Digital Thoughts @ Wesstyware

Microsoft unleashed Visual Studio 2010 upon the world earlier this month and they are changing the face of .NET development.  On May 11, 2010, Anvil Digital, ImagiNET, Protegra, and Microsoft are bringing to you with the Winnipeg Launch of Visual Studio 2010 event at the Imax Theatre.

If you have not had the chance to check out some of the new features for the latest Visual Studio, this is your chance to get a first-hand look at the software. Along with the introduction to Visual Studio 2010, there will be prizes, food, presentations from some of Winnipeg’s best .NET talent, and a chance to meet your local development community.

Seating is limited so register today to reserve your spot. Feel free to download and print the poster and pass it around the office. The more the merrier.

Here is what you can expect to see:

8:00 – 9:00 Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 – 9:15 Welcome
9:15 – 10:30 VS.NET 2010 Team Foundation Testing Tools – Aaron Kowall
10:45 – 12:00 Architecting Applications with VS.NET 2010 – Miguel Carrasco & Dylan Smith
1:30 – 2:45 What’s New for Teams in Visual Studio 2010 – Steve Porter
3:00 – 4:15 Developing Web Applications Using ASP.NET with VS.NET 2010 – D’Arcy Lussier & Jason Klassen
4:15 – 4:30 Prize Giveaways

I will see you there Interneters. Catch you on the flip side.

You have been reading my blog for a while and you have been asking yourself, when can I actually meet this Wessty character? Well, wonder no more because I have been hard at work to get more involved with the development community and have had some success. This post is going to tell you about how you can meet me in person at some of the upcoming development events in my area.

Prairie Developer Conference: June 2 & 3, 2010 (Regina, SK)

The first annual Prairie Developer Conference is happening in Regina to kick off the month of June. I have been selected to do a couple of presentations during the conference where I will be discussing Microsoft Expression related topics.

The first one is entitled Expression: The Parts You Care About is going to discuss the parts of the Expression suite that apply to developers. Expression Studio is usually described as designer tools. Given that is true, that does not mean that developers should not consider using parts of Expression to add some polish to their work. We’ll introduce Expression Studio from the stand point of a developer and show you how it can improve your software projects.

The second is about my bread and butter SketchFlow, and is called SketchFlow: Building Your App Before You Build You Build Your App. I have been talking about SketchFlow for quite sometime now and this presentation is going to summarize these ideas. I will demonstrate how I use SketchFlow everyday in my work to make sure that when we build something for a client, they know what they are getting before we write any code. In other words, I will be showing real world examples of SketchFlow in the industry and discuss how these fit into our development practices.

Winnipeg .NET User Group: Board Member & Webmaster

I have officially been added to the board of the Winnipeg .NET User Group, along with being their webmaster. If you look at the site today, you won’t be impressed, but that is because I am in charge of the new site that will be in hands of the public in the near future.

Beside being part of the board now, you can usually find me at the attending the meetings and learning from the presenter for the day while enjoying the delicious spread that it put out for all attendees.

Twitter, LinkedIn, Xbox Live, and Here

Alright, this isn’t me in person, but my online presence is one of the ways that I get to communicate with the development community outside of my local area. If you can’t get to one of the places listed above to meet me to ask questions about what I do, then drop me a line through one of these:

• Twitter (@Wessty)
• LinkedIn (David Wesst)
• Xbox Live (Wessty)
• Blog (also known as “here”)

I pay attention to all of these these forms of online communication pretty closely, although when I am on Xbox Live I am usually not thinking about software development (unless of course it is XNA). In any case, drop me a line and you’ll hear from me.

Conclusion

There really isn’t much to conclude with this post except for the fact that if you want to meet me or discuss something related to my work, I am very much game.

Catch you on the flip side.

Update: Visual Studio 2010 Winnipeg Launch Event

Yesterday I posted about the Winnipeg launch event for Visual Studio 2010 happening May 11, 2010. This is another event where you can see me in person and thus I thought I would add it here.

This post is part three of a series posts covering my progress on the Zany Video Games Quotes (www.zanyvgquotes.com) project. For the full story about the project so far, check out the other posts in the series or the project page for an overview of the project:

• Project Kickoff

It has been a while since I have posted. A lot has happened since I was in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics, and I thought I would start with the progress that I have made with the ZVGQ project. So, here goes.

