CSharpZealot.com

Designing good SharePoint Case Management GUI

abartucciotto — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:56:00 GMT

I have been working on a SharePoint Case Management Portal Project for some time now and we've just finished iteration 3 now. When the site was first designed and built, the custom SharePoint menu looked cool. Each item had its own icon and each icon meant something as it was not really overwhelming on the eye. We've added in a whole bunch of new icons and now the menu looks terrible.

I've been browsing the web researching GUI design principles when I came across a site called IxDA (Interaction Design Association). It’s not your typical "look at this design" site but a forum for discussion regarding Design Patterns, Tools, Research and Methods regarding Web, Desktop, Mobile and any other type of Interface design. I highly recommend a read if you want to stimulate your brain into gear with some good quality discussion.

So what am I going to do about my menu. Well so far I have built up mental model of all the items that make up the menu. I have given the idea of a tree menu some thought but I find the idea of an expanding/contracting tree menu a bit cumbersome. Whilst this would certainly help with the issue of keeping the menu height small (when tree items are contracted) the thought of having to implement this in SharePoint and the Value it will add really don't seem too attractive to me.

In terms of what we currently have, the items are grouped into two sections - All items of type "View" e.g. view details, view notes etc were in one group and all actions items in a separate group. In all the there are 22 items which makes for a lengthy menu. Potentially too long if we want to ensure that majority of items are visible in a 1024 resolution. I like the idea of limiting the amount of clicks the user would have to do to get to a page. This means that splitting the site up into a 2 level hierarchy would not really do the job. By this mean having top level menu items that would link you through to sub-sites for a given action with the rest of the menu options provided on the sub-site. Hmmm decision decisions.

Well I’ll mess around about in Photoshop I think to see how it could look. But in the mean time check out IxDA

Settting a Master Page for a WSS SharePoint site

abartucciotto — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:58:00 GMT

Just a had a colleague ask me how to set the Master Page for a WSS site. I had to cast my mind back to a project I worked on a while ago in which two techniques were used to set the Master Page. One way was editing the "Modify All Site Settings" page, accessed through the Site Actions button, which involved a modified user interface to allow an administrator to actually pick a master page from the gallery as you would in a standard Moss publishing site. This technique is actually packaged as a web part at CodePlex.

The other technique involved using features to deploy a master page to the master page gallery and then using another feature to set it as the sites master page by using code within the FeatureActivated SPFeatureReceiverProperties.

The below code from the FeatureActivated method also sets a logo and theme that I had created. This can be ommitted if you don't need to set this. As always I create an additional folder within the Images folder in the 12 hive just incase any service pack updates that are applied to a SharePoint installation overwrites my files.

public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
SPWeb newWeb = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent;

newWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

            //Apply web theme
            newWeb.ApplyTheme("none");
            newWeb.ApplyTheme("Your Theme");

            //Apply Logo
            newWeb.SiteLogoUrl = "/_layouts/images/YourFolder/YourLogo.gif";
            newWeb.SiteLogoDescription = "Logo Description";

            //Check if MasterPage exists in Master Page Gallery
            foreach (SPListItem listItem in newWeb.Site.RootWeb.Lists["Master Page Gallery"].Items)
            {
                if (listItem["Name"].ToString().Equals("YourMasterPage.Master", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
                {
                    //Found Master Page So apply it to the current web
                    string masterUrl = new Uri(newWeb.Site.Url).GetComponents(UriComponents.Path, UriFormat.Unescaped);
                    if (!masterUrl.StartsWith("/")) masterUrl = "/" + masterUrl;
                    if (!masterUrl.EndsWith("/")) masterUrl += "/";
                    masterUrl += "_catalogs/masterpage/YourMasterPage.master";
                    newWeb.MasterUrl = masterUrl;
                    newWeb.CustomMasterUrl = masterUrl;
                }
            }

AKS Accessibility Kit for SharePoint installed and working

abartucciotto — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:51:00 GMT

Today I had a bit of spare time to attempt an installation of the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint. The kit can be download from Codeplex or the AKS site itself. The file size is around 17MB

One of the things I discovered after installing AKS file is that it really is only built for public facing MOSS sites at the moment. What you get when you install the kit is basically a feature that sits within your Features folder on the file system. It’s the one called AKS. Using the STSADM tool you can install and activate the feature for a given site collection. This will deploy a bunch of AKS master pages and CSS file onto you site. Navigate to the site collection where you activated the feature and browse to site settings and the master page and page layouts gallery. You will find the new master pages titled AKS_BlueBand.master and several others. The CSS is deployed to the style library. A good source of information for exactly what happens can be found at CMS Wire.

