the effort.

Today is Day One, so there is everything to do and we need help across the board, not just developers:

- User Stories

- Web site art & design

- Coding (obviously)

- Security Reviews / Threat Modeling

- Functional Testing

- and much more ...

The project is open source and contributors will be credited on the site. If the last conference was any guide - many eyeballs will see our work :-)

Homepage: http://www.altnetuk.com/

News River: http://newsriver.altnetuk.com/

Discussion Group: http://groups.google.com/group/altnetuk-discuss

Dev Project: http://code.google.com/p/altnetuk/

Dev Group: http://groups.google.com/group/altnetuk-dev

Altnet London Social

2008-05-06T13:10:00Z

There have been beers arranged following the Altnet conference Conchango hosted ealier in the year.

It is on Thursday 15th May @ 8:30 in:

The Crown Pub

Sekforde Street
London, England EC1R

Check out Seb's blog for more info.

Add yourself to the yahoo event if you are interested.

Team 5 make it to Brighton

2008-04-14T11:06:00Z

This Saturday 5 members of the Conchango team got on their bikes and headed for Brighton.

Martin "This is the last hill...." Philpott

Ray "Honest I have never cycled before" Hebberd

Josie "Wait until you see me on a road bike" Williams

Lynne "Motivator" Davidson

Michelle "Ouch" Flynn

Some stats:

5 hrs 45 mins cycling time

65 miles

0 punctures

2 detours (with hills)

2 falls

3 successful riders up Ditchling Beacon

1 half time substitution, Philpott Off, Matt "He makes it look easy" Bagwell On.

GO TEAM 5! Here's to the next one.

One more video for you from Silverlight UG

2008-04-14T10:35:00Z

Ian Smith has kindly sorted out Video 5 for us:

If you have not seen the others yet check out my last blog.