SketchFlow Version 0.1 Complete

I know that version 0.1 sounds less than impressive, but keep in mind that once the SketchFlow is “complete” (i.e. version 1.0) we will have a complete skeleton of the new ZVGQ site. In any case, I managed to complete the first iteration of the prototype for the new ZVGQ and went over it with Kev. I have posted it on my site here (requires Silverlight 3), and you are more than welcome to check it out. Right now, the pages are placeholders but the main thing this prototype covers is the way users will navigate through the site.

Once complete, I went met up with Kev to go over the prototype to get a couple of things clearly defined about the project itself:

• Confirmation of the vision for the application.
• The definition of success.
• Basic flow for the site by defining how users will navigate through the application.

Vision and Success?

I realize that you might be wondering about the first two items on the list above, but let me explain. While working with David Alpert, I have had many conversations about vision and the definition of success for software project and the importance of having those pieces properly defined. If your stakeholders agree to a definition of their vision and what they see as “success” for the project, then you always have clear way of making decisions about the project itself. With a clear vision and success defined, developers and project managers are able to make decisions about the direction of the project and how to use available resources properly.

So, how does that relate to the prototype? Well, it doesn’t really. At least not directly.

I have worked with Kev on trying to define both the vision and success for the project through many conversations or “requirements gathering sessions” as some would call them. The problem was that after these conversations, I never felt as though I had a clear understanding of vision and success for the new ZVGQ site. This is mainly due to the fact that, I couldn’t guarantee that the experience that I envision for the site is the same as the one that Kev envisions.

With the prototype, I could show Kev what I was thinking for the site and he could actually play around with it. The SketchFlow also enabled me to explain to Kev my reasons for designing the header as I did. Since my decisions were based on the understanding I had about the vision and success for the project, I was able to confirm that Kev and I were on the same page and shared the same vision for the future of the site, along with the definition for success.

Prototype Feedback

On top of ensuring I had the project vision and definition for success defined, we discussed the navigation for the site. Kev had a few comments about the ensuring that the large navigation buttons were kept the same. What does that mean? It means that the random button that I currently have will be made into one of the hyperlink buttons at the top, and liked having all the letters up at the top rather than in the corner. One thing he did notice was that the “NEW” button that is on the current site with the letters is not in my prototype.

The points that Kev mentioned will be added to the header, and it shouldn’t take longer than about 15 minutes. Then I can move onto page layout, which will help in the next step: database design.

Next Step: The Database

I realize that SketchFlow has nothing to do with database design, but it can definitely help with identifying what needs to be stored in the database. I started work on this not long ago, and kept on having to go back to Kev for details about what he expected to display.

I realized quickly that it was my job to tell Kev what he wanted to display and ask him if there is anything else. This is where SketchFlow comes into play.

If you check out a game on the current site, you will see that the majority of the data is quotes, games, and pictures of the quote in the game. Considering that we can do far more than this, I want to show Kev the data we can display to his visitors, not just talk about it.

Ultimately, the next steps for the SketchFlow and I is to build a page that will display a game and add it to the prototype. The link above shows Final Fantasy 2 for the Super Nintendo, and I plan on recreating that page in the prototype. This will give both of us reference point that we can use to compare the future site with the current one.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the SketchFlow is going to be a very useful tool for requirements gathering on all fronts. The SketchFlow works because it allows me to show the stakeholders how I have interpreted their vision and demonstrate how I believe my design fits with their definition for success.

As we move forward with the project, the SketchFlow will slowly become more complete and we will have a skeleton of what we will be builiding over the course of the next year.

Catch you on the flip side.

Digital Thoughts Cast Member: David Alpert

My work and growth in software development would be impossible without a strong supporting cast. With that, I want to introduce you to the latest addition to the Digital Thoughts cast: David Alpert.

David Alpert (blog.spinthemoose.com) is a Web Developer and Interaction Designer at Anvil Digital and one of the creators of bundl.it. I have found that David is strong with the Force called user experience development/design, and is considered something of a UX Jedi in my books.

Update

Since writing this post, I have updated the SketchFlow for ZVGQ online. It appears that if you are viewing the SketchFlow in Google Chrome, you might have to clear your cache before it will update. I am not sure if there is a remedy to this problem, but I will do some research and see if anything is out there.

