DATE & DateTime Data Types
Episode 1 (June 25, 2001) by Roy Ogborn
Download Now  (ZIP file size=34 KB)

The Immutable String
Episode 2 (July 23, 2001) by Roy Ogborn 
Download Now  (ZIP file size=35 KB)

.NET Input/Output
Episode 3 (August 27, 2001) by Roy Ogborn. In both C# (IO_1) and VB.NET (IO_2) plus the PowerPoint slides.
Download Now  (ZIP file size=226 KB)

Collections: ArrayList and Hashtable
Episode 4 (September 24, 2001) by Roy Ogborn.  Presented in a simple n-tier architecture. The C# and VB versions are identical, except, of course, for the language.
Download C# Version Now  (ZIP file size=341 KB)
Download VB Version Now  (ZIP file size=331 KB)

Smart Object Tricks: Standard and Custom Formatting
Episode 5 (October 22, 2001) by Roy Ogborn.  Both C# and VB versions are included in the download.
Download Now  (ZIP file size=63 KB)
 

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Code from this point downward is compiled using the released Version 1 of Visual Studio.NET

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Strongly Typed Datasets
Episode 6 (January 21, 2002) by Roy Ogborn. This month, I presented my own method of creating ADO.NET strongly typed datasets using a Visual Studio.NET "Playground" project. I prefer this method because Visual Studio creates all the stored procedures, creates all the code required for parameterized ADO.NET Command objects, as well as creating the strongly typed datasets all in one giant step ... which is very cool!  If all you are interested in is the strongly typed datasets created (not the extra "golden nuggets" of code), then there are simpler "drag and drop" ways of doing this.  Since all the code demonstrated in this presentation was generated automatically by Visual Studio.NET (and we connected to a proprietary database during the presentation), only the PowerPoint slides are in this download.
Download Now  (ZIP file size=18 KB)

Exceptions Part 1
Episode 7 (February 25, 2002) by Roy Ogborn. Demonstrates basic exception handling for .NET plus the use of a custom Exception class in exception handling. Code sample is in C#. PowerPoint slides are included
Download Now  (ZIP file size=83 KB)

Exceptions Part 2
Episode 8 (March 25, 2002) by Roy Ogborn. A technique for providing database generated error information from a Web Service that returns a dataset or from the data tier of an n-tier .NET application. Code sample is in VB.NET. PowerPoint slides are included.
Download Now  (ZIP file size=213 KB)

Cryptography and the .NET Framework
Episode 9 (April 23, 2002) by Daniel Larson.  Daniel Larson of Larson Technology presented this month's topic which demonstrated excellent uses of the System.Security.Cryptography Namespace in an n-tier .NET environment. Code samples are in VB.NET. PowerPoint slides are included.
Download Now  (ZIP file size=165 KB)

Regular Expressions for .NET Developers
Episode 10 (May 28, 2002) by Roy Ogborn.  Daniel Appleman authored an outstanding e-book entitled "Regular Expressions with .NET" (see: http://www.desaware.com/Ebook3L2.htm ), so I based this session almost entirely on Dan's material (with his permission, of course). This month's download includes the power point slides and a very simple VB.NET console application.  If you want to learn regular expressions (and you should), read Dan's e-book. (It's less than $15 and you can download it now from Amazon).
Download code sample here  (ZIP file size=22 KB)
View Powerpoint here

Creating Windows Services
“May the Services be with You!”
(May 28, 2002) by Chris Wallace, President of the Denver Microsoft Visual Studio.NET User Group.  Define, create, build, install, start, test, uninstall, and debug Windows Services.  Included within the download Zip file:

-Windows Services Introductory document from Microsoft
-File Watcher folder with all code from presentation using Visual Studio .NET with C#
-Power Point slides shown during presentation
-Notes used during presentation
-Step by step instructions to build the solution used during presentation
-Windows Services text file used during presentation to test File Watcher code
Download Now  (ZIP file size=106 KB)

View the script now!
Guided Garden Stroll through the .Net Framework Class Library
Episode 11 (August 26, 2002) by Roy Ogborn, .NET Architect and Developer Consultant, Orbonyx Corp.

