SSW Update - Handsome Hanselman is coming to Sydney

[the cutting edge ]

G'day Developers!

My 2013 as a Microsoft Regional Director

This year has been a great year for the cloud, for Microsoft, and for SSW customers. We’ve delivered many solutions built on top of Azure, CRM Online, SharePoint Online, and TFS Online – all running on Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure. These solutions work across devices. They are easy to manage – you are set up in virtually no time and they are enterprise-ready, and we’re able to offer substantially more for much smaller costs.

On the consumer front, Microsoft will look back and see 2013 as the start of the fight for the phone and the tablet.

Building on the Microsoft Stack:
I’ve just come back from a couple of weeks at the MVP summit in Seattle (I love this event – I was MVP of the year in 2011). As a Microsoft Regional Director and ALM MVP, as well as Chief Architect of SSW, I enjoy keeping my finger on the pulse of Microsoft and its many product developments. Since my main job is helping companies adopt and deploy Microsoft technologies, my roles at Microsoft are very useful for my customers and staff. Therefore with all the new releases in 2013 it has been a busy year.

Internally at SSW we have implemented the latest upgrades across the board: all our PCs now happily run on Windows 8.1, our phones now use Skype and Lync 2013, the developers are making good use of Visual Studio 2013 and TFS 2013. Daily we run the latest Exchange Server 2013 and SharePoint 2013. Next on our to-do list is to upgrade to CRM 2013, which has just been released.

We’ve definitely seen a shift by our clients from SharePoint development to stand alone MVC solutions that have some integration points with SharePoint, CRM, and other applications via REST APIs. Our developers love using ASP.MVC 4 and 5 with either SQL Server 2012 or Azure. One of these combinations power 90% of our client projects.

There were 2 standout projects this year. Both embraced the technology, both used Scrum, and both brought complicated solutions to life. The first one was Toll Transport, led by Mark Liu, and the second was PwC, led by Eric Phan. There were many other projects also where I saw exemplary work built on the Microsoft stack.

My final project starting for 2013 is one I’m very excited about: FireBootCamp. FireBootCamp is an intensive training course that will cover technologies such as .NET MVC, JavaScript & jQuery and uses Microsoft Visual Studio 2013, all brought together in an agile software development environment – with FireBootCamp we’ll be able to train up even a starter developer to a .NET hero in just 9 weeks! http://firebootcamp.com

Building SSW TV:
We have continued to work hard to make more and more presentations available to view on SSW TV. This video site, for which I am the Product Owner, is focused exclusively on promoting Microsoft platforms and interviewing Microsoft experts from around the world, continuing the SSW tradition of sharing knowledge to help our industry create better quality software. In the last 12 months I have personally created over 30 videos on SSW TV. During this period, our total views have jumped from 44,000 views to more than 218, 000 and our subscriber numbers have more than quintupled from 295 to more than 1,500.

I also continue to run the Sydney and Canberra .NET User Groups every month to ensure best practices are identified and shared with the community. This year we’ve covered a wide range of subjects from business law to Scrum, and have had some exciting international guest speakers such as Glenn Block from Microsoft and Jason Beres from Infragistics. The final User Group of the year will be a crescendo featuring the handsome man Scott Hanselman.

Through SSW TV we make each Sydney .NET User Group a global event each month by live-streaming the meeting and then publishing the video online. No interested party is left out! The TV team have matured and grown our channel extraordinarily this year.

In addition to client work, throughout the year I have spoken around Australia and at interesting international events. I also presented at my old favorite, TechEd Australia and TechEds abroad, on topics such as:

"Climbing the Agile Testing Ladder featuring Visual Studio 2013, TFS 2013, Microsoft Test Manager 2013, and Lab Management 2013"
"What's new in Visual Studio 2013 and the ALM + Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2013 story"
"I feel the love again - Using Access 2013 and SharePoint 2013 together"

I know many of you always want to know what’s new with Microsoft and what’s cool in the industry so I will be putting together new rules and new presentations in 2014. Now’s the time to sing out and tell me.

Thank you:
I would like to thank our clients and all those who have sent me a terrific amount of feedback. Keep telling me what we could do better – my email address is adamcogan at ssw.com.au

I’m proud to be one of the technology leaders in Australia and I will continue helping teams work better together by being a Scrum Master, Scrum Trainer and a .NET architect, working with TFS and implementing the whole ALM lifecycle.

Keep reading to see my highlights, top tweets and more

-Adam Cogan, SSW

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Why work at SSW?

SSW has offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Beijing. We have employees from all around the world. We’re flexible, and in this fast paced industry, we’re on the forefront of cutting edge technology. We’re enthusiastic. We love engaging with the software development community.

SSW is unlike any place you’ve ever worked at.

Watch more videos on SSW TV

Become a World Class Developer in just 9 weeks with FireBootCamp!

Special Intensive Course

Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, San Francisco

Special introductory cost: $3,000 + GST
Regular cost: $6,000 + GST

The FireBootCamp program is an intensive, full-time, 9-week program. Participants learn, work and code together for 10-12 hours per day, 5 days a week. There are exercise and food breaks, but for the main the program is continual hands-on learning.

The program focuses on real world skills including agile software development practices, enterprise architecture, application life cycle, end-to-end testing and user interface design. The technology stack covers .NET MVC, TypeScript, JavaScript & jQuery and uses Microsoft Visual Studio 2013.

