Wade Wegner

As I am new to Illinois, I recently started looking around to find out about some of the local user groups.  My friend and colleague, Dave Bost (developer evangelist and co-host of The Thirsty Developer), recently sent me the following list of user groups in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.  I’m not yet sure if this is an exhaustive list or if I’m missing some key groups.  Please let me know if I’m missing any.

Illinois

Chicago .NET Users Group – http://www.cnug.org
Chicago VSTS Users Group – http://vsts.sogeti-chicago.com
Bloomington (IL) – http://www.bloomingtondotnet.org
Rockford .NET Users Group – http://rockforddotnet.net

Indiana

Indianapolis .NET Developers Association (+ C# SIG, ASP.NET SIG, VSTS SIG) – http://www.indynda.org
Evansville .NET Users Group  – http://www.evansvillednug.com
Michiana .NET Users Group (South Bend) – http://www.madnug.org

Wisconsin

Wisconsin .NET Users Group (Milwaukee) – http://www.wi-ineta.org
Fox Valley .NET Users Group (Appleton) – http://fvnug.wi-ineta.org
Chippewa Valley .NET Users Group (Eau Claire) – http://cvnug.wi-ineta.org
Madison .NET Users Group – http://www.madisondotnet.org

I attended the Chicago .NET Users Group (CNUG) last night and had a great time.  I hope to see you all at the next meeting!

I know that Twitter is nothing new and that many of you are already using it, but until recently I had managed to resist.  However, upon joining Microsoft and getting to know my evangelist peers, I found Twitter to be a great way to both keep in touch and coordinate with my friends and coworkers.  Furthermore, having recently moved from Colorado to Illinois, I found that Twitter is also a great way to keep in touch with distant and remote friends.  It’s great to hear what’s going on with my friends, like Rich Finn and Ryan McCutchen; also, unlike instant messaging technologies, we don’t have to be online at the same time.

So, as you have probably guessed, I have started to Twitter; you can follow me at: http://twitter.com/wadewegner/.

There are tons of people twittering away all day long, and one of the challenges I’ve had is filtering out the the noise.  Consequently, the one bit of advice I will give to newcomers is to start slow and resist the temptation to start following hundreds of people all at once; I did this at first, and I found it overwhelming.

As a RESTful service using simple SMS, Twitter makes it easy to interact via many different clients.  One that I’ve started using on my Windows Mobile 6 device is TinyTwitter.  This tool allows me to read the messages of people I’m following and post updates when I’m away from my computer.

Neat stuff.  Try it out, and feel free to follow!

I have long been a proponent of working and developing in an environment that matches your production systems.  I’ve found that developing on the same O/S takes away a lot of the unknowns and guess work that occurs when you deploy from a traditional workstation O/S (like XP or Vista) to a server O/S (like Windows Server 2003 or 2008).  Don’t get me wrong, Windows XP and Vista are fantastic O/S’s and appropriate for all kinds of development; yet, when you’re working with products like BizTalk, SharePoint, or Commerce Server, it make sense to use the same server O/S.

Windows Server 2003 has been one of my favorite O/S’s.  It’s stable, fast, and powerful.  I’ve built all kinds of custom .NET, SharePoint, BizTalk, and Commerce Server applications on Windows Server 2003 and I have never been unhappy or displeased with the O/S.  So, if I’ve always been happy with Windows Server 2003, why am I talking about Windows Server 2008?

This little post is probably the wrong place to get into a full discussion regarding the features and benefits of Windows Server; however, let me mention a few things that convinced me:

• IIS 7.  There have been some tremendous changes to IIS in this latest version.  I’ll post about this another time; there’s too much for this post.
• Hyper-V.  Hyper-V is a virtualization system for x64 versions of Windows Server 2008.  It’s cool stuff, and again too much to get into here.  Never heard about this?  Go read about it!
• x64.  All I can say is that I was always unhappy with the x64 version of Windows Server 2003.
• Roles and Features.  I’ll talk more about these in another post; roles and features are similar to what we’ve used in previous versions, only better!

There are many more reasons; this published list of the Top 10 Reasons to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 is a great start.

Alright, convinced?  Well, if for some reason you’re still not convinced then I invite you to witness how slick and easy the installation process is with Windows Server 2008.  Actually, I found that it’s very much like the Windows Vista installation.

1. Insert your bootable DVD or map the ISO file to your virtual machine.  Boot the machine.

2. Once the lightweight O/S has booted, click Install Now.

3. Depending on the flavor of your DVD / ISO, you will have various options to select from.  Select the operating system you want to install, and click Next.

4. You are next presented with the license terms.  Be sure and read these terms!  Once you have finished, select I accept these terms, and click Next.

5. You must next select the type of installation.  Again, depending on your flavor, you may have different options.  I always prefer to perform a fresh installation.  That’s just how I role.  Make your selection, and click Next.

6. Next, you have to select the disk partition to which the operating system is installed.  Make your selection, and click Next.

7. Now comes the impressive part.  The installation for Windows Server 2008 is very much like Windows Vista – fast!  That’s because the operating system is largely unpacked rather than installed.  On the first screen you’ll notice that the zip is copied over to the disk partition …

8. … and then it is expanded.

9.  Oops.  It went so fast I missed a screen shot.  Honestly, Installing Updates is typically the slowest
part of the installation, although this is more true for Vista than Server 2008 as Vista has more updates to install at this point in time.  (No, this is not a reflection or comment on the quality of Vista!)

10.  At this point I was asked to reboot.  Just do what it tells you to do.  It’s smarter than we are.

11. And then the installation completes.  Yippee!

12. Before you can log into your new fresh installation of Windows Server 2008, you are told to change the administrator password …

13. … and then you can set a new password.  It struck me odd that this was considered "changing" the password, since there doesn’t appear to have been one before.  Oh well.  Semantics.  This installation still rocks.  Click the little arrow, and then …

14. … your desktop is prepared!

Congratulations, you’ve just installed Windows Server 2008!  Altogether, I was able to go through this process in about 30 minutes on my Dell D830.  Not too shabby!  In the effort of full disclosure, here are the specifications for my machine:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.40 GHz
Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB
System type: 64-bit Operating System

Really, when you sit back and reflect on what operating system installations were like back in the old days (the 90′s were the old days, right?) it’s amazing how much more sophisticated this process has become.  It’s elegant, intuitive, and fast.

While you may not be as impressed with this as I am (in which case you must try it on your own, as I know you’ll become as fervent as I am) I promise you that some of my next posts will get your blood flowing.  I plan to show how easy it is to add roles (e.g. a Web Server with IIS) and features (e.g. .NET Frameworks or PowerShell) to Windows Server 2008.  Neat stuff, and again, very intuitive.

I hope this helps!