I hope to crack open the master pages for a good look and run the pages through an online checker such as ATRC. We are currently building some Accessible SharePoint sites for some Government agencies however we built it using our own master pages so it will be interesting to see how this one stacks up. So far the AKS master pages I have applied look pretty good. There is an issue with the site actions menu playing up a bit in terms of styling widths on mouse hover.

Hopefully have some more on this fairly soon. So far so good with the AKS install

Port in use Error with sharepoint install

DUSTY_NZ — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:10:00 GMT

If you are getting the error

"The port specified has already been chosen. Please choose a different port."

when trying to configure the Central admin then you may find that the issue comes from your machine name.

Building a Demo SharePoint Environment I was encountering the issue. I was stumped with the above error and no matter what port I tried I could not get it to work.

I foudn the problem when working through the logs.

06/26/2008 16:07:21 1 INF Searching for a duplicate site http://MOSSDEMO#2:11000/
06/26/2008 16:07:21 1 ERR Found a duplicate site http://mossdemo:80/#2:11000/

It looks like the # is used as a delimiter and throwing the everything out. I renamed the machine and all sweet.

Kerberos Delegation Howto - The APP

DUSTY_NZ — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:38:00 GMT

Here's the app. Very simple to deploy.

http://blog.kiwiland.net.nz/Zip%20Files/KerberosTest.zip

This app was not written by myself. Instead by an excellent co-worker Stephen Evers. http://csharpzealot.com/blogs/stevene/default.aspx

Kerberos Troubleshooting

DUSTY_NZ — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:29:00 GMT

And here is some information that I have gathered from Dr Google regarding troubleshooting kerberos.

http://csharpzealot.com/blogs/kiwiland/pages/kerbero-troubleshooting.aspx

Kerberos Delegation

DUSTY_NZ — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:19:00 GMT

Finally here is a howto, walk through or whatever you want to call it. I hated kerberos. I mean who doesn't. Avoided it like the plague and treated it like someone elses problem.

That was until it became my problem. Development project that required Kerberos delegation and I looked everywhere for assistance and found no help. So I sat down and worked it out. The 3 most boring days of my life.

Anyway, all sussed so decided to write a lab to help other people.

http://csharpzealot.com/blogs/kiwiland/pages/kerberos-delegation.aspx

A bit about me

DUSTY_NZ — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:09:00 GMT

Who am I? Well I am an Infrastructure Consulting working in Perth, West Australia. I have almost 20 years experience in the IT industry and broke my teeth in on working with DOS 3 and everything in between. Those were the days having to manually configure IRQ's and DMA ports just to get your sound card working and 3D games involved 2D with perspective.

My skill set now falls in-between anything and everything and currently seems to have a focus on SharePoint. My contribution to the IT industry is as a problem solver. Most of the articles you will find here are based upon questions that have been raised in my role and Dr Google has been unable to resolve.

Anyway, enough about me and onto why you are here.

Answers to the universe or there abouts.

Paul

Annual Exmouth Fishing Trip

abartucciotto — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:30:00 GMT

Last week was my annual fishing trip to Exmouth. Exmouth is a remote town around 13 hours drive north of Perth. A couple friends and myself, Eric Salotti and Marco De Laurentiis cruised up for the week to fish off Marco's boat. The fishing as usual provided plenty of highlights but it wasn't up to its usual explosiveness. I managed to snare myself some personal best fish however in the shape of Spanish Mackerel, Rankin Cod and Coral Trout. The currents were a bit funny and there was a bit of weed around which caused problems when we were trolling. We got to see some massive whales jumping around which was absolutely awesome. Can't wait to get back up there next year.

More SpellChecker quirks - Select default language or check in spanish anyone?

abartucciotto — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:39:00 GMT

At the moment I'm just looking into an extremely interesting bug within the sharepoint spell checker. One of my colleagues, Fred Schwass, informed me that when you type in certain words the default language drop down appears asking you to select a language (Australian in our case) even though we have explicitly set to default to Australian anyway.

