Flynny's Blog

London .Net User Group tonight

Michelle.Flynn — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:57:00 GMT

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

See you here at 6:30

Free Event for Designers

Michelle.Flynn — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:49:00 GMT

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

Michelle.Flynn — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:20:00 GMT

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

Michelle.Flynn — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:59:00 GMT

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

Michelle.Flynn — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:08:00 GMT

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

Michelle.Flynn — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:10:00 GMT

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

Michelle.Flynn — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:06:00 GMT

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

Michelle.Flynn — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:35:00 GMT

Ian Smith has kindly sorted out Video 5 for us:

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

Silverlight User Group - Recording of the event & Mailing list for you to join

Michelle.Flynn — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:54:00 GMT

Ian Smith kindly recorded the event for us, see below:

Video 1: Introduction (Paul Dawson, Michelle Flynn, Mark Mann)

Video 2: Silverlight 2.3 Tips & Tricks - awaiting subtitling

Video 3: Tim Sneath Q&A Part 1

Video 4: Tim Sneath Q&A Part 2

Video 5: Wrap up - awaiting subtitling

If you would like to join the mailing list for future UG then please go to http://www.slxlab.com/

TestExpo - Thursday 10th April

Michelle.Flynn — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:33:00 GMT

Conchango are exhibiting at TestExpo on Thursday 10^th April.

It is being held at:

Congress Centre

23-28 Great Russell Street

London WC1B 3LS.

Doors open at 9.00am and you will find us on Stand number 18.

Tickets are free so hurry up and apply before they are all gone! You can apply at www.testexpo.co.uk

TestExpo is the UK's premier event for software testers run by Qbit, the UK leaders in training for Testers.

Everything you need to know about Testing in 2008 will under one roof! You will be able to :-

talk to the top companies in testing
see demonstrations of the latest products and services
attend free presentations to learn about the latest ideas and techniques

Martin Overare, Senior Technical Consultant at Conchango, will be presenting at 9.30am on Agile Testing (guidelines for testing in Agile Projects) – So if you are passionate or interested in learning about Testing in an Agile Environment then you know where you should be on Thursday 10^th April at 9.30am!

Feedback on the UK's 1st Silverlight User Group

Michelle.Flynn — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:44:00 GMT

"It was the best user group I have ever been to!"

"Can I bring my colleagues to the next one?"

"Conchango know how to host a user group"

"What a pleasure to meet Tim Sneath"

Last night we hosted the UK's 1st Silverlight User Group. It was attended by 50 people including some key people from Microsoft. It was a great success as the quotes above show.

The event was filmed by Ian Smith and this will be available shortly.

UK Silverlight User Group - Agenda

Michelle.Flynn — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:52:00 GMT

UK Silverlight User Group hosted by Conchango in their London Bridge office.

Inaugural meeting - Agenda

6.30pm-9pm - 2nd April 2007

Kick off and introductions

“Navel Gazing” – what do you want from this group?

Michelle Flynn and Mark Mann

“Silverlight 2 – how’s it going?”

Tim Sneath – Group Manager, Client Platform Evangelism at Microsoft, Redmond.

Pizza and Beer (courtesy of Microsoft – Thanks Pete!)

“Start your engines” A mini project walkthrough Richard Griffin (Senior Developer) and Felix Corke (Interactive Designer)

"Share and share alike" – your chance to talk about what you’re working on. What your experiences are, and how it’s going generally. If you have something specific for which you’d like to reserve your spot – let me know! Otherwise we’ll do it on a first hand in the air basis!

Final Q&A with team from Microsoft – your chance to give some feedback.

Wrap up

Drinks, chat and swapping tips ‘til we get kicked out.

As well as a good variety of Silverlight developers and designers from a real range of companies and agencies from around the UK, also in attendance will be a few key people from Microsoft from the UK and Redmond who cover a variety of areas from working with interactive agencies, Silverlight adoption and the product and tool-set around Silverlight.

UK Silverlight User Group - More Info

Michelle.Flynn — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:46:00 GMT

More info on Silverlight UG for you:

We have a starter presentation from Microsoft updating us on Silverlight developments and adoption, showcase apps, the development of the tool-set and the roadmap for future development. Tim Sneath is confirmed along with a number of other members of the MS team.

We are going to be running a 'if you could tell the Silverlight team anything, what would it be?' session.

We are also asking for submissions around work progress, demo's, problems you need help with and aspects of the technology you'd like to discuss.

The guest list has been closed due to limit on numbers, if we have any cancellations we shall re open it.

UK Silverlight User Group set for 2nd April

Michelle.Flynn — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:24:00 GMT

The arrangements for the UK Silverlight User Group that we are hosting on 2nd April in our London Bridge office are going well. Thanks to Microsoft for agreeing to sponsor the event.

More info will follow as we have it but if you would like to register you can go to our Facebook event or email me on michelle.flynn@conchango.com.

See you on the 2nd.

London .Net User Group

Michelle.Flynn — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:34:00 GMT

Last night Conchango and Ian Cooper hosted the London .Net User Group. It was held in our London Bridge offices and was a great success.

We decided to try something new this time by hosting 2 sessions side by side as a way of giving people more choice of topics. We held 4 sessions:

Fitnesse by Gojko Adzic

Functional Programming by Oliver Sturm

A Silverlight Demo by Syd Millett

A Recruitment Q & A with Sean O'Regan (ActiveIS), Mark Hopwood (Snow Valley), Dylan Beattie (Spotlight) and me.

Any feedback much appreciated.

I look forward to the next one.