Black Marble Events RSS Feed

Tech Update 2007 for Managers

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

This event will provide a technical update covering Microsoft's latest shipping products, as well as what's forthcoming and the development environments that will be available to customise them.

Our aim is to provide a review of up and coming products, as well as highlighting any from the past year you may have missed, in order to help you make informed decisions for now and the future by raising awareness of the direction and scope of Microsoft's product plan by discussing these, and many more.

Windows 2003 Server R2

Windows Vista

Windows Longhorn Server

Microsoft Unified Communications including Office Communication Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007

SQL Server 2005

Visual Studio 2005 (and various other editions)

Microsoft CRM 3.0

Microsoft Business Score Card Manager

BizTalk 2006 R2

Internet Explorer 7

Exchange 2007

Office Server 2007

Office Client 2007

Don't forget, our events are free, and lunch is provided!

It is also a new venue, please check your map and directions carefully before attending.

(Morning seminar)

Event date - 31-Jan-2007 9am to 12pm
Location - Leeds

Make the Most of your IT Systems using Business Intelligence

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Business Intelligence (BI) is not a product but a term that covers a wide range of products that allow a manager to make better business decisions.

BI has changed over the years both in reach and formality - today a good BI system can present data on a wide variety of heterogeneous services in a robust and accessible manner. Hence, in most cases provision of BI is an IT infrastructure issue focused on getting key data to key people.

The new tools from Microsoft aim to provide an easy and robust means to spread the reach of BI to a wider community of users, whether based in web browsers or rich clients such as Excel.

Products covered include Excel 2007 (client), SQL/Analysis Services, Reporting Services and Excel Server.

Map and full directions will be sent prior to the event.

It is also a new venue, please check your map and directions carefully before attending.

(Full-day Seminar)

Note - this event has been rescheduled from 1 November.

Event date - 27-Feb-2007 9am to 5pm
Location - The Courtyard

NxtGenUG (Next Generation User Group) - GUI testing

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Join Richard Fennell from Black Marble as he looks at features of the .NET framework to help testing graphic user interfaces. plus we will have a 'nugget' [To be announced soon] and of course lashings of food and drink

Members are invited to bring a guest to this event, although we ask that the guest uses the registration page to sign up to NxtGenUG and then registers for the event themselves

This presentation discusses the feasibility of using the features of the Microsoft .NET framework, specifically custom attributes and reflection, to provide a means to automatically test graphical user interfaces of Windows applications against predefined test specifications provided to the developer. The presentation is based around work I did on a proof of concept project to develop a framework of custom attributes and tools to test many standard Windows control operations e.g. Button Click, Open MessageBox, as well as providing a means for the developer to write their own bespoke tests.

NxtGenUG web site

Event date - 14-Aug-2006 7pm to 9pm
Location - Coventry Flying Club

Microsoft Vista for Managers

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Please note that due to demand for the first run of this event on 5 April, we have decided to rerun this event.

With Windows Vista, the aim with the advancements in security and reliability, along with its cost and operational efficiencies, is to give you and your users confidence in your company PCs. With Windows Vista, users have clear ways to organise and view their information, which enables them to focus on the most important aspect of their jobs. Windows Vista communication, mobility, and networking features keep users connected to people, information, and devices. Combined, these benefits bring clarity to your world and to the world of your end users.

From the perspective of an IT professional, Windows Vista is easier to deploy, and less expensive to maintain, than any earlier version of Windows. From the perspective of end users, Windows Vista's improved performance and reliability add value by allowing people to be more effective while performing their jobs.

Event date - 23-May-2006 9am to 1pm
Location - Velocity (formerly BIC), Bradford

DDD3 - LINQ to the Future

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

This FREE one day event builds on the success of the previous DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Days. As before it is all about developers learning, sharing and interacting with each other in an informal and relaxed atmosphere.

There will be NO Microsoft speakers presenting, just speakers from the UK .NET developer community; although we will have some of the Microsoft UK Developer Team on hand to help out and chat to attendees.

The day is put together by the community for the community, in other words you. With Microsoft UK very kindly providing the venue, logistic support and a free lunch.

Robert's session is an overview of up and coming features for C# 3.0, VB 9.0 and the .NET Language Integrated Query (LINQ). Covering features such as: anonymous types, lamda expressions, deep XML support, implicitly typed local variables and covering the general LINQ, DLinq and XLinq. And a demonstration of the currently available CTP Orcas C# and VB LINQ.

Event date - 03-Jun-2006 9am to 6pm
Location - Microsoft TVP Reading

Tech Update 2007 for Developers now with Microsoft Developer Launch

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

This event has now changed!

Our Technical Update on 31 January is now including Martin Parry, a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft.

The Developer Evangelists for Microsoft are taking the developer launch for Office 2007 and Vista on the road in the next few weeks and are now including our Technical Update for Developers in their schedule.

Martin Parry, one of the Developer Evangelists will be speaking for the majority of the afternoon, covering .NET framework 3, programming with the ribbon in Office 2007 and advances in presentation, reliability and security in Vista.

About Martin Parry

Martin Parry is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft and speaks about many of Microsoft’s latest developer technologies. After graduating in 1992, Martin worked as a software developer on Unix (many flavours), VMS, and Windows. He joined Microsoft in 1999 and worked for a number of years with many of Microsoft’s ISV partners to help them adopt new technologies. As you’d expect, Martin’s major focus today is Windows Vista and Office 2007.

Don't forget, our events are free, and lunch is provided!

It is also a new venue, please check your map and directions carefully before attending.

(Afternoon Seminar)

Event date - 31-Jan-2007 2pm - 5pm
Location - The Courtyard

The Manager’s Essential Guide to IT Security and Best Practice

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

An essential guide for general and IT managers on IT security issues that affect the whole IT industry. We will cover:

Security

Current Security Technologies

Security Awareness and User Education

Social Engineering

Security Best Practices

Software Security

ISA Server 2006

Don't forget, our events are free, and lunch is provided!

It is also a new venue, please check your map and directions carefully before attending.

(Morning Seminar)

Event date - 07-Dec-2006 2pm - 5pm
Location - The Courtyard

Managing Development with Microsoft Team Server and Visual Studio 2005

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Microsoft has launched Visual Studio 2005, a major new release of its developer tools environment, and the foundation of Microsoft platform development for the next few years. This marked the arrival of the lifecycle tools, Visual Studio Team System and the Team Foundation Server, to support end-to-end system development scenarios. These are the tools Microsoft has been using for years internally but are being made available to address customers need to more rapidly develop and deliver solutions that meet the business performance, scalability and end user requirements.

Visual Studio Team System adds significant new capabilities and value to the suite of Microsoft developer tools, with advanced end-to-end role collaboration, real-time reporting and analysis, and a host of new tools covering architecture, development, and testing.

Many of you may have already transition to one of the individual role based offerings in Visual Studio Team System, but are still learning all the new tools and benefits of the offering. This session is intended to provide an introduction to Visual Studio Team System, highlight the new functionality and demonstrate Visual Studio Team System in action.

Don't forget, our events are free, and lunch is provided!

It is also a new venue, please check your map and directions carefully before attending.

(Afternoon Seminar)

Event date - 07-Dec-2006 9am - 12pm
Location - The Courtyard

Ed Gibson - On the Road

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Due to complications with Ed Gibson's schedule we have to postpone the Leeds leg of Ed Gibson - On the Road. We apologise for any inconvenience and hope you will be able to attend.

As we saw such a huge interest in the event we have managed to secure Ed Gibson to speak at the first of Black Marble's community events on 7 December at 6pm, following Black Marble's day of events.

The venue remains the same, and in fact is now taking place after two of Black Marble's own events, but places are limited so do book early!

Ed Gibson has been confirmed for the 7th December, and we are waiting for confirmations from the other speakers.

I apologise for any inconvenience but hopefully the new date and later time will mean more of you will be able to attend.

Black Marble are proud to host the Northern leg of the 'Ed Gibson "On The Road"' Events tour which will take place at 5 venues around the country. The aim of the events are to raise awareness of the issues surrounding computer security, specifically Organised Crime and Hacking and also to raise the awareness amongst the Business and Developer communities of Developer and IT Pro User Groups and how they can help instruct and inform developers and managers about new technologies and other issues such as security.

The headline speaker is Ed Gibson the new Chief Security Advisor for Microsoft UK. Ed is an ex-FBI agent and delivers a fascinating talk on his experiences and views on security in the IT world and how to combat organised crime on the Internet.

Other speakers from the likes of Oracle will offer alternative or differing views on computer security and the event will end with an hour long 'panel discussion' with question and answers.

This event will feature Ed Gibson with Dinis Cruz and Matt Moore of Oracle, and is being run by the Scottish Developers Group and The Next Generation User Group in association with Black Marble.

You can book on this event by calling +44 1274 300 175.

Event date - 07-Dec-2006 6pm-9pm
Location - The Courtyard

XNA and the Future of Game Development - Rob Miles

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

XNA represents a major milestone in the field of game development, bringing game creators a unified platform and the safety of managed code. It also greatly reduces the difficulties faced when starting outin game development, closing the gap between idea and working implementation. The recent release of XNA Express gives programmers achance to get to grips with the XNA framework and use it to create content for both the PC and the XBOX 360. Beginning with an overview ofthe XNA platform and the XNA Express development tools, this demo packed presentation then moves into the 'nitty gritty' of game development using XNA, leading to a fully realised casual game running on an XBOX360. Whether you are a seasoned games coder, or a programmer thinking of moving into game development this session will give you plenty of food for thought and information to get you started.

This event will be presented by Rob Miles from the University of Hull, fresh from his stint at TechEd Barcelona.

Rob Miles is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also author of the world famous Rob Miles blog at www.robmiles.com and has been programming for more years than he can (or cares to) remember. His interests include programming, Software Development and Computer Games. Oh, and cheese.

You can book on this event by calling +44 1274 300 175.

Event date - 31-Jan-2007 6pm-8:30pm
Location - The Courtyard

Office Server 2007

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

The 2007 Microsoft Office release, is an integrated system of programs, servers, and services that will help you meet your business and personal needs. Work more efficiently, stay organised, and more easily collaborate and share information using the security-enhanced 2007 Microsoft Office system.

New suites in the 2007 release deliver additional functionality, new information work solutions, and updated packaging options enabling you to have more flexibility than ever before.

SharePoint Server 2007 spans document management, records management, and Web content management and includes powerful search and workflow capabilities.

This seminar will focus on the office server products but will include an overview of the desktop products including SharePoint v3, Forms Services and Excel Services.

Event date - 10-May-2006 2pm - 5pm
Location - Touchbase Leeds/Bradford South

BizTalk Server 2006: Building the Smart, Connected Enterprise

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

BizTalk Server 2006 improves on its predecessor in all dimensions of application-to-application, business-to-business, and business-process automation. Learn about the enhancements BizTalk 2006 introduces in the runtime engine, as well as the new BizTalk 2006 Web Services Enhancements 2.0, and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services adapters.

Let Black Marble, fresh from the Business Process Integration & Workflow Conference in Redmond, take you through the key benefits of BizTalk 2006.

Event date - 01-Mar-2006 9am - 1pm
Location - Touchbase Leeds/Bradford South

The Mobile Workforce

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

In order to benefit your mobile workforce, we will be covering the latest advancements in Microsoft mobile technology. We will explore issues of deploying mobile solutions to your workforce, as well as the pros and cons of the different mobile solutions, and how to successfully integrate a mobile solution into your current business strategy.

Products covered will include Mappoint 2004, to show how to use geographical information to aid your workers in the field., Windows Mobile and the Server side for mobile products.