Normal functionality performs as follows. Enter your text, submit your form or check your text, spell checker highlights suggested words

Buggy functionality perfroms as follows: Enter your text, submit your form or check your text, spell checker requires you to select default language, spell checker highlights suggest words

It's funny because you type in "Innacurate" or "Orange tree" and it produces the bug however typing in "orange" or "tree" will not produce the bug. There are also certain words that trigger the spellchecker to check the words in spanish.

RDN: Expression Web 2 and Silverlight + Reactive Programming with SyncLINQ

CSharpZealot — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:18:00 GMT

Readify's presence in Perth is hardly a secret and now us "westerners" gets to profit from the high level of skill that Readify stands for.

Alongside Readify's move to Perth we get to see RDN in action.

Two brains in the field, Alister Jones (UX Guru) and Paul Stovell (.Net Guru) is hitting us hard with the first event from RDN.

ReadiPrimer - Expression Web 2 and Silverlight 2: Twice the Power, Double the Ease - presented by Alister Jones (MVP)

Fresh off the back at presenting at REMIX08, hear our local UX guru Alister Jones present on the next version of Microsoft Expression Web, which provides developers and designers iwth the tools they need to work with the current and next versions of Microsoft Silverlight. This session demonstrates how the new features in Expression Web and Silverlight make it much easier to create rich interactive applications for the web.

ReadiDepth - Reactive Programming with SyncLINQ - presented by Paul Stovell (MVP)

As Windows Client developers, our platform is always improving. From Win16 to WPF and Silverlight; what was once considered impossible has increasingly become normal. However, while the capabilities of our platform have evolved, have we? Is Object Orientated programming enough, or is there a paradigm that can better leverage these platforms?

During this presentation, Paul introduces Reactive Programming. If you work with Windows Forms, WPF and Silverlight, prepare for a shift!

What more can you possibly ask for? Two top notch pros presenting on exciting and new technologies?

I have long waited for RDN to come to Perth and now they're finally here!

55 seats has already been snatched up, so be quick and register here: http://www.readify.net/rdnregister.aspx

Even though the event calendar still doesn't have a listing for Perth, it's worthwhile to keep a close eye on what's coming (i'm sure that there'll be events coming very, very soon to the calendar.

http://www.readify.net/rdncalendar.aspx

There's also a Facebook group available for us who's addicted - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9424182970

Anyways, maybe we can get to rub shoulders with notables like Mitch Denny (MVP), Darren Neimke (MVP) and Paul Glavich (MVP) at some stage?

Technorati Tags: Readify,Alister Jones,Paul Stovell,Mitch Denny,Darrren Neimke,Paul Glavich,Readify Developer Network,RDN

Advanced Search Bug in SharePoint

abartucciotto — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:27:00 GMT

Recently I was doing some work for a client around setting up an advanced search page and some scopes. The client has several web applications set up and the Shared Service Provider (SSP) is indexing all the web applications. There are several scopes we set up specificly grabbing content from one of the web applications on the SSP. These scopes are set up to grab data that have specific content types.

The problem arose when we tried to set the default scope on the advanced search page. By default the scope for advanced search is All Sites. However when you set the scope to be a custom scope and ensure that no other scopes are active when you return to the advanced search page and search for an item it will return results from every single web application. This is very strange behavior and one which I am curious to hear if anyone has experienced anything like this.

The only way to return items from the custom scope is to modify the advanced search web part and specifically enable scopes on the web part. You then have to select the scope by ticking the check box and click search. I would have thought that by setting a default scope through Site Actions > Site Settings > Modify All Site Settings > Search Scopes on the advanced search section that this would cover it. Maybe there is something I have overlooked. Of course one solution would be to set up seperate SSP's for the web applications but geez I would like to know why it won't work.

PSSUG: Greg Low presents on Dynamic Management Views and Custom Reports in SQL Server 2005

CSharpZealot — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:05:00 GMT

The Perth SQL Server User Group is being visited by none other than Greg Low (www.sqldownunder.com), Microsoft Regional Director, SQL Server MVP.

Greg Low has been presenting at the Perth SQL Server User Group before and each time has been a fantastic event. Greg is a seasoned presenter and trainer and has been synonymous with the SQL Server community in Australia for as long as I can remember.

