Dan Rigsby - Coding Up Style

Last night we had an Installfest here in Indianapolis for Visual Studio 2008. This event has been in the works for a couple of months now and was made possible by our Friends and Microsoft as sort of a "mini" release event to show their appreciation for the .Net user’s groups across the country.  This took the place of our normal monthly .Net User’s meeting, but was a welcomed diversion from the standard "pizza and a speaker" format.  The evening played out as followed:

1. The Setup - As an officer for the user’s group, I arrived early to volunteer my time helping to set things up.  I spent a lot of time making sure Guitar Hero 3 was working correctly for all the members in attendance.  I know they appreciated all the time I spent testing all of the songs to make sure the disk wasn’t corrupt.
2. The Sign-In - Not all of the people who registered attended, but we did have over 150 in attendance and over a third of those brought gifts for the RVT6 Toy Drive.
3. The Wait - We were given copies of the CD at the door and a lot of people had begun the installs.  We ran cables and power strips down every isle of chairs to provider power for the attendees.  Food was serviced, but we were told to wait until the event began.
4. Introduction - InstallFest finally began with Brad Jones and Dave Bost going over the format format for the evening and introducing Visual Studio 2008.
5. Installs and Play Time - The major of the evening was spent eating, installing, playing games, and networking.  I ran into many old friends and spent a good portion of the evening talking.
6. Mini-Demos - We were asked to present mini demos of features in Visual Studio 2008 or .Net 3.5.  Unfortunately I didn’t present a topic as I have been pretty busy with a project for school.  However we had a hand full of people present including two of my friends from work: Aaron Lerch and Jeff Moser.  Jeff ending up winning a Zune for his efforts, Congrats!
7. Prizes - There were numerous prizes including 2 XBoxes, 3 Zunes, lots of games, and a pile of books.  Amazingly I didn’t win anything again.  That is a trend, but congrats to all of the winners!

Dave Bost made it down the for the event, but Larry Clarkin missed out again.  Overall it was very enjoyable and I can’t wait for other events in the future.