It is time for the first Boston Area Geek Dinner for the year. I’ve checked with a few of the regulars and we’ll have at least 4 or 5 of us that can make it.

Please feel free to bring anyone you want with you … as long as they can take listening to us talk about various technology topics for a few hours :)

What: Boston Geek Dinner

When: Thursday, January 19, 2012 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM

Where: Boston Beer Works, 112 Canal Street, Boston – 1 block from the TD Garden (We'll be upstairs by the pool tables as usual)

Download to Calendar

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through this blog by leaving a comment.

It has been close to 6 months since we did the last geek dinner, so I’m sure we have some catching up to do.  I’ve checked with a few of the regulars and we’ll have at least 4 or 5 of us that can make it.

Please feel free to bring anyone you want with you … as long as they can take listening to us talk about various technology topics for a few hours :)

What: Boston Geek Dinner
When: Tuesday, November 8, 2011 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Where: Boston Beer Works, 112 Canal Street, Boston – 1 block from the TD Garden (We'll be upstairs by the pool tables as usual)

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through this blog by leaving a comment.

You can get an event reminder here

Last weekend I presented three talks as the New England Code Camp 14 on three completely different topics (and all new for the Code Camp too).  Here are the links the the slides, source code and some other information for those of you who attended the talks:

A Simple WebSite Migration to the Cloud – Amazon vs. Azure

Slides: Amazon vs Azure

Code (BIG file): Code_AzureAmazon.zip

This was a good talk, there was quite a bit of audience interaction and questions about Amazon … which was good – the presentation was written with an assumption that I could compare it to Azure.  It would have taken a lot more time if I had to introduce both.

Going Independent – Lessons Learned in the First Year of an Independent Consultant

Slides: Going Independent

This was a fun somewhat naked talk about my experiences of the last year.  The ugly, bad and good … where I got choked up talking about the good.  Weird I practiced the talk 3 times in the previous week and never had a problem with it … must have been a game day sort of thing.  Thanks to everyone who has commented on this talk, I’m glad you liked it.

Using Alternative View Engines with ASP.NET MVC

Slides: Using Alternative View Engines

Source Code is on CodePlex: nerddinner.codeplex.com

Related Article is on Coding4Fun: Developer Review - Four ASP.NET MVC View Engines

This talk was towards the end of the day and was a smaller crowd – with reason – it is a very narrow focused talk.  I have to thank 3 people for making this talk happen Greg Duncan, Dan Fernandez and Clint Rutkas … without being asked to write the Coding4Fun article/posting this presentation wouldn’t have happened.

Are you up for a Geek dinner June 23rd? 

It’s been a couple of months since the last one … so I think it’s time for another.  I’ve checked with a few of you ahead of time and there should be at least 4 or 5 of us that can make it. 

Please feel free to bring anyone you want with you … as long as they can take listening to us talk about various technology topics for a few hours :)

What:   Boston Geek Dinner
When:  Wednesday, June 23, 2010 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Where: Boston Beer Works, 112 Canal Street, Boston (We'll be upstairs by the pool tables as usual)

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through this blog by leaving a comment.

So Monday didn’t work too well last month … this time we’ll try a Tuesday.

Same as always, we meet up stairs at the bar beside the pool tables – then grab a table if we need to.  Its at Boston Beer Works on Canal Street close to the TD Garden.  If you don’t know me – here’s a picture of me.  I’ll be the one at the bar reading MSDN magazine or some Windows Azure book and drinking a coke.

What:   Boston Geek Dinner
When:  Tuesday, March 23, 2010 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Where:

Boston Beer Works
112 Canal Street
Boston, MA 02114 USA

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through this blog by leaving a comment.

There is also an email list that a reminder will go out to about 10 days out from the event – if you are not on that email list and want to be added, please let me know.

For February’s Geek dinner I looked at both the TD Garden events and Microsoft’s NERD events … and chose Monday Feb 22, 2010 as a good date.  Hope to see you there!

What: Boston Geek Dinner
We'll be upstairs by the pool tables in Boston Beer Works on Canal Street.  If you don’t know me – here’s a picture of me.  I’ll be the one at the bar reading MSDN magazine and drinking a coke.

When:
Monday, February 22, 2010 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM

Where:
Boston Beer Works

112 Canal Street
Boston, MA 02114 USA

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through this blog by leaving a comment.

Next week is a busy week for events:

• Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - Quincy Entrepreneur Meetup
• Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - Architect Factory 2 (Cambridge NERD Center)
• Thursday, January 28, 2010 - Boston Geek Dinner (Boston Beer Works on Canal St)
• Saturday, January 30, 2010 - New England Data Camp v2.0 (Waltham Microsoft)

See you there?

Next Wednesday, I’ll be presenting at the New Hampshire .Net user group.  The information for the group meeting is on their site: http://www.nhdn.com/DNN/

The topic is the same one I gave at Beantown last week: Get Started with the Windows Azure SDK – so if you missed it and can make it up to Nashua next Wednesday – please join us.

A little about what we’ll be discussing:

The talk is geared toward developers who haven’t had a chance to get started with Azure yet.  My hope for this talk is to provide developers with the information they need to get up to speed quickly with Azure (SDK and other resources).  For this talk I’m going to just stick with Windows Azure and not get into the details of the complete Azure Platform, to minimize scope creep.

This year I’m going to try and get these on a regular schedule – of course everything depends on what is going on at the TD Garden.

What: Boston Geek Dinner
We'll be upstairs by the pool tables in Boston Beer Works on Canal Street.  If you don’t know me – here’s a picture of me.  I’ll be the one at the bar reading MSDN magazine and drinking a coke.

When:
Thursday, January 28, 2010 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM

Where:
Boston Beer Works

112 Canal Street
Boston, MA 02114 USA

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through this blog by leaving a comment.

This Thursday in Cambridge (MA), I’ll be presenting at the Beantown.Net user group.  The Beantown.Net information is on Ben’s blog – you need to rsvp for the pizza.

The talk is geared toward developers who haven’t had a chance to get started with Azure yet.  My hope for this talk is to provide developers with the information they need to get up to speed quickly with Azure (SDK and other resources).  For this talk I’m going to just stick with Windows Azure and not get into the details of the complete Azure Platform, to minimize scope creep.

If you are a developer who hasn’t yet had a chance to dig into Windows Azure, I’d be curious as to what sort of questions you have about it – please leave a comment or send me an email if you get a chance.