With that, if someone knows something about this issue (or if it was just me), please comment and let me know.

I realize that this post is not about what you are used to reading, but I don’t think this blog would really be mine if I did not at least briefly mention that I was at the Olympics in Vancouver. Attending the Winter Olympics has been something of a dream of mine for a very long time. Since I was in grade five actually. I know this, because I had to stay home due to to illness and got to watch Jean-Luc Brassard take the gold medal in Lillehammer. From that point on, I loved the Winter Olympics and it has been something of a dream of mine to attend the games ever since.

When Vancouver won the right to host the 2010 games, I realized that this was my chance to see them. Live. The chance to live that dream. And so, here I am with my tickets around my neck at all times and my Team Canada jersey with Wessty written on the back.

I have only been here a day so far, but you can feel the excitement in the air. Shortly, I will be heading out to investigate BC Place prior to entering the stadium to take my place amongst the crowd for the opening ceremonies. I have met volunteers who had the opportunity to attend the dress rehearsal the other day and they all say I am in for quite the treat. I have received instructions from VANOC (the Vancouver Olympic Committee) about what to wear and to be in my seat about two hours before the performance begins. I honestly do not know what to expect. All I know is that this experience appears to be living up to the dream I have built up for myself over the past 16 years.

The Plan

Below you can my event schedule. If you are wondering why some of the times are much earlier than when the actual event starts, that is because I took transportation time into account. Getting to Cypress Mountain from downtown will take a bit of time, or so it seems.

Day 1: Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion

Last night I went on an adventure to see what was happening in the Olympic city, and came across the Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion. I won’t go into the details, but I saw the medals they have made (which are beautiful works of art), along with the million dollar coin, and held an actual gold bar. All in all, a successful adventure.

I was able to get this as something of a parting gift, and I decided that I would share it with all of you. So, enjoy.

Enough blogging. Time to start day two of my adventure and see if I can get pictures with all of the mascots.

Catch you on the flip side.

Before I even begin writing this post, I want to clarify that this is not a review of a video game. For the record, I just started playing the game and I’m really enjoying it so far. My intentions with this post is to document a UX issue that could have been caught with some extra UX analysis but an example outside of the regular domain for UX discussion, (which is usually business applications.

Disclaimer

For the record, the content contained within this blog post is based solely on my experience with the Xbox 360 version game and the character import feature. This, in no way, reflects the thoughts or opinions of anyone at BioWare or Electronic Arts.

Plus, the game is fantastic as per all BioWare titles that I have played.

A Quick Introduction

For all those people out there who read my blog and are not video game players, Mass Effect is a series of games from BioWare for the PC and Xbox 360. The first game was released back in 2007 and the second game was released recently on January 26th of this year. One of the interesting features of the Mass Effect games is the ability to make storyline decisions that effect the outcome of the game. For example, when you come across the last “queen” of an alien species, you can choose to whether or not to kill it. This decision ultimately decides whether or not the alien species will become extinct.

With all sorts of different decisions like the example above in the game, it would be a pity to see the consequences of your decisions disappear because they made a sequel to the game. Different game means different save file, right? Not exactly. In the case of Mass Effect, you are able to import your character information from the first game (assuming you finished the game) and continue the story of Mass Effect with all the consequences of the decisions you made in your previous game.

This is an amazing feature and I was really pumped to hear about it. The idea of continuing through to the new instalment of the series with all of the decisions that I made in the game world carried over is a fantastic one. Turns out there was a little more to it.

My User Experience

After playing a bunch of Dragon Age, I was very excited to get into the sequel for Mass Effect, and because of this I pre-ordered my copy from Amazon and patiently waited for launch day.

It arrived for the weekend, and my better half and I prepared for our night playing this amazing game. We loaded up the game, went to the character import tool, and waited to select our save file from the first Mass Effect.

Loading complete. Result: No games found.

Huh. Well, let’s try setting the storage device to make sure it is pointing at the memory card.

Loading complete. Same result.

That is the short of it. Most of our evening was spent reading up on how to make this work. Eventually we came across this article explaining things. Turns out that when you beat the first Mass Effect, a file is created on the Xbox 360 that is not visible through the regular interface where you see your other save files. This is a file that is just not visible by any regular means provided by a game or that operating system.