Event date - 25-Jan-2006 2pm - 5pm
Location - Touchbase Leeds/Bradford South

AI for Games Workshop

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Richard Fennell recently presented at the AI for Games Workshop at the University of Bradford.

Event date - 12-Sep-2006
Location - University of Bradford

DDD4 - But it works on my PC! or continuous integration to improve software.

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

How many times have you heard the developer say ‘but it works on my PC ’? How much time have you wasted trying to get a complex solution to build on a new PC? In this session I will show how continuous integration, the automated building and testing of projects whenever files are checked in, can be used to improve the quality of any software development project. Helping to catch and resolve problems as soon as possible in the development cycle; not waiting until to delivery phase of a project to find there are integration problems. The session will include demos of continuous integration using Cruise Control and Visual Studio Team Server, as well as discussions of integration with other system such as NUnit, MSTest and Virtual Server.

Event date - 02-Dec-2006 9am - 6pm
Location - Microsoft TVP Reading

Office Collaboration with Microsoft Office System 2007 and Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2007

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

New suites in the 2007 release deliver additional functionality, new information work solutions, and updated packaging options enabling you to have more flexibility than ever before.

SharePoint Server 2007 spans document management, records management, and Web content management and includes powerful search and workflow capabilities.

This seminar will focus on collaboration with the Microsoft Office System 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007.

Event date - 29-Mar-2007 9am - 5pm
Location - The Courtyard

DDD5 - Team Foundation Server - the answer to all project management problems?

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Richard Fennell is presenting at DDD5 at the end of June.

Team Foundation Server - the answer to all project management problems?

Sick of SourceSafe? Is Microsoft's Team Foundation Server the answer to all your problems? In this session I will cover the key components and usage of TFS, installation issues, the range of third party tools available and how to write your own tools using the API. The session will include demos of cool addins and tips drawn from bitter experience.

Go here to register.

Event date - 30-Jun-2007 9am - 5:30pm
Location - TVP, Reading

MSDN: Introduction to .NET Framework V3.0 (including sneak preview of v3.5 changes) (Martin Parry and Mike Taulty)

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Session 1 – Windows Communication Foundation & Windows CardSpace

In this session, we’ll take a look at the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) which provides a unified mechanism for building distributed applications on the Windows platform with advanced capabilities for interoperability, transport and protocol neutrality, security and reliability. We’ll look at how clients and services are built and configured and we’ll also provide pointers as to what new additions to WCF are likely to come with the next version of Visual Studio, codenamed “Orcas”.

Following on from WCF, we’ll introduce Windows CardSpace which provides a new mechanism for authenticating users to web sites and web services without having to rely on user names and passwords. We’ll show how you would make use of this as an additional authentication mechanism for an ASP.NET web site and also how to authenticate WCF service clients using CardSpace.

Session 2 – Windows Presentation Foundation & Windows Workflow

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides a new unified presentation framework for Windows that helps both designers and developers build extremely rich applications that integrate 2D and 3D graphics with documents and multimedia. In this session we’ll provide an overview of the WPF and its capabilities, take a quick tour of what tools are available and we’ll talk about any changes that are likely to come with Visual Studio codenamed “Orcas”.

We’ll also take a tour around the Workflow Foundation (WF) which provides a framework for building workflow capabilities into your own applications. We’ll look at the tools, the components, the runtime and the services that WF provides and we’ll also take a look at what’s new for WF in Visual Studio codenamed “Orcas”.

Event date - 20-Sep-2007 2pm - 5pm
Location - Leeds

MSDN: What’s new in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 for the Web Developer (Martin Parry and Daniel Moth)

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Come along and find out what’s in store for both the ASP.NET platform and Visual Studio in the upcoming release. As web developers, there’s a lot to get excited about including many features you can take advantage of in your existing projects.

Session 1 – Visual Studio 2008
Visual Studio 2008 (formerly code named “Orcas”) brings with it a host of features for the web developer. In this session, we demonstrate the benefits you can get out of the Visual Studio toolset when working on your existing ASP.NET 2.0 projects as well as for new ASP.NET 3.5 projects. There are many improvements in the IDE so we’ll need to focus on JavaScript Intellisense and debugging improvements, the new designer, CSS enhancements and a few more.

Session 2 - .NET Fx 3.5
In this session we’ll take a look at some of the new features in ASP.NET 3.5. New server controls, ASP.NET AJAX integration, not to mention Language Integrated Query (or LINQ), we’ll take a look at the lot. And while we’re at it we’ll see where Microsoft Silverlight fits in the picture.

Event date - 18-Oct-2007 2pm - 5pm
Location - Leeds

SQL 2008 Your Data, Any Place Any Time

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

SQL2008 and Introduction for IT Managers

As the data your applications work with changes from "words and numbers" to "sights and sounds," Microsoft is evolving its data platform to go beyond relational data, beyond online analytical processing (OLAP), to truly support all of the digital data types of the future. Microsoft are striving to deliver the best platform for integrated storage and advanced applications, such as spatial data. Microsoft are also making it dramatically easier for you to build data-driven applications, without needing to invest significant resources to bridge the gap between data and programming language data structures. Come along to this seminar to find out about the new enhancements in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 that can help you manage all types of data.

With Richard Fennell and Christian Bolton.

Event date - 18-Oct-2007 9am - 1pm
Location - Leeds

Exploring Windows Server 2008 Part I

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

In this introduction to Windows Server 2008 we look at the concept of Server Core, a subset of Windows Server 2008. Server Core has four specific roles for standard, enterprise, and data center environments. Server Core is designed to help reduce server vulnerability to attack and cut the costs of upgrading and maintaining servers.

We will also take a look at the new Windows Server 2008 operating system. Right now this product is in the beta phase, with many of the final features and components present and functional.

We will be exploring some of the new core operating system features and see how they enhance productivity and performance.

In addition, we will also be discussing a new feature called Network Access Protection (NAP).

Event date - 20-Sep-2007 9am - 1pm
Location - Leeds

Exploring Windows Server 2008 Part II

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

More on Windows Server 2008 with a specific emphasis on Virtulisation and its benefits for your business.Event date - 22-Nov-2007 9am - 1pm
Location - Leeds

Black Marble's Annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Black Marble's annual Technical Update returns in 2008.

We will be looking at all of the leading new products that came from Microsoft 2007, with a review of the work that is coming out in 2008 and beyond.

This event is designed to give you a roadmap for the next few years to help you design and plan your IT strategies.

Feedback from the last few years:

"Opened my eyes about technologies I thought I already knew." ... Event Attendee.

"I realised that several key technologies were missing from my organisation, thanks again." ... Event Attendee.

"This has saved me months in planning and analysis." ... Event Attendee.

Event date - 31-Jan-2008 9am - 1pm
Location - Leeds

Microsoft .NET Micro Framework Overview with Rob Miles

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Find out how you can become an embedded developer using the .NET Micro Framework which lets you developer for to tiny, inexpensive, and
tightly resource-constrained devices. Requiring only a few hundred kilobytes of RAM and an low cost processor, it was built from the ground up to let you create embedded applications using familiar
Visual Studio development tools, the .NET object model, and C#. In this demo packed session you will see how easy it is to create and deploy embedded applications on a variety of hardware platforms.Event date - 18-Oct-2007 6pm - 8:30pm
Location - Leeds

Team Foundation Server with Richard Fennell

24-Sep-2007 10:52:15

Sick of SourceSafe? Is Microsoft's Team Foundation Server the answer to all your problems? In this seminar I will cover the key components and usage of TFS, installation issues, the range of third party tools available and how to write your own tools using the API.

The seminar will include demos of cool addins and tips drawn from bitter experience as well as a discussion as to how best to create a continuous integration environment with TFS via the API. I will also look at the changes to TFS in the upcoming ORCAs release.

Visit http://www.dotnetdevnet.com/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx for further details.

Event date - 19-Sep-2007 6:30pm
Location - Bristol

MSDN: SQL Server 2008 with Mike Taulty and Mike Ormond

26-Sep-2007 09:55:12

Event Overview:

In this event we’ll take a look at what’s coming down the line for database developers with SQL Server 2008. We’ll look at changes to the core engine and the T-SQL language, any changes in the toolset and we’ll also take a good look at what’s coming with ADO.NET V3.0 in terms of the new Entity Framework and the new Microsoft Synchronisation Framework. If you’re a SQL Server developer come along and see what’s in store for 2008.

Session 1: SQL Server 2008 Part 1
Session 2: SQL Server 2008 Part 2

Speakers:

Mike Taulty, Microsoft: Mike has been in the team since 2003 and is currently looking at technologies such as Windows Vista and the .NET Framework Version 3.0. Before joining the Community team, Mike worked in Microsoft's Services group as a developer consultant focused on helping ISVs and Enterprises develop their applications. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mike spent the previous nine years working as a software developer for a number of different software houses, end-users and consultancies, making use of various operating systems, databases and what used to be called 'middleware’.

Read Mike's blog.

Mike Ormond, Microsoft: Mike gained a BSc(Hons) in Information Engineering from the University of Strathclyde before moving “down south” many years ago. After working as a civil servant for a while, Mike joined Mars Electronics where he worked on automated payment systems. In 1996 he joined Mercury Interactive before heading over to Microsoft in 1997 to work in their developer support organisation.

In 2003 he joined the Developer and Platform Group as a Developer Evangelist. Since then he’s travelled the length and breadth of the land talking about Microsoft’s platform and developer tools. Currently Mike’s interests include ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight and developing solutions with Open XML. When he’s not working, Mike likes to potter in his allotment and listen to Radio 4 on the wireless.

Read Mike’s blog

Event date - 22-Nov-2007 2pm - 5pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

Team Foundation Server @ NxtGenUG

26-Sep-2007 10:16:26

Team Foundation Server

With Richard Fennell.

Sick of SourceSafe? Is Microsoft's Team Foundation Server the answer to all your problems? In this session Richard will cover the key components and usage of TFS, installation issues, the range of third party tools available and how to write your own tools using the API. The seminar will include demos of cool addins and tips drawn from good and bitter experience. Richard will also look at the changes to TFS in the upcoming 2008 ‘ORCAs’ release.

Location:

Faraday Wharf
Holt Street
Aston Science Park
BIRMINGHAM
B7 4BB

For further information visit the NxtGenUG website.

Event date - 17-Dec-2007 7pm - 9pm
Location - Birmingham

SQL Server Conference @ SqlBits

26-Sep-2007 10:16:31

On the 6th October 2007 SQLBits are running a FREE SQL Server Conference full of SQL content. It will have 20 sessions covering everything from maintenance plans through CLR stored procedures to Data Mining.

The event will be held at Microsoft HQ, Thames Valley Park, Reading

Richard Fennell of Black Marble will be presenting the following session:

Unit Testing in SQL Server

Level 200, Dev Session

Test driven development is one of the current hot topics in software development, but how far can these principles be applied in the world of SQL? In this session I will look at the principles of TDD and other testing options using both freeware tools and Microsoft’s Visual Studio Datadude.

Event date - 06-Oct-2007 3:50pm - 4:50pm
Location - TVP, Reading

Ed Gibson, Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor in the UK

01-Oct-2007 09:45:30

Ed Gibson, Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor in the UK, is returning to the North of England following on from his successfull talk on security in 2006.

About Ed

Mr. Gibson is the Chief Security Advisor for Microsoft Ltd, in the UK. His primary role is to serve as an advisor to Microsoft’s customers, and the public, on the work Microsoft is doing to improve the security of its products. This role comes on the heels of his retirement from a 20-year career as a Supervisory Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). During this period, Gibson was a recognised expert in investigating complex, international money laundering schemes, asset identification and confiscation, and intellectual property theft. While assigned to FBI Headquarters, Washington, DC, Mr. Gibson developed and managed an operational training program for all Special Agents and executive management, in money laundering and asset confiscation investigations.

