It's been quiet here, and I apologize for being so quiet. I've been quite busy here - getting ready for the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever launch, working on Cleveland Tech Events, working with the non-profit behind Cleveland Day of .NET, counting down the days until Columbus GiveCamp, looking over my IronPython presentations for PyOhio, and getting ready for my presentation at devLink in August. I've also taken some time off to enjoy Independence Day with my husband and our friends.


On July 1st, I joined the freshmen class of Microsoft MVPs. I've held off on announcing this until I could get my MVP Profile listed. So now, the Cleveland area has a new Microsoft MVP in Visual C#, joining the other MVPs that I know of in the area - including Brendan Enrick (ASP.NET), Nate Kohari, Michael Letterle (Visual C#), Deepak Puri (SQL), Steve Smith (ASP.NET), and Allen White (SQL). Congrats to the leader of the 2008 Cleveland Day of .NET - John Stockton - on getting recognized as a MVP in Silverlight.

I want to thank all who've given me the opportunity to get involved, exchange knowledge, and put my love for technology to work. It's been a lot of fun getting involved with the various developer communities out there. From the quiet girl at one .NET user group to an introduction to the .NET community and a gentle push in the right direction, it's been an interesting journey. Thanks to Jeff Blankenburg for that initial push. Special thanks to my husband Kevin for being so supportive of me in my various endeavors. Even if he isn't at an event with me, he still knows what I'm up to and texts/emails/calls me to wish me luck. I wouldn't be so active in the community if I didn't have his support. I look forward to continuing my activities within the community and hope to see you at some of the events.

Speaking of upcoming events... here's what's coming up:

• Columbus GiveCamp / Ann Arbor GiveCamp - July 17 - 19 : I will be at the Columbus site, but I have to get the word out about Ann Arbor as well, as they were a fun crew to work with last summer.
• PyOhio - July 25-26
• Lansing Day of .NET - August 1: Although I have other commitments, I want to get the word out about this, as the Lansing crew is known for having a great event. If you have the time and are willing to travel, I'd recommend you check it out.
• devLink - August 13-15

Check out their sites, and sign up for an event today! Hope to see you in the community!

Labels: Ann Arbor Give Camp, Columbus Give Camp, devLink, lansing day of .net, mvp, PyOhio

This one time, at GiveCamp....

This morning, I read that the Columbus GiveCamp site is now up and running. As I read through their site, I had to laugh at some of the things on there - as it brought back fond memories of my experience last summer at the Ann Arbor GiveCamp.

What is a GiveCamp?
A Give Camp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, and database administrators donate their time to create custom software for non-profit organizations. This custom software could be a new website for the nonprofit organization, a small data-collection application to keep track of members, or a application for the Red Cross that automatically emails a blood donor three months after they've donated blood to remind them that they are now eligible to donate again. The only limitation is that the project should be scoped to be able to be completed in a weekend.

Source: http://www.annarborgivecamp.org/WhatIsAGiveCamp.aspx


Last Year's Experience

Last year, Ann Arbor was a full GiveCamp, and Columbus, OH and Knoxille, TN ran satellite camps. I had talked with Mike Eaton throughout their planning stages, and as much as I could've gone to the satellite camp in Columbus, after having talked with Mike through so much, I was determined to go to the Ann Arbor camp.

I didn't know which charity or team I was placed with until I got there, and that's where I met the great team that worked on GoLightly IT's SiteFinity site. Towards the end of the first night, Mike floated around the groups to get interviews and offer cookies (which I ended up tagging along with him and calling them "HTTP cookies"). I liked how he had the job of floating around to check on the groups and assist them with any blocking issues - that was a much-needed position, one that I wouldn't mind doing. He pulled me in to help a group that was starting with the hopes of using SharePoint, only to be defeated by Verio's hosting options and having to use SiteFinity. I was able to work with them to at least get them on the right path, joining most of us on the "we're using SiteFinity and relying on John T. Hopkins' awesomeness to help us out" bandwagon.

"No showers" means "There are no showers at the facility."

The Columbus GiveCamp site has stressed that their facility has "no showers" quite a few times in the FAQ. In case they weren't obvious enough, this means that QSI does not have showers. So if you're staying overnight, don't count on showering there - it's not happening.

Sleep is for the weak.

As for the award for least amount of sleep and probably why they link to Red Bull - you'll find that some developers will stay up the whole time to work on their project. Some will stay up to help others with their projects. And some of us stay up just because we can. I managed to go 41 (or was it 42) hours without sleep at Ann Arbor GiveCamp, competing with one of the guys from another team in our room. My first night there, I hung out with my friends in the break room, helping keep Jennifer going during her 1am-5am break room shift. I'm not sure how the guys did it, but I got lucky running mostly on my second wind. Then my first wind for the next day kicked in and sleep was fairly inevitable. I could've gone for a little longer on the second night, but since I had a long drive home the next day, I knew that I needed to sleep, from a safety standpoint.