The Red Ring of Death

In our case, our first Xbox 360 red ringed and needed to be replaced. Considering that we had access to memory cards to move our save files to the new console we figured we were covered. Apparently, that was an incorrect assumption.

Not to be deterred, we went out to find a copy of Mass Effect 1 (as we lent out our copy) and returned home to beat it again, which made the hidden file on our hard drive and life was good.

The UX Fail

I suppose you could say that my case was an special case. I mean, how many players are going to be playing the second Mass Effect game on a different console, have their copy of the first game lent out to a friend, and only realize that they need the game when rental stores are closing?

The last two problems could be chalked up to bad timing. But the Xbox 360 failure happening between the release of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2? Not only has almost every Xbox 360 owner I know had their console die on them, but I have heard of others that have had the same hardware issues.

Considering that these hardware issues are common play with the Xbox 360, why would you consider adding a feature that is strictly dependent on the hardware? Hence, the UX fail and my reason for writing this post.

In the end this experience was not detrimental to my game. I am playing the game and really enjoying it. Still, when we open up a game only to have the excitement whisked away by features that appear to be broken, it takes away from some of the magic and ultimately makes me question the value in my purchase.

The Point

The point is simple: when you are developing features that live in the unexplored regions of your software genre make sure you spend the time identifying all the possible failure points. It doesn’t mean that you have to support all of them, but you will probably want to try and cover the ones that are likely to come up.

The other point: showing people in Developer Land that user experiences live outside of their business and web applications. The exist in all types of software, even games. And although they can be fantastic games, they can still fail with the user experience in some capacity.

Catch you on the flip side.

Resources

Mass Effect Homepage

BioWare Homepage

Joystiq – Game Informer: Xbox 360 at 54.2 percent failure rate (August 17th, 2009)

Note: I realize that a survey done by a magazine may not be the best source, but the Xbox 360 hardware issues are well known in the gaming community, and this article shows that there are at least more than just myself with the problem.

Last night (January 28th, 2010) was the first meeting for the Winnipeg .NET User Group for 2010 and things are shaping up to be a great year of .NET awesomeness for us. That aside, this year is the where the Wessty (that’s me) officially becomes involved with the group. With that, I thought I would write a quick post about what we covered last night at the meeting.

The Headliner: Uwe Schmitz

Last night we were treated to a presentation from Uwe Schmitz, easily one of the most brilliant developers I have met (other than yours truly, of course). He demonstrated to the group a Microsoft project called Composite Client Application Guidance (formerly known as PRISM) using the Silverlight to build an example live on stage.

Uwe getting ready to bring the thunder...

Personally, I really enjoyed the presentation and it was not only because I was interested in learning about the technology and I have a secret relationship with Silverlight as a whole. Uwe went through the basics of CAG, from a high level, through the architecture and pieces that make up the software, right through to starting and finishing a simple example to see the tech in action.

His presentation style was dead on for the audience and the technology we were seeing. Although I understand Silverlight, for the most part, Silverlight does not have a huge piece of the pie in the Winnipeg .NET development community. Uwe walked us through the “gotchas” that many people would fight with who are starting out with the technology (that being XAML), and dove right into the implementation of our Silverlight CAG application.

The Point

You might be wondering the point of this post, and the point was to give you a quick explanation of what you can expect at Winnipeg .NET User Group meeting. A meeting consists of free delicious food, a fantastic presentation by an expert in the best of .NET related technology, an opportunity to network with your fellow developers, and learn about what is happening within the Winnipeg development community.

Winnipeg Software Development Events

In conclusion, if you are reading this and you weren’t sitting there with me, then consider coming out and checking out some of the upcoming events.  Here is a list of some of the upcoming events in the ‘Peg covered by Kelly last night while warming up the crowd:

• Geek Girl Dinner (February 9th, 2010)
  

  Kelly warming up the crowd before the big show

• 3rd Winnipeg .NET Code Camp (February 28th, 2010)
• Next Winnipeg .NET User Group (March 6th, 2010)

Check out the links. Bring your friends. Learn something. They are free and they give you the chance to see what is happening outside of your little development bubble. Plus, you get the chance to meet your peers in the industry and knowing who else is out there is never a bad thing.

Catch you on the flip side.

This is first post of an on-going series of posts from Wesstyware on the ZVGQ v2.0 project. To find a listing of all the posts in the series, please refer to the posts section of the project page for the ZVGQ project.