From early 2000 – mid 2005, Mr. Gibson was assigned to the FBI’s Legal Attache office, US Embassy London, as an Assistant Legal Attaché. There, he was responsible for all FBI cyber, hi-tech, cyber-terrorism, and infrastructure investigations in the UK. His leadership resulted in the creation of a model cyber program adopted by all Legal Attache offices around the world.

Mr. Gibson was a corporate lawyer for a US based multinational corporation for five years prior to the FBI. While assigned to the US Embassy, he qualified as a Solicitor in England and Wales, and completed a two-year computing program at Oxford University. He is a Member of the Board of the John Grieve Centre for Policing and Community Safety, in England.

Event date - 31-Jan-2008 6pm - 8:00pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

Re-Mix in the North

01-Oct-2007 09:59:17

MIX:UK has already happened – but don't worry! If you missed out on the 40+ speakers, free software, information and inspiration you can still enjoy Re-mixed in the North ... presented by the Black Marble team.

Exciting technologies such as the following will be covered:

Silverlight
Expression
Ajax will be covered.

Event date - 22-Nov-2007 6pm - 7:30pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

MSDN: What’s new in Smart Client Development

24-Oct-2007 04:52:21

MSDN event in association with Black Marble

Do you build rich client applications? If so, you'll want to make sure that you're aware of all Microsoft's client-development technology. This event will showcase a wealth of new and forthcoming technology, including Visual Studio 2008.

1. Building Rich Clients on the Microsoft Platform - Martin Parry

People want compelling user experiences supported by powerful online services. Microsoft's platform and tools empower developers to build both the rich client and the service. In this session we'll concentrate on some recent and forthcoming technologies that enable rich client apps: Visual Studio 2008, WPF, SQL Server Compact Edition and ClickOnce to name but a few.

2. Office as a development platform with Visual Studio 2008 - Daniel Moth

The 2007 Microsoft Office System is extensible like never before. In this session we'll look at the numerous ways to extend the various Office applications such as Word, Excel, Outlook and others. Customisations demonstrated will include the new designers and templates for the Ribbon, Actions Pane, Task Pane, Content Controls and Form Regions. This will all be done in managed code from within Visual Studio 2008 and we will also see how to interop in both directions with VBA code.

Speakers:

Martin Parry

Martin Parry, Microsoft: Martin graduated in Maths and Computing in 1992 and developed commercial software for a number of ISVs, on a variety of platforms, before joining Microsoft in 1999. He worked as an application development consultant for a number of years before taking on his current role of Developer Evangelist. His motto, 'It’s only code', reflects his belief that software, like everything else, is simple when you understand how it works. Now he just has to explain how it works. When time permits, Martin sometimes attempts to play the piano.

Read Martin's blog

Daniel Moth

Daniel Moth has significant industry experience, holds a BSc in Computing for Business as well as an MSc with Distinction in Object Oriented Software technology, and he has been working with .NET since the first beta in 2000. Daniel was awarded the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for his community contributions in 2004 and still enjoys helping others wherever he can, both online and offline. In his spare time he loves to travel around the world, be it on city breaks, lazing on the beach or scuba diving the oceans.

Read Daniel’s blog

Event date - 31-Jan-2008 2pm - 5pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

MSDN: Building Dynamic Web Applications with Microsoft Silverlight

11-Dec-2007 12:37:34

MSDN event in association with Black Marble

Silverlight™ is Microsoft’s new cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering rich media experiences and interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight provides a highly productive platform for designers and developers to collaborate in building a new generation of web experiences enabling you to build visually stunning interactive content and applications that run on multiple browsers and operating systems.

Join us for a spin around the XAML Canvas to experience the capabilities of the Silverlight platform. We’ll take an in depth look at what Silverlight is and how we can make use of it in web applications. We'll look at both the 1.0 and 1.1 versions of the technology and probe into the programming model and tools you'll need to build compelling Silverlight applications. We'll also look at some related topics such as calling back-end services and asynchronous content download.

Mike Taulty

Mike Taulty, Microsoft: Mike has been in the team since 2003 and is currently looking at technologies such as Windows Vista and the .NET Framework Version 3.0. Before joining the Community team, Mike worked in Microsoft's Services group as a developer consultant focused on helping ISVs and Enterprises develop their applications. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mike spent the previous nine years working as a software developer for a number of different software houses, end-users and consultancies, making use of various operating systems, databases and what used to be called 'middleware’.

Read Mike's blog.

Mike Ormond

Mike gained a BSc(Hons) in Information Engineering from the University of Strathclyde before moving “down south” many years ago. After working as a civil servant for a while, Mike joined Mars Electronics where he worked on automated payment systems. In 1996 he joined Mercury Interactive before heading over to Microsoft in 1997 to work in their developer support organisation.

In 2003 he joined the Developer and Platform Group as a Developer Evangelist. Since then he’s travelled the length and breadth of the land talking about Microsoft’s platform and developer tools. Currently Mike’s interests include ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight and developing solutions with Open XML. When he’s not working, Mike likes to potter in his allotment and listen to Radio 4 on the wireless.

Read Mike’s blog

Event date - 26-Feb-2008 2pm-5pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007: Notes from the Field

11-Dec-2007 12:37:35

A practical guide for using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007, from some of our Black Marble SharePoint specialists.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organisational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management , enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across organisational boundaries for better business insight.

This event will cover:

What contributes to a successful deployment.

1. Best practice for deploying and implementing a SharePoint solution
2. Overview of Issues such as capacity planning, monitoring and management of the solutions.

How to engage the business with SharePoint by showing both the business benefits and return on investment (ROI) of business collaboration and how to extend SharePoint to meet genuine business needs, with both built in and custom SharePoint components.

1. Streamlining your business with workflows.
2. Achieving information-sharing across organisational boundaries.

An end to end demonstration of a best practice SharePoint Intranet and discuss how this has benefited the business.

Event date - 26-Feb-2008 9am - 12pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

Windows Mobile application development in Visual Studio 2008, with Andy Wigley

11-Dec-2007 12:53:16

Synopsis:

This session includes many fun demos on how best to use all the new features for mobile developers in the Visual Studio 2008 toolset.

Visual Studio 2008 comes with .NET Compact Framework 3.5, SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 and many new tools for mobile developers, including Unit Tests, security configuration and battery emulation. In the forthcoming SP1 of SQL Server Compact Edition, to be released with SQL Server 2008, there’s further innovation in the shape of the mobile version of Microsoft Sync Services for ADO.NET.

.NET Compact Framework 3.5 includes a compact version of the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Language Integrated Queries (LINQ), new and improved diagnostic and performance analysis tools, and many smaller improvements as well. This session will explain how to take advantage of these new features, but will also serve as an introduction to the .NET Compact Framework for those not familiar with it.

Bio

Andy Wigley is an expert on developing mobile applications using the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework and is the co-author of the recently published Microsoft Press book Mobile Development Handbook (published May 2007), and of Microsoft .NET Compact Framework Core Reference (also Microsoft Press). He leads the software consulting company, Andy Wigley Computing Ltd (www.wigleycomputing.co.uk), specialising in mobile application development and consultancy.

Andy is a Microsoft Device Application Development MVP.

Event date - 26-Feb-2008 6pm-7.30pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

Team Foundation Server at VBUG Peterborough with Richard Fennell

31-Dec-2007 11:07:46

Overview

Sick of SourceSafe? Is Microsoft's Team Foundation Server the answer to all your problems? In this session Richard Fennell will cover the key components and usage of TFS, installation issues, the range of third party tools available and how to write your own tools using the API. The seminar will include demos of cool addins and tips drawn from good and bitter experience. Richard will also look at the changes to TFS in the upcoming 2008 ‘ORCAs’ release.

Location:

Johnston Press, 324 Oundle Rd, Media House, Woodston, Peterborough. PE2 9QR

Event date - 30-Jan-2008 18:30
Location - Media House, Peterborough

Glasgow User Group - TFS

11-Feb-2008 01:32:41

Richard was speaking at the Glasgow User Group on 12 February, on TFS. It was organised by Colin Mackay.Event date - 22-Feb-2008
Location - Glasgow

Visual Studio 2008 Launch Event

03-Mar-2008 02:18:24

Visual Studio 2008 - Part of the Heroes Happen {here} Launch Events

Visual Studio 2008 enables developers and IT operators to dramatically reduce the amount of time, effort and code required to develop and deploy real-world Web applications. ASP.NET 3.5, Visual Studio 2008 and IIS 7 each provide much improved administration and management support, on top of dramatically improved performance. Also covered are support for ASP.NET AJAX, JavaScript enhancements, rich support for CSS standards and rapid development of data-bound Web pages.

Utilise data from any data source more smoothly with LINQ, a set of language extensions to VB and C#
Craft Web applications more easily with an improved design surface
Ensure application correctness more easily with integrated unit testing
Develop rich Web experiences with Visual Studio, ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight
Create stunning new user experiences incorporating media and vector graphics using Windows Presentation Foundation.
Build Office Business Applications that are reliable, scalable and easy to maintain.
Develop Windows Mobile applications with a great developer and end user experience.
Connect applications, users and processes more easily with Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation
Collaborate and communicate more effectively across the team, ensure software quality and to provide visibility into the development process with Visual Studio Team System.

Event date - 08-Apr-2008 6pm - 8pm
Location - Black Marble

SQL Server 2008 Launch Event

05-Mar-2008 10:00:37

SQL Server 2008 - Part of the Heroes Happen {here} Launch Events

Mission Critical Applications on SQL Server 2008

Newly enhanced SQL Server 2008 provides you with the highest levels of availability, protects your business critical data and scales across growing data volumes and mixed workloads. We will provides an overview of the new security, scalability, performance and availability features in SQL Server 2008.

Simplify Management of your Data Infrastructure

Learn about the new manageability improvements in SQL Server 2008 that enable you to administer, monitor and maintain your data platform infrastructure while reducing the time and cost of management. We will provide an overview of the new manageability improvements that enable you to manage the infrastructure with policies, monitor and optimise your platform with insights and relevant information, and scale your management across multiple servers.

Exploring Business intelligence and SQL Server 2008

Learn how the new enhancements in SQL Server 2008 provide a comprehensive and scalable Business Intelligence platform that enables you to integrate and manage your growing data volumes, comprehensive analysis and enterprise reporting, and deliver insights through the Microsoft Office System. This session provides an overview of the new data warehousing, reporting, analysis and integration features in SQL Server 2008.

Event date - 09-Apr-2008 6pm - 8pm
Location - Black Marble

Windows Server 2008 Launch Event

05-Mar-2008 10:00:40

Windows Server 2008 - Part of the Heroes Happen {here} Launch Events

What’s new in Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008--in addition to incorporating new capabilities and enhancements to existing features--includes a number of improvements in the core OS that enhance the Operating System’s capabilities; such as features aimed at increasing the ability of Windows Server 2008 to support highly critical workloads by improving operational reliability, reducing system failures, and easing management. We will also discuss improvements in other related elements of the platform that help Windows based systems and services move an organisation's IT Department forward.

Virtualisation and infrastructure

The new Windows Server Virtualisation technology, Hyper-V, and Presentation Virtualisation technologies like Terminal Services RemoteApp are core features in Windows Server 2008. This session will provide you with an overview of virtualisation in Windows Server 2008: the scenarios, features, and benefits that make server virtualisation important. Virtualisation management is becoming a critical tool for improving overall manageability for the IT environment; join us in this session to learn how Hyper-V and our management technologies build a strong flexible platform and improve overall manageability.