Greg is an internationally recognised consultant, developer and trainer. He has been working in development since 1978, holds a PhD in Computer Science and a host of Microsoft certifications. Greg is the country lead for Solid Quality, a SQL Server MVP and one of only three Microsoft MSDN Regional Directors for Australia. Greg also hosts the SQL Down Under podcast (www.sqldownunder.com), organises the SQL Down Under Code Camp and co-organises CodeCampOz. Greg is a PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) board member.

Event Details:

Topic: Getting Started with Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) and Custom Reports in SQL Server 2005 - Greg Low
Venue: Level 8, 182 St Georges Terrace (Change Corporation head office)
Date: 7th of May, 2008
Time: 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Cost: FREE

Dynamic Management Views were introduced in SQL Server 2005 but as yet, they appear to be little understood. In this session, Greg will explain their role and show the most useful DMVs in action. He will also show how to use them with Custom Reports introduced in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2.
------------------------------------------------------

As usual drinks and nibblies are provided by our sponsor - Change Corporation (www.changecorporation.com.au) and we meet in the boardroom.

Please let reception know that you're there for the SQL Server user group meeting and you'll be directed by our friendly receptionist.

Click on the link below to register so we can ensure that we have drinks and nibblies available for everyone.

http://www.sqlserver.org.au/Events/RegisterMeeting.aspx?EventId=328

AWIA: BarCamp Perth 2.0

CSharpZealot — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:40:00 GMT

The Australian Web Industry Association is at it again....BarCamp Perth 2.0 (nice web 2.0 reference there) is coming!

Last time was, by all accounts, a blast and i believe that Nick Hodge attended as well.

This year is bound to be even better (if at all possible?) and attendance is a must!

Venue: Central TAFE 140 Royal St East Perth
Cost: FREE!!!!!!!
Date: 9th of May, 2008
Time: 9am - 5pm

So bring your geekgear and enjoy! I'll be seeing you there!

For more information, head on over to http://barcamp.port80.asn.au/Main/BarCamp2 and register!

AWIA: Mini-Talks 2.0

CSharpZealot — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:24:00 GMT

The Australian Web Industry Association, the association that runs and supports the Port80 community forums is holding another round of their mini-talks.

In essence it's short presentations by people from the community on a wide range of topics (i presented there at their virgin event on the Expression Suite) and it's a great way to get out there and see what's happening in the industry.

Port80, which started years ago, was originally formed as a community for designers and developers in the web industry (not to forget graphics designers, sorry guys) and has been a constant inspiration for many - kudos on AWIA for continuing the community and for the support they provide.

So, go have a beer, network and enjoy the presentations!

Venue: The Velvet Lounge (corner of Beufort and Grosvenor Street in Mt Lawley)
Date: The 7th of May, 2008
Time: 6:00pm, talks start at 6:30pm

Join us at The Velvet Lounge next to the Flying Scotsman pub in Mt Lawley (corner of Beaufort and Grosvenor Streets) and meet your fellow web professionals. There’s free food, a bar and each month we host two, ten minute talks from members on their area of expertise. This month’s speakers are:

No need to register, just rock up and join in! The night kicks off at 6.00pm. Talks start around 6:30pm

Perth SharePoint User Group Monthly Meeting

abartucciotto — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:21:00 GMT

The monthly Perth SharePoint User Group meeting is on next tuesday at 12:30 pm. This provides sharepoint developers and prospective sharepoint customers with a great opportunity to link up with some of the great resources we have around Perth plus you get free Pizza. How cool is that? For all the details see the information provided kindly by Rick Rosato below.

http://www.connectedsystems.com/news/Event%20Library/Perth_SharePoint_User_Group_Meeting_April_2008.aspx

