NxtGenUG - Region Profile

	Search

Region Events

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Typescript *** FREE EVENT ...

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Making Windows Store Dance...

All Events

Where you can find us

Birmingham

Formed in April 2006. Birmingham Science Park Aston near the city centre hosts NxtGenUG Birmingham. A great meeting place to discuss technology and eat Pizza!

Cambridge

Having opened in September 2007, Cambridge will offer a unique insight into Microsoft Research.

Coventry

Coventry venue has a bar and comfy chairs. With great meetings every month, what more could you ask for? Serving the Coventry community since April 2006.

Essex

Deepest Essex is the scene of the eighth NxtGenUG Region, poised just outside the M25, it's run by Rob Silver and Anis Batliwala local lads with a passion for technology

Hereford

NxtGenUG Hereford - Then there were six. Formed in February 2009 Hereford is the newest NxtGenUG Region. Run by local guys Ryan O'Neill and Richard Wilde.

Manchester

"It's a sunny paradise!" does not describe soggy Manchester; at least it has its own NxtGenUG region! Run by Steven Robbins and Andy Wilkinson, two northern guys with a passion for pizza/technology!

Oxford

Holding it's first meeting in November 2006, Oxford is headed up by the prfessional and enthusiastic Richie Hopton and BI Consultant Robert Minchin

Southampton

By the seaside, in the warmth of the South, NxtGenUG Southampton is run by John McLoughlin and Richie Allen, local guys with a passion for technology! Southampton started in October 2007.

Conferences

Mix11

Partner Showcase

Ridgian are a leading IT solutions provider, delivering business centric solutions.

NxtGenUG Region

Birmingham
Formed in April 2006. Birmingham Science Park Aston near the city centre hosts NxtGenUG Birmingham. A great meeting place to discuss technology and eat Pizza!

Meet the Coordinators

Geff Lombardi

Dave McMahon
Dave works as Chief Architect for .NET Development at Ridgian Limited, a privately owned software house based in Central Birmingham. Ridgian are a Microsoft Certified Partner and specialise in Business Intelligence Solutions and Custom Software Solutions. He is very active in the Microsoft community speaking at DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper conferences, and at numerous User Group meetings around the country on such topics as SQL XML, SQL 2005 Security, Regular Expressions and his favouritte technology XSLT and XPATH. He has recently published articles on SQL Server 2005 Security in International Developer Magazine and on Vista and Office 2007 in the Microsoft Beta Newsletters.

Events: June, 2013

Making Windows Store Dance	June 18
Making Windows Store Dance with Nokia Drums: Christopher Myhill makes the journey up from Bristol to get us upto speed with Windows Store Applications and how to avoid the pitfalls. There will also be swag and pizza.

Events: May, 2013

Typescript * FREE EVENT *	May 21
Top speaker Mark Rendle heads up to Birmingham to share with us the joys of Microsoft new TypeScript language. There'll be pizza and swag! Come join us!

Events: April, 2013

Globalization: Know Your Enemy	April 23
All round nice chap and worldwide speaker Guy Smith-Ferrier comes up to Birmingham to deliver what he does best !! There will be pizza and swag !!

Events: March, 2013

Scrum-Tastic !!	March 19
Chris Jones comes up from Cheltenham to discuss and practise the merits of Agile and in particular Scrum. In this session we will learn how we must sprint rather than plod !! There will be Pizza and swag.

Events: February, 2013

Windows Phone 8 + Windows 8	February 19
We're very lucky to have ex-MVP and now Microsoft Technical Evangelist Andy Wigley visiting Birmingham this month to talk about creating applications for both Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. We've a nugget I'm pretty sure, and the ubiquitous Pizza!

Events: January, 2013

Taming Your Dependencies	January 22
Long standing nxtgen member Ian Russell makes the short journey across from Coventry to "Inject" some excitement into this session. There will be swag, pizza and maybe even a nugget.

Events: December, 2012

Test Driven Dev Dojo!	December 18
Due to a speaker hiccup, this month's session will not be on Windows 8 , but we'll be having an interactive Dojo programming session allowing us to have a real active try of Test Driven Development - promises to be fun. Thanks to Martin Evans of Shropshire Dev for stepping in and offering to run this session at late notice!

Events: November, 2012

Cyber Warfare	November 20
Phil Winstanley joins us to give an overview of the cyber warfare waged against us everyday!