Securing your IT infrastructure with Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 offers rich capabilities for securing your IT Infrastructure and proving tools to ease with compliance mandates. This session will discuss the Windows security and compliance features such as Network Access Protection, Right Management Services, Active Directory Federation Service subsystem, why auditing is important and how to configure an audit policy in the updated Windows Server 2008 event subsystem.

Event date - 10-Apr-2008 6pm - 8pm
Location - Black Marble

VBUG Newcastle: VS2008, SQL Server 2008 and Win 2008 Launch Event

19-Mar-2008 10:27:29

Richard Fennell and Rik Hepworth are taking part in the VBUG Launch event for Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008.

More information at the VBUG website.

Event date - 30-Apr-2008 6pm - 9pm
Location - Newcastle

Volta - The Next Generation

17-Apr-2008 12:31:44

Robert Hogg, travels to NxtGenUG Coventry to reveal Microsoft Volta. Microsoft Live Labs "Volta" is an early access toolset that presents a new way of developing client and server side applications by allowing multi-tier web application to be rapidly developed using familiar .NET skills and techniques.

Location: Coventry Flying Club
Coventry Aero Club
Rowley Road
Coventry
CV3 4FR

Time: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Event date - 21-Jul-2008 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location - Coventry Flying Club

TechNet in the North: Microsoft’s vision for Unified communications

23-Apr-2008 08:13:05

Microsoft's Vision for Unified Communications

Speaker: James O'Neill, IT Professional Evangelist

Following on from the success of the MSDN events in the North, Black Marble are now able to bring you the first of the TechNet in the North events, in partnership with Microsoft.

We talk about the “new world of work” and the “millennial generation”, but what does that mean for how we go about communicating in business ? This session will look at how life is changing and how Microsoft technologies like Live Meeting, Round Table, Exchange and office communications server fit together to address communications needs of a modern business, giving a broad overview of each of the technologies, and demonstrating as many of them as possible (within limitations imposed by the venue). We’ll look at the move from voice mail to unified messaging, the difference between UM and the presence driven world of Unified communications and look at the new devices from Microsoft and partners which are going into this market.

Why not visit James' blog?

Registration is from 1:30pm, with a 2:00pm event start. Lunch is served from 12:30pm.

Location:

The Courtyard
Holiday Inn
Tong Lane
BD4 0RP

Event date - 02-Jul-2008 2pm - 5pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

Overview of the current and future states of Microsoft’s Real World SOA and Business Process Automation platform.

29-Apr-2008 11:05:49

Medium and Enterprise class businesses have a greater need to deliver, share an automate data and services successfully across their organisations for lower cost and higher levels of business service.

We will provide an overview of the current state of Software plus Services (SaaS) which draws together the terms of Web 2.0 and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). To make sense of this complexity we discuss key service architecture principles, policies and patterns, benefits of standardisation in each of the key SOA disciplines of service modelling, service provisioning, data concurrency, orchestration, management and security.

Microsoft have recently announced BizTalk Server 2006 R3 and we will cover key features in both R2 and R3 which allow Enterprise level data and service delivery, including RFID.

As Service buses are becoming more ubiquitous, the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is a key technology that can be used to rapidly deliver data across an organisation, with a low cost of implementation. Service buses are based on technologies that include Identity, Connectivity and Workflow. We will also introduce the concept of an Internet Service Bus(ISB) , which provides core framework enabling a new generation of applications outside the firewall that are not practical or cost effective to have today and how the inclusion of these service buses can simplify the concept, development and deployment of a SOA solution based locally or in the cloud.

This session will then focus on BizTalk Server 2006 R2/R3, the Microsoft ESB Guidance pack and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) together, and the ways you can use them to start implementing service-bus patterns today and with a view to the future.

SOA and BPM produce a series of problems for IT relating to the management, ownership and governance of a disparate set of assets both internally and externally to the organisation. We will provide an overview of techniques and tools that can be used to contain these problems, including using SCOM 2007, SOA guidance and other tools.

We will also be looking into the future towards Oslo, Microsoft’s key investment to deliver both world class SOA platform across client, server and cloud and the tools used to model, describe that platform and to allow collaboration between IT and The Business. Oslo will involve orchestration technologies: BizTalk Server and BizTalk Services, development technologies: the next generation of .NET and Visual Studio, and management technologies based on System Center.

Product: BizTalk 2006 R2/R3, RFID, ESB, WF, WCF, Oslo (the future of Connected Systems).

Registration is from 9am, with a 9:30am event start. Lunch is served from 12:30pm.

Event date - 02-Jul-2008 9am-12:30pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

Andy Westgarth on IIS7 for ASP.NET Developers

09-Jun-2008 09:56:50

Andy Westgarth will be speaking about IIS7.

One of the biggest and best new features of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista is Internet Information Server 7.0. IIS 7.0 is the latest and most significant release of Microsoft's Web Server. With this release comes a new extensibility model which gives developers more options than ever before, more diagnostic tools with which developers can debug and locate issues. During the session Andrew will investigate the new architecture, look at extending, configuring and developing for IIS7, take a look at its management user interface, and introduce the debugging and diagnostic facilities within IIS7.

Andy Westgarth

Andrew Westgarth is the Chairman and Regional Coordinator for VBUG in the North East of England. He is a Web Developer for Canford Group PLC and is responsible for their B2B websites. Andrew is very active in the UK Developer Community, attending and speaking at multiple events, supporting users and other User Groups. In the past twelve months he has spoken at VBUG's National Two Day Conference; Developer Developer Developer Day 5 and local User Group meetings. Andrew has experience in VB6/.NET; C#; ASP.NET; MCMS 2002 and Internet Information Services. Andrew's current technical interests include IIS 7.0; ASP.NET AJAX Extensions, Windows Server 2008 and Virtual Earth.

Why not visit his blog to find out more?

Event date - 02-Jul-2008 6pm - 7:30pm
Location - Leeds/Bradford

MSDN: What’s New in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1?

31-Aug-2008 02:23:15

Registration Options

Event ID: 1032387211

You can register for this event by phone with Microsoft: 0870 166 6652, and on their website: Online.

Overview: “Service Pack? We’re calling it a Service Pack? Are you kidding??!?!”

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 will release later in 2008 alongside .NET Framework V3.5 Service Pack 1 and, together, they represent a significant upgrade to Visual Studio 2008. There are enhancements across many areas of the .NET Framework such as data access, windows application development and web development and there are also corresponding changes in the development environment to support the new framework features.

Session 1: What’s New for Web & Windows Development?

Here we’ll explore the changes to web and windows development with Service Pack 1. In the web space, we’ll take a look at the new controls added to ASP.NET for easy playback of media and Silverlight content and we’ll take a good look at the new Dynamic Data framework for quick “scaffolding” of a web site. In the Windows world, we’ll look at the new capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation V3.5 Sp1 and the new, smaller, subset of the .NET Framework in the .NET Client Profile that makes deployment of WPF applications much easier.

Session 2: What’s New for Data?

The ADO.NET team have been busy for Service Pack 1 of Visual Studio 2008. There are two major new pieces of functionality – the ADO.NET Entity Framework provides a level of abstraction over your data store with a LINQ-enabled, object-relational-mapping API. The other new piece of functionality, ADO.NET Data Services easily exposes arbitrary data over a RESTful set of web services. In this session, we’ll explore both to give you an idea of what’s happening in data access. We’ll also make a brief mention of the changes around SQL Server 2008 data types and tooling.

Speaker Biog:

Mike Taulty

Mike Taulty, Microsoft: Mike has been in the team since 2003 and is currently looking at technologies such as Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1, Silverlight V2 and SQL Server 2008. Before joining the Community team, Mike worked in Microsoft's Services group as a developer consultant focused on helping ISVs and Enterprises develop their applications. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mike spent the previous nine years working as a software developer for a number of different software houses, end-users and consultancies, making use of various operating systems, databases and what used to be called 'middleware’.

Read Mike's blog

Eric Nelson

After many years of developing on UNIX/RDBMS (and being able to get mortgages) Eric joined Microsoft in 1996 as a Technical Evangelist (and stopped being able to get mortgages due to his new 'unusual job title' in the words of his bank manager). He has spent most of his time working with ISVs to help them architect solutions which make use of the latest Microsoft technologies - from the beta of ASP 1.0 through to ASP.NET, from MTS to WCF/WF and from the beta of SQL Server 6.5 through to SQL Server 2008. Along the way he has met lots of smart and fun developers - and been completely stumped by many of their questions!

In July 2008 he switched role from an Application Architect to a Developer Evangelist in the Developer and Platform Group. Currently Eric’s interests include digging into LINQ to Entities, ADO.NET Data Services and switching from C# to Visual Basic development.

At home, he battles rat infestations, comes second to the family dog and uses any spare moments he has after 10pm to team up and play online with and against friends - keep an eye out for 'erknel' and say 'hi'

Read Eric’s blog

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 19-Nov-2008 Registion - 13:30 Event - 14:00 - 17:00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

TechNet: Security Improvements with Windows Server 2008 and Bitlocker

31-Aug-2008 04:21:02

TechNet: Security Improvements with Windows Server 2008 and Bitlocker

Windows Server 2008 offers rich capabilities for securing your IT infrastructure and providing tools to ease with compliance mandates. This session will discuss the Windows security and compliance features such as Network Access Protection, Rights Management Services, and Active Directory Federation Service, along with core security improvements within the server itself. Steve will also give the audience a look under the covers of BitLocker™ Drive Encryption. This session will consider different threat models and the BitLocker protection mode that best meets disparate attack vectors, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) configuration for the Static Root of Trust Measurement, BitLocker™ deployment and recovery.

Speak Biog:

Steve Lamb is an IT Pro Security Management Evangelist working for Microsoft in the UK

"I've been a technical security specialist for over ten years working with customers through out Europe. I'm passionate about using technology to free people to get on with their work while being confident that their information is secure. I love presenting to large audiences, helping people make sense of technology and brain storming solutions. Special interest technologies include secure wireless, Rights Management, Application Layer Firewalling, Next Generation Secure Computing Base, client and server security."

Visit Steve's blog.

Registration Options

Event ID: 1032386290

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 22-Oct-2008 Registration: 13:30 Event: 14:00 - 16:15
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Effective Companywide Project Management with Microsoft Project Server 2007

31-Aug-2008 04:21:06

Effective Companywide Project Management with Microsoft Project Server 2007

Microsoft Project Server is a part of the Microsoft Office 2007 suite of products. It provides enterprise level project management capabilities by centralising project control and sharing projects. Microsoft Project Server 2007 enables your organisation to capture and understand projects and work details more effectively.

You can gain visibility and insights with management for budget tracking and cost resources, proposals, activity planning and reporting, timesheets, scheduling, task tracking and templates for best practice.

Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 is deployed on top of Windows SharePoint Services. We will cover how collaboration, project, and portfolio management. More specifically, we review and demonstrate the added benefits of: Report Center, Excel Services, KPI, InfoPath Forms Services, Business Data Catalog, and Enterprise Search, in the context of a Project Server deployment.

Guest Speaker: Paul Major, director of Program Framework, a Microsoft EPM specialist organisation.

Microsoft Project Server; deployment and a consultative approach to getting started.

Microsoft’s Project Server technology is extremely versatile, scalable and a great tool for establishing EPM principles in the organisation. However, it is imperative to recognise that technology alone will not deliver success. The Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution is an end-to-end collaborative project and portfolio environment. The Office EPM Solution helps an organisation gain visibility, insight, and control across all work, enhancing decision-making, improving alignment with business strategy, maximising resource utilisation, and measuring and helping to increase operational efficiency.