Event Information
Event: Topic:	Perth SharePoint User Group Various SharePoint Solutions (with Ajax controls)
Date and Time:	Tuesday, 15th April 2008 12:30 pm (GMT +08:00, Perth) (3^rd Tuesday of every month)
Where:	Microsoft Perth – Presentation Room Level 14, QV1 Building (http://www.qv1perth.com/qv1/location.htm) 250 St George’s Terrace, Perth
Parking Option:	1. QV.1 Car Park is via Murray Street – Wilson (http://www.wilsonparking.com.au/html/content-easylocator.cfm - select WA & Perth CBD on right side) 2. Cloisters Car Park - via St Georges Terrace or Hay Street 3. His Majesty’s Car Park is via Murray Street – City of Perth (http://www.mapimage.net/city_of_perth/) 4. Elder Street Car Park – City of Perth (http://www.mapimage.net/city_of_perth/)
RSVP:	Rick Rosato – rick@connectedsystems.com CoB Monday 14^th April 2008
Presenter:	Rick Rosato – Connected Systems (rick@connectedsystems.com)
Duration:	1 hour
Description:	This session will be led by Rick Rosato, Consultant at Connected Systems. Rick will demonstrate various solutions created in Sharepoint where many of the web part are using Ajax controls.
Level:	200 (100 – High level business overview – mostly slides, 200 – Business/Somewhat Technical – some slides and some demos, 300 – Quite technical – few slides, mostly demo and some coding, 400 – Extremely technical - mostly coding, few slides)
Upcoming Topics
Under Consideration:	1. Talk fest – bring your curly questions. 2. What does it take to pass the SharePoint Exams? *We are looking for volunteer speakers to present on a topic of their choice.*
Additional Notes
Notes:	Please selectively forward this invite to those who might be interested in attending the Perth SharePoint User Group meetings. We don’t want SPAMmers!! Also, the time has changed to 12:30pm – pizza provided.

MOSS Advanced Search throwing "Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

abartucciotto — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:32:00 GMT

I've been playing with the advanced search for a client and wanted to do something fairly straight forward. All I wanted to do is disable the language picker and result type picker. The language picker is the one allows you to search only the language(s) such as French, German etc. Both these features were not required by the client but they did need the custom scopes I had set up to be visible to allow further filtering. So what's the problem I hear you ask? Well after modifying the Advanced Search Web Part to disable the features and enable the scopes it kept on throwing the error "Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

Initially I though this could be caused by not specifying a label for the scopes but it was still throwing the error even after supplying labels. After much enabling and disabling of scopes, languages and results it did eventually display the way I wanted but it was sporadic at best. My solution of trying combinations until worked is not really a solution and how do you document this for a client?

"Um Just fiddle with with a bit until it works and then don't ever touch it".

After searching around for a resolution I hit the wall. A few posts suggest that Service Pack 1 for SharePoint is the cause of the problem. If anyone knows anything about this please let me know.

Spell Check Web Service in Share Point - Excluding SharePoint Controls

abartucciotto — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:14:00 GMT

Todays task seemed simple enough, get the spell check web service running on a custom control embedded in a share point page. Where to start? Looking for documentation on the web I could not find anything remotely helpful until I stumbled upon a blog by Hoo Kai Sheng. This helped get the ball rolling. It out lines the easiest way to get the spell checker working, that is using the SpellCheckEntirePage javascript function.

As the name suggests this spell checks all the text fields on page. It skips drop down lists and multiple select boxes but any other form control with a text input seems fair game. This means Share Point controls such as the people picker (SharePoint:PeopleEditor) will get checked as well. This is not very user friendly as we do not want the checker asking people to fix their domain names and user names.

The trick to exclude SP controls is to search the page the SP is on and find the text input box that resides within it. In this case the SharePoint:PeopleEditor contains several hidden fields, we don't need to worry about these, and also an input field which is called "downlevelTextBox". This is the one we want to exclude. Because we are using custom ascx controls, in the code behind, we can use the FindControl method on our SharePoint:PeopleEditor. In the example below textboxEscalationManager is the people picker ID.

TextBox textboxEscalationManager = (TextBox)PeopleEditorEscalationManager.FindControl("downlevelTextBox");
textboxEscalationManager.Attributes.Add("excludeFromSpellCheck", "true");

When the page renders the control it now has the attribute - excludeFromSpellCheck and will not be checked by the Spell Checker.

It has been a long time coming

abartucciotto — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:55:00 GMT

I know it has a been a long time coming, but i figured I better get the ball rolling on this sucker as Brian Madsen has been kind enough to provide me with some blog space. Who should read my blog? To answer that question it may be worth just going into just what exactly do i do.