Scheduled Boot Camps:

Sydney intake 1 16th DEC 2013 – 21st FEB 2014	Brisbane intake 1 7th APR 2014 – 6th JUN 2014
Sydney intake 2 20th JAN 2014 – 21st MAR 2014	San Francisco intake 1 23rd JUN 2014 – 22nd AUG 2014
Sydney intake 3 23rd JUN 2014 – 22nd AUG 2014	Melbourne intake 1 8th SEP 2014 – 7th NOV 2014

Find out more and Register

There's Still Time to Sign Up for the 3 Day Scrum Training!

Intensive Professional Scrum Developer Course

Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Canberra, Adelaide

Cost: $2,995 + GST

Professional Scrum Developer courses teach students how to work in a team - using modern software engineering practices - to develop an increment of potentially releasable functionality using a specific technology platform.

Classes are exercise-driven, with students working in self-organizing teams to develop "done" increments from Product Backlog items.

Course at a Glance:

This 3-day Professional Scrum Developer .NET course is a mix of lecture, demonstration, group discussion, simulation, and hands-on software development. The bulk of the course will be spent working as a team on a case study application delivering increments of new functionality in mini-sprints. Here is the course at a glance:

Scrum

Note: Scrum fundamentals are not covered in this 3-day course. If you are not experienced with Scrum fundamentals, the 5 day course is still available.

Sydney 13 JAN 2014		Adelaide 04 FEB 2014
Perth 10 FEB 2014		Canberra 10 MAR 2014
Melbourne 7 APR 2014

Find out more and Register

Sydney .NET December User Group Special

Handsome man Hanselman is coming to Sydney

Wednesday 11th December 2013
6.00pm - 8.00pm
SSW Office
Gateway Court, Suite 13
81-91 Military Road, Neutral Bay NSW 2089
Cost: No Charge

Please note that due to anticipated high-demand, this user group will be a ticketed event

Scott Hanselman is in Australia as a special guest presenter at YOW!Australia and will be stopping in Sydney to talk at an extra-special Sydney user group, where he will be presenting two 1-hour sessions:

Azure - why bother?
Join Hanselman as he digs into the open source SDKs of Windows Azure from a Mac. Let's access Azure from the command line and deploy and redeploy with Git. We'll fire up Linux VMs, setup Mongo and run node.js apps in the cloud. We'll look at things like SendGrid and New Relic. The future of the cloud is open and it's a hybrid. We'll also pinch pennies in the cloud and look at how our mindset needs to change if the cloud is to save us money.

Hanselman Unplugged - open Q&A
As the title suggests, this is your chance to ask Scott any questions on life at Microsoft, the future direction of .NET and any other technical or pop culture geek questions you may have.

For those of you who can't make it in person, this event will also be streamed live at http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/NETUG/Live.aspx

About Scott Hanselman:

Scott Hanselman

Scott Hanselman is a web developer who has been blogging at http://hanselman.com for over a decade. He works in Open Source on ASP.NET and the Azure Cloud for Microsoft out of his home office in Portland.

Scott has three podcasts, http://hanselminutes.com for tech talk, http://thisdeveloperslife.com on developers' lives and loves, and http://ratchetandthegeek.com for pop culture and tech media. He's written a number of books and spoken in person to almost a half million developers worldwide.

To see more details and RSVP, please visit our Facebook .NET Group, our LinkedIn .NET Group or our Meetup Group.

Can't make it to the Sydney .NET User Group?

Watch the Live stream!

Tune in from anywhere!

Sydney .NET User Group Live
6PM AEDT (UTC+11)

The team at SSWTV are now streaming our User Group sessions live. Each session will also be published on the SSWTV site after the event so you can review what was said in the sessions.

Then join us at the NerdDinner

Where nerds meet and eat

NerdDinner - Where geeks eat
Wednesday 11th December 2013
8:10pm - 9:30pm
The Oaks Hotel
118 Military Road, Neutral Bay

SSW and Microsoft invite you to join us for pizza at The Oaks. A fantastic opportunity for networking with peers and sharing thoughts after the Sydney .NET User Group presentation.

This special Sydney .Net User Group and NerdDinner proudly sponsored by:

Canberra .NET User Group

The best place to learn .NET for free in Canberra

Canberra .NET User Group
Microsoft Canberra Branch
6 National Circuit,
Barton, Australia

There will be no Canberra User Group this month as Microsoft is moving offices. It will run as normal next month in the fabulous new Microsoft building (6 National Circuit, Barton) - we're all very excited to see it!

If you feel like making the road trip, come on up to Sydney and be in the crowd for Scott Hanselman's special Sydney user group (be sure to get yourself a free ticket before heading out or you risk disappointment!).

Alternatively, you can check out all the action by tuning into the Sydney .NET User Group live stream at 6pm, December 11, 2013.

Canberra .Net User Group proudly sponsored by:

December 2013

Employment

ASP.NET MVC, Software Developer

SSW is looking for an enthusiastic .NET MVC (and some ASP.NET Web Forms) developer. Our ideal candidate will have strong skills designing and implementing ASP.NET MVC and Web Forms applications using C#, a good understanding of XML, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and a working knowledge of agile software development methodologies (preferably Scrum).