Events: October, 2012

Using Intellitrace (NOT)	October 23
A Consultant without efficient tools is only half the good! In this session MVP Tarun Arora will give you the armour to battle the 2 most common scenarios we run into as developers: Poor performance and bugs which are on production but not test or dev! Pizza and maybe a nugget this month perchance? (Unfortunately due to a family issue, Tarun could not make it tonight - so we winged it and Scott Wakefield did a nugget on Twitter Bootstrap)

Events: September, 2012

Jesse Liberty Tour in Brum	September 26
Jessie Liberty from the USA, rolls into Birmingham as part of his UK tour. He'll be talking about Windows 8 Development and other great things about the lastest OS from MS - so make sure to catch this one!

Events: August, 2012

A Different Entity ...	August 14
Geff "Bacardi" Lombardi is on home soil as he unleashes his beloved Entitiy Framework upon us all. Version 5. Have MS got it right this time? Will we have the usual stand-off of "Entity Framework Versus nHibernate", will we have cries of "But LINQ can do that!" and "Will it work with Stored Procedures?". I'm sure we will, but "Barcardi" will see us through the storm and we'll arrive in ORM Heaven heavily laden with Pizza and maybe even swag ... phew. Can't wait!

Events: July, 2012

Wye Aye Ess Ate	July 17
Wahay the lads, MVP Andy Westgarth comes down from up t' north 't give us t' latest gen on IIS 8. What's new , what good stuff is there for us Developers and so on. Pizza and maybe a nugget! Plus hopefully the last few remnants of swag ...

Events: June, 2012

Oh To Authenticate ...	June 19
"Jimmy" Skowronski has galantly stepped into the breach for this session to talk about OAuth - how you can use an open standard to authenticate your users using publically available identity stores such as Facebook and Google. Jimmy is a real enthusiastic speaker and a great User Group Leader, and this session promises to be a very interesting and useful one. Pizza of course ... maybe a nugget?

Events: May, 2012

Windows 8 Development	May 29
We couldn't turn down this offer, hence the second meeting this month! We're lucky enough to have top MS Speaker Mike Taulty visit Birmingham to talk to us on Windows 8 Development! They don't let him out much these days, so don't miss this opportunity to get top information from a top guy in the know. Pizza of course but no nugget tonight as the floor is open full time for Mike. See you there!

NodeJS: Darling of the VC	May 15
Gary Short takes his 1st stop on the NxtGenUG mini-tour to visit Birmingham and talk about Node.js - Should make for a very interesting session, plus we may have a nugget, pizza, and hopefully some swag!

Events: April, 2012

Phone a Friend ...	April 17
Matt Lacey from way down south ventures above the Watford Gap to tell us the story of Windows Phone 7 development, the patterms, the pitfalls and teh glory ... Pizza, Swag and hopefully a wee nugget from a member. See you there!

Events: March, 2012

What's what in SQL 2012?	March 13
*NOTE 6.30pm START * OK, it's that time of year when new things are hinted at and are starting to appear from the great Software Factory out West, otherwise knownas Microsoft. First up we've a look at SQL Server 2012 with Dave Ballantyne. Hopefully we'll have a nugget, Pizza and (very hopefull) some swag - it's getting tough out there!

Events: February, 2012

Going Global with MVC	February 21
Top bloke, worldwide speaker and all round nice chap Guy Smith-Ferrier heads up the M5 to Birmingham to talk about his one true passion "Internationalisation"! Guy will show us how to internalise an MVC application. There'll might be a nugget, but there'll definitely be Pizza and Swag!

Events: January, 2012

Micro ORM	January 17
Nxtgen member Ian Russell will be back in Birmingham to deliver his new and improved session on Micro ORM's. There may be a nugget and definately pizza.

Events: December, 2011

Relatively Speaking ...	December 13
Last year Dave regaled you with "Quantum Computing", this years' Christmas treat is a dive in the bizaare world of Relativistic Computing, and how the strange world of relativity physics is being proposed as a platform for breaking all known limits of computing as we know them today ...

Events: November, 2011

Introduction to DDD	November 22
Ian Cooper travels up from London to enlighten us all about DDD !! Not to talk about the DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper events !! but Domain Driven Design. Ian Cooper has over 18 years of experience delivering Microsoft platform solutions in government, healthcare, and finance. When he is not writing code he is also the founder of the London .NET user group.