Introduction

A very close friend of mine, kiggidykev used to be part of the team for zanyvgquotes.com many years ago. In late 2009, after not being part of the project for many years, he was given the chance to take possession of the site and decided to seize the opportunity to bring some life back into the site.

He approached me with the idea of working on the site with him, where I would take point on the development side and he would take point on the content. After looking over the site, and the source I came to the conclusion that we needed to build the site from scratch and port over the current content.

The Catch

The catch is simple: I am a .NET developer and have been my entire career. That means all of my development strengths lie within the realm of Microsoft technologies and tool. ZVGQ is hosted on a Linux based server, hence the catch. Although, after thinking about it for a while, I too found the chance to seize an opportunity.

I have been a user of Microsoft Expression since WPF was still in beta. Version 2 of the software proved to be useful, but not really full enough to be used on its own. With version 3 release in 2009, I felt as though the software was ready. The thing is without some kind of proof or personal experience showing that it would hold its own, it felt odd for me to recommend that as a tool to my colleagues and co-workers

Enter ZVGQ.com…

The project is a real web development project that can benefit from the tools that the Expression Suite bring to the table. I see the ZVGQ project as the opportunity for me to see if Expression Suite is all that it can be. Here is how I plan on using the software:

Expression Blend: Prototyping & Silverlight Development

Prototyping out this site is a must, and SketchFlow is the best tool for the job. On top of that, I plan on revisiting Blend when we tackle some Silverlight development as there are a few components where I see Silverlight producing a far richer UX for the users of ZVGQ.

Expression Web: HTML/PHP/JavaScript Development

Web is meant to be a web development tool for all types of web development mark up and code, including those that live outside of Redmond. This will be the test to see whether Expression can hold its own considering that all the technologies that will be used within Web will not have stemmed from the depths of Redmond.

Expression Design: Screen Designs

I’m not a designer, nor do I think I have the abilities of a designer. Still, we will want to build some sample screens that have some styling applied so we know what the site is actually going to look like before we release it. For that, we are going to use Expression Design.

Expression Encoder: Media Updates

ZVGQ has a large amount of media that will be updated which includes videos. The plan is to update these videos using Encoder to test the waters and see what we can do to improve the quality of what we have.

Development Schedule

The next thing, is the development schedule and what kind of milestones we have in front of us. This may be changing over the next little while, but here is the plan for the time being:

• Phase 1: Prototyping [January 18, 2010]
• Phase 2: Database Implementation [March 1, 2010]
• Phase 3: Security Implementation [April 1, 2010]
• Phase 4: Administration Section Development [May 1, 2010]
• Phase 5: Public Site Development [June 1, 2010]
• Phase 6: Styling [July 1, 2010]
• Phase 7: Beta Launch [August 1, 2010]
• Phase 8: Go Live [September 1, 2010]

I realize that it seems like development is going to take quite a while. Keep in mind that this is a part time thing for me, and I will be learning from the ground up how to program in PHP. There are many pieces to this software that I will need to research and determine the best way to implement, but with time and effort we will build a new and improved ZVGQ.

With that, I believe that there is work to be done. It is time to kick the tires and light the fires and get this project under way. Add comments to the bottoms to provide some feedback or to ask any questions you may have.

Catch you on the flip side.

With the new year upon us I thought I would take a moment to discuss some of the plans for the upcoming year. Plus, it will be interesting to review this post a year from now to see what I had planned for 2010 and compare it to what I actually completed.

Enter 2010...

Project: ZVGQ.com

If you have been checking out the site in the later part of the year, you may have noticed that a project section appeared at the top. The main reason for this section is the fact that I have a project that I will be working on in the new year. If you want more details, check out the project page here.

Winnipeg .NET User Group

I have been part of the Winnipeg .NET User Group for a while, but playing primarily the role of an attendee. As of late, I have been given the opportunity to take a bigger role with the group by contributing to their events. So far there are a couple of items that have been brought to my attention, but so far nothing is completely solid nor has it been announced. As things develop, I will discuss them further via the blog.

In the meantime, you can learn more about the the group at their website here.

18 (or so) Original Posts + Updates

Last year I had a handful of original posts that actually stirred up some comments from people in the digital woods. Between the Expression Design discussion, Vancouver 2010 Virtual Waiting Room, and the review of Bing from a different perspective I managed to get some people reading and even commenting on my thoughts.