The organisations that have deployed EPM most successfully have one thing in common: they set reasonable goals based on their individual project management maturity level and plan for incremental success. The implementation method therefore aims to deploy technology in an evolutionary manner, matched to the maturity level of the client’s organisation and its ability to absorb change. EPM is implemented in stages, activating additional functionality and increasing the user community over time.

Paul Major will outline the business rationale for implementing an EPM solution utilising Microsoft Project Server 2007 technology.

Paul Major - Speaker Biog

Paul Major, industry commentator, has 20 years’ experience in managing performance and strategic change, primarily in multinational corporations. In roles including Chief Accountant, Operations Manager and Programme Leader, he has gained a unique insight into the challenges of deploying change in complex organisations. Over recent years, Paul has focused on business-critical strategic initiatives as a key enabler of competitive advantage. He has worked with DaimlerChrysler, Microsoft and Ford Motor Company in both IT and operational environments. Prior to joining Pcubed, Paul held managerial positions in Finance and Operations at Chrysler UK (Inchcape PLC), Invicta Sound PLC, Abbott Laboratories Inc and Smiths Industries. Paul is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 22-Oct-2008 Registration from: 9:00 Event: 9:30 - 12:30
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Reacting to Customer needs with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

31-Aug-2008 05:13:40

Reacting to Customer needs with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Business moves quickly today, requiring that every company continuously re-examine direction, strategies, suppliers, and partners. The search for competitive advantage may mean that some of your best customers pick up and leave without you ever knowing that there was a problem.

With tools to enhance your company's sales, marketing, and customer service processes. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 delivers a fast, flexible, and affordable solution helping you drive consistent and measurable improvements in everyday business processes.

We will show that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is a fully integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system, which gives you the capability to easily create and maintain a clear view of customers from first contact through purchase and post sales.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help you:

Stay connected to your business processes and make more informed decisions about your growth.
Reduce the length of your sales cycle and increase your marketing effectiveness.
Ensure your marketing campaigns are working at maximum efficiency and help you deploy your sales resources appropriately.

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 19-Nov-2008 Registration from: 9:00 Event: 9:30 - 12:30
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Architecture Forum - North - Part II - A Vision of the future for Architecture

15-Oct-2008 05:13:50

Architect Forum - North

Black Marble and Microsoft invite you to join us for an event featuring the top architecture experts in the UK. This is an unique opportunity to provide IT Managers, IT and software architects from Northern businesses the chance to learn about the latest technologies and best practices from Microsoft in the field of Architecture, including the exciting new announcements about cloud computing that will be unveiled at the Professional Developers Conference in October.

This full day event will provide insightful information about the latest techniques, demonstrating how with Microsoft’s architecture tools and technologies you can address your current business needs. Both the morning and afternoon tracks can be booked and attended separately.

Afternoon Track – A Vision of the future for Architecture

Session 1 - Windows Azure and the Azure Services Platform – What is it all about? with Simon Davies, Senior Architectural Engineer, Microsoft.

At the end of October at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles Microsoft announced its cloud based developer platform Windows Azure and the broader Azure Services Platform, this session will give an overview of the platform , we’ll take a look at where the platform differs from the existing Microsoft platform and why, we’ll also look at the similarities with the existing Microsoft developer platform and tools and then finish up with some suggestions for next steps for those wanting to get involved early.

Session 2 - Oslo, Microsoft’s Vision for the Future of SOA with Robert Hogg, Black Marble.

Microsoft unveiled Oslo at the PDC in October 2008: its future direction for SOA. Oslo is a wave of products forming the foundation of Microsoft's next generation SOA platform. Oslo will provide new ways of developing, hosting and managing WF, WCF bound with a modelling solution to allow focus on business design that is the future centre of IT architecture. This session will aim to provide an overview of the unified future of WCF, WF, BizTalk, the Oslo Metadata core, end to end modelling in an enterprise environment and how Oslo delivers these executable models into the business.

About the Event

Black Marble, in conjunction with Microsoft, are bringing the Architecture Forum to the North as part of a pilot to gauge the interest and participation level. Your interest and involvement will ensure further events return to your region.

About the Participants

The Microsoft Architecture group is well regarded in the field of architectural insight and vision, and produce the highly regarded journal: The Architecture Journal.

Simon Davies began his computing career over 20 years ago as a PC developer then moved on to work on Mainframe and UNIX systems before returning to the PC world with the advent of Windows NT. For the last 12 years at Microsoft Simon has worked with organisations to help them understand how to create new applications using new platforms and technology from Microsoft, in the recent past he has been working with early adopters of Windows Azure.

Robert Hogg is an MVP for Architecture (Solutions Architect), former MVP for BizTalk and advisor to the Microsoft Connected Systems Division. He is also the Managing Director of Black Marble Limited.

Black Marble is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, with expertise in the fields of Business Process and Integrations Solutions, Data Management Solutions and Information Worker.

We recommend you attend both this event and Part I - Architecture Best Practices.

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 03-Dec-2008 Registion - 13:30 Event - 14:00 - 17:00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Black Marble's Annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies 2009

31-Aug-2008 05:13:53

Black Marble's annual Technical Update returns in 2009.

We will be looking at all of the leading new products that came from Microsoft 2008, with a review of the work that is coming out in 2009 and beyond.

This event is designed to give you a roadmap for the next few years to help you design and plan your IT strategies.

Feedback from the last few years:

"Opened my eyes about technologies I thought I already knew." ... Event Attendee.

"I realised that several key technologies were missing from my organisation, thanks again." ... Event Attendee.

"This has saved me months in planning and analysis." ... Event Attendee.

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 21-Jan-2009 Registration - 13:30 Event - 14:00 - 17:00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Ed Gibson, Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor in the UK, 2009

31-Aug-2008 05:28:34

Ed Gibson, Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor in the UK, is returning to the North of England following on from his successfull talks on security in 2006 and 2008.

About Ed

Mr Gibson’s primary role is to serve as the senior advisor to Microsoft’s customers, partners, government elites, and the public on how to best respond to the current security environment - from internal leakage of intellectual property to best practices for online cyber security - and how to improve their security through Microsoft's solutions and services.

As Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing (TWC) initiative continues, one of the key skills Mr Gibson brings to Microsoft is his ability to forge and maintain strategic alliances across public and private sector organisations in an international environment. He is the link between Microsoft and industry specialists, law enforcement, government and academia, facilitating the sharing of security knowledge between these groups.

Ed’s experience and knowledge was gained through a 20-year career as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). During this period, he was a recognised expert in investigating international money laundering & fraud schemes, economic espionage, and intellectual property theft. From early 2000 - June 2005, Mr Gibson was assigned to the American Embassy in London where he served as the FBI's Assistant Legal Attaché in the UK and Ireland. During this period Gibson was responsible for all FBI hi-tech, Internet extortion, blackmail, cyber terrorism, intellectual property theft, crimes against children, and infrastructure protection investigations. His focus on how criminals exploit the internet and his investigative abilities have made him an ideal figurehead for Microsoft's efforts in secure computing.

Before his appointment to the FBI, Mr Gibson served for five years as an in-house lawyer for a multi-national corporation based in the USA. He is a qualified Solicitor in England and Wales, has completed a 2-year computing program at Oxford University, serves on several technology association steering committees and advisory boards, and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society.

Since taking on his role with Microsoft UK, Ed has lectured widely on cyber-threats, internet crime, social networks, and e-business. He is a sought after speaker given his ability to bring security to life and make it personal. You can contact Ed by e-mail at EdGibson@Microsoft.com

Event date - 21-Jan-2009 6pm - 7:30pm
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Enhancing Developer Productivity with DevExpress CodeRush and Refactor! with Oliver Sturm

31-Aug-2008 05:28:37

Black Marble presents Oliver Sturm, speaking at our November Community Event.

Every developer is after productivity and disciplines like agile development become more and more popular partly due to that demand of efficiency. Refactoring as a formalised technique is an important part of the agile movement, but of course developers have always been using refactoring approaches. The combination of CodeRush and Refactor! Pro by DevExpress address both the general productivity issue and the specific refactoring problem through their feature set as well as the DXCore-based extensibility architecture for Visual Studio. You can find an overview of the products here.

Come along and you might win a license!

Speaker bio:

Oliver Sturm is an experienced software architect, developer, trainer and author, with a strong background in various different fields including system and framework architecture and design, process modeling and user interface design. He is a C# MVP and he works for Developer Express as a Technical Evangelist and Lead Program Manager for the Frameworks Division.

You can find out more about Oliver by reading his blog.

Oliver is an MVP for C#.

Event date - 19-Nov-2008 6-7:30pm
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

MSDN: An afternoon of SQL Server Data Services and ASP.NET Dynamic Data

02-Sep-2008 11:21:26

MSDN: An afternoon of SQL Server Data Services and ASP.NET Dynamic Data.

Overview

Session 1: SQL Server Data Services

SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) are highly scalable, on-demand data storage and query processing utility services. Built on SQL Server database and Windows Server technologies, these services provide high availability, security and support standards-based web interfaces for easy programming and quick provisioning. SSDS has the potential to completely change how you architect applications in the future. This session will look at what SSDS delivers today, how to take advantage of it in your own applications and what the future may hold.

Session 2: Building Data Driven Websites with the help of ASP.NET Dynamic Data

Dynamic Data brings rich new scaffolding capabilities to ASP.NET allowing you to very quickly create a data-driven website. Dynamic Data will create the UI, navigation and even validation for you as well as allowing you to add business logic and customise the UI in one central place to be re-used across your entire application. If you don’t need the scaffolding capabilities, Dynamic Data also enhances a number of existing ASP.NET controls allowing you to build your own pages while still leveraging many of the new features

Speaker Biog:

Eric Nelson

Read Eric’s blog

Mike Ormond

Mike joined Microsoft more than 10 years ago after graduating in Information Engineering from the University of Strathclyde and spending time with the Defence Research Agency, Mars Electronics and Mercury Interactive. Since 2003 he’s been part of the Developer and Platform Group, responsible for talking to developers about Microsoft’s platform and tools.

Outside of work Mike enjoys anything related to cars, running, Radio 4 and pottering in his allotment. Technology-wise, he’s mainly focussed on all things web.

Read Mike's Blog and catch up with him on Twitter.

Registration Options

Event ID: 1032387846

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 03-Dec-2008 Registion - 13:30 Event - 14:00 - 17:00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Silverlight, XNA and Gaming

07-Sep-2008 11:28:06

Somethings you do in the bedroom you don't talk about, but this certainly is worth it. Pete Mcgann (XNA) and Richard Costall (Silverlight) talk about XNA, Gaming and Silverlight in their own unique style.

Speaker Bio:

Richard Costall (MVP, MCSD.NET) has over 22 years development experience and works for 1st Software, a Microsoft Gold Partner, and the UK's leading software solution for Financial Adviser and Intermediaries, designing and implementing IFA applications in the financial services sector. Previously specialising in VB, XML/XSLT, COM, ASP and MSMQ, Richard now lives and breathes the awesome world of .Net and in particular ASP.NET and Silverlight 2.0. Richard spent 5 1/2 years as the Midlands regional coordinator for VBUG (Visual Basic User Group) before co-founding NxtGenUG, the innovative UK user group for Microsoft Technologies.

Richard has written articles for publications such as ASP.NET Pro and International Developer Magazines and also co-authered the Apress title Professional MSMQ. He speaks a local user groups, Microsoft Conferences/Product launches, TechED Europe and the hugely successful DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Events.

When not in .Net land, Richard enjoys relaxing at home with his wife and two sons, playing on the XBOX 360 or ultimately jetting off to Walt Disney World, Florida, for a trip on the Tower of Terror.

