There’s nothing quite like a trip to Seattle in December - for a Dubliner like me, the wet and dreary weather offers a gentle reminder of home! I traveled up to Redmond last week to meet Jim Kayler, a colleague from Wisconsin, for a scheduled interview on Channel 9 about InnerWorkings.

The interview is titled Teaching developers: A peek inside the inner workings of InnerWorkings and it runs to just under 30 minutes. Both Jim and I didn’t quite know what to expect — a friendly chat or a serious interrogation — but we both agreed it was a really enjoyable experience. I encourage you to check it out and let us know what you think:

It was fun to meet Charles Torre, one of the originators of the Channel 9 experience, and a very good interviewer. Charles moves around easily between deep technical subjects, product architecture, startup growing pains, and general business topics. It’s always a bit disquieting to see (and hear) yourself on camera, but the whole interview was a blast and hats off to Charles and the production crew for making it flow so smoothly.

I spent some time researching Channel 9 before our interview, and it’s hard not to be impressed with the site’s pedigree; the same can be said for the talented cast of 9 characters who founded it. After spending some time with Charles and the team, it’s clear that they hold fast to their 9 core principles. This approach is centered on emphasizing ‘the conversation’ by setting PR and spin aside to speak directly to the Channel 9 audience about technologies and industry trends that matter.

The one guiding principle that I found present as a viewer and participant is that people and their stories really matter on Channel 9. Companies aren’t just about product launches, milestones, and press releases — it really is about people working hard to make an idea become a reality. Maybe that’s a better definition of a business than anything you’ll find in a shareholder report or analyst briefing.

Threading has emerged as a red hot topic in our roadmap as increasing numbers of developers seek to build applications with multiple threads of execution.

What exactly are threads you ask? Wikipedia defines threads as “a way for a program to split itself into two or more simultaneously (or pseudo-simultaneously) running tasks.” I’m not sure what “pseudo-simultaneous” really means, but I do know that threading is one of the least understood aspects of programming today.

The latest news from our R&D team is that we’ve just released 6+ hours of self-paced developer learning that covers the following core aspects of threading:

Threading in the .NET Framework

You’ll learn how to use the .NET thread pool, the BackgroundWorker component, thread safe programming techniques, and asynchronous delegates. You’ll also learn how to perform thread synchronization with wait handles, as well as how to create and control threads manually.

Concurrency Patterns

You’ll learn about the Event-based Asynchronous Pattern, the Countdown Latch, and the Producer/Consumer relationship. You’ll also learn how to parallelize data by using Loop Tiling, avoid deadlocks with Lock Leveling, and work with immutable types.

I encourage you to check out both of these Drills on threading, which are available in C# immediately. They will soon be followed by their VB compatriots, so stay tuned for that release announcement shortly. Enjoy…

At InnerWorkings, we see daily evidence of a thriving .NET community in the United Kingdom. Many of our web customers are British developers and .NET teams who wisely take full advantage of Sterling’s commanding position relative to the weakening U.S. dollar. But that’s another post and I’m no monetary policy expert — just ask my wife!

VBUG is a good example of the real strength of the UK developer community in action; its charter is to serve professional developers with regular local conferences and events.

VBUG also operates a membership plan for both corporate and individual developers, providing additional value in the form of a free newsletter and member discounts for developer tools and training vendors.

In support of VBUG, we decided to become a joint sponsor of the upcoming VBUG Birmingham Spring Conference on April 24th, 2008. The agenda for this conference looks great, so I’d encourage any local .NET developers and software managers to check it out:

• Visual Studio 2008
• Workflow Foundation 101
• WPF Business Apps
• Silverlight Showcase
• MOSS

As a sponsor, InnerWorkings is throwing in some Silverlight and WPF training for conference attendees. If you’d like to stay in touch with the VBUG team, signing up for their free newsletter is the way to go. For those UK developers who attend the VBUG conference, I look forward to getting your feedback on the event. All in all, it looks like a very useful way for developers to spend a day learning the latest .NET tips and techniques.