The problem was that I did not really have an idea of the amount of work that it was going to be to maintain the blog. For starters, spam became a serious problem thus responding to comments became exceptionally difficult. Plus, writing a decent post is not something that is simple. It requires some serious thought, and more importantly time.

This year I have a very good idea of the time I need to put into to keep the blog updated and get some digital lifeblood flowing through it. With that in mind, I figure it is possible for me to schedule time to post about one original post every three weeks or so, in combination with the quick updates about events and such.

Other Projects

On the projects page, you’ll notice that there are other projects that I have listed there. I always have ideas of work that I would like to do, but there is only so much time that I can dedicate to my personal projects. The most important thing I would like to see in 2010 is the actual completion of a project from Wesstyware. Considering that Wesstyware is just yours truly, it makes sense to focus my efforts on one thing at a time.

Still, you can probably expect to see other projects either appear or extend over the upcoming year. This stuff is fun for me, and it if it isn’t fun then why I am spending so much time on it?

Conclusion

This is what I predict for Wesstyware in the year 2010 as of December 31, 2009. We shall see how the year goes and meet back here in 365 days to see how I did.

Catch you on the flip side.

Hey all,

I needed to post a claim code on the new blog to register the new site with Technorati. I was just informed that the claim code was found and that they just need to review things.

In any case, I spent some time updating my profile on Technorati to better reflect me. Feel free to check it out (link to follow when claim is complete).

Catch you on the flip side.

Wednesday was the last day for the Tech Days 2009 tour hosted by Microsoft. This year, they decided to put on the full two day show for Winnipeg, and something was different this year. Something was better. That something better can be explained with the following formula.

Be warned that if you do not have some kind of training with formal mathematics, this may blow…your…mind.

The big difference about Tech Days this year was that the Wessty wasn’t just an attendee, but a presenter. I took part in two presentations over the course of the two days. The first day, I worked with Miguel Carrasco on the presentation entitled Expression Blend for Developers (with Miguel Carrasco). The second day, I presented Building RESTful Services in WCF on my own.

Expression Blend for Developers

As you may have noticed, the topics of my two presentations were very different. The first one was about my bread and butter, that being Expression Blend 3. Considering that I am something of a User Experience person, this topic was right up my alley. Miguel started off the presentation by introducing the software and explaining how it can be useful to developers.

My work in the presentation involved demonstrating how a developer can use Expression Blend in their work. I started out by demonstrating how to use SketchFlow with WPF and giving people a quick run down on its capabilities.This was followed up by implementing the front-end of the SketchFlow application using Blend and seeing how the new features in the software can help me build something that not only works, but looks good too.

I very much enjoy the Expression Suite of software. For more details, check out the Expression website.

Building RESTful Service with WCF

The second presentation discussed how developers can use WCF to implement RESTful services. At a glance, you might thing that a UX developer has no place presenting this topic, but that is where you would be wrong.

My roots are with .NET 3.0 and 3.5, which includes the project formerly known as Indigo (a.k.a. WCF). I have always loved WCF for its simplicity to get working and have a flexible communications layer in my application, without having to write any complex communications code. Unfortunately, this fantastic tool is only fantastic thanks to the tooling that has been provided with Microsoft. It sets up everything for the developer, without the dev actually knowing what is happening under the covers.

SOAP (which is the protocol used to send and receive messages in WCF) is quite complex, specifically with the protocol that must be followed on both the client and server to get it working. A service implemented with a RESTful architecture demonstrate a refreshingly easy way to implement a communications layer using nothing more regular web protocols.

For more information about this, check out the MSDN and get started.

Conclusion

This was a very enriching experience, and I would recommend anyone dealing with Microsoft technologies to considering coming out to the next one or checking out any of the other .NET development events happening in your area.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line on here or drop me an email.

Oh, and I will be posting some photos sooner than later. I just need to get them organized. Until then…

Catch you on the flip side.

Related Resources

Here are some other findings on the web that discuss Tech Days 2009. Check them out!

• D’Arcy Lussier Blog Post
• Canadian Developer Connection – Joey Devilla (a.k.a. Dude with the accordion)
• D’Arcy Lussier’s thoughts….