Thanks to all who came and apologies to those who came and found standing room only – I intend to record these demos and host them soon, watch this space.

The demos are fully RC2 compatible now, that day was a close call to a non-working demo.

http://www.meetup.com/AtlAltDotNet/  this is great for new ideas and decent technical depth. It is a fairly new group still finding its feet

http://www.iasahome.org/web/atlanta  Atlanta’s IASA chapter – always has super-smart people in attendance. Most meetings end up being a discussion (or argument!) with few punches pulled. The best part? BS artists are shot down very quickly and most never come back

http://www.atldotnet.org this is the ‘main’ .Net User Group in town and excellent at delivering high level introductions to topics. Networking is very good here too as local MVPs etc are at most meetings

Other .Net focused groups are http://www.atlantamspros.com and http://ggmug.com. A good attempt to list all relevant groups is http://www.devcow.com/usergroups but I don’t believe it is currently maintained.

Hopefully that helps a few people looking to learn more and network

This should be fun a night, I will kick off with a light hearted look at Cruise Control – it is amazing how many projects still do not use Continuous Integration. My plan is take demos and a few slides – knowing the Architect Group the audience will soon be talking more than me

Next I will give a more formal presentation on Software Estimation – it will be a little dry, but I expect people in the room will liven it up with amusing tales from the field. We all have tales to tell of estimates which went awry.

The Architects group is really meant for Architects and CTOs with 10+ years experience. Even are you not an Architect (yet!) come along this month and enjoy these basic topics. Be aware that most regulars will call out any BS from presenters, I fully expect to be challenged and hope to learn a lot from other attendees.

The Atlanta IASA website is http://www.iasahome.org/web/atlanta.
We meet at Matrix in Dunwoody:

May 9 – 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Matrix (on the top floor)
115 Perimeter Center Place NE
Suite 250
Atlanta, GA 30346

Click here for a Google Map

The office is secure so if you are late knock on the window to the left of the door and someone will let you in.

42″ ED Plasma $799
50″ 720p Plasma $1499
43″ 1080p LCD ~$1500

Everyone who has been waiting maybe now is the time to pull the trigger? A year ago I blogged that Plasmas would never drop below $800 due to manufacturing cost being
probably similar to CRTs – it looks like I may soon be proved wrong! Personally I am waiting for a 50″ 1080p LCD to drop below $1000 before retiring the 480p ED Maxent Plasma which still looks great.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/google-in-atl.html

I wonder how long until we meet an ATL Googler at our Architects meeting? If
they want to make real tech-connections in town, I imagine it will not be long.

http://www.atlantadotnet.org/

This is brand new material with only one slide carried from my NUnit presentations.
The subject is testing, and on my first dry run it was utterly boring. Since
then I rewrote the slides, and am quite happy that most developers will enjoy
it.

The material is mostly high level covering:

• Extremes of development methodologies
• Different test practices, and when each one makes sense
• Automated Testing in Team System

It will not be as much fun as last
year’s code camp, but I think it is worth attending for any developer wishing
to become more methodical. This will be the primary presentation that I hawk at code
camps this year, so feedback after the event is very much appreciated.

Salary is $80->130K + stock/bonuses, which I expect are the ranges for a high GPA,
few years out of college grad, to the 15+ years of IT experience guy. The candidate must
be willing to travel which is why the ceiling about $15K higher than most
others in town.

It does not interest me because of the travel, but I’ll be a good few
Atlanta based readers are interested. If you apply try to ask a local Microsoft
DE/ consultant what the interview may entail – they have a few recurring themes/
questions from what I hear. You might want to ask them how demanding their job is
too

So are you interested in selling your soul to the devil, and forgetting what your
wife and kids look like? I thought so.. Start
by clicking here.

http://msmvps.com/williamryan/archive/2005/05/16/47242.aspx

http://www.solexinc.com/site/301/default.aspx

http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2005/05/15/39700.aspx

http://tamasii.com/blog/archive/2005/05/17/48969.aspx

http://blogs.simplifi.com/brucet/archive/2005/05/16/181.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/wallym/archive/2005/05/16/406918.aspx

http://www.ipattern.com/simpleblog/

It is with great sadness that this is happening. While being involved with user groups I tried to accomplish the goal of making them a more open and inviting place for newcomers regardless of their .Net expertise. Yes the C# group is targeted towards developers/ architects with advanced knowledge, but again a core aim of mine was to prevent it being a clique of regular members.

From email feedback it appears that many people learned a great deal from my presentations. Delivering those presentations was a great help in recovering from a side effect to a Malaria vaccine called Lariam. If you are the 1 in 10,000 who gets hit by the side-effect then this is a very nasty drug and it has taken me many years to recover. No one knows how it works chemically, but the worst side effect was paralyzing fear in social situations. The technical term is fight-or-flight which translates to ‘wanting to leg it asap’ – this even happened in cubes of colleauges and at the dinner table with friends! It was quite embarrassing and at times debilitating. Anyone who saw my kick off to the mobility group was witnesses to such an episode

A post on Lariam is about to happen, hence I mentioned it above. Yes, posting about it publicly can only harm me – over the last few years a few individuals have used it against me in the work environment. Now I am 99% recovered I see no problems with work, but am aware some selfish individuals who read this post will use it as leverage against me. After overcoming a personal hell with the drug, I need to make a Google accessible post for new suffers to find – the first few months were utterly unbearable and if I can help any future sufferers that is worth far more than a few blows to my career.

So the reigns of the C# Group are officially handed over to the group’s ‘second in charge’ Keith Rome. Maybe later in the year I will be invited back to help the C# group out again? If not I am sure Keith will continue to take the group forward keeping the content very technical.

What I am doing with all the spare time? After a recent round of interviews with some of Atlanta’s best Architects my head will be down in books trying to catch up to their level. IMO it is easier to learn advanced material from books than user groups, but the groups can be great motivation to learn. Hopefully I will find time for cycling again and hang out with the great bunch of guys and gals I used to see before last year’s wreck.

Finally: a BIG thanks goes out to Doug and Kirk of Microsoft. They put up with a tremendous amount from us user group people and have the patience of saints dealing with some members. Please everyone try to appreciate what they do for us, and do not hassle them too much. They both go far beyond what their job asks of them.