Shameless self promotion

You Never Forget Your First….

James Bender — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:48:41 GMT

For the one or two people out there who probably haven’t heard yet, I’ve spend the past year writing a book. Well, not completely by myself; I had a lot of help from Jeff McWherter and Mike Eaton. I’m happy to say that after almost a year of hard work, late nights missed social engagements and infinite patience from Gayle, the book is officially released!

For those of you who have received your copy already via Amazon, I hope you are enjoying it. The Kindle version is available today. For those of you who didn’t pre-order, the book should (I hope) now be available at your local book store. Please take a look and visit the Facebook page to tell me what you think.

I’m also happy to report that I’ll be writing another book. This one will still be for Wiley publishing, but will probably not be on the Wrox imprint. More details to follow.

Working with WCF returns from hiatus next week!

DevLink 2010 Slides and Demo

James Bender — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:01:50 GMT

I had a great time speaking, learning and just generally hanging out at DevLink as always. It’s quickly becoming one of my most eagerly anticipated events of the year. I was honored to be allowed to speak at this years event, and as promised here are all my slide decks and demos.

See you next year!

Where I’ll be…

James Bender — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:47:39 GMT

I’ll be speaking at a few upcoming events. If you’re in the area why don’t you come out and ~~heckle~~ enjoy my talks!

Event	Date	Web Site	Topic
Ann Arbor Day of .NET	May 1, 2010	http://bit.ly/9h9d6d	Cloud Computing with Microsoft Azure
Richmond Code Camp	May 22, 2010	http://bit.ly/11LpSW	How I Learned To Love Dependency Injection
TechEd	June 7-10 2010	http://bit.ly/4vBBpi	I’ll be working in the Architecture track of the “Ask the Experts” area. Check schedule for times.
DevLink	August 5-7 2010	http://bit.ly/sGxJ3	Demystifing the WS-* Standards
DevLink	August 5-7 2010	http://bit.ly/sGxJ3	A Geeks Guide To The Enterprise
DevLink	August 5-7 2010	http://bit.ly/sGxJ3	Cloud Computing with Microsoft Azure
DevLink	August 5-7 2010	http://bit.ly/sGxJ3	Stone Soup or Creating a Culture of Change

I’m sure I’ll be adding to this list and will post updates as I get them.

The WCF content returns in couple days. Stay tuned…

Kalamazoo. Two

James Bender — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:36:11 GMT

Last year I got to participate in the Kalamazoo X Conference, which was a great experience. You can read about it here.

Unbelievably I’ve been asked back to present again this year! This time around I’ll be presenting “Stone Soup or Creating a Culture of Change.” It’s the first time I’ll be giving this talk, and I’m very excited to see what people think.

But, even if I bomb, you’ll be able to see plenty of other great speakers like Jeff Blankenburg, Brian Prince, Alan Stevens, Tim Wingfield, Jeff McWherter, Phil Japikse, Jenneifer Marsman, and one of the highlights of last years event; Clovis Bordeaux!

The event is Saturday April 10th in (of course) Kalamazoo, MI. You can find more information and register for the event here.

See you there!

Hey, I got a Microsoft MVP Award!

James Bender — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:36:33 GMT

It’s been a pretty busy new year for me (Codemash, clients, hockey, holidays, etc.), which is why I’m just now getting a chance to write this post.

A lot people already know, but on January 1st I received an MVP award from Microsoft for my work in the developer community. I’m very proud and honored to receive this award. I would like to thank all the people who nominated me and the community for it’s support. I’m looking forward to 2010 being a great year for the development community and am excited to continue to be a part of it!

I really didn’t expect to receive one this quarter. In fact that only reason I checked that e-mail account that days was because I was looking for an old e-mail from someone else! For those of you who were expecting a funny/witty/insightful post about this, I apologize. To be honest I’m still trying to wrap my head around this very unexpected surprise.

You can view my MVP Profile here.

See you at Codemash!

I’m Following Rod Paddock at Codestock?!

James Bender — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:46:07 GMT

Codestock is this weekend in Knoxville. You can check out the agenda page here and see that there are some great, very smart people speaking there. With seven tracks over two days, plus open spaces, there’s something for everyone at this great event. I was honored to speak at the first Codestock event last year, and I’m thrilled to be back!

I’ll be presenting “How to make your application awesome with JSON, REST and WCF” in which I’ll explain why REST is the “new” hotness (turns out it’s not that new) and how to take advantage of it with WCF. You’ll also get to see some cool JQuery and ASP.NET MVC stuff as part of the talk. It’s the first time I’ve given this talk, so I’m very excited!

Turns out I’m following Rod Paddock. Yeah, that Rod Paddock. Editor in Chief of CoDe Magazine, author of many books, international speaker and Microsoft MVP. By contrast, I was all excited this morning because I found a $5.00 bill in my pocket that I forgot I had.

Ron Paddock followed by James Bender. Kinda like…

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In all seriousness, I’m really looking forward and VERY happy to be speaking at Codestock. It’s a must-attend event and if you’re not going, well, you should go!

If I Do A Good Job, Can We Go To Dietsch Brothers for Ice Cream After The Meeting?

James Bender — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:28:20 GMT

This Tuesday, April 28th, I’ll be speaking at the Findlay Area .NET User Group.

I’ll be presenting “How I Learned To Love Dependency Injection,” which if my .NET Kicks stats are to be believed, is turning out to be quite the popular talk. The meeting is at the Marathon Oil building in downtown Findlay.

I spoke at this group a couple of years ago and had a GREAT time. I’m excited to be going back!

Speaking Tomorrow at MOCSDG !

James Bender — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:01:19 GMT

So, you’ve probably heard about Microsoft Azure by now, and how awesome it is. But there’s more to developing for Microsoft's Cloud Provider than web and worker roles.

I will be presenting a lap around Microsoft .NET Services, which provides some great infrastructure features that can make your Azure application development easier.

What? You’re not into the whole “cloud thing?”

Well then your in luck! Because with .NET Services you can still take advantage of these great features without having to build an “Azure application!”

What now? Oh, you’re not a “.NET developer?”

That’s cool, because .NET Services has SDK’s for Java AND Ruby! And they are available RIGHT NOW!

OK, since you have no more excuses, I’ll see you all at the Microsoft office at 6:00 tomorrow night!

Reliable Messaging at CODODN

James Bender — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:22:55 GMT

Thanks to everyone who came to either my F# talk with Amanda Laucher or my Reliable Messaging talk. If you came to both than EXTRA THANKS!

As promised, here is a link to my slides and sample code from the WCF talk.

For those of you who missed it, I will be presenting the same talk at the Western Michigan Day of .NET in Grand Rapids on May 10th.

See you all there!