I’ll be speaking at the following events over the next few weeks:

Saturday, October 29 – Ann Arbor Day of .NET – I’ll be giving two talks: “Top 10 Tips for Moving from Winforms to WPF” and “Going Independent”. This is a single-day, multi-track conference for the low cost of $10! Register!

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Saturday, November 5 – GRDevDay – I’ll be delivering a XAML-focused talk. The planners in Grand Rapids renamed the West Michigan Day of .NET to GRDevDay. It’s a single-day, multi-track conference. The cost is $10 for professionals, but it’s free for students! Register!

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Saturday, November 19 – indieconf – I’ll be giving a new talk titled, “Best Practices for the Solo Developer”.

indieconf is the premier conference for independent web professionals; designers, developers, part time, full time and everyone in between. Are you working on your own as a PHP hacker, CSS guru, JavaScript deity, Rails goddess or Photoshop geek?

Buy a ticket OR learn how to win a free pass!

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January 9-10, 2012 – XAML: In Depth – This is a 2-day training course I’m doing on the two days prior to Codemash. Here’s the description of the course:

In this two day hands on course attendees will learn how to build great applications leveraging XAML. The XAML technology is used on a wide variety of technologies including Windows 7, Windows 8 Metro Style applications, Silverlight and even Windows Phone 7 mobile devices. Students attending this course will gain the basic essentials to start leveraging XAML in a variety of ways to develop eye popping applications. Attendees will leave understanding how to properly design and architect their applications and acquire an understanding of the MVVM pattern. This course will set attendees on the right path to not only building applications leveraging XAML but also put them on the right path to an easy to maintain application built on solid principles.

Register!

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January 11, 2012 – Codemash – I’ll be delivering a 4-hour workshop on “Going Independent”
Codemash sold out all of its tickets in 20 minutes this year, but you can probably get on the waitlist.

indieconf is the premier conference for independent web professionals; designers, developers, part time, full time and everyone in between. Are you working on your own as a PHP hacker, CSS guru, JavaScript deity, Rails goddess or Photoshop geek? indieconf is for you.

Want to go? Until November 4, 2011, the cost of a ticket is $129. After that, it jumps to $149. If you’d like to have dinner with the speakers on Friday (a great time, BTW), the ticket is $199.

You can use the discount code ‘eaton30′ to receive $30 off the cost of your ticket (making your cost $99 if you register by November 4th!)

OR

You can enter to win one of two (2) free passes* I have for the event. All you have to do is tweet the following (multiple tweets will NOT be counted):

Want to win a pass to indieconf from @mjeaton? Here’s how – http://bit.ly/indieconfpass #indieconf

On Friday, October 28, 2011 at 12:00pm (eastern daylight time), I will randomly select the two winners and notify them via twitter.

* To be absolutely clear, this is a pass to the conference only. It does NOT cover travel or hotel.

***** UPDATE: The winners were selected on Friday, October 28, 2012. They were selected randomly using random.org. The winners were: @davidjeet and @mhthomas42. Thanks to everyone that participated! *****

Michael Kimsal, organizer of indieconf, put together a short video describing the event.

IndieConf is November 19th in Raleigh NC

Haven’t registered for the event yet? Do it now! It’s a great event!

In 2010, I had the opportunity to participate in the first ever indieconf.

indieconf is the premier conference for independent web professionals; designers, developers, part time, full time and everyone in between. Are you working on your own as a PHP hacker, CSS guru, JavaScript deity, Rails goddess or Photoshop geek? indieconf is for you.

indieconf is a fantastic conference run by friend and fellow indie, Michael Kimsal. This year, I’ll be giving a talk on “(Best) Practices of a Solo Developer”. Most of the projects I’ve worked on over the past 10 years as an independent have been projects where I’ve been the only developer. This talk will give me a chance to share some of what I’ve learned.

The great thing about this conference is that it’s not just geeks! There will be indie accountants, attorneys, marketers and designers along with other developers. If you’re near Raleigh, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Register for the event!

My plan is to arrive in Raleigh a day or two early so I can co-work and meet with friends.

The 4th Ann Arbor Give Camp is coming up next week – September 16-18, 2011.

A total of 40 non-profit organizations submitted proposals to us this year. I’m pretty sure that’s a record for us.

We have selected 9 non-profit organizations to help this year. Why so few? To be honest, the number of volunteers has been declining each year and we’re currently at our lowest point yet. With a week remaining before the camp, we have just over 50 volunteers.

If you’d like to volunteer to help out next weekend, please sign up at http://annarborgivecamp.org/Volunteer

The Give Camp will once again be held at Washtenaw Community College. They are an amazing host for this event and this event wouldn’t be possible without their generosity and support. We also have a number of great sponsors this year.

Visit our site for more details.

For the third year in a row, July 1st brought an email from Microsoft presenting me with the MVP award in Visual C#.