There's a bunch of .NET and SQL Server activity coming up in the Omaha area in the next weeks. Sad to say that I'm probably not going to be able to make most of them as I'll be on the road for DevelopMentor.
The Omaha.NET Users Group will be meeting on Thursday, January 26 at 6:00 PM. The meeting will be at DTN (90th and Dodge) where Jamie Wallingford of Sogeti will be presenting on ClickOnce. Then on Thursday, February 13 at 6:00PM Jeff Bramwell will be presenting on Team Foundation Server at Farm Credit Services of America, 120 & Q streets. More details on the FunWith.NET web site.
The Microsoft BigShow series will be rolling through town again on January 31st. The afternoon MSDN topics are Mobile Applications with .NET 2.0, Office-based solutions with VSTO and an introduction to WPF (AKA Avalon). You can register for that here. The IT Pro show runs in the morning with an introduction to Windows Server 2003 R2 at look at Microsoft's resource portfolio for the IT Pro. Register for this event here.
I'll be on the road doing classes in California, Flordia and Connecticut from the last week of January to the middle of February, so I'll have to miss most of these local events. Bummer. But I should make it to the FunWith meeting in February.
You might be wondering where any news about the Greater Omaha SQL Server Users Group has been or is. I wish I had better news, but both Luke and I have been swamped with work and unable to organize meetings on a regular basis. That doesn't mean we're not trying or that we've given up. I do expect we'll get the group going again once we've had a chance to do it right. Watch the GoSQLServer web site and RSS feeds for details.
I've been spending a fair amount of time recently working on Reporting Services stuff. Last year, Teo was kind enough to have Manning Press send me a copy of his Reporting Services in Action book. Quite honestly, this is one of the best books on any technology I've ever read. But not merely because it's technically solid, but because its completely readable and to the point. I find myself diving into it regularly, as I did yesterday morning. About two hours later, I'm having lunch with our local SQL Server Specialist -- Don Bryner -- from Microsoft and we're talking about books for SQL Server 2005. Teo's name comes up. It was amazing here somebody else say exactly the same thing I've been thinking about Teo. But Don was talking about Teo's new book on Analysis Services. I had to laugh. My darling Janell was very good to me for Christmas with a Border's gift card and I redeemed for that book. It arrived Monday and I'd already consumed the first chapter of it.
But it doesn't end there: yesterday I put a bit of code up talking about how to do simple object serialization and then today Teo posts about Object Serialization in SQLCLR. While the post stands on its own technical merit, its yet another example of why I dig Teo's writing style: What it is; Why it matters; Why it does that; What to do next and how and finally, a good conclusion.
If you're not subscribed to Teo's Blog, you're missing out. If you need really good books that will help you wrap your head around Reporting Services or Analysis Services, you won't go wrong with his books.