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 Coming Events |
| Monday, July 06, 2009 |
| Oxford - WPF, WPF, WPF |
| Tuesday, July 07, 2009 |
| Birmingham - Workflowing for the Man |
| Tuesday, July 14, 2009 |
| Cambridge - The MVC Framework |
| Wednesday, July 15, 2009 |
| Manchester - In the Media Centre Spotlight |
| Thursday, July 16, 2009 |
| Southampton - Web 4.0 - 2.0 is History |
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| Conferences |
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DDD 7 |
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| Partner Showcase |
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Ridgian are a leading IT solutions provider, delivering business centric solutions. |
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Birmingham Region
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| Coordinators |
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| Dave McMahon |
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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.
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Cambridge Region
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| Allister Frost |
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My first encounter with any form of software development was with a ZX81 in 1982. However at four years old, I was just typing what Dad said. I guess I was an early starter in ‘Pair programming’!
Since then I’ve always had a hand in computing, software and hardware. I’ve setup a few companies, my first at 17, system building and websites. I’ve helped develop around 50 websites over the last 10 years from KP’s portfolio in 1998 to various charities in 2000 (NCDL, WaterAid & GreenPeace Int.) to a number of .COM ventures (article27 & blue-wire). My last big projects were working on Nestlés corporate website and helping to deliver Vodafone’s ground-breaking M-Pesa project, a mobile money transfer platform.
I’ve been consulting through my company Clarity IT Ltd, since 2003. I’ve worked throughout the UK and most of Europe. Mainly developing ASP.NET (C# preferred or VB) or mobile device projects (.NET CF).
What interests me now? I’m always fascinated by the latest developments in computing. Mobile, ‘lifestyle computing ‘, gaming etc. I’m also into streaming technologies (Mainly Windows Media) and the various HD formats (Though mostly Blu-Ray).
I’ve been known to fly on occasion at Cambridge airport, though I haven’t got anywhere near a PPL yet (I’m not sure if I trust myself!) |
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| Chris Hay |
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Chris is regularly caught by his wife browsing internet sites at 2.00am in the morning. Sadly he is always looking at .NET sites rather than the haunts frequented by his peers.
Chris has worked on various large projects and is specialised in C#, ASP.NET, AJAX, SQL and various other acronymns. Having always tried to keep at the front of the technology curve, i guess it is time to share that knowledge around a little.
Simple tip, never mention Silverlight infront of him (if you are in a hurry).
You can catch him on his blog http://silverlightuk.blogspot.com |
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Coventry Region
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| Coordinators |
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| Richard Costall |
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Richard Costall (MVP, MCSD.NET) has over 22 years development experience and works for 1st Software, a Microsoft Gold Partner, and the UK's leading software solution for Financial Adviser and Intermediaries, designing and implementing IFA applications in the financial services sector. Previously specializing in VB, XML/XSLT, COM, ASP and MSMQ, Richard now lives and breathes the awesome world of .Net and in particular ASP.NET and Silverlight 2.0. Richard spent 5 1/2 years as the Midlands regional coordinator for VBUG (Visual Basic User Group) before co-founding NxtGenUG, the innovative UK user group for Microsoft Technologies.
Richard has written articles for publications such as ASP.NET Pro and International Developer Magazines and also co-authered the Apress title Professional MSMQ. He speaks a local user groups, Microsoft Conferences/Product launches, TechED Europe and the hugely successful DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Events.
When not in .Net land, Richard enjoys relaxing at home with his wife and two sons, playing on the XBOX 360 or ultimately jetting off to Walt Disney World, Florida, for a trip on the Tower of Terror.
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| John Price |
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My background is in Point of sale for the retail sector, in particular petroleum.
I have been working as a developer as long as I can remember, in fact my first development job was as 15, while I was still at school!
I worked for 10 years at Wella GB as a developer developing systems for hairdressers before doing 4 years designing hardware for various platforms. I even had a hand in designing a 286 motherboard!
I then worked for Meggitt Petroleum Systems as a Technical Architect designing Point of Sale terminals and Back Office systems for major oil companies across the world. I have been lucky enough to visit 26 countries as diverse as South Africa and Japan doing this.
I developed some desktop and enterprise level applications using an obscure 4GL called Omnis.
Since then I have been working with .NET since its inception and was part of the beta program for 1.0 and have built a web site in ASP.NET
Numerous projects later I have sepcialised in media devices for XP and XP embedded and media center, along with mobile applications for devices ranging from symbian hardware through Pocket PC to Windows Mobile 5.0, and the Vista versions!
I am also a pilot and am fortunate to have an aeroplane at Coventry airport, at the flying club. I can usually be found on the airfield most Saturdays either flying the 'plane if the weathers good, or flying the bar if its not!