Event date - 22-Oct-2008 6:15pm - 7:30pm
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Architecture Forum - North - Part I - Architecture Best Practices

15-Oct-2008 10:26:14

Architect Forum - North

Morning Track – Architecture Best Practices

One of the key focuses is sustainability and green IT – how larger data centres are managed, and what the impact is for architecture and design. In addition, we will address Microsoft Patterns and Practices, looking at the best practice guidelines produced for architecture, including the most up to date revisions.

Session 1 - Sustainable IT – from Datacentre to Cloud with Matt Deacon, Chief Architectural Advisor, Microsoft.

Session 2 - Patterns & Practices - Guidance for the Architect with Simon Thurman, Architect Evangelist, Microsoft.

About the Event

About the Participants

The Microsoft Architecture group is well regarded in the field of architectural insight and vision, and produce the highly regarded journal: The Architecture Journal.

Matt Deacon is the Chief Architectural Advisor for the Developer and Platform Group at Microsoft Ltd, in the UK. His primary role is to serve as an advisor to Microsoft's customers, and the public, on all matters relating to the field and profession of IT Architecture.

He chairs the Microsoft UK Architect Council, a body of 30 senior industry Architects who provide feedback and advice to Microsoft on matters of product direction and strategy and is the owner of the Microsoft Architect Forums and Architect Insight, Microsoft UK's premier 2-day architectural conference. Matt brings over 16 years experience in the IT industry delivering many mission critical enterprise solutions on both Microsoft and Java platforms.

Simon Thurman has worked in the IT industry for 20 years. In that time his roles have included developer, analyst, designer and architect. At Microsoft he primarily works with enterprise organisations and Web sites talking about how technology can support and develop their business.

Black Marble is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, with expertise in the fields of Business Process and Integrations Solutions, Data Management Solutions and Information Worker.

We recommend you attend both this event and Part II - A Vision for the Future of Architecture.

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 03-Dec-2008 Registration from: 9:00 Event: 9:30 - 12:30
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Practical Introduction to Business Process Management

23-Dec-2008 04:00:27

Black Marble, along with PNMSoft, are presenting a sessions on Business Process Management.

We will be covering:

Introduction to Business Process Management.
PNMSoft Introduction.
End to End BPM Strategy.
Scenario based demonstration.
Business Process Management in the Real World - Case Study and deployment in mission critical applications.
Capturing Business Requirements and Optimisation of Business Processes - the functionality available in Business Process Management and the benefits this delivers to the business.
The future of Business Process Management - Technology and Roadmap.

PNMSoft are established experts in human workflow processes, with a focus on developing Business Process Management (BPM) and Workflow Automation solutions that are specially oriented towards business users.

Event date - 21-Jan-2009 9:30am Registration, 10 am start
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

A Practical Guide for Trusts in Business Process, Collaboration and Compliance (Liverpool)

14-Jan-2009 03:44:11

This event is also running in Bradford on the 12th February.

A practical guide for Trusts needing to automate business process, improve collaboration and provide rigour in their compliance. Hear from some of Black Marble's specialists, explaining how we can help improve organisational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management, enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across organisational boundaries for better business insight.

* What contributes to a successful connected organisation.
* Best practice for deploying and implementing a connected solution.
* How to engage the organisation by showing both the benefits and return from business collaboration.
* How using accelerators as a foundation to a connected solution can provide improvement in business activities.

The accelerators include:

* Meeting management.
* Managing procedures.
* Management scorecards.
* Absence tracking.
* Expenses.
* Budget tracking.

The event will take place in Liverpool on the 5th February and repeated in Bradford on the 6th February. Registration is from 9:30am, with the event due to begin at 10am and end at 2pm with lunch included. If you have any queries please call +44 1274 300 175.

The Agenda for the day is …

* Introduction by Robert Hogg, MD of Black Marble and Peter Askew of Microsoft.
* Microsoft and the NHS
* Microsoft and the NHS working together.
* SharePoint Overview - The basics and beyond
- What is SharePoint?
- SharePoint Technology Overview.
* Microsoft's Vision of SharePoint in the NHS
* Demo
* Public Portals (Patient, Web).
- Planning
- Implementation Overview.
- Community and Training.
* Governance
- Ensuring legal and best practice compliance across an organisation.
* Office Automation with Office 2007
- Automating your daily life on the desktop with tools you already have.
* Accelerators and Solution Enablers for SharePoint
- Get organisational needs such as holiday planning and expenses up and running quickly.
- Demos
- Customising SharePoint to meet your advanced needs
* Case Study.
* Centralised Project Management.

Event Location:

Gardner Systems Plc
1 Faraday Road
Wavertree Technology Park
Liverpool
L13 1EH

Event date - 11-Feb-2009 9:30am Registration for 10:00am Start
Location - Wavertree Technology Park, Liverpool

A Practical Guide for Trusts in Business Process, Collaboration and Compliance (Bradford)

18-Jan-2009 01:58:52

This event is also running in Liverpool on the 11th February.

The accelerators include:

* Meeting management.
* Managing procedures.
* Management scorecards.
* Absence tracking.
* Expenses.
* Budget tracking.

The Agenda for the day is …

Event Location:

Velocity,
Angel Way,
Bradford,
West Yorkshire,
BD7 1BX.

Event date - 12-Feb-2009 9:30am Registration for 10:00am Start
Location - Velocity, Bradford

Think Small to Win Big with SharePoint

06-Mar-2009 01:53:06

Black Marble is demonstrating how small efficiencies can add up to big savings through the Microsoft family of collaboration tools. We are running a series of knowledge workshops for ICT managers to show how effective deployment of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and related technologies can energise staff in all areas.

From low-risk, high impact solutions intended to save a few minutes each time someone performs a certain task, to larger process automation projects designed to streamline processes, SharePoint is a key efficiency tool. In addition, the software’s ability to host discussions and questionnaires can help staff at all levels of the organisation engage with major initiatives.

“Many organisations focus on large projects such as scorecards. By doing so, they overlook the opportunity to make small savings that collectively amount to huge improvements in efficiency and give much greater value to the organisation.”

Robert Hogg, Managing Director, Black Marble

That doesn’t mean there is no place for larger initiatives, however: “What we see with SharePoint in an organisation is a steady growth of the features it provides.” Robert continues “Very quickly, SharePoint becomes the central hub of information through the use of key aspects like Search. As the organisation becomes more comfortable with the software, that’s when we advise them to tackle the more complex business solutions as the risk of failure is much lower.”

During the knowledge workshops, Black Marble will relate SharePoint to real organisational issues and demonstrate how the system can directly benefit your organisation. Drawing on experience, crucial advice will be given on how to ensure the success of a SharePoint deployment and put in place the policies to manage the solution over time.

The workshops includes a round table discussion during lunch, where attendees can ask direct questions about how SharePoint might solve specific issues that they face.

Event date - 30-Apr-2009 9:30 Registration for 10:00 Start, 14:00 finish with lunch included.
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

A Practical Guide for Collaboration in the NHS - Liverpool

06-Mar-2009 01:53:13

A workshop for Trusts needing to automate business process, improve collaboration and provide rigour in their compliance. Hear from some of Black Marble's specialists, explaining how we can help improve organisational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management, enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across organisational boundaries for better business insight. Black Marble will relate SharePoint to real organisational issues and demonstrate how the system can directly benefit the NHS. Drawing on experience, crucial advice will be given on how to ensure the success of a SharePoint deployment and put in place the policies to manage the solution over time.

* Introduction by Black Marble’s MD, Robert Hogg, covering who we are, what we are covering today, and what we hope you take away from the day.
* Microsoft Introduction – Peter Askew, Microsoft, will discuss how Microsoft views its relationship with the NHS, and what the advantages are.

* SharePoint as the collaborative solution for the NHS (including the Microsoft Health CUI, a collection of best practice guidance and technology building blocks).

* SharePoint Features and Customisation – covering the key feature areas and what customisation is possible. The comprehensive demonstration at the end of the presentation will cover these in more detail.

* Governance and Engagement - what you need to do to ensure successful deployment and management of your SharePoint solution. How Black Marble can help with all stages, including engaging with your organisation’s stakeholders, getting your organisation on board, and planning for the future.

* Demonstration of key elements of SharePoint –

- An expenses solution (which involves looking at wiki for instructions, discussion forum, create and complete a new form)

- Create a new proposal using an intelligent document

- Search for information on a colleague.

- SharePoint as a community – addressing the key business benefits of SharePoint as a online community.

* Round Table – put your questions to our experts about SharePoint as a collaborative solution, discuss your specific requirements and how they might be tackled.

* A great lunch to finish up!

Event date - 20-May-2009 9:30am Registration for 10:00am Start
Location - Wavertree Technology Park, Liverpool

A Practical Guide for Collaboration in the NHS - Bradford

06-Mar-2009 01:53:16

* SharePoint as the collaborative solution for the NHS (including the Microsoft Health CUI, a collection of best practice guidance and technology building blocks).

* Demonstration of key elements of SharePoint –

- An expenses solution (which involves looking at wiki for instructions, discussion forum, create and complete a new form)

- Create a new proposal using an intelligent document

- Search for information on a colleague.

- SharePoint as a community – addressing the key business benefits of SharePoint as a online community.

* Round Table – put your questions to our experts about SharePoint as a collaborative solution, discuss your specific requirements and how they might be tackled.

* A great lunch to finish up!

Event date - 21-May-2009 9:30am Registration for 10:00am Start
Location - Velocity, Bradford

How Windows 7 Builds upon Windows Server 2008 R2 to Improve Business IT

06-Mar-2009 01:53:19

We will be covering all the top level improvements, focusing on those that will be of greatest benefit to you.

Client side support for BranchCache, DirectAccess
Security: Better bitlocker, bitlocker-to-go
Cost Effectiveness – improved hardware support, efficiency
Usability – the new interface needn’t be scary
Flexibility – VHD boot and more

In addition, we will provide a summary of the new features, and why not come a little early for lunch and the chance to speak to our experts?

Event date - 13-May-2009 13:30 registration for 14:00 start, ending at 17:00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Introduction to Business Process Management

06-Mar-2009 01:53:22

Black Marble, along with PNMSoft, are presenting a session on Business Process Management.

We will be covering:

Introduction to Business Process Management.
PNMSoft Introduction.
End to End BPM Strategy.
Scenario based demonstration.
Business Process Management in the Real World - Case Study and deployment in mission critical applications.
Capturing Business Requirements and Optimisation of Business Processes - the functionality available in Business Process Management and the benefits this delivers to the business.
The future of Business Process Management - Technology and Roadmap.

Event date - 12-May-2009 9:30 Registration for 10 am start, finishing at 12:30, with lunch provided.
Location - Velocity, Bradford

How your Business will Benefit from Windows Server 2008 R2

27-Mar-2009 03:25:57

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 will be the next version of the Windows Server operating system from Microsoft. Building on the features and capabilities of the current Windows Server 2008 release version, Windows Server 2008 R2 allows you to create solutions organisation that are easier to plan, deploy, and manage than previous versions of Windows Server.

Developing upon the increased security, reliability, and performance provided by Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 extends connectivity and control to local and remote resources. This means your organisations can benefit from reduced costs and increased efficiencies gained through enhanced management and control over resources across the enterprise.

We will be covering all the top level improvements, focusing on those that will be of greatest benefit to you.

Cost Effectiveness – Virtualisation improvements with Hyper-V
Getting more from the WAN – BranchCache
Enabling remote access: DirectAccess

In addition, we will provide a summary of the new features, and why not stay for lunch and the chance to speak to our experts?