Going to GiveCamp this year

This year, I'm planning on going down to the Columbus GiveCamp - a full camp this year - and putting my background to use there however they need me. I've got one of those weird backgrounds - system administration, database administration, web server administration, tech support, developer... on both Microsoft-based platforms and non-Microsoft platforms. I tend to adapt quickly new technology, which makes it even easier for me to fit a variety of roles.

Ann Arbor's GiveCamp will be running at the same time, as Columbus planned theirs to be at the same time. I look forward to seeing what comes out of these GiveCamps - last year, they worked on a lot of great projects, including projects for WonderPuzzle and Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.

So what are you waiting for? If you've got the time July 17-19 and want to put your technical talents to a good cause, volunteer for a GiveCamp today. And if you know of any groups with projects, have them contact the respective GiveCamp location to see how the GiveCamps can help them out.

Again, the links for the sites are:

• Columbus GiveCamp


• Ann Arbor GiveCamp

Hope to see you there!

Labels: Ann Arbor Give Camp, Columbus Give Camp, givecamp

Sunday was our final day of Ann Arbor Give Camp, the day where we turned over our projects to the charities. Once my teammates Brian and Kevin arrived, we worked on the finishing touches of the site - minor CSS changes and template updates.

John came by Sunday afternoon to see the site, and we ended up passing the final documentation to him. However, our group wants to see this all the way through, so we'll probably be following up with him over the next couple months to make sure that the site is working for them.

Golightly Academy of IT is a school in the Detroit area where high school students spend part of the day in traditional classes and part of the day in IT-related courses. For something technical, I was surprised to hear that they didn't have a web presence. This weekend, our team helped make that happen.

We used Telerik's CMS package Sitefinity to provide both a public-facing side and an administrative side for their website. Currently, we have them set up with a Flickr stream for their pictures. Special thanks to Verio for providing hosting for them.

Once the domain is set up properly, I promise to link to it here, as I'm happy with what we put together. It's a great foundation for them to change and expand on.

And for those who were asking about my shirts from this weekend... the blue screen of death shirt is available from Errorwear, and the Geekette shirt came from Telerik.

Labels: Ann Arbor Give Camp, Golightly Academy of IT, Sitefinity, Telerik, Verio

It's day 2 of Ann Arbor Give Camp, and I'm running on almost 41 hours without sleep. Between working on our project and chatting with many talented people here, I've been distracted and excited enough to not really feel a need for sleep. Not only have I been working with an awesome team - Mark Gilbert, Brian Kriesel, and Kevin Shin - but I've also met a lot more people and have had a lot of laughs.

We had two meetings today as a gathering, to make sure that all the teams were on schedule. If we had any issues, we let them know and other people came out to help us. We helped the SDL EQ team today with some Telerik Sitefinity issues and got them up to speed with the rest of us in the Sitefinity boat. John Hopkins has been a great Sitefinity resource for us this weekend, and if you ever have to implement Sitefinity, I'd recommend you talk with him. He has been so patient with all of us, and even though there are still some outstanding issues, we know that we can count on him to help us out.

Special thanks to Matt from Verio and the other guy (whose name I can't remember offhand) who stopped by and helped us work out some CSS issues. We managed to get a great foundation in place, and I hope our charity - Golightly Academy of IT - really likes our work. We'll get to show off our final website on Sunday to our charity contact, John Mullinax.

Thanks to the sponsors of Ann Arbor Give Camp - Microsoft, Domino's Pizza, SRT Solutions, Verio, Infragistics, TechSmith, Telerik, Washtenaw Community College, Dunkin Donuts, Arbor Brewing Company, Aubree's, Busch's, Trader Joe's, and DevMavens. From providing our meals to helping in other ways, this event couldn't have happened without their help. Check out the Ann Arbor Give Camp sponsors page to see how they contributed.

Thanks to all of those who worked to put the event together - including Jennifer Marsman, Josh Holmes, Mike Eaton, Greg Campeau, Todd from Domino's, and everyone else who helped them in the planning. Planning an event takes a team; pulling off one this successful takes a great team!

This has been a great experience, and I am glad Mike Eaton talked me into coming up here this weekend. I look forward to showing what are team came up with and blogging about the weekend overall.

Labels: Ann Arbor Give Camp, Golightly Academy of IT, Jennifer Marsman, John Hopkins, Josh Holmes, Mike Eaton, Sitefinity, sponsors

So Mike Eaton talked me into coming out to Ann Arbor rather than working remotely for Ann Arbor Give Camp. After a crazy week, I was wondering how I'd handle the 3 hour ride up here. Now here I am, up at 3am, watching John Mullinax and Jonathan Thorndycraft play Guitar Hero down in the break room.

