'Tis the free conference season and DDD Scotland has opened its registration so if you live anywhere near Scotland (or you don't mind travelling for a free event) get over to http://www.developerdayscotland.com and get registering. DDD Scotland is being held on Saturday 2nd May 2009 and I will be presenting:-

• What's New In C# 4 ?
  At PDC 2008 Microsoft unveiled C# 4 and all of the new features within. So now we start the roller-coaster of catch up all over again as we desperately struggle to keep up with what?s new and why we should be interested in the latest flashy feature. In this session we will look at dynamically typed objects, optional and named parameters, type embedding, type equivalence, loose type coupling and more. In addition if we have time we will look at the "compiler as a service" feature to be released after C# 4.

Go! Quickly! Stop reading this and register now! Registration for DDD South West is now open. Be able to tell your grandchildren that you were there at the very beginning. Remember, there can be only one first time.

DDD South West is a free one day technical event on Saturday 23rd May 2009 at Queens College, Taunton with 13 of the countries' best speakers providing 19 technical presentations.

Registration for DDD South West opens tomorrow (Tuesday 3rd March 2009) at 10:00am. To register for the event you must first register on the site and if you want to save time tomorrow you can do that part right now.

DDD South West will be held on Saturday 23rd May 2009 at Queens College, Taunton.

The UK .NET Community continues it's alternative game of Risk using the UK as the map of the world. In the beginning there was Coventry and Birmingham. Both had just 2 armies and the mighty VBUG covered the whole land. But the mighty VBUG squandered its armies and first Oxford and then Cambridge fell and the writing was on the wall. With its back to the wall VBUG had a change of management and started the fight back. But it was too late. Southampton was next and most recently it is Hereford's turn to be seduced by the dark side. So far NxtGen are being contained in the Midlands and South with the land to the South West forming a mighty and seemingly impenetrable wall against the onslaught. But what of the North ? Spies recently uncovered a secret NxtGen document detailing invasion assimilation recruitment plans for Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. Stay tuned for more as-it-happens updates on the war effort and the fight of the free world to stop us all from becoming enslaved to the monthly fees of membership.

On a lighter note the first Hereford meeting is on Monday 16th March 2009 at the Shire Hall in Union Street and will feature Dave McMahon giving an intro to becoming a NxtGen drone being part of the NxtGen family and I will be giving a presentation on:-

• Visual Studio 2008 IDE Tips and Tricks
  Visual Studio is a treasure trove of functionality and productivity. The problem is that many developers don't know what's there. In this session we will cover some simple and not so simple tips and tricks and improve your productivity and enjoyment of Visual Studio. The majority of tips and tricks are common to both Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008.

See you there.

DevWeek this year is on between the 23rd and 27th March 2009 at the Barbican Centre in London. I'll be presenting a number of sessions there:-

• Microsoft Source Analysis (or How To Start A Fight)
  In May 2008 Microsoft finally released Source Analysis (aka StyleCop). Source Analysis does for C# source code what FxCop does for assemblies ? it applies ?good practice? rules to your source code. This means all those controversial code beauty issues like spaces, where to put curly braces, how and when to use blank lines and over 200 similar rules. This session gets you started using Source Analysis, investigates a selection of rules, shows how to integrate Source Analysis into Visual Studio and your build process and finally shows how to write your own custom rules. This is a low tech session on an essential tool that all C# developers should be using.
• Automating Testing With Virtual Server
  Virtual Server 2005 is a free virtualization download from Microsoft. It allows you to run and maintain multiple virtual machines running different Microsoft operating systems in different configurations. Virtual Machines allow you to test your software in different configurations without the need for buying and maintaining separate physical machines. Virtual Server 2005 includes an API for programmatically controlling these virtual machines. This session describes this API and shows you how to use it to run automated tests on multiple platforms.
• Visual Studio 2008 IDE Tips and Tricks
  Visual Studio is a treasure trove of functionality and productivity. The problem is that many developers don?t know what?s there. In this session we will cover some simple and not so simple tips and tricks and improve your productivity and enjoyment of Visual Studio. The majority of tips and tricks are common to both Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008.
• Internationalizing WPF And Silverlight Applications
  The .NET Framework has supported internationalization since 1.0 but with each new UI platform comes a new approach and new challenges. Unlike Windows Forms and ASP.NET, WPF does not offer one standard solution to localization. Instead it offers choices. This session shows how to localize WPF applications using standard .resx files and how to localize ?post-build? using LocBaml with and without Resource Dictionaries. In addition you will see how to localize a Silverlight application using .resx files and we will consider issues that are specific to Silverlight. We will evaluate the pros and cons of each approach and arm you with the information required to form a localization strategy for your applications.

The early bird price is still available until 27th February 2009 and there's the usual list of fabulous speakers including Aaron Skonnard, Fritz Onion, Tim Ewald, Dave Wheeler, Mike Taulty, Eric Nelson, Mike Ormond and Neal Ford so book it now and I'll see you there.

The DDD South West Call For New Speakers is now live and we are looking for proposals from new speakers who would like to speak at DDD South West on Saturday 23rd May 2009 in Taunton. The offer is open to 'new' speakers who meet the following requirements:-

• You must live in the United Kingdom.
• You must not have presented at a major event before (including but not limited to any DDD, TechEd, DevWeek). Speaking at a user group is fine (and encouraged!).
• You must have presented your full session at a user group at a date prior to DDD South West (in other words there must be a live practice run to a public audience other than your work colleagues).

The closing date for proposals is Tuesday 31st March 2009. You can find full details about the Call For New Speakers at http://www.dddsouthwest.com/CallForNewSpeakers/tabid/61/Default.aspx. You can find full details about DDD South West at http://www.dddsouthwest.com.

Wednesday 25th February 2009 sees the very first meeting of the Gloucestershire .NET User Group run by Jimmy Skowronski. I will be joining Paul Jackson in a double header:-

• Sockets In Silverlight 2 with Paul Jackson
  A live coding session building a TCP sockets based Silverlight application, touching on all the aspects required to get the smallest sockets application up and running.
  
• What's New In C# 4 ? with Guy Smith-Ferrier
  At PDC 2008 Microsoft unveiled C# 4 and all of the new features within. So now we start the roller-coaster of catch up all over again as we desperately struggle to keep up with what's new and why we should be interested in the latest flashy feature. In this session we will look at dynamically typed objects, optional and named parameters, type embedding, type equivalence, loose type coupling and more. In addition if we have time we will look at the "compiler as a service" feature to be released after C# 4.

The meeting starts at 6:30pm and runs to 9:00pm and is at The Royal George Hotel in Birdlip. And, of course, like all good user groups it is free to join and free to attend. Sign up here.

A huge and warm welcome to the latest user group to join the UK .NET community: The Gloucestershire .NET User Group. Run by Ziemowit "Jimmy" Skowronski, who you may have seen at DotNetDevNet and VBUG meetings in Bristol, the intention is to hold monthly face to face meetings. Membership and attendance is free (always a great feature in a user group) and the first meeting is expected to be held in February 2009.

DDD returns to (Northern) Ireland on Saturday 4th April 2009 in the great city of Belfast.

The fourth incarnation of the popular SQL-based DDD lookalike, SQLBits, will be held in Manchester on Saturday 28 March 2009.