It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog so I thought that I should catch everyone up to speed. I gave Six Flags my two week notice 3 weeks ago.. and started a new company last week. Someone asked me how long it took me to put together my new company, 20 years of hard work. 
This post is the 6th in a series that started with the 10 practices that every developer needs to start right now
The first time that someone taught me about Software Design Patterns it went something like this:
I find that is how a lot of people react when they first learn about patterns. “So a pattern is just giving a name to good software development” Well, yes and no. On the one hand – yes, a software pattern is recognizing common software challenges and the approaches that have worked in the past to over come those challenges – and naming it. On the other hand, don’t underestimate the power of giving something a name.
This is just a quick note that I’ll be presenting at two different events in the DFW area this month. Hope you can make it!
First, Wednesday March 3rd, I’ll be at the North Dallas .NET Users Group talking about Model View View-Models (MVVM) for your Silverlight Applications. If you’ve ever seen my Dependency Injection for Silverlight talk, this is pretty much the follow up to that. (above is a snapshot from the last time that I spoke there.)
Have you ever wanted to be a technical presenter, but you weren’t sure how to get started? Or do you want to take your technical presentation skills to the “next level”? This this is the event for you! I love the idea of events like this, and I was honored to be invited to participate. Maybe this will spark more interest in groups like Presenter Mentor?
Teresa Burger, awesome community member and talented developer over at Woot! is organizing this event. It’s $50 to attend, includes lunch, and is a full day of Dave Gunby, Microsoft’s Chris Koenig, MVP extraordinaire Tim Rayburn and also yours truly.
Yep, this is going to be a fun month! Hope to see you there!
This post is the 5th in a series that started with the 10 practices that every developer needs to start right now
When writing software, we often don’t think about the security implications of our actions. Probably because we write software to do something, we’re not always aware of what it shouldn’t do. Their are a lot of guidelines for writing secure code, and designing secure systems. Rather than going in to all of the areas, let me just hit on some of the especially important topics that I’ve come across…
This post is a part of a series that I started with “10 Practices that Every Developer Needs to Start Right Now“.
Update: This post was picked up by DZone, go vote it up!
Ok, before you dig in to the post, let’s get two things out of the way first. 1.Go read the authority on SOLID principles from the man himself, Uncle Bob Martin. 2nd.Go get the very cool Inspirational SOLID images from the guys over at Los Techies. They released them under a Creative Commons License which I think is pretty cool! Alright, got that out of the way? Good. Let’s get started.
Few things have come a long OO history that resonate so well with so many developers than the SOLID principle. One of the reasons they resonate with so many developers is because they communicate several practices that many developers have been doing all along. The beauty and power of the SOLID principals in in there ability to communicate, what I call code architecture, in such a memorable and practical way.
Like any good thing, however, taken to an extreme can become a hindrance on any project. So, I’m going to tackle these principals like I tackle everything in this series… give you my take on it. So here you go: SOLID according to Caleb.
If you are going to read through my “10 practices that every developer should start right now” series, then you probably want to know where these 10 practices came from, why I chose these 10 – really, what so important about secure coding anyway? 
– I think that it’s important to know that these aren’t just 10 random items to fill a couple of blog posts. These are all practices that have been thoroughly thought out. This list is something that I started to formulate over a year ago based on my experience as a consultant, working as a technical editor, and discussions with countless MVPs, other consultants and in my interviews with potential consultants… Read more »
Last Thursday I posted my thoughts about Microsoft’s OSS announcements (go digg it: 3 Reasons Microsoft Needs an Open Source Officer), namely the formation of the CodePlex Foundation (awesome) and the departure of Sam Ramji (bummer). My take is that this is a great opportunity for Microsoft to take open source projects at Microsoft up a notch and raise the stakes with a big bold move by bringing in someone like my friend whurley (William Hurley – currently the chief architect of open source strategy at BMC).
This morning I turned on my computer to see that Todd Weiss and the folks at Linux.com had featured this idea on their home page. Go check it out the full article!
Today there were two big announcements from Microsoft regarding their involvement with the Open Source communities. First, was the formation of the CodePlex foundation, an open source foundation for the
Enabling the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities
Awesome. Great. Fantastic. This is the natural progression of a lot of the open source work that’s been happening at CodePlex, in the ASP.NET MVC stack and a lot of the other OSS projects that Microsoft has been initiating and contributing to lately.
The other announcement was more disappointing, Bill Hilf, the general manager of Windows, announced that Sam Ramji would be leaving his post at Microsoft to be the interim president of the CodePlex Foundation (cool – but why interim?) and then he would be pursuing some other opportunity.
I’m not done yet… but I do like the changes so far.
Old New
If you are watching my RSS feed then you might not have noticed the change. Ultimately I’m planning on merging my Health Blog and Developing UX into a single space. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to organize my content by categories. Development, Health, Family, Religion, Politics, Entrepreneurism are the categories that I’m thinking about, of course I’d still like UX, Silverlight, Speaking, CommunityCast, SixFlags, Microsoft in there… so I’ve still got some thinking to think about.
Of course, not everyone likes the change…
randypeterman @CalebJenkins if UX is your priority DO NOT do white/grey text on dark colors. 'cept when showing people what not to do.
Well… I didn’t say that I was done yet. What are your suggestions?
In June I’ll be the local Silverlight expert, leading a technology track on Rich Internet Applications (RIA) at a Microsoft’s BizSpark event, SparkStart.
From the official announcement:
SparkStart is a full day of business and technology discussion (open format) and learning event for startups (“startup bootcamp”). This event will also be a networking opportunity for those startups who are new to the BizSpark program and not yet enrolled in the program and would like to mingle and learn from key business and technology influencers. It will also be an event for those startups who are recently enrolled and need to keep the momentum going by learning key strategies for success, both in business, and in technology.
I’m looking forward to checking out Microsoft’s new Technology Center in Las Colinas, TX – It’s an amazing building!
It’s going to be an incredible event for startups and entrepreneurs to learn, network and get to know some of the incredible technologies that are now available. I’m especially looking forward to hanging out with some of the other people that will be presenting at the event. (too name a few)
Check out SparkStart on twitter and read some of Christian’s other related posts. Be sure to register. It’s going to be an amazing day!
Caleb Jenkins, is a recognized Silverlight expert, Software Mentor and Coach; he is the Founder and Principal Mentor for Proaction Mentors, he is also a National Speaker for INETA, a Technical Editor for Wrox Press and is a Microsoft MVP. You can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his blog updates.
Caleb lives in the Dallas, TX area where he continues to date his beautiful wife and busy himself playing Candy Land and xBox 360 with their four incredible children. Eventually he’ll post some of the gazillion interviews that he's recorded on CommunityCast.tv or blog more... or stop speaking of himself in the third person. more...
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