I'm on the team for Golightly Academy of IT. Our charity contact is John Mullinax, and he's been awesome to work with so far. We've got an interesting site design ahead, using Sitefinity. Special thanks to John Hopkins for hooking us up with a license for it.

None of us have worked with Sitefinity before, so we're looking forward to tinkering with it. Our contact at Verio - Matt Lagrotte - is phenomenal. There are a few of us who are using Sitefinity, and Matt's been very instrumental in getting us going, as it doesn't go through the install gracefully without working a little magic.

I'm just hanging out now with Jennifer Marsman, Dave Redding, Mike Eaton, Jonathan Thorndycraft, Chris Roland, Marty Adams, and a couple other people in the break room for a bit. There was some Guitar Hero action going on, and there's talk of Halo.

I'm looking forward to seeing how our project turns out. Golightly Academy of IT will have a web presence by the end of the weekend, and I'll link to it on Sunday to show what our team comes up with! For not knowing anyone I'm on my team, I'm very excited to see that we come together quite well. This has been an enjoyable experience so far and I look forward to seeing how this will turn out.

Stay tuned for more coverage from Ann Arbor Give Camp!

Labels: Ann Arbor Give Camp, Chris Roland, Dave Redding, Jennifer Marsman, Jonathan Thorndycraft, Marty Adams, Mike Eaton

Last night, I was out at the Greater Cleveland PC Users Group C#/VB.NET SIG, talking with Sam Nasr about the events that are coming up. It looks like we have a busy summer ahead. Here's what we're looking forward to:

• July 11th-13th: Ann Arbor Give Camp (Ann Arbor, MI)


• July 26th: PyOhio (Columbus, OH)


• August: SQL Saturday (Cleveland, OH)


• August 9th: CodeStock (Knoxville, TN)


• August 15th-17th: eRubycon (Columbus, OH)


• August 22nd-23rd: devLink (Murfreesboro, TN)


• September 5th-7th: Agile Summer Camp (Brighton, MI)


• September 12th-14th: Simple Design and Testing Conference (Downers Grove, IL)

Ann Arbor Give Camp

Ann Arbor Give Camp is a weekend for developers, DBAs, architects, and designers to come together and donate their time and talent to non-profit organizations that have projects that need to be addressed. Throughout the weekend, we work on the projects, and at the end of the weekend, we turn over our code to the non-profits to maintain and to use. For more information, check out their site at: http://www.annarborgivecamp.org. If you are in the Cleveland area and want to get together to caravan or possibly work remotely from here, please drop me an email at sarah at codinggeekette dot com so that I can get you the information.

PyOhio

Calling all Python devs! Whether you're just dabbling with Python or are a hardcore Python programmer, PyOhio is for you. For more information on their planning and event, check out their site at http://www.pyohio.org.

SQL Saturday

SQL Saturday is supposedly coming to Cleveland in one of the early weekends in August. Allen White, SQL MVP, is leading the way on planning this event. Stay tuned for more details, as I'll post them as I get them.

CodeStock

If you're looking to have your mind blown,CodeStock is claiming that they can do it. Some of the things they'll cover include MVC, ASP.NET, Soft Skillz, XNA, LINQ, TDD, WPF, SQL Server, and WCF. There's a little something for everyone, so register today and check out CodeStock at: http://www.codestock.org.

eRubycon

Calling all Ruby devs! EdgeCase is putting on a conference that covers all things Ruby at the Microsoft Polaris office in the middle of August. You can find out more by checking out their site at: http://erubycon.com.

devLink

The devLink Technical Conference is happening August 22nd and 23rd in Murfreesboro, TN. Take the concept of a weeklong conference and squeeze it into two days, and you've got devLink. From speakers to exhibits to networking with fellow developers, devLink has opportunities for all. For more information, check out their website at: http://www.devlink.net/. (Thanks to Jeff Blankenburg for recommending this.)

Agile Summer Camp

What happens when you put a bunch of geeks together to talk tech while being in a low tech area? You get Agile Summer Camp! Spend a weekend camping in Brighton, MI and enjoy talking software development while in the great outdoors. They have a couple cabins set aside, but you can also bring your own tent/RV/camping unit. For more information, check out their website at: http://www.agilesummercamp.com/.

Simple Design and Testing Conference

Geared for agile practitioners, this Open Spaces conference will cover all aspects of design and testing practices, principles, theories, and the like. For more information, check out their website at: http://www.sdtconf.com/. (Thanks to Corey Haines for recommending this!)

As you can see, we have a lot going on this summer. I hope to see some of you at some of these events!

Labels: Agile Summer Camp, Ann Arbor Give Camp, CodeStock, devLink, erubycon, PyOhio, SQL Saturday, what's happening