I blogged about our first Silverlight coding contest at Sogeti a few weeks ago and congratulated our winner on his Silverlight coding prowess. Now I’ve two more very worthy winners to announce, which makes me feel a bit like a virtual game show host. On that note, the following winners should step up to take a bow:

• Sam Heck @ Hitachi Consulting
• Jason Menezes @ Capgemini

Each winner qualifies to receive an InnerWorkings subscription ($1,500 value) and a shiny new Xbox 360 from Microsoft. Not bad for a few hours of expert coding time tweaking VideoBrush and MediaElement in a sample Silverlight application, eh?

You can pit your own Silverlight skills against our code checking engine by taking the following Drills from our catalog — topics covered include creating a simple Silverlight control, layout and formatting text, and using brushes. These Drills also cover drawing 2-D shapes, using animation and transformations, and MediaElement and VideoBrush:

• Silverlight Fundamentals using Visual Basic
• Silverlight Fundamentals using Visual C#

And now a bit of background on each of our winners…

Sam Heck (pictured right) is a senior consultant at the Custom Development Practice in Hitachi Consulting. He lives in Baton Rouge, LA where he earned bachelor degrees in computer science and biochemistry at Louisiana State University. In his spare time, Sam enjoys hiking, kayaking, watching sports (and configuring his new Xbox 360).

Jason Menezes is a software developer at Capgemini, based in the company’s Mumbai offices. He’s been working for Capgemini for 18 months, spending most of his time on a core implementation codenamed the Assurance Project. Jason is always keen to learn new technology, and Silverlight was high on his list. Jason really enjoys playing computer games as a hobby and will no doubt make good use out of his new Xbox!

Congratulations to all our latest winners on their well earned prizes — don’t forget to leave some time for learning .NET in between your Xbox sessions, folks!

For those of you that have simply run out of space and time in your first life, I sympathize. Or maybe I empathize. At any rate, I’d encourage you to check out C# Day on Second Life.

InnerWorkings has teamed up with Michael de la Maza from DRC, Microsoft, and the SLDNUG to offer this virtual event for C# developers.

A full schedule of the event can be found on the SLDNUG website, but we’d like you to join us at Visual Studio Island on Saturday February 16th, 2008 in Second Life. If you’re interested, register now while the event is still open.

You should note that this is NOT another boring lecture-based event for developers — the focus is heavily weighted towards active participation. That approach should sound pretty familiar to all you InnerWorkings users out there!

There will be a short demo of the InnerWorkings product at the very end of the day, and we’re giving all participants 3 hours of free training on Object Oriented Development Fundamentals from our catalog:

• Creating a new class by extracting logic from a form
• Defining an interface
• Creating an abstract class
• Implementing the Liskov Substitution Principle
• Replacing inheritance with delegation
• Replacing an error code with an exception

Here’s a sneak preview of the event on Visual Studio Island - you don’t want to miss out on this one. There’s even a virtual cocktail party to get you in the mood. So come out and show your support for C# Day in Second Life. Enjoy…

The InnerWorkings R&D team in Dublin is just emerging from the weeds of revising our catalog of coding challenges to support Visual Studio 2008 RTM. Converting our learning material and sample code from its native VS 2005 to VS 2008 was no trivial matter, but it’s clear that our customers demanded the change. Many of you have already made the switch to VS 2008 exclusively, while others are playing with it and seriously considering a permanent move soon.

Since RTM, we’ve seen very strong interest in our newest .NET 3.5 coding challenges — this tells me that developers are already starting to retool their skills for .NET 3.5 and the latest VS IDE release. That’s not a huge surprise, as we’ve seen many solid enhancements and new VS 2008 features to attract developers’ attention. From the popular LINQ, to AJAX integration and improved WPF support, VS 2008 has plenty of enticements built into the mix for .NET developers.

Under Soma’s guidance, Microsoft’s Developer Tools division furthered the momentum by releasing VS 2008 RTM ahead of time (shock, horror). Developers have enjoyed several months of Beta 2 exploration, followed by months of ’soft-launch’ access to VS 2008. The official marketing blitz happens in late February and early March, but there’s clearly no need for .NET developers to wait until then! This happy circumstance for Microsoft developers only made the need for InnerWorkings to convert our catalog more urgent than ever. I suppose it is true to say that when Microsoft sneezes, small ISVs like InnerWorkings get a cold!

During the conversion project, our R&D team prioritized the WCF, WPF, and WF material due to a serious compatibility problem which prevented developers from completing these challenges in VS 2005 if VS 2008 was installed. Needless to say, that was a bit of a showstopper for us!