Events: October, 2011

Windows Workflow Foundation 4	October 18
NxtGenUG's very own John McLoughlin takes a trip up from the sunny south coast to talk about Workflow, we'll also be having some pizza, giving away some swag and maybe even having a nugget

Events: September, 2011

Go Asynchronous With C# 5.0	September 13
Liam comes up from the smoke to tell us about the new Async feature in C#5.0.

Events: August, 2011

Getting up to speed with MVC3	August 16
NxtGenUG member Ian Russell tells us all about the world of MVC. We'll also have a nugget, and some Pizza.

Events: July, 2011

Guerilla Warefare in Brum!	July 12
Peter Marriott, who doesn't own any hotels (old joke), travels to Birmingham under cover to deliver his Guerilla Tactics session. You won't see Geff in a Balaclava, though we can't say the same for Andy Maggs. Pizza, and possibly a member nugget, the usual great crew, don't miss this one!

Events: June, 2011

I've Got The Power! (shell)	June 14
If ever there is an ethereal technology - it's got to be Powershell. It seems no matter how many times you read about it, it never seeems to stick. But there is hope! And it's in the form of Jimmy Boother, local councillor and developer - he's here to give us the lowdown on getting to grips with the beast - with a host of tips and useful tools - I think you'll finally get to master Poweshell! We'll pipe in the Pizza and teh Swag of course ...

Events: May, 2011

Return of the Entity Framework	May 17
After last month's nHibernate session from Rippo, Geff 'bacardi' Lombardi steps up the plate to deliver the second of this month's sessions on Entity Framework 4. We have a member nugget too from Ian Russell on Dynamic Data in .NEt 4, and Pizza and some swag too. All in all, just anormal night out at NxtGenUG!!

It's a Natural Law	May 12
In a change of date and a change of speaker, we're delighted to welcome Kendall Miller from the US who is on a mini-speaking tour and pops in to Birmingham on his last evening to talk about the Laws of Software Performance ... Swag, Pizza, even maybe a nugget from someone? It'sll be a great evening as ever ... just remember the date change!!!

Events: April, 2011

Coming out of Hibernation ...	April 19
It's been a cold winter, but the animals are coming out of Hibernation and out of the wilds Hereford comes none other than Mr Richard Wilde (aka Rippo) to talk on that mother of all Entitiy Frameworks - nHibernate. If you've never worked with it before - this is the session for you!

Events: March, 2011

Let's NOT Make Hay ...	March 15
IMPORTANT! Due to illness Chris is unable to make the meeting now. Despite approaching 5 speakers at late notice, and putting out a call for help, it's too late notice really for most potential speakers. However, the show goes on, we will have Jonathan's Nugget and then run with a Open Spaces meet which was very popular last year - so don't miss it! Pizza of course, swag (I hope). We're always here 12 months a year!

Events: February, 2011

The Black Cats are in Town ...	February 15
From the North, Sunderland Supporter Andy Westgarth comes to town to talk on how to use the SEO Toolkit with IIS to raise your web sites ranking. That's ranking OK? Andy is a long time member of the UK Community and is an IIS MVP! So don't miss this opportunity to get your website on page one of Google or Bing. Usual great crowd, Pizza, maybe a nugget too!

Events: January, 2011

A Mono-Phonic Start to 2011	January 18
Chris Hardy visits the second city to deliver his MonoTouch and MonoDriod session which went down very well at Manchester late last year. What's it all about? Well following on from Guy Smith-Ferrier's Multi-touch session in OCtober 2010, Chris takes a look at developing C# applications for the iPhone, Android and iPad. New Year Pizza, perhaps a New Year Nugget and of course New Year Swag!

Events: December, 2010

A Quantum of Computing ...	December 14
It's Christmas Time and we all like a good fairy story ... so Dave's here to provide his own. Story ... not fairy. In a 'left-field' session, Dave will cover the whys, hows and the maybes of Quantum Computing: a subject which might seem to have little relevance when you go back to the office true, but it is gathering interest and momentum as real production Quantum Devices get installed in the City of London to help secure sensitive information, and as a stream of technological breakthroughs bring these elusive computers ever nearer! It will be fun, infomative, there's a great Christmas Nugget from NxtGenUG Member Simon Stevens and there will be Christmas Swag and Christmas Nosh! Don't miss it!

