2005/10/24: 24 Hours of DeXter

During the 24 Hours of DeXter event, I spoke about upcoming Magazine articles, User Groups, DeXter courseware, and Conference Sessions.

Upcoming articles for The Delphi Magazine include one on .NET Compact Framework development, and next month an article on SOAP and Security as well as a Delphi 2006 New Features together with Brian Long.
For the C++Builder Developer's Journal I'll be writing the last part in my database access series, which will be followed by new articles about C++Builder 2006 new features.
Also, for Bitwise Magazine I still need to finish the last article about my ECO II Weblog, this time the ECO Web Service returning the RSS feed to this weblog. After that, I'll turn to ECO III new features.

I also write for user group magazines, and am a member of three user groups: UK Developers Group (UK) incorporating the Borland User Group and .NET Developer's Group, and two from The Netherlands, namely: SDN - Software Developer Network and HCC Pascal/Delphi Gebruikers Group.
I can really recommend user groups or developer groups, especially as a one man company or single developer, but even for a team it's helpful to be able to communicate face-to-face to an even bigger community.

My articles are very practical - for myself, and hopefully for the readers as well.
But when an articles is published, it ain't over yet. It just gets started.
I get feedback, or continue playing with a technology myself, and often expand the article, ending with something like a book chapter or a courseware section.

Talking about DeXter Courseware: I've announced three new titles: Delphi 2006 New Features (Win32/.NET), Enterprise Core Objects III, and .NET Compact Framework.
I'll also be offering some of the Win32 manuals in a C++Builder "personality" (this includes the VCL Databases title, and Win32 part of XML, SOAP and Web Services)
Existing Delphi 2005 courseware manuals will be updated for Delphi 2006 as well.

Finally, I mentioned the two Borland Developer Conferences I'll be talking in November: Borland DevCon in San Francisco and the European BorCon in Amsterdam.
At Borland DevCon, I'll be doing three sessions:

1. ASP.NET Web Development
   intro, design, navigation, state management, security (authentication and authorization), etc. deployment manager
   
2. ASP.NET Database Development
   ADO.NET / BDP, Database Access, DataGrid, paging, sorting, searching, DB Web controls, input validation
   
3. Multi-Platform Web Services
   Win32/.NET (Linux): compatibility, interoperability, migration, SOAP Security
   

• Power Workshop: Advanced ASP.NET
  real-world application
  
• ASP.NET user and custom controls
  user control (frame), custom control (assembly), DB Web controls
  
• Integrating Skype API
  how to talk to Skype client, send messages, automatically phone, answering machine