Event date - 13-May-2009 09:00 registration for 09:30 start, ending at 12:30
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Deploying and Synchronising Websites Using the Web Deployment Tool

06-Apr-2009 09:52:12

Packaging up and deploying websites is not everyone's favourite tasks especially when they lie in multiple states, on different staging servers and need to move to new infrastructure and farms for production environment.

In this session we'll take a look at how the Web Deployment tool, which will be integrated into VS2010, can ease synchronisation and deployment of web applications (i.e. ASP.Net and PHP) across scenarios. Also announced at Mix '09 was the Web Platform Installer and Application Gallery, we'll take a look at this great new tool and see how to package up and application for listing in the Application Gallery.

About the Speaker

Andrew Westgarth is an Internet Information Services (IIS) MVP and the Chairman and Regional Coordinator for VBUG in the North East of England. He is a Software Engineer for Hydratight Ltd, developing Web Applications for use in the Oil and Gas Industry amongst others. Andrew is very active in the UK Developer Community, attending and speaking at multiple events, supporting users and other User Groups. In the past twelve months he has spoken at VBUG's National Two Day Conference; Developer Developer Developer Day 5 and local User Group meetings. Andrew has experience in VB6/.NET; C#; ASP.NET; MCMS 2002 and Internet Information Services. Andrew's current technical interests include IIS 7.0; ASP.NET AJAX Extensions, Windows Server 2008 and Virtual Earth.

Read his Blog to hear his thoughts,,,

Event date - 13-May-2009 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Fire and Rescue Services: Managing Access to Information in a distributed Organisation

08-Apr-2009 04:06:42

With the distributed nature of Fire and Rescue Services spread across towns and cities in a region, SharePoint can be a powerful tool for sharing information and improving collaboration and communication between staff within the service. Throughout this workshop, we aim to demonstrate how significant benefits can be gained through small incremental changes enabling the organisation to develop fully the information heart of the organisation.

We can demonstrate how small efficiencies can add up to big savings through the effective implementation of key collaboration tools. This knowledge workshop can demonstrate how effective deployment of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and related technologies can energise staff in all areas.

“Many organisations focus on large projects such as scorecards,” says Robert Hogg, Managing Director of Black Marble, “By doing so, they overlook the opportunity to make small savings that collectively amount to huge improvements in efficiency and give much greater value to the organisation.”

That doesn’t mean there is no place for larger initiatives, however:

“What we see with SharePoint in an organisation is a steady growth of the features it provides. Very quickly, SharePoint becomes the central hub of information through the use of key aspects like Search. As the organisation becomes more comfortable with the software, that’s when we advise them to tackle the more complex business solutions as the risk of failure is much lower.”

In addition, we can demonstrate through the use of a series of SharePoint Accelerators how we can speed up the implementation and adoption process for your organisation. These are standard SharePoint applications developed by Black Marble to meet a portfolio of business needs. These solutions can be delivered out-of-the-box or customised to meet specific requirements.

During the knowledge workshop, Black Marble will relate SharePoint to real organisational issues and demonstrate how the system can directly benefit Fire and Rescue Services. Drawing on experience, crucial advice will be given on how to ensure the success of a SharePoint deployment and put in place the policies to manage the solution over time.

In addition, POSTcti will presenting on their Unified Communication solution, drawing on their experience with Tayside Fire and Rescue Services.

The workshop ends with a round table discussion, where attendees can ask direct questions about how SharePoint might solve specific issues that they face.

The Workshop will take place at Microsoft HQ in Reading on the 3 June. Registration is from 9:30am, with the workshop due to begin at 10am and end at 2pm with lunch included. If you have any queries, or wish to register, please call +44 1274 300 175.

Event date - 03-Jun-2009 9:30 am Registration for 10:00am start. 2:00 pm finish, with lunch included.
Location - 'Memphis', Building 3, Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, RG6 1WG

Mocking Up SharePoint

29-Apr-2009 03:19:51

Richard Fennell starts his UK tour of NxtGen meeetings with a session on developer testing for SharePoint work with Typemock. This first is in Birmingham, with Manchester the next day. The usual NxtGen Pizza, Swag and member nuggets abound!

If you are not a member of NxtGenUG, you are more than welcome to attend, but you need to register on their site.

Event date - 18-Aug-2009
Location - NctGenUG Birmingham

Making a Mockery of SharePoint

29-Apr-2009 03:26:46

Richard Fennell continues his UK tour of NxtGen meeetings with a session on developer testing for SharePoint work with Typemock. This second date is in Manchester, with Birmingham the previous day. The usual NxtGen Pizza, Swag and member nuggets abound!

If you are not a member of NxtGenUG, you need to register on their site. Once registered on the site, you can then register for this event from this page.

Event date - 19-Aug-2009
Location - NxtGebUG - Cheadle

Making the SQL developer one of the family with Visual Studio Team System

29-Apr-2009 03:40:13

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals has been with us for a couple of years now. The new GDR release has some significant changes from the previous versions. In this session Richard Fennell will look at how VSTS for the first time makes the database developer a first class citizen in the Microsoft development family, particulary highlighting the new features in the GDR release. He aims to cover the complete development life cycle using this tool, addressing issues such as schema management, source control, testing, data generation and deployment. For futher details see http://www.vbug.co.ukEvent date - 22-Apr-2009
Location - VBUG Newcastle

Making the SQL developer one of the family with Visual Studio Team System

29-Apr-2009 03:45:01

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals has been with us for a couple of years now. The new GDR release has some significant changes from the previous versions. In this session Richard Fennell will look at how VSTS for the first time makes the database developer a first class citizen in the Microsoft development family, particulary highlighting the new features in the GDR release. He aims to cover the complete development life cycle using this tool, addressing issues such as schema management, source control, testing, data generation and deployment. For further details see http://www.sqlbts.comEvent date - 28-Mar-2009
Location - SQLBits Conference

Fourth Annual Microsoft Architect Insight Conference

30-Apr-2009 10:30:29

Black Marble are participating in the Fourth Annual Microsoft Architect Insight Conference taking place in London on the 8th May. As well as being a Platinum sponsor for this event, MD Robert Hogg is speaking on "Oslo - Microsoft's vision for the future of modelling", and along with Richard Fennell will be taking part in interactive sessions.

The theme of the event is ‘Architecture as a foundation for business’, and contains a fantastic speaker line up including keynote talks focusing on experiences of developing and deploying large scale business solutions on the Microsoft platform.

As in previous years the AIC will focus on current and emerging trends in the field of IT Architecture including:-

Enterprise Architecture: focusing on cost reduction, improved agility and responsiveness to the business.
Solution Architecture: focusing on the changing architecture of the client, from thick to thin to rich to smart.
Infrastructure Architecture: focusing on the infrastructure tools and technologies of the server and data centre.

Event date - 08-May-2009
Location - Microsoft London

Testing SharePoint with Typemock Isolator

26-May-2009 02:12:12

The development and testing of SharePoint applications is problematic. You usually need to put a large infrastructure in place to allow even the simplest operations to be performed usually meaning you need Windows server on your development PC or you need to use VPCs. In this session Richard Fennell will show how you can use Typemock Isolator to improve your software quality by creating a robust testable environment for that is not dependant SharePoint being installed on either the development PC or any automated build servers.Event date - 17-Jun-2009 6:45 PM to 09:00 PM
Location - Room 118, Claremont Tower, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, GB

Using Visual Studio Team System 2010 to enable agile development

26-May-2009 02:18:47

In this session I will show how Visual Studio Team System can be used to provide the underpinnings for a successful agile development team.Event date - 11-Aug-2009 6:45 PM to 09:00 PM
Location - Coventry

Key features in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2

16-Jun-2009 04:01:10

Key features in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. A look at the new features in Microsoft’s upcoming operating systems that will really make a difference to how we work. The session will a broad overview of new features with demos of the cooler ones to add an element of risk to proceedings. Come along if you want to learn more about technologies such as BranchCache, DirectAccess, Virtual XP Mode and more.

For more information and to register for this event visit the VBUG site

Event date - 08-Jul-2009 6:45 PM to 09:00 PM
Location - Room 118, Claremont Tower, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, GB

Office 2010: Early Access

17-Aug-2009 12:35:42

Office 2010 provides rich and powerful new ways to deliver your work - whether you’re on a computer, Web browser, or Smartphone using enhanced tools and customisable templates. Work with multiple people from different locations at the exact same time using new co-authoring capabilities. By offering more ways to access your files from virtually anywhere, Office 2010 puts you in control.

For IT, it means utilising a set of smart, easy-to-integrate tools in a security enhanced environment that work with what you have now, so you can grow your business instead of your budget.

Come along and watch Black Marble demonstrate the great new features now available with Office 2010 such as co-authoring!

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 05-Nov-2009 Registration - 09.00 Start Time - 09.30 End Time 12.30
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

SharePoint 2010: Early Access

17-Aug-2009 12:40:25

SharePoint 2010 enables organisations to connect and empower people through an integrated set of rich features. It can be deployed on-premises or as hosted services providing a unified infrastructure.

It provides a rich set of new tools and features to boost administrators' productivity, deliver deep operational insight into server performance and health, advanced in platform scale and data availability.

Come along and take advantage of Black Marble's early access to see a demonstration of the great new features now available with SharePoint 2010.

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 05-Nov-2009 Registration - 13.30 Start Time - 14.00 End Time - 17.00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Visual Studio 2010: Early Access

17-Aug-2009 12:41:58

Visual Studio 2010 is being designed inside and out to give developers and development teams every advantage in getting the next ground-breaking application to market – quickly. The upshot is that your business gets to reap the rewards of tomorrow's efficiency today.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010 will deliver new capabilities that embrace the needs of the users in the application lifecycle – from architects to developers, from project managers to testers.

Come along to hear Black Marble's Richard Fennell, MVP in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, demonstrate what's new and exciting for this developer family of products.

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 01-Oct-2009 Registration - 09.00 Start Time - 09.30 End Time 12.30
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Managing the Application Lifecycle

17-Aug-2009 12:43:44

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is the coordination of all aspects of software engineering - including the formulation and communication of business and technical requirements, code design and architecture, project tracking, change management, coding, testing, debugging, and release management - by using tools that facilitate and track collaboration among and within work teams.

Application development is one of the most strategic activities in IT. Whether the business goal is improving customer satisfaction, streamlining operations, or extending into a new market, the applications that underpin business initiatives and provide differentiation are critical to success. Application development teams that predictably deliver business-critical applications can help a company maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace and drive top-line growth.

Come along and find out how Team Foundation Server, Best Practice and Testing can be implemented to help your business manage its application lifecycle successfully.

Black Marble's Richard Fennell is an MVP in Team Foundation Server.

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 13:30.

Event date - 01-Oct-2009 Registration - 13.30 Start Time - 14.00 End Time 17.00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Architecture Forum in the North

17-Aug-2009 12:45:43

Following up on the success of the Architecture Forum in the North, 2008, Black Marble and Microsoft are again running a day featuring the top architecture experts in the UK.

As well as the Black Marble speakers, returning this year are Microsoft Speakers Matt Deacon, Simon Thurman and Simon Davies. In addition, they will be joined by Mark Richardson and Giles Davies from the Microsoft Developer Tools team.

The Agenda this year will be based around key announcements and developments from the Professional Developer's Conference that took place in Los Angeles in mid November.

A complimentary lunch is served between 12:30 and 14:00.

Event date - 03-Dec-2009 Registration - 09.00 Start Time - 09.30 End Time - 17.00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Black Marble's Annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies, 2010

17-Aug-2009 12:47:27

We will be looking at all of the leading new products that came from Microsoft in 2009, with a review of the work that is coming out in 2010 and beyond.

This event is designed to give you a roadmap for the next few years to help you design and plan your IT strategies.