Events: November, 2010

Return of the Costall ...	November 23
NOTE CHANGE OF DATE! Stop the press! It's official, Richie Costall tonight will be spotted West of the M42. It hasn't been often lately but at great expense, and only through the medium of a crafty co-ordinator swop (Dave's doing Coventry this month), but we've managed to get hold of NxtGenUG co-founder No 1 to talk about Silverlight 4, new features etc. No doubt there will be lots of crazy videos, bad jokes and demos galore in yet another Costall-fest of Silverlight. Don't miss it ...

Events: October, 2010

The Winning Touch ...	October 26
After a series of shennanigans with finding a speaker, we're very plesed to announce that our good friend Guy Smith-Ferrier (GSF) has stepped up the the plate and is coming along to deliver his Windows 7 MultiTouch session. Neil Barnwell is still giving his nugget, there will still be Pizza, there will still be swag! We got there ... phrew!

Events: September, 2010

Communicating with Silverlight	September 14
Birmingham are absolutely delighted to welcome for the first time none other than Mike Taulty from Microsoft who will be giving one of his great Silverlight presentations, this time focussing on how you actually communicate with Silverlight. It's just Mike this evening, and Pizza of course and some new swag yay! Don't miss this opportunity to hear one of the top Microsoft speakers in the UK!

Events: August, 2010

I've Got A Little jQuery ...	August 17
Brimingham are really pleased to welcome George Adamson who arrives tonight buzzing with a love of jQuery. You've probably heard about it, maybe used it, and George is a real enthusiast and he's here to tell you all about it. We'll have Pizza of course some swag (maybe uber swag ...) a member nugget from first time Nuggetteer Simon Stevens and the usual chit-chat ...

Events: July, 2010

Summer Security NOT!	July 27
Due to unforseen circumstances at very late notice unfortunately Arraon Finnon is unable to make the evening. So at late notice and great expense ... well the price of a Pizza ... our very own Geff Lombardi is going to be speaking about the Microsoft Entity Framework, it's whys, wherfores and so on.Pizza, some great swag and the normal other stuff ... See you later !

Events: June, 2010

An Exceptionally Nice Evening	June 29
Phil Winstanley, MVP, Web Development guru, UK Community lynchpin, full-time marketing agent for spiky hair gel, what else can we say? Yes we're chuffed to have Phil come down from his secret volcano lair in Manchester to talk about Exception Driven Development. With Volcanic Pizza and a Secret Nugget and not so secret swag it should be an evening to remember ... see you there!

Events: May, 2010

Best Behaviour	May 18
Ian Cooper leader of London .NET User Group, returns to NxtGenUG and is going to tell us about being on our Best Behaviour ... An evening of Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) including member nugget, Pizza and swag!

Events: April, 2010

Simon Sabin's SQL Sequel ...	April 20
The ever popular Simon Sabin slides on up to Birmingham to talk about , what else, but SQL Server! This time he's talking about how to fix those queries that just don't seem to cut the mustard! Pizza, Swag member nugget - normal stuff! (IMPORTANT!! Due to Ian Cooper being unable to make it in April, hopefully Ian will be with us in May, Simon has kindly agreed to present his session this month instead of next.)

Events: March, 2010

Birmingham Open Spaces Meet ..	March 16
Due to unforseen circumstances, John McLoughlin is unable to do his MEF/PRISM talk so in response to a few requests, Dave is going to run an Open Spaces Meet in a 'different' evening. It's an opportunity to discuss whatever YOU want and to get other peoples input on subjects of interest to YOU! YOU pick the agenda, YOU have your say and hear what other thave to say too. Plenty of time for Networking, chat and Pizza. YOU get the idea right? See you there!

Events: February, 2010

I Azure You!	February 23
As promised in the middle of Microsoft's "Azure Week" we're running an Azure Event with two guys from Black Marble in Bradford. Yes, filling the boots of Chris Hay who unfortunately cannot be with us this week, Steve Spencer and Iain Angus do their Chris Hay impressions, probably without the loud T-shirts and travel to tell us about building scalable application with Windows Azure. Pizza, Azure Swag and the normal stuff. Should be a great evening!

Events: January, 2010

Testing, Testing, 2010	January 19
Richie Hopton, NxtGenUG Oxford Coordinator rings in the New Year with his Test Driven Development session. See what all the fuss is about, see a real enthusiast at work, see some 2010 swag been given out, eat some 2010 Pizza, it's all new and shiny here in Brum ...