In this month's presentation, we took a stroll through 16+ core namespaces of the .NET Framework.
Click here to view the script for this presentation.

Special Download!
2002 Visual Basic.NET Tour
Available below is the PowerPoint presentation and demo code as presented by Microsoft in Denver on August 5th.
Download the Power Point presentation here. (ZIP file size = 5.1 MB)
Download the Demo Code here. (ZIP file size = 9.7 MB)


A Crooked Look at Jagged Arrays
Episode 12 (September 23, 2002) by Roy Ogborn, .NET Architect and Developer Consultant, Orbonyx Corp.

In this month's presentation, we took a look at how Jagged Arrays work in both VB.NET and C#.
View the PowerPoint directly here (if your browser supports it).
 

Taming the ASP.NET WebForms DataGrid Control.
Episode 13 (October 28, 2002) by Roy Ogborn, .NET Architect and Developer Consultant, Orbonyx Corp.

In this month's presentation, we took a look at how to create a dynamic WebForms DataGrid in an ASP.NET page on the fly using business objects as the data source. We looked at how to display an empty grid when there is no data to bind to. We also solved the problem where dynamic DataGrid's user click events, such as sort requests,  are never handled when ViewState is disabled.

This month's code sample will be in C# only. A SQL Server or MSDE database server with the Northwind database is required to run the demo project. The demo code is in the form of an n-tier web application.
Download the Demo Code and PowerPoint here. (ZIP file size = 80KB)
View the PowerPoint directly here (if your browser supports it).
 

Advanced C# Slide Presentation and Voting Results for C# Problems and Suggestions with Graphs
Presented by Eric Gunnerson, Program Manager, Visual C# .NET, Microsoft Corporation  at the Denver Microsoft Visual Studio.NET User Group November 25, 2002 meeting.

View the Voting Results here (requires MS EXCEL)
View the PowerPoint directly here (requires MS PowerPoint)
 

Graphics Programming with the .NET Framework; A Look at GDI+
Episode 14 (January 27, 2003) by Captain Bob Brand, MCP, MCP .NET, N-Vision Software.

In this month's presentation, we took a look at how easy it is to create a "canvas" and draw on it using the .NET Drawing Namespaces. Bob showed us how to use the .NET Framework to draw bar charts, patterned lines, shapes and fills. He also demonstrated manipulating text via transforms as well as how easy it is to work with images.  A full description of the event can be viewed  here.

Bob did an excellent job in preparing and documenting the demo projects.  There is quite a bit more in the demo code and power point slides than was presented, so be sure to check them out.
Download the Demo Code here. (ZIP file size = 551KB)
View the PowerPoint directly here.

.NET Serialization
Episode 15 (February 24, 2003) by Joe Mayo of Mayo Consulting, author "C# Unleashed" (Sams Publishing) and creator of csharp-station.com.

.NET Serialization is the ability to save the state of a program to a byte stream, which may be written to or read from.
Serialization is useful for saving program settings between runs. It is also an essential requirement for distributed computing, when sending objects to and from client code using Remoting objects or Web Services.

This month, Joe Mayo demonstrated how to perform default serialization using both the binary and soap formatters that come with the .NET Framework. Additionally, there are times when the default serialization won't meet your needs. For those cases, Joe showed how to perform custom serialization to solve the problems associated with non-serializable object members.
Download the Demo Code here. (ZIP file size = 17KB)
View the PowerPoint directly here.


XML in the .NET Framework
Episode 16 (March 24, 2003) by David Lanouette of Lanouette Consulting LLC.