I’m told that the team worked especially hard on the WCF conversion, due to all the impressive new WCF features that VS 2008 provides. The team still has a few loose ends to tie-up with VSTS and Enterprise Library 4.0, but rest assured those Drills are in the works for VS 2008 users. Check out our catalog for all the newly converted Drills and please keep the feedback on your experiences with VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 flowing.

Microsoft’s MVP network of technology specialists has always struck me as a good idea. According to the MVP site, Microsoft created the Most Valuable Professional designation to “thank individuals for their exceptional contributions to technical communities worldwide”. With about 3,500 MVPs around the globe, it’s a small but extremely influential group of independent technical community leaders. My good friend Wikipedia has some juicy history on the ups and downs of the MVP program, including its near demise in 1999. Live and learn…

Despite their dependence on Microsoft for existence, MVPs are not an homogenous or orderly group. In fact, part of their appeal is the sheer diversity and no nonsense commitment to the developer community and software ecosystem. Numerous incidents in the past point to the group’s objective nature and the weight of their collective opinions — anyone remember the Classic VB petition incident for example? Not a group to be trifled with by anyone, I’d say!

At InnerWorkings, we’ve been looking at ways to recognize the MVP group for their positive influence on the .NET development community for some time. Last December, a gregarious MVP by the name of Justin-Josef Angel contacted us. Justin proposed the excellent idea of putting together a special offer from InnerWorkings exclusively for MVPs – it took us about 5 seconds to decide this was an idea worth pursuing.

In the guiding hands of our whizz website team, the idea took shape quickly and appeared as a prominent story in our most recent iteration schedule. Justin promised to advertise the MVP offer to his network on a dedicated MVP newsgroup. Already we’ve had dozens of MVPs sign up for the free subscription, so kudos to Justin for spreading the word.

All this preamble is my long-winded way of saying that I have a nice public announcement for all MVPs. InnerWorkings is pleased to offer all MVPs a free subscription to our entire catalog of .NET learning challenges. Valued at $1,500 USD per annum, this free subscription offers MVPs access to 500+ hours of .NET training at no charge while MVP status is maintained.

Our catalog includes coding challenges on AJAX, ASP.NET, C# 3.0, CSS, Enterprise Library, LINQ, OO, Silverlight, SQL, VB 9.0, VSTS, WCF, WF, WPF, and more. Each MVP subscription includes access to our code checking engine, dedicated Personal Tutor service, and Safari Books Online to support each individual’s learning needs.

To view this offer, MVPs should visit our website at http://www.innerworkings.com/mvp. We ask all MVPs to include a link to your MVP profile page for authentication purposes. Once approved, MVP access to our catalog involves a simple self registration process and takes about 24 hours. One final note, please tell your MVP colleagues about this offer — we think they’ll appreciate it!

Rest assured that we haven’t forgotten all the other influential community groups out there. Let me know if you think we should run a similar program for Regional Directors, INETA user group leaders, or whomever. I can promise that we’ll consider each developer community group on its merits.

It’s so easy to become disconnected from others in this increasingly ‘connected’ world. This is quite an irony — the more technology facilitates an always-on interconnected life, the easier it is to become an email hermit and avoid frequent human contact. Often I find that it’s better to pick up the phone and just talk to someone rather than craft the perfect email, spell checked and reviewed for clarity.

Working alone for long periods of time can be quite alienating too. While some people absolutely love the home office setup, I find it a struggle sometimes. So when I feel the walls of my home office closing in, I’ll make a break for Luva Java, one of the very best coffee shops I’ve found in San Francisco. The coffee is superb (so long, Starbucks), wireless access is free, and you can’t beat the ambiance. Sometimes you just need other people around to get things done.

I’ve no doubt that the same applies to software teams, where working together is the key to being successful. As Henry Ford said:

“Coming together is a beginning.
 Keeping together is progress.
 Working together is success.”

I believe that’s particularly true for software teams — the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.

With our eyes fixed firmly on the success of your whole .NET software team, InnerWorkings has just released a new team purchase option on our website. Now you can buy our coding challenges for up to 15 members of your software team in a single transaction from our web catalog. Simply select the number of developers in your team from the drop-down list on our shopping cart and provide a list of their email addresses when prompted. After you checkout, each developer listed in your team will receive a setup email from us explaining who purchased their Drills and how to access their learning content right away. It’s that simple!