Well... I'm a consultant at Change Corporation in Perth, Western Australia and I specialise in designing and building UI's for Web Sites and MOSS portals. I find myself more an more frequently diving into the deep end in MOSS 2007 building everthing from custom web parts and features to Active Directory Write-Back timer jobs. I guess that's one of the benefits of having a bit of coding experience.

Projects I have worked on include fully customised MOSS interfaces built from the ground up utilising AJAX that Brian Madsen has somehow managed to get working in IE quirks mode, Silverlight custom webparts, TreeView webparts iterating through folder based lists etc. It's pretty cool, and challenging, customising MOSS and thankfully there are heaps and heaps of great blogs out there to read such as Andrew Connell and Heather Solomon. Hopefully this blog can be one of them where I can dump all my findings here and save you guys/gals a bit of time.

PSSUG: SQL Server 2008 Spatial with Virtual Earth

CSharpZealot — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 02:54:00 GMT

Perth SQL Server User Group meets again - please note the venue change

Date: 14th of February, 2008
Time: 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Presenter: John O'Brien (MVP), Bronwen Zande
Venue: L8, 182 St Georges Terrace (Change Corporation Offices)

This is a free event!

In this visually interactive talk we explore the new spatial data types, functions and indexes directly related to the real world using the interactive browser based Virtual Earth control. We focus on the new Geography data type providing an overview of the new functionality as directly applied to mapping. This includes the storage of points, polylines and polygons as well as real world tasks like effective rendering to the map, geofencing and proximity searches. We explore the power of union and buffering. Finally we examine the new index specifically built for fast spatial lookup.

The talk will inform, teach and demonstrate. You will understand what this new functionality is all about, what data types and functions are needed, how they operate and how to add an effective spatial index to your project.

John O'Brien
John is a consultant who specialises in Microsoft .NET development including ASP.NET AJAX, DotNetNuke and Windows Live Services. Based in Brisbane John is passionate about integrating Live Services into applications.

John was awarded a Microsoft Windows Live Developer MVP in April 2007 and can be found helping people learn both online and in person.

Bronwen Zande
Bronwen is a consultant who specialises in Microsoft Live Services and Microsoft .NET development.

When not working with Windows Live, Bronwen helps bring together Geek Girls from around the globe.

Note: the date is the 14th of February, 2008, not the 10th of February, 2008 as was previously displayed. My bad!

Microsoft: Heroes Happen 2008, Perth Launch Event

CSharpZealot — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:23:00 GMT

Join The Tech Force and discover what the future holds at Heroes Happen 2008. Explore the Agenda, featuring learning-focused sessions for Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. And find out more about the line-up of speakers* who'll be offering expert advice through live product demonstrations.

You have a number of options to be a Hero in 2008 by attending our national events:
Ticket terms and conditions

Official event site: www.microsoft.com.au/heroes

Perth
March 19
Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre

Get the inside knowledge.

See live demonstrations from experts. Get a hands-on look at these dynamic new applications. And discover how you utilise the tools you need to help drive your network. It's all about serving, protecting and managing - and empowering your Force with the right knowledge.

Ticket Prices:

Single Ticket
$199 inc GST

Group Ticket
(5 attendees or more)
$179 inc GST

Premier Support Ticket
Standard Ticket Price - 1 hour

Gold and Certified Partners, Code Customers & Exhibition staff
$199 GST inclusive

Code Customers

Exhibition staff

Byte Me! Festival, starts 30th of November, 2007

CSharpZealot — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:01:00 GMT

The inaugural Byte Me! Festival, a celebration of geek creativity and digital content, commences in just over a week at the Perth Town Hall.

If you're interested in animation, games development, visual FX for film and TV, 3D modelling, social networking and other web 2.0 applications, digital art and media, VJing or pretty much any way digital technology can be used to create, visualise, entertain, simulate... then this is for you.

