For the third year in a row, July 1st brought an email from Microsoft presenting me with the MVP award in Visual C#. 
Microsoft MVP 2011
07 Jul 2011
MADExpo is coming!
09 May 2011
Mid Atlantic Developer Expo is coming to the Hampton Roads Convention Center, June 30th-July 1st for two days of intense learning and fun in the heart of Virginia’s tidewater, including illuminating keynotes, over 70 high-quality breakout sessions, and ongoing hardware hacker and maker demos throughout the conference. Price is just $99 if you get in before the early bird discount closes, and just $149 after that. Don’t miss out…register today.
Key books every developer / designer should read
19 Apr 2011
It seems like every software developer I talk to has at least one or two books they consider absolutely essential reading.
My list is pretty small and includes mostly non-technical books like Peopleware from DeMarco and Lister, Anthem by Rand and Maverick by Semler. There are others, but those are more on a personal level than professional. I’ll blog about those in a separate post.
So, my request is simple – I’m asking for books you think are essential reading for other software developers and designers. Please reply in the comments, or at the very least, blog and link back!
The Kalamazoo X Conference 2011
12 Apr 2011
On Saturday, April 30th, we’ll be holding the 3rd Kalamazoo X Conference in downtown Kalamazoo, MI. The event continues to focus on “soft skills” – all the things I like to say developers are typically bad at doing.
It’s amazing how much time developers will spend learning the latest “shiny” tool or technology, but when it comes to improving their soft skills, they spend almost no time trying to improve. It’s something we’re trying to fix with the X Conference.
This year we have another great line-up of speakers including Joe O’Brien, Leon Gersing, Jim Holmes, Tim Ford, Jeff Blankenburg, Jeff McWherter and Laura Bergells. I have a couple other speakers in the pipeline, but I don’t want to announce until I have a firm commitment.
The talks this year range from “Rocking Your Body Language” to “Design Skills Every Developer Should Know” to a talk about what DBAs believe developers should know and do. I’m looking forward to each and every talk because I know the speakers are all extremely passionate about their topics.
We are continuing with our single-track format with talks ranging anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes. We’re also going to have what I think will be an *awesome* panel discussion on interviewing!
Here are some pictures from last year’s event and an interview I did with my friend Dave Giard for his Technology and Friends show.
You can register for the event here!
Updated at 9:23pm on 4/12 – fixed date.
I’ll be speaking at Codestock 2011!
12 Apr 2011
When the Codestock voting ended, two of my talks ended up in the top 4! I’ll be delivering “Simplify your WPF / Silverlight Applications with Caliburn.Micro and Re-thinking the (Desktop) User Interface.
Codestock has always been one of my favorite events. If you haven’t signed up, do it now!
Going Independent with Deep Fried Bytes
06 Apr 2011
Shortly before the MVP Summit, I received emails from Keith and Chris asking if I’d like to be on DFB to talk about WPF or going independent. While I really dig WPF, I told them I’d prefer to talk about being an independent developer for the past 10 years or so. A couple weeks ago, we recorded this episode. After Keith edited out an epic amount of “umms” (from both of us) and some of my so-called “tangents”, here is the result: Episode 67 – Tips on how to be an Independent Software Consultant with Michael Eaton
Enjoy!
Codestock 2011
20 Feb 2011
Smartphones, tablet computers, and televisions running applications; the future is in motion. The technology landscape is changing and it can be hectic for developer and IT professionals to keep up. At the same time, opportunities for technology entrepreneurs are huge and it has never been easier for small independent startups to reach the consumer market. Join us in the future at CodeStock 2011!
- Keynote by Author Charles Petzold
- Sessions for Developers, IT Professionals, and Entrepreneurs
- 100+ break out sessions + Open Spaces (self-organizing sessions)
- Panel discussions and live podcasts
- CodeStock Social Event to meet and make connections
Space is limited so register today at CodeStock.org
Also, please vote for my sessions!
Blog issues are fixed
10 Feb 2011
After some craziness with Subtext that caused my blog to be down for about a week, I finally decided to push ahead and move to WordPress. I couldn’t be happier with the result, although I still have some work to do on the theme and probably clean up a few missing links here and there.
Please let me know if you see any issues!
Learning WPF: Share your experiences
15 Dec 2010
I have spent the past few years working almost exclusively in WPF with a little bit of Silverlight thrown in for good measure. While I have worked on some web projects over the years (mostly 99-08), I spent much of the 90s working on VB applications (versions 2 – 6), so I’ve always considered myself a client / desktop developer.
WPF was a natural step for me, but I do remember having to get over the learning curve. I definitely recall a few “aha!” moments, but never found it all that difficult. When I was in Redmond earlier this year for the MVP Summit, I recall talking to some folks from Microsoft that told me how tough they thought WPF was. This surprised me because I never thought it was *that* tough, and honestly, the people saying it to me are freakin’ SMART, so how could something that came relatively easy to me be tough for them?
So, as I prepare for an upcoming talk, I’m interested in your experiences learning (or trying to learn) WPF. If you have learned, tried to learn, or are currently learning WPF, please take a few minutes to share your experiences in the comments section.
Specifically, what I’m looking for are answers to these questions:
What was your initial impression?
Was it easy? Was it difficult?
What did you find most difficult to learn?
Did you give up? If so, why?
What was your prior experience? What technologies? Was it with desktop applications or exclusively web?
What resources did you use to get past the issues / problems you ran into?
What advice would you give to someone learning WPF? (Question added on 12/17/2010 @ 10:10am)
As added incentive, on December 29, 2010 at noon (eastern time) , I’ll randomly select someone that shared their experiences. That person will get a cool prize from DevExpress! If for some reason that person doesn’t want the prize, I’ll select someone else. I’ll announce the selection both on this blog and on twitter.
St. Louis Day of .NET!
16 Aug 2010
This coming Friday and Saturday (August 20, 21), I will be delivering two talks at the St. Louis Day of .NET. This is my first time speaking at this particular event and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be giving an intro to WPF talk on Friday and my “Going Independent” talk on Saturday.
The plan is to drive down on Thursday with Jason Follas and head back home Saturday afternoon.