Events: December, 2009

2010 - A SharePoint Oddity ...	December 15
It's the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, and on his home ground, fresh back from the SPC09 Conference, Dave 'swagmeister' McMahon will give a roundup of some of the new features of SharePoint 2010 and associated products but will then focus on one specifc area, the new Visio Services which provides us with new and exciting ways to easily illustrate data for management and BI purposes. Christmas Swag, Christmas Food and Christmas content ... Ho! Ho! Ho!

Events: November, 2009

Roger's Over and Out!	November 24
Alun Rogers Security MVP and NxtGenUG Top Speaker is back from his sabbatical in London. Having escaped from being buried by 2 million Exchange Server installations or some such, he is back to talk not only Security but about Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) - apparently something we Developers ought to get Savvy about! So don't miss a great fun evening with a "State of the Nation" and Virtual Desktop Infrastrcuture talks from Alun Rogers, plus Pizza, plus Swag and the usual crew!!

Events: October, 2009

Costa el Silverlight	October 13
It's Richie Costall, so it must be Silverlight. Yes indeed, NxtGenUG Co-founder, Silverlight Insider, Silverlight MVP, Silverlight nut Richard Costall travels up the A45 from Coventry to go through the latest (and greatest) incarnation of one of Microsoft's swankiest technologies. Don't miss it, with Pizza and member nugget (probably from Dave).

Events: September, 2009

The MVC Framework	September 22
Gavin Osborn visits Birmingham to talk about the alternative to WebForms, Microsoft's ASP.NET MVC framework, plus they'll be a nugget, SWAG and Pizza !!

Events: August, 2009

Mocking Up SharePoint	August 18
Richard Fennell starts his UK tour of testing SharePoint developer work with Typemock in Birmingham - Manchester tomorrow! Usual Pizza, Swag and member nuggets abound!

Events: July, 2009

Workflowing for the Man	July 07
Morgan Skinner Workflow Guru hits the second city to tell us about the new Windows Workflow Foundation changes and what it means, great speaker, great venue, great Pizza, great swag (even in these swag crunch times ...), don't miss it. It's Hot In The City ...

Events: June, 2009

Prism Break!	June 09
John McLoughlin, exhuberant leader of NxtGenUG Southampton, the man with an unspammable email address heads up to Birmingham to talk about Prism, a cool new way to develop WPF and Silverlight Applications. Swag,Pizza, member Nugget and the WPF Swagometer operated by it's creator none other than John McLoughlin!

Events: May, 2009

It's a Parallel Universe ...	May 12
Is he the new Daniel Moth, or was just Daniel Moth just the old Eric Nelson? You decide. Yes from our very own UK Developer Platform Evangelist group based at Microsoft UK Reading. Eric Nelson visits to chat about the upcoming developments relating to parallel/multi-core programming and how things are being made easier through new features in Visual Studio. Pizza, nugget, swag, you know the score. See you there!

Events: April, 2009

ASP.NET 4 You	April 14
Dave Sussman MVP, Software Legend and popular UK Speaker visits to talk about what's new in ASP.NET 4.0. With one of the most notable UK ASP.NET MVPs its gonna be a great evening! Don't miss it!

Events: March, 2009

Working with Virtual Earth	March 10
Birmingham are really pleased to welcome from Microsoft UK, Virtual Earth Technology Specialist Johannes Kebeck who will be speaking about naturally Virtual Earth! We also have new member and second time nuggeteer Richard Hopton talking about the XAML Serializer, Pizza naturally and swag included. Don't miss it!

Events: February, 2009

Liam And Guy Do Virtualization	February 12
Don't miss this one! Two for the price of one! Yes we have not one but two fantastic speakers for you tonight. Top European Speaker, DotNetDevNet User Group Leader and Rock Band God Guy Smith-Ferrier arrives accompanied by the ever popular and hard working Liam Westley. Together they will deliver a double bill on Virtualisation for the Developer. Pizza, Swag, Valentines Day approaching, feel the love for Virtualisation, the coolest technology out there AND one of the most useful! IMPORTANT! THIS EVENT STARTS AT 6.30PM NOT 7.00PM!!!

Events: January, 2009

Design In The NewYear ...	January 20
To give a different feel to the first NxtgenUG Brum meeting of the new year, we have top Designer "Tricky" come to help us "Design Challenged" developers get a grasp of some basics ...

Events: December, 2008

Happy Christmanic Miner ...	December 09
Christmas is a time for games, so let's see how Richie Costall and Pete McGann wrote their Tribute to Manic Miner in Silverlight 2.0 and in XNA. We'll get a chance to play Manic Miner for Christmas Swag and there will be food a plenty, Ho Ho Ho!