Friday 30th Nov - Perth Town Hall
9pm A Fairlight Fetish - vintage audiovisual showcase featuring Chrism and Fenris making music on Commodore 64s, MoRph and VJzoo with their collection of Fairlight CVI video synthesisers from the 80's and 90's, and other surprise very special guests. $19/$9.50

Saturday 1st Dec - Secret CBD location
8.30pm Live Cinema - VJing grew up, went to school and this is what it became. Using the same tools and techniques developed in nightclubs, live video performance has now become a recognised artform. Some of the very best in the world will be in Perth to collaborate on this event - a large-scale outdoor video projection performance unlike anything you've seen here before. Solu (Finland/Barcelona), ArtificialEyes.tv (Turkey), Jean Poole (Melbourne) and local practitioners VJzoo will be performing at a secret CBD location to be announced on the website on the day. Bring your own chair, beanbag or cushion, and the performance will start at dusk (about 8.30pm). This is a family friendly event - bring a picnic supper, but NO ALCOHOL. Free.

Sunday 2nd Dec - Perth Town Hall
11am Business Models for a Digital Landscape - the serious side of the digital content revolution - how can digital content creators make a living in this new world? What are the challenges and the opportunities? Presented by the AFTRS Centre for Screen Business. $19/$9.50

Sunday 2nd Dec - Perth Town Hall
3.30pm An Animated Life - Melanie Beisswenger (Germany) will share her experiences as an animator on a wide range of projects, from animating on TV commercials in smaller studios to work on large feature film productions such as Happy Feet. Randall Lynton from Liquid Amber Design (Perth) will discuss his work as the award-winning animator of Ransis and Alee and Suicidal Balloon. $19/$9.50

Sunday 2nd Dec - Perth Town Hall
6pm Official Opening - by Invitation only, for Industry VIPs and Media. The Festival will be officially opened by The Right Honourable The Lord Mayor, Lisa Scaffidi and The Honourable Francis M Logan BA (Hons) MLA Minister for Energy, Resources, Industry and Enterprise. Keynote Speech of the Festival will be delivered by Posie Graeme-Evans, producer of McLeod's Daughters, co-creator of Hi-5, best-selling novellist, lyricist and all round dynamo. There will be a screening of the Get Reel to show you the great digital content being created here in WA.

Monday 3rd Dec - Perth Town Hall
6pm Figwit - Lord of the Rings Fan Doco - Australian Premiere Screening and Director Q+A. How did a non-speaking extra in Lord of the Rings become a cult star in his own right? If you've heard the story of Figwit (Frodo is Great... Who Is That?), now you can see the documentary and hear from the film-maker Stan Alley (NZ) in this tongue-in-cheek exploration of online fandom featuring Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords . LOTR costumery encouraged for this Green Carpet screening! $19/$9.50

Weds 5th Dec - Perth Town Hall
6pm Music Video Art Panel and Show n Tell. With the Perth music scene getting so much attention, it's time for the film and art scene to step into the same limelight. 'Music Video Art' will be a night of screenings and discussion into the collaboration between Perth artists from different fields, and creating large scale projects that break new ground. Hosted by WA film-maker Mat de Koning. $8/$5

Thurs 6th Dec - Perth Town Hall
6pm From Far Far Away First in the Byte Me! big-screen Show 'n Tells by people in the Industry. Some of these talks will be a bit technical, but they'll all be aimed at a non-geek audience. Think of it like the 'Making Of' extras on a DVD, except - you get to ask questions! This session's speakers are Sue Erokan from Dreamworks Animation (USA) who worked on the Shrek movies and Martin Davidson from animatED publishing company FinnCragg (Perth) $19/$9.50

Thurs 6th Dec - Perth Town Hall
9pm Plug n Play is a regular, hands-on audiovisual jam session where VJ's, electronic musicians, AV acts and other audiovisual geeks come along and show off their skills, style and equipment to each other. If you've ever been interested in VJing, this is the night to come along. Newbies are VERY welcome! Mix with local, interstate and international VJs, talk to them, have a play with their equipment. $8/$5

Saturday 8th Dec - Perth Town Hall
6pm From Dubai to Skull Island - Visual FX Revealed. Creating Fantasy Worlds, from Digital to Analogue. Perth-based 3D graphics studio Last Pixel will take you behind the scenes on some recent international projects, then Paul van Ommen (NZ) will discuss his role with Weta Workshop, and with The Miniatures Unit that created and filmed the models for King Kong and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. $19/$9.50

9pm Closing Party (Invitation Only) International and local festival guests will perform for the entertainment of volunteers, sponsors and other Byte Me! buddies. Get involved to get invited! Volunteers are still needed for both day and evening shifts during the Festival.