If you would like to read more about what I get up to, you could check out my blog at www.johnnysblog.net
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Hereford Region
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| Coordinators |
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| Ryan O'Neill |
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Ryan O'Neill has been working with computers since 1988 when they first started falling over due to an inability to cope with the apostrophe in his surname (something that occurs alarmingly too often even now). He considered changing his surname to O';DROP DATABASE master;'Neill to teach them a lesson but prefers home cooked food (as opposed to prison cuisine).
He is jolly chap with a dry sense of humour. Bill Gates looks like Ryan and is often mistaken for him (something that tends to annoy Bill).
He used to own a company in the south east but sold up and moved to Herefordshire for a slower pace of life with his family where they have a cottage, a Land Rover, Border Collie dog and some large wellies (that leak). Working on systems from low level hardware, real-time oil and gas emergency safety and factory control through to 'noddy' applications for the insurance industry he has settled into Windows and web development with a lot of database work thrown in. Ryan now works from home over the internet with a crew of other developers, mostly on databases, web sites, .Net clients and occasional low level drivers (shudder). |
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| Richard Wilde |
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| Richard Wilde is the owner of wildesoft.net in Bromyard. He has been developing Internet Applications since 1996 so some might say he knows a bit, but he will tell you he knows nothing. He only uses Microsoft Technology these days as he thinks open source is something that mimics herd mentality. He has worked in the past as a development manager for a local company where he had to spend most of his time stopping the designers and developers jumping on each other. He has worked in small/medium sized teams. He has developed many different kinds of internet sites that may or may not work! |
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Manchester Region
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| Steve Robbins |
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Currently a Technical Architect with Lightbox, mainly producting educational software and line of business applications for education related government departments and commercial companies, with a sprinkling of exciting stuff like Microsoft Surface thrown in for good measure! Previous to this I ran my own business for around 4 years, before deciding that monthly management reports are far less interesting than they sound!
These days I generally work in C# and SQL, but in the past I’ve developed in everything from Assembly Language (68000 and x86) through to VB.Net/C#, with plenty of others inbetween. I’ve also done my time in the support/engineering side of IT, so I’m pretty much a geek through and through :-) I’m a firm believer that reading and “best practices” are no substitute for using your brain!
If you want to contact me, you can do so from my blog at http://www.grumpydev.com/ |
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| Andy Wilkinson |
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I have been involved with the support side of IT for over 10 years and currently do 3rd line support at Civica for our in-house products and SQL server. The job incorporates development as and when it can fit into my busy support life!
Developement has always been an interest of mine, from my first steps in the wonderful Turbo Pascal 7 to the heady heights of .Net 1.1 and 2 with SQL 2000/2005 backends.
I am hoping the user group will give me an insight into what's going on in the industry and help to drag me up to date!
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Oxford Region
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| Barry Dorrans |
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Barry Dorrans has spent 15 years cutting code, starting with mainframes,
through DOS, Visual C and MFC before finally ending up on the .net platform.
His experience has ranged from developing banking systems to building Europe's largest streaming network. He now provides design, development and mentoring for .net solutions on an independent basis.
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| Richard Hopton |
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Richard Hopton started his long-term relationship with development at the tender age of 8 when writing text adventure games on the BBC at school, followed by several years of dabbling in Amiga games and demos. He moved onto writing applications in Delphi until 2008 when C# became his language of choice, and .NET his new spiritual home.
Richard now works as a development team leader for an independent software company specialising in producing a market leading industry-specific CRM solution written in C# and WPF. |
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| Chris Seary |
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Chris Seary is an independent security consultant, and is Director of Chris Seary Computing Ltd (www.seary.com). He has worked with many different Microsoft technologies, and for the last few years has specialised in the security aspects of enterprise-level .NET and Java systems.
He regularly contributes to forums, writes articles and white papers, and has a blog devoted (mainly) to IT security (http://blog.searyblog.com/). |
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Southampton Region
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| Richard Allen |
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I have been developing software since 1996 starting with some good old MS Access database work using VBA. I soon moved onto using Borland C++ builder and Delphi until eventually settling on using .NET and C# in 2003 and still loving it.
I run a software development company, Conjurer Solutions Ltd based in Bournemouth specialising in the delivery of hosted content management systems, enterprise level software development consultancy and Agile coaching. I enjoy all aspects of software development and I believe that good communication is the key to the successful delivery of projects.
Outside of software development I have a keen interest in sleight of hand magic, hence the name of the company :-). You can check out my blog at http://richallen.blogspot.com.
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| John McLoughlin |
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| I work for as a Technical Architect based out of Southampton and have been cutting code for over 10 years. Starting off in the Defence Industry playing with Fast Jets and RADAR, I soon got bored with the leisurely pace of technology change and the rigid development (20 year old technology considered risky!) and moved into the commercial sector. After a quick stab at Java, I moved into the .Net world and have never looked back. I specialises in C#, Winforms and Distributed Systems, with a keen interest in the patterns and practices of Software Development and the technologies we all use. You'll often see me lurking around at various MSDN and Community events. |
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