David Lanouette takes us through a close-in look at the SYSTEM.XML, SYSTEM.XML.XPATH, and SYSTEM.XML.XSL namespaces with superb examples of how to open and traverse XML documents using the DOM. David then compares the DOM approach to the XMLReader approach and also touches on how to go about traversing documents and finding specific XML nodes quickly using the powerful XPATH language in .NET.  David's example C# projects provide a great jumpstart into the world of XML using the .NET Framework.
Download the Demo C# Code here. (ZIP file size = 30KB)
View the PowerPoint directly here.

"Take a Tablet and Call Me in the Morning"
(June 23, 2003) by Jeff Geller, Microsoft Consulting Services and Roy Ogborn, Orbonyx Corp.

The Tablet PC platform was released to the public in November 2002 and continues to be a huge success.  It is a combination of a very portable PC with built-in digitizer and comes in various form factors (see www.microsoft.com/tabletpc). This platform not only allows one to capture and edit digital ink, but also provides very powerful, multi-language hand writing recognition. With the Tablet PC SDK, programmers can easily include these powerful new features in their applications. Jeff Geller and Roy Ogborn teamed up to present an overview of the Tablet PC platform where they made some suggestions on how one could develop Tablet PC applications without owning a Tablet PC and provided an overview of the platform and some basic code samples that use the Tablet PC SDK and Visual Studio.NET to give developers a glimpse of what possibilities exist today for digital ink based application development.

The "Facelift" code presented at the Denver Visual Studio.NET User Group meeting can be downloaded here (ZIP file size = 78KB). In addition, Microsoft Press has graciously granted us permission to provide the sample code from Building Tablet PC Applications by Rob Jarrett and Philip Su, Microsoft Press, all rights reserved. Download here. (ZIP file size = 242KB). Read Roy's review of this excellent book here. While the samples are quite good, we highly recommend that you purchase the book. Not only is the book well written, it provides extremely valuable insight required to design ink enabled applications. It also discusses in detail how to successfully create Tablet PC applications while avoiding potential pitfalls. Getting it right is not as easy as one might first think. A must-have resource for anyone who will be developing for this powerful new platform.

Sorting Collections the Easy Way using IComparer and IComparable
Episode 17 (July 28, 2003) by Roy Ogborn of Orbonyx Corp.

In many applications, it is often desirable to provide end users the ability to sort rows of columnar data presented on their screens. A common case is where data is posted to a web page using the ASP.NET WebForms DataGrid control. In this episode, Roy introduces how easy it is to have the .NET Framework sort objects for you in an ArrayList based collection containing business objects.  Just use the built-in .Sort method of ArrayList. The .Sort method of Array and ArrayList will take a custom comparer helper object as an input argument and then uses it to determine what it sorts on (for example; sort on City then Name, or Nation and State, any other object public members in your custom objects). In addition, a constructor for the SortedList .NET Collection class can also take your comparer helper object to determine its sort order. This comparer class is very simple to create as it only has one method. Download Roy's sample project to see how he uses these helper classes to enable WebForms DataGrid sorting when the user clicks a column heading.
Note: Sample code requires SQL Server or MSDE with the Northwinds database installed and also requires IIS to host this ASP.NET solution. Read the "ReadMe.txt" file contained in the download.
Download CollectionSorting solution here.
View the PowerPoint directly here.

.Net Remoting - The Other RPC Architecture
Episode 18 (October 27, 2003) by Doug Gregory, .Net Architect
 Managed Business Solutions.

With all the attention focused on Web Services, many developers overlook the fact that the .Net framework contains a world class object remoting system.  The .Net remoting architecture is highly extensible providing several transport options, object activation models, the ability to manage object lifetimes, and create custom sinks, formatters, and serializers.  This powerful extensibility, however, can make remoting a bit intimidating and mysterious.

This presentation provides an overview of the .Net Remoting architecture, demystifying some of the concepts and terminology.  Several demonstrations  will show how to use the various object activation models, customize a remoted object's lifetime, and, time permitting, create a custom message sink.
Download Remoting demo code and Powerpoint here.
View the PowerPoint directly here.