Events: November, 2008

Make Your Day With CSLA ...	November 18
Andrew Hallmark will introduce you to CSLA.NET and some of the features that it offers. He will then entice you with the productivity benefits that it can bring in combination with code generation and demonstrate why you should find out more. If you want to put the Rapid back into Application Development but don't want to compromise on quality why not come along and join in? Member nugget, Swag and Pizza as per normal too!

Events: October, 2008

Let's Rock with ASP.NET ...	October 14
Chris Hay the "Grande Fromage" of NxtGenUG Cambridge flies in to Birmingham, with outrageous T-Shirt and all to give a top performance on getting Top Performance out of ASP.NET Web Sites! Yes its a session on building High Performance ASP.NET web sites, plus a member nugget from Mohammed Muzammil frsh from 'Ready, Steady, Speak!' at UK REMIX, Pizza and nice bright Swag also fresh from REMIX ...

Events: September, 2008

I, Robot	September 16
The 3 Laws of Robotics Studio "A Microsoft employee shall demonstrate cool robotics stuff to NxtGenUG members", "A Microsoft employee shall give out copious amounts of 'swag' to NxtGenUG members", "A Microsoft employee shall eat Pizza with NxtGenUG members". Pretty sure Paul Foster will do that! Yes, Paul visits Birmingham to show off Microsoft Robotics Studio and all the cool stuff and games and worlds you can create with it. Don't Miss It!

Events: August, 2008

Run MVC ...	August 19
Alan Dean is back in town this time with a less cerebral session than "Object Thinking". The Microsoft MVC Framework is an alternative approach to developing web applications. Member nugget and Pizza and Swag as ever, and maybe a quick bevy at the "Sack of Spuds" since it's summertime ...

Events: July, 2008

Simon Sabin - The SQL ...	July 15
After intense negotiations, the ever-popular Simon Sabin has signed up for a sequel to his visit to NxtGenUG last year. His Service Broker session was an unexpected hit and so he's back with a new session on SQL 2008 taking a look at a number of the new features. Pizza, Swag as ever. Don't miss it ... Click here to download Mohammed's Slides and Demos.

Events: June, 2008

The Ed of Security ...	June 24
Stand by your beds, make sure you've read your Developers Highway Code and done your homework. Ed Gibson, Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor based here in the UK is coming to speak about what he thinks you should know about. Who are the bad guys these days? What are they up to? Where do they hide? What do they want? What can you do to protect yourself from them and to prevent your PC from joining the multitude of compromised machines ... Don't miss this one! Member nugget and Pizza and swag, all thoroughly virus checked will feature too. The code from Andy's nugget can be found here.

Events: May, 2008

Homer's In Town ...	May 20
Yes, top UK and INETA speaker Alex Homer is in the second city to talk about Design Pattern's in ASP.NET. Do we need them in ASP.NET? Do they even make sense? Come along and get some great information froma top speaker. You'll see a member nugget too, plus we suspect Pizza and without doubt - swag!

Events: April, 2008

Silverlight and Silvertongue	April 22
Richard Costall travels to Brum to show us the latest developments with Silverlight, is it living up to the hype? Does Richard live up to his own hype? Come along and find out about this sea-change in web-based development on the Microsoft and Other Platforms ... Full details to follow

Events: March, 2008

Pre-Launch LINQ & Pizza!	March 18
"Twas the night before The Launch, ..." , yes and our good friend Ian Cooper, founder of London .NET User Group pays another visit to NxtGenUG Brum this time bearing his LINQ. James Coulter from Coventry group pops in as an Observer and with the 2008 Launch Event tomorrow, we might have a few surprise guests popping in. Swag and Pizza abound. Just what you need before a Launch Event ...!

Events: February, 2008

The Travelling Swagman ...	February 19
In a meeting with a different tack, Dan Taylor visits NxtGenUG Brum, after programming his SatNav with an Evolutionary Algorithm no doubt and comes to explain what Evolutionary Algorithms are and how they can help to solve this famous problem and maybe some others per chance ...? Andy Maggs delivers his second Nugget the first of a series on MSBuild. Pizza will arrive courtesy of the travelling Pizza Man and 'swag' courtesy of the travelling 'swag' man ...