Sunday 9th Dec - Perth Town Hall
1-4pm BarCampNano - Perth is rapidly becoming known as a hotspot for great web 2.0 startups and the most active blogging community in Australia. BarCamp will feature short talks by some of the most exciting web-based businesses in a casual, fun Show n Tell style. Free, but online Registration required

Sunday 9th Dec - Perth Town Hall
6pm She Got Game (He Got TV) - Robin Hunicke is the Lead Game Designer on MySims at EA's Sims Division. In her copious spare time, she's finishing a PhD in Computer Science at Northwestern University, studying Artificial Intelligence and Video Games. Robin will be joined by Perth animator Stephen Grant who will talk about his work on the animated TV series Dogstar, shortly to commence airing on the Nine Network, and a range of other Australian and international projects $19/$9.50

Daily 2-9 Dec - Perth Town Hall
Various Times Get Reel is a collection of Western Australian digital content that covers a wide spectrum - from animation to ads, from 3D fly-throughs to games development, from engineering to education, from virtual safety training to visual FX for film and television. We're aiming to show you the variety of work being done, the rich diversity of jobs and the international opportunities that skills in digital content development can open up. $8/$5 (includes free Byte Me! Bag with info about digital careers).

Daily 2-9 Dec - Throughout CBD, start at Perth Town Hall
10am - 5pm Registration, play any time. Ghost Town. Giant Dice's new innovative game of urban exploration played with the help of your mobile phone, is being unleashed on the streets of Perth for one week, starting December 2nd, 2007. The game uses a mashup of technology (bluetooth, SMS and VOIP) and the physical world. Free.

and much much more... http://bytemefest.blogspot.com

MASSIVE 2007, 6pm, 4th of December, 2007

CSharpZealot — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 05:57:00 GMT

From it's origins in Perth Western Australia, MASSIVE is an annual end of year celebration for all the world's hard working people in the Digital and Computing related fields. At it's heart, MASSIVE is a reflective social event which salutes you, your work, your colleagues and your industry.

Designers, architects, web developers, film and television, gamers, academics, photographers, animators, authors, programmers, scientists, researchers, musicians, marketing, advertisers, artists are all welcome.

Be part of this year's celebration by registering your name on the entry door. Your name will be put into the draw for prizes on the night and the first 100 people to register are eligible to receive a MASSIVE t-shirt. (t-shirt offer is subject to sponsorship funding). In keeping with MASSIVE tradition, food and drink will be served on the night thanks to our sponsors.

*** Event Details **********
Venue: The Library, 69 Lake Street, Northbridge
Time: 6:00pm till late
Date: 4th of December, 2007
Cost: FREE!!!!

More details: www.perthmassive.net

MSFT: Michael Kleef, working and collaborating with colleagues, 27th of November, 2007

CSharpZealot — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 05:53:00 GMT

Want to see how Microsoft work?

Michael Kleef (http://blogs.msdn.com/mkleef) is presenting a session demonstrating how Michael personally works and collaborates with colleagues across the country and around the world using technologies that you can also use for your workforce.

Date: 5.30pm - 6:30pm, Tuesday 27th November 2007
Venue: Microsoft Perth - QV1, Level 14, 256 St Georges Terrace.

This should be an interesting session...come along!

PSSUG: Rob Farley coming to Perth - 4th of December

CSharpZealot — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 05:42:00 GMT

It's been slow going for the Perth SQL Server User Group in 2007 but we're working on bringing more events, consistently, to Perth on the topic of Microsoft SQL Server.

December sees fellow MVP Rob Farley present at the Perth SQL Server User Group.

*** Event Details *********************************
Venue: Level 2, 23 Barrack st, Excom (www.excom.com.au)
Time: 5:30pm - 7:00pm
Topic: Misc SQL Server Topics

Rob Farley (www.msmvps.com/blogs/robfarley) received his MVP in 2006 and has been a integral part of the IT&T Community in Adelaide. Rob runs the Adelaide SQL Server User Group (www.sqlserver.org.au) and does consulting and training on SQL Server.

At this event Rob will go through some of his favorite SQL Server topics, including ranking functions, windowing, merging and Powershell with SQL. We may also see some SQL Server 2005 best practises here if time allows.

So if you're interested in investing a few hours with SQL Server, come along to the Perth SQL Server User Group.