If your software team has more than 15 .NET developers, we can offer some enterprise discounts that may be more appealing to you. In this case, simply contact sales@innerworkings.com and our sales team will prepare a custom quote for your business. Either way, we’ve got you and your software team covered…

Today I’d like to introduce the winner of our first Silverlight coding contest. At the risk of boring everyone, I’ll begin with a bit of history. The contest idea sprang from a meeting with Erik Gunvaldson in Microsoft’s Enterprise Partner Group. On our last trip to Redmond, Debbie and I met Erik in the lobby of some distant building on the outer boundaries of the Microsoft campus — somebody call a meeting about the lack of meeting rooms there! We spent about an hour thinking of creative ways to interest .NET developers in Silverlight and the InnerWorkings learning environment. Through the hum of lunchtime lobby traffic, we finally came up with the simple idea of holding a virtual Silverlight contest.

Why not get developers to engage with Silverlight in a fun and competitive environment? How about offering them some excellent prizes like an Xbox 360, Expression Studio, InnerWorkings subscriptions, or signed copies of Halo? We reckoned that Microsoft has the contacts and InnerWorkings has the developer platform with analytics to make it happen. Good idea, let’s do it! Inevitably, this enthusiasm was followed by a few weeks of planning, project management, and email flurries to relevant parties. To his credit, Erik called in his EPG managers and lined up a bevy of partners to participate in the private coding contests.

Under Michelle Follman’s watch, the first such contest started at Sogeti and involved participants across their worldwide development organization. We had almost 50 .NET developers sign up to compete for the grand prize (Xbox 360 and 1 year subscription to the InnerWorkings catalog) and the competition was intense. The contest ran from December 10th - 28th and developers had to complete two Silverlight coding challenges set by InnerWorkings. Our trusty code checking engine filtered the top contenders and when the contest closed, a very deserving winner rose to the top of the Silverlight coding pile.

And the winner is <drum roll> Randy Magruder from Sogeti’s Florida offices in Tampa. Don’t be deceived by Randy’s stoic demeanor in this photo, he’s really delighted to win the top prize (honestly)! Randy only joined Sogeti last November, so he’s already making quite an impact. We were singularly impressed by Randy’s definitive win. In fact, he logged a perfect score in our system by completing both coding challenges with a 100% score and a single judging attempt on each challenge. A few others came close with 100% scores, but nobody else could solve the coding challenges with just one attempt. Good work indeed, Randy — take a bow!

For the record, Randy is pretty impressed by what he’s seen with Silverlight so far:

“Regarding Silverlight, I am very encouraged to see Microsoft enter this space, as the work they are doing will hopefully bring a more mature toolset and development environment to rich web applications. It will also bring many experienced developers who will already be familiar with the development environment and language. This should help them to push the edges of the web application envelope much sooner than they might otherwise be able to do.”

Well said, sir…

We’ll be running a series of Silverlight coding contests with other Microsoft partners over the next few months, so stay tuned for details on future winners. And let me know if your company is interested in setting up a private coding contest on Silverlight or some other shiny new .NET technology.

OK, so I have to disclose that this post is a thinly veiled attempt to get one last blog entry before the curtain falls on 2007. One more post actually makes my pitiful stats look a little better this year! If I believed in New Year’s resolutions, you can probably guess that blogging more would be on my list. I’m more into weekly resolutions to be honest - 12 month plans are destined to fail…

I did want to share one last nugget of InnerWorkings activity with you before wrapping up for the year. Those of you who believe in Santa Claus will be glad to hear that he delivered 3 hours of new learning challenges on Cascading Style Sheets last week! If I had a penny for every time I saw CSS floating around the middle of our roadmap, I’d be sitting on a beach in Costa Rica as I write this blog!

The long wait is over, however - InnerWorkings has listened to your pleas and demands for some top quality CSS learning for web developers. Separating presentation and structure with CSS is certainly a terrific skill for all serious web developers to master. You’ll find a shiny new Drill on Styling Websites with Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) in our web catalog. The learning challenges are pitched at level 3 developers and topics covered include CSS techniques to add fonts, colors, spacing, and other style elements to web documents.

It’s our small contribution to making the web a more structured and beautiful place. Happy New Year to one and all!