Events: January, 2008

Hoots Mon! Its Murphy Time!	January 21
With great dedication, Craig Murphy, DDD6 organiser, author, blogger, speaker and lynchpin of the UK Community travels from deepest Scotland to tell us why he believes in Test Driven Development and why we should do it too. In a 'double header' evening, Craig also gives us a whirlwind tour of Automated Build processes using FinalBuilder. It's not quite Burns Night, but we'll see if we can't have a poem or two, "To a USB Mouse" perhaps? There's certainly Pizza, certainly swag and maybe neeps and tatties too ...

Events: December, 2007

It's Chris - TFS - mas Time!	December 17
Its Christmas Time in the workplace. And will Santa bring you a nice Team Foundation Server for yule-tide delight? Who knows, do you even want one? Well Richard Fennell top speaker from Black Marble reckons you do, and he's here to tell you why. We'll have a Christmas Nugget from Dave - one for the kids this time on KPL, so stand by for a game of Pong for 'Swag', Christmas Pizza, Crackers, Christmas Cake and maybe a tipple of something ... Ho Ho Ho!

Events: November, 2007

The Sound of Security ...	November 19
Rogers and Hammerstein may be no more, but we've got our own dynamic security duo in the form of (Alun) Rogers and (Chris) Seary. The hills may be alive with the sound of music, and these sessions will be music to your ears. We have top Developer Security MVP Chris Seary and top IT Pro Security MVP Alun Rogers telling us like it is!You won't have to travel to the South Pacific, just to Birmingham where the King and I (Geff 'Bacardi' Lombardi and Dave McMahon) will host you for the evening plus feed you Pizza and throw swag at you. This will be a cracking night, don't miss it!

Events: October, 2007

Halloween 'Spooktacular' ...	October 31
.NET 'Wizard' Liam Westley looks at the 'ghost' in the machine as he dives into Windows and looks at developing Windows Services. Remember those? Well, in case you hadn't noticed they're all around us in the development world, but hard to see and hard to capture with a debugger! Liam shows us how we can make our lives easier when writing and working with Windows Services including some of the differences between NT and Windows Vista Services. Other scary things to see on the night: Spicy Pizzas, A Nuggets of Wisdom and of course the now patented 'Swag Distibute-o-Meter'...

Events: September, 2007

It's Just a Click Away ...	September 24
Top speaker, writer,founder of DotNetDevNet User Group and all round 'good guy', Guy Smith-Ferrier joins the NxtGenUG Brum crew and gets his XBAPs out to show us how great Windows and Browser apps are just a click away ... An evening of WPF, Pizza, 'Swag' and a great NxtGenUG Nugget to inform and delight from none other than Chris Hay who runs NxtGenUG Cambridge ... See you there!

Events: August, 2007

Agile In August	August 20
Technologist and speaker, Gary Short roles up and unroles his list of comparisions between strengths and weaknesses of the 'Agile' Development in the Enterprise and the ISVs. This session was very well received at DDD5. We'll also have a first nugget from NxtGenUG Member Ami Bening on testing using NUnit .... what? Pizza? Will we have Pizza? Do you have to even ask? Swag? Come on! See you there, its going to be another great evening!

Events: July, 2007

A Summer Evening of SQL ...	July 16
Its Summertime and the Livin' is easy ... so is SQL when you know how and we've got a great session from a guy who knows how. Learn about the Service Broker, the component of SQL Server that allows asynchronous processing within your DB. Also in this event, Andy Maggs, NxtGenUG member presents a 'nugget' on 2 of his favourite utilities. What else? 'Course - Swag, Pizza and Chat!

Events: June, 2007

ASP.NET Development with IIS 7	June 18
Join the Brum crew on an ASP.NET Development night. Our good friend Andy Westgarth VBUG Co-ordinator for North-East visits town to give us a tour of IIS 7.0 what it means to us developers, and how it makes for a much more flexible platform for our web applications. Dave McMahon will be doing a 10 min Nugget on the WPF Samples which are available now, there will be a re-run of the FEST07 Review Video, Pizza and the ubiquitous "Swag"!

Events: May, 2007

Objects, Objects, Objects ...	May 21
Join us in Brum for an evening with Objects. First off we take a look at 5 Top Best Practices for Object Orientated Programming presented by Ian Cooper who runs the London .NET User Group. Then we have a great session by Alan Dean which takes a long hard look at the whole subject of OO. We'll have some real world objects to get to grips with of course in the form of Pizza, Prizes and general Swag!

