A Blog by Scott Isaacs

Month: December 2007

Holiday Party Canceled (For Now)

The WI .NET Users Group Holiday Party I mentioned before has been canceled due to weather.  As soon as it is re-scheduled, we will let everyone know.  I apologize for any inconvenience.

Coworking

Here’s something that sounds really interesting to me.  About a week and a half ago, Larry Clarkin posted about “coworking”, and I’ve been meaning to write about it ever since.  Coworking is an interesting concept.  From the Coworking Community Blog: Coworking is a movement to create a community of cafe-like collaboration spaces for developers, writers and independents.

Do you work from home?  I rarely do anymore because of the nature of my job, but I used to occasionally work from home.  I was always fine for the first day or so, but if it was a more than a couple days, it was really hard for me to stay focused.  I would run into roadblocks that would normally not be an issue. 

Coworking would have been ideal for me.  I would have the flexibility and freedom of working from home, but the collaboration opportunities of working at the office.  If I ever start an at-home business, I am sure that I will be looking for coworking space opportunities.

Anyway, Larry is starting a coworking group in the Brookfield, WI area.  The first meeting is on December 17 at 1:00 PM at Einstein Bagels on Bluemound.  Of course he has all the pertinent into on his site, so check it out.  Larry also points to the Wikipedia entry and the Coworking wiki (CoworkingMilwaukee) for more info.

I’m not yet sure if I’ll be able to make it myself, but I encourage you to check it out, especially if you work independently.

Toys For Tots Donations

I forgot to mention it in my most recent newsletter to the WI .NET Users Group, so I wanted to post it here.

If you’re coming to the Holiday Party next week, please consider bringing a toy to be donated to Toys For Tots.  As mentioned in a previously referenced post by Dave Bost:

In the spirit of the holiday, we will be collecting toys for Toys for Tots. Bring a toy and have a chance at winning an outstanding prize (TBD). Please make sure that all toy donations are new, unwrapped toys. This allows the Toys for Tots program staff to determine that the gift is safe for distribution and to identify the appropriate age and gender for each gift.

I think this is a great opportunity for us to provide something for a child who would otherwise not receive anything for Christmas.  It’s not a requirement at all, and there is no obligation, but the opportunity to give will be there for you if you choose.

Thanks.

More About The WI .NET UG Holiday Party

So the WI .NET Users Group’s Holiday Party is coming up soon.  Today I was able to increase the registration capacity because Dave Bost from Microsoft was able to come through for us and got us a few dozen more Visual Studio 2008 licenses than previously expected.

By the way, if you’re attending the party to install Visual Studio, Dave has a great post that includes some steps you should take to prepare for the installation.  He also talks about a number of contests surrounding the party.  There is even a contest you can enter even if you can’t make it to the party.

One of the contests is a Demo Contest.  We are looking for a number of people who are willing and able to do a short demo (around 5-15 minutes, depending on participation).  If you’ve been using VS08 or .NET 3.5 and would like to talk about one of your favorite features, please contact me and let me know.  As long as the schedule permits, we’ll allow people to "sign up" to give a quick demo right there at the party, but we’d like to get as many interested people as possible to sign up in advance.

Even though we have again reached our limit for Visual Studio licenses, there is another link to register on our site.  We’d still like to have everyone at the party for the food and fun, so sign up using this alternate link.  Also, by signing up you’ll be added to the waiting list in case anyone the already registered is unable to make it for some reason.

I hope to see everyone there.

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