Jacksonville Developers User Group

Andrew Connell had to cancel the Jacksonville Office Group's meeting for Thursday, May 15th.  He's sorry for the notice, but his other duties are interfering with his extra-curriculars for this month.

My theory is that he didn't want to miss the special one-night only re-release of First Blood.  Just kidding.  Not about the re-release, just Andrew seeing it.

Please keep in mind that JaxDUG needs a speaker for June, so if you have a topic you want to present on for 20 minutes to 2 hours, please get in touch with me.

The Jacksonville Java Users Group is having their next meeting April 9th at the Availity offices (7406 Fullerton St., Jacksonville, FL 32256) starting at 7pm.

Steve Bristol of less everything and RubyJax will be presenting Ruby On Rails.

In a previous post, I hinted at a special speaker presenting at the next meeting.  Well, that speaker is the first JaxDUG president, David Strommer.

Be sure to come on out and see David present on Business Process Management.  All the details can be found here.

I know alot of people have alot to say about tools to enhance the IDE experience in Visual Studio.  Hear is a little more signal to the noise.

PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008 is released and you can download it here.

While as developers I am willing to bet we spend alot of time inside dealing with the mundane bits of modern business development.  I try my best to avoid the Big Blue Room as I tend to find it too brightly lit or just too warm.

But there are those moments that catch you and you are reminded that you are human.  A sunset, clouds, fog in the field on an early morning (or very late night, depending how the code turned out).  And at those moments, you feel that child-like wonder that you approached all of reality with once.  And if that moment is the right moment, it goes beyond that feeling from youth, and takes on a timeless quality and you feel a connection to all that have come before you and looked at the night sky.

So take a moment tonite, go into the Big Black Room, look up and marvel at the clockwork wonders that universe has to serve up.

The Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest hit Jacksonville last night.  I think it was a great event and gave great exposure to our JaxDUG community.  Thanks to two of our SIG leaders, Bayer White (Architecture) and Thomas Bates (ASP.) for coming out and representing.

For those that attended, I want to say congratulations and thanks for coming out.  Don't forget to register your software before the end of of the month.  In fact, if you happen to be reading this and you havent registered for your full version (which was the whole point of the event), then stop reading and do so now.

I also want to thank the team from Microsoft that brought the software: Joe Healy (keep an eye on his site for the pics, particularly the Orcas Orca), Jeff Barnes, Mark Cerretani, and Jim Blizzard.

And I want to give a very special thanks to JaxDUG members Glenn Adams, Chad Cooper, and Phil Langeberg for giving up their own seats on the list and showing up anyway to support the event.

Update[1/25/2008] Joe has loaded up the pictures.  See them at http://www.devfish.net/FullBlogItemView.aspx?BlogId=501

Tuesday, I intend to do my normal thing, have a slice or two with whomever like to at Renna's on Baymeadows.

Wednesday is the first Jax SQL meeting of the new year and I'll be there to see what Joe Salvatore has to say about Business Intelligence.

Thursday is the first Jax Office Group meeting of the new year, and I am attending if for no other reason than the opportunity to tip back a few tasty adult beverages with Connell.

There are other meetings around town this week, like the Linux User Group (Tuesday) and  Ruby Jax (Thursday), so there ought to be something out there for just about everyone.