Events: April, 2007

ASP.NET Security and OWASP	April 16
Hang on to your hats! Dinis Cruz is in town and he's talking ASP.NET Security, OWASP and how you as developers can help to make the web a safer place work live and work. We'll have a Nugget from a member on something or other, Pizza and swag - what more can you ask for!

Events: March, 2007

SQL 2005 Security Bits ...	March 26
Unfortunately the Performance Point Server 2007 session has had to be postponed at short notice so Dave steps into the breech and will be covering some of the features of SQL 2005 that make it the most secure database development platform that Microsoft have produced. Don't worry the swag ain't been postponed, neither thas the Pizza!

Events: February, 2007

LINQ to SQL, LINQ to XML	February 19
.NET 3.0 might be out, but .NET 3.5 which includes some serious langauge enhancements is just around the corner. As a preview of what is to come, Oliver Sturm a well respected speaker from the UK community visits Birmingham to talk about LINQ, one of the key language enhancements and how to create customs extensions to LINQ to simplify your coding experience. As ever, we have a Nugget this time provided by our very own Geff 'Bacardi' Lombardi on his favourite .NET 2.0 feature, the Background Worker Thread. Also : Chat, Tea and Coffee, Pizza and Prizes!!

Events: January, 2007

VISTA - From the Inside	January 22
The Association of Midlands IT Professionals (MITPRO) and NxtGenUG team up to bring you an evening of Vista! Matt McSpirit and James Senior, otherwise known as "The Vista Boyz" from the Vista Partner Technical Specialists will talk about the various new features of Vista and Office 2007 and how they affect the SMB. Vista as a development platform will be looked at in the second part of the session and how Vista is the platform on which to create better applications.

Events: December, 2006

Christmas Festival AGAIN!	December 18
If you missed the Coventry Festival, or if you just enjoyed it so much you want to do it again, come along to Birmingham, John and Rich will be getting their toys out again, Santa will pay ANOTHER call and you can challenge your fellow members to a game of Pong written in KPL for swag of course ... Did we mention there will be food too?

Events: November, 2006

Integration Time With BizTalk!	November 27
This month the Birmingham NxtGenUg brings you a Data Integration Session looking at BizTalk Server. Ben Goeltz of Chateris will talk about the history, architecture and use of BizTalk with, of course, demos! There will be another Nugget or a Video Interview, the chance to chat with other members and guests and naturally ... Pizza!

Events: October, 2006

Halloween 'Spooktacular' No 2!	October 30
Following on from last years great session by Steve Lamb of Microsoft, NxtGenUg present another "Halloween Spooktacular!", this time featuring Alun Rogers of Risual who runs the IT Pro Security User Group here in the UK, and also Police Inspector Martin Wright who will present a nugget on SME WARP and of course ... food!

Events: September, 2006

Access 2007 and the New Office	September 19
Rod Gordon, Chairman of the Access User Group will speak on the new Access 2007, where it fits in as a technology and demonstrate some of it's great new features. Plus Video Interviews, maybe another Vista Nugget and Pizza!

Events: August, 2006

Mobile Devices and Powershell	August 21
Tony Whitter, joins us for a look at how mobile devices are shaping up with Visual Studio 2005 and Windows Mobile 5.0, whilst Dave McMahon gives us a 'nugget' on Powershell.

Events: July, 2006

BI, XLINQ and Pizza!	July 17
This month take a good look around the Microsoft Business Intelligence with Dave Morrow of Ridgian who will take you on a trip through Analysis Services and Reporting Services and more! Starting from the basics Dave will introduce the essentials of OLAP including Cubes, MDX (the Query Language for multi-dimensional cubes) and also demo Proclarity Microsoft's newly aquired tool for delving into cubes. Also this event will feature a quick XLINQ Nugget from Dave McMahon and a video interview from Billy Hollis of .NET masters. Oh yes! Prizes and Pizza of course!

Events: June, 2006

Birmingham June Meeting DSL	June 26
The second meeting of the Birmingham Next Generation Users Group will be held at iCentrum in the heart of Birmingham. The main session will be on Domain Specific Langauges (DSL), but there will be other features, such as Vista Spotlight, an exclusive video interview with 'Soma' Somasegar Vice-President of Microsoft, and of course Pizza and Prizes!

Events: May, 2006

Birmingham Launch Extravaganza	May 22
Being celebrated in Birmingham and Coventry; come and join the NxtGenUG team to celebrate the launch, including Welcome messages from around the world and plenty of prizes.