Try telling your friends that you've just returned from a series of days in Las Vegas where you’ve "learned an awful lot." If you don't put this particular statement into proper context, it's certain to generate more than a few awkward glances or snickers - people don't tend to associate Sin City with a place of higher learning. However, last year I had two great opportunities for knowledge gathering in LV. One was at OpenForce, and the other was looking at the "Bodies."
I've been rather fascinated with the human body since I took a series of anatomy courses during some schooling back in the mid-90s. Because of this, I now own enough anatomy texts to build a levee around myself if the nearby lake ever breaches its limits. Medical professionals will likely tell you that looking at the drawings in textbooks simply cannot compare to the learning experience offered up by performing dissections, or by studying a dissected body in 3 dimensions. With that in mind, before I flew out of Vegas, I made certain to visit "BODIES... The Exhibition" which was conveniently featured at the hotel across the street from my own.
I wish I could tell you how many "A-HA!" moments I had while walking through the exhibit rooms in that hotel basement, but I will spare the anatomy-babble. Suffice it to say that after looking at the body from a different perspective, or in different context, I learned some rather profound things.
So, what does this all have to do with DotNetNuke? Hearing from the people I've spoken with this week (see my earlier blog), many are excited to attend OpenForce '08 in Las Vegas because it provides them with an ideal opportunity to go beyond the available documentation that's out there, to gather information from other experts, and to take a deeper look at the core of DotNetNuke.
My second conversation in this series is with Chad Nash. Chad's company, Data Springs Inc., is a Platinum Sponsor of the DotNetNuke project, and has reserved a booth at this year's OpenForce '08 event which will be located directly across the hall from DotNetNuke Corporation’s own booth. He will also be providing some licenses of his modules for giveaway during the event. ~BW
"I was glad to see improved variety and depth in the development sessions for this year's OpenForce 08 conference," says Chad. "Although I enjoyed the speakers last year, I am really looking forward to some concentrated sessions focused on inheritance from the CORE in areas that are not widely used (such as ISettingsControl).”
“For example, have you noticed in the core feedback module that you can set up all security such as moderation directly in the ‘settings’ area? I don’t think developers are taking advantage of this and I haven’t really seen any tutorials that cover these topics. ‘Developing Extensions for DotNetNuke 5’ by Charles Nurse should cover this topic and provide a great introduction for upcoming interfaces specific to the 5.0 release."
"There are also multiple sessions that cover LINQ to SQL. This is a topic that hasn’t been discussed much in the DNN community but could really improve module data access layer performance. Jim Bonnie is covering this in a session called ‘Data Access in DNN DALs– Boldly Going Where Some Modules Have Gone Before’ and from the description, it's right up my alley!"
"Looking forward to seeing everyone this year! We have a booth right across from DotNetNuke Corp and will be showcasing new enhancements in the latest 2.7 release of Dynamic Forms and also the new release of Opt In Email 4.0." - Chad Nash is the Founder/Chief Developer of Data Springs®, Inc.