Shameless self promotion

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!