Feedback from the last few years:

"Opened my eyes about technologies I thought I already knew." ... Event Attendee.

"I realised that several key technologies were missing from my organisation, thanks again." ... Event Attendee.

"This has saved me months in planning and analysis." ... Event Attendee.

A complimentary lunch is served between 13:00 and 14:00.

Also taking place on the 27 January, at the same venue are:

Exploring the Business Value of the Cloud with Microsoft Windows Azure

Using Digital Marketing and Social Media to Build and Maintain your Online Brand

Event date - 27-Jan-2010 Registration 09:30, Start 10:00, Finish 13:00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Oslo, Microsoft's Vision for the Future of Modelling

20-Aug-2009 10:12:29

Oslo is a wave of products forming the foundation of Microsoft's next generation SOA platform. Oslo will provide new ways of developing, hosting and managing WF, WCF bound with a modelling solution to allow focus on business design that is the future centre of IT architecture.

This session will aim to provide an overview of the unified future of WCF, WF, BizTalk, the Oslo Metadata core, end to end modelling in an enterprise environment and how Oslo delivers these executable models into the business.

This session is part of The Irish Software Show’s Microsoft Track, and you can register to attend by visiting: http://epicenter.ie

Event date - 26-Aug-2009 11:45
Location - Epicenter, The Irish Software Show, Dublin

Software Project Management War Stories

20-Aug-2009 10:30:06

A pragmatic look at what things make projects succeed including how to manage software developers, how to be managed and how to finish a project with your sanity intact.

This session is part of The Irish Software Show’s Microsoft Track, and you can register to attend by visiting: http://epicenter.ie

Event date - 26-Aug-2009 14:30
Location - Epicenter, The Irish Software Show, Dublin

Application Lifecycle Management - Moving beyond source control

20-Aug-2009 10:31:30

Application Lifecycle Management is the coordination of all aspects of software engineering - including the formulation and communication of business and technical requirements, code design and architecture, project tracking, change management, coding, testing, debugging, and release management - by using tools that facilitate and track collaboration among and within work teams.

Software development is one of the most strategic activities in an organisation, and about more than just writing code in a text editor and compiling it. All companies that do software development should be using a source control system, and beyond that, there is much, much more that can be done to assist in the goal of producing high quality software.

Application development teams that predictably deliver business-critical applications can help a company maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace and drive top-line growth. Effective application lifecycle management can help control costs associated with software errors, and improve development project success rates.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 aims to provide a full Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solution for this purpose. It provides features from the inception of a project to its sunset when a product is “end of life’d”.

This session is part of The Irish Software Show’s Microsoft Track, and you can register to attend by visiting: http://epicenter.ie

Event date - 27-Aug-2009 11:45
Location - Epicenter, The Irish Software Show, Dublin

Making Testers Part of the Development Team

20-Aug-2009 10:41:49

Visual Studio and TFS 2010 provide a host of new tools and features to assist the QA/Tester in their work. In this session I will look at these new features and show how they can make your tester more integrated with the development team and hence improve software quality.

This session is part of The Irish Software Show’s Microsoft Track, and you can register to attend by visiting: http://epicenter.ie

Event date - 27-Aug-2009 16:15
Location - Epicenter, The Irish Software Show, Dublin

An Overview of Azure

20-Aug-2009 11:23:13

Azure, Microsoft's internet-scale cloud services platform provides an operating system and a set of developer services. Azure can be used to build new applications that can be run from the cloud or to enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. It reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and enables developers to quickly and simply create applications running in the cloud using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and .NET Framework. In this session, Iain will provide an overview of the key concepts of Azure.

This session is part of The Irish Software Show’s Microsoft Track, and you can register to attend by visiting: http://epicenter.ie

Event date - 27-Aug-2009 16:15
Location - Epicenter, The Irish Software Show, Dublin

SilverLight 3

03-Sep-2009 02:56:54

Announced at Mix09 and Released in July 2009 - Silverlight 3 is packed full of features, helping RIA developers in Styling, Graphics, Animations and much more. In this session Richard will go through this latest release in a demo packed session sure to have a wow factor!

Richard Costall

Richard has written articles for publications such as ASP.NET Pro and International Developer Magazines and also co-authored the Apress title Professional MSMQ. He speaks a local user groups, Microsoft Conferences/Product launches, TechED Europe and the hugely successful DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Events.

When not in .Net land, Richard enjoys relaxing at home with his wife and two sons, playing on the XBOX 360 or ultimately jetting off to Walt Disney World, Florida, for a trip on the Tower of Terror.

Event date - 05-Nov-2009 Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford
Location - Registration from 17:30, Event Time: 18:00-20:00

Bringing BizSpark to Start-ups in the North of England

07-Sep-2009 02:11:30

Black Marble is supporting Software Technology Start-ups through the Microsoft BizSpark Program. As a Network Partner in the program, Black Marble draws upon its years of experience as a technology company to provide guidance and advice to start-ups, as well as offering the opportunity to sponsor start-ups into the program.

The BizSpark program provides Start-ups with software, support and visibility at a time when they are most valuable and least affordable—during their first three years, with no upfront costs and minimal requirements. BizSpark provides fast, easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools and production licenses of server products as well as professional technical support from Microsoft.

To be eligible for the Microsoft BizSpark Program, Start-ups must be actively engaged in development of a software-based product or service that is a core piece of their business model, have been in business less than three years at the time of enrolment, and have less than approximately £600,000 ($1m USD) in annual revenue.

This event will outline how BizSpark can benefit your business, and how Black Marble can support you in the program.

Event date - 01-Oct-2009 17:15 Registration, 17:30 start, 18.30 end time.
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Using Business Activity Monitoring to give decision making power to the business

10-Nov-2009 10:38:10

This event been cancelled, but will be rescheduled in the new year; please let us know if you would like to attend on the new date.

Michael will be showing how BUPA are looking to build upon their recent application modernisation programme by achieving real value and decision making power for their business by effective use of Business Activity Monitoring.

Michael will also demonstrate how applications can participate in a Business Activity Monitoring scenario with little or no changes to their existing code.

Speaker: Michael Stephenson

Michael Stephenson is a BizTalk MVP and also a representative from the UK SOA/BPM User Group (SBUG).

Event date - 03-Dec-2009 Registration from 5:00, Start Time: 5:30pm
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Black Marble's BizSpark Workshop, in association with Business Link

13-Nov-2009 02:14:40

Welcome to Black Marble's first BizSpark lunch. As a Network Partner, Black Marble is supporting Software Technology Start-ups, drawing upon its years of experience as a technology company to provide guidance and advice, as well as offering the opportunity to sponsor start-ups into the program.

This round-table lunch event provides BizSpark start-ups (and those of you who want to know more about the programme) the chance to ask questions directly to Black Marble's technical experts, as well as find out more about our experience running a technology business.

In addition, Duncan Lewis of Business Link Yorkshire will be running a short workshop covering "steps to success", including Market Research, Business Planning and what support is available to start-ups from Business Link.

Both BizSpark and WebsiteSpark members are welcome to attend.

Event date - 10-Dec-2009 12pm-3:30pm, including lunch
Location - Business and Innovation Centre (Velocity), Angel Way, Listerhills, Bradford, BD7 1BX

Exploring the Business Value of the Cloud with Microsoft Windows Azure

18-Nov-2009 10:05:33

This session will be exploring the business value of cloud computing with Microsoft Windows Azure. We will address when it is appropriate to use the cloud, what are the implications, while discussing how applications can be implemented that are adaptable to the scaled-out, distributed and virtualised environment of the cloud.

Also speaking at this event is Simon Davies of the Microsoft UK Azure Team.

Also taking place on the 27 January, at the same venue are:

Black Marble's Annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies, 2010

Using Digital Marketing and Social Media to Build and Maintain your Online Brand

Event date - 27-Jan-2010 Registration 13:30, Start 14:00, Finish 17:00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Microsoft and Black Marble present Visual Studio 2010 and Managing the Application Lifecycle.

30-Nov-2009 12:17:25

Welcome to the Microsoft/Black Marble exploration of developer tools and application lifecycle management, now taking place in London for your convenience.

Come along and find out how Microsoft's Developer Tools are changing as well as how Team Foundation Server, Best Practice and Testing can be implemented to help your business manage its application lifecycle successfully.

Event date - 17-Dec-2009 Registration from 9:30am, Event Starts at 10:00am. Lunch at 12:30pm. Event ends at 4:30pm.
Location - Royal College of Physicians, 11 St Andrews Place, London NW1 4LE

Understanding the Microsoft Design and Digital Agency PropositionFEB2010

30-Nov-2009 12:45:53

Black Marble invite representatives of creative agencies to come along and find out how Microsoft is aiming to embrace the design channel and make it easy for digital agencies to work with the rest of Microsoft platform to deliver truly innovative solutions to their customers.

Black Marble, accompanied by Microsoft's Michael McClary, will review the Microsoft approach.

Agenda

Understanding Microsoft Design Agency Proposition

Overview of the Microsoft Platform
- Azure
- Live Services
- Mesh
- Tools

Silverlight
- DeepZoom
- Video
- Photosynth
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Silverlight running on your desktop (PC and Mac)

The Expression Tools
- Web
- Design
- Blend
- Deep Zoom

WPF - Silverlight’s big brother

Web Content Management with SharePoint

New User experience
- Multi Touch
- Surface

Where Next?
- Expanding out of the design world

Audience: This event is aimed at digital/design agencies with an interest in exploring how they can improve their experience on the Microsoft platform.

Event date - 02-Feb-2010 9:30am-1:00pm
Location - Black Marble

Software Project War Stories

30-Nov-2009 02:09:54

Robert Hogg and Steve Spencer explore Software Project Management with real-life examples. A pragmatic look at what things make projects succeed including how to manage software developers, how to be managed and how to finish a project with your sanity intact.Event date - 30-Nov-2009 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location - NxtGenUG, Coventry Flying Aero Club, CV3 4FR

Using Digital Marketing and Social Media to Build and Maintain your Online Brand

16-Dec-2009 11:22:59

It’s a good idea in these uncertain days to have an effective dynamic presence on the web. Head-hunters, recruiters, colleagues, competitors and partners search for your information before they contact you and may find details that you would rather keep to yourself. This session will discuss the importance of creating, managing and maintaining an effective online brand across different social media sites that appeals to your business contacts and potential employers whilst still managing to interact with your friends using social networking tools. The session will cover: using social networking as a business enabler, ensuring the security and privacy of your data, potential issues with using social media and how to avoid any errors that you may inadvertently make which might embarrass you professionally. Learn how social media tools can be effectively used to advertise your presence and build your online brand, and display only the information you choose.

Speaker Bio:

Eileen Brown, CEO of Amastra, specialises in social media and delivers projects to inspire. She is a social media expert, helping companies understand and extend their social media reach to engage better with their customers. Eileen has worked in the technology industry for over 17 years, in technical support, consultancy and management roles, most recently managing the team of technology evangelists at Microsoft.

Eileen is an accomplished and well-known international speaker and expert on Social Media, Online Branding, Web 2.0, Unified Communications and Systems Architecture and is a key advocate for the advancement of Women in Technology. She explores the art of the possible, looking at how technology is changing the world we live in and seeing ways to simplify work and make you more productive.

Eileen is a member of BCS, is part of the BCS Strategic panel for Women in IT and is the Chair of Intellect Women in Technology Group.

[ Web : Blog : Twitter : LinkedIn ]

Also taking place on the 27 January, at the same venue are:

Black Marble's Annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies, 2010

Exploring the Business Value of the Cloud with Microsoft Windows Azure

Event date - 27-Jan-2010 5:30pm ending 7:30pm (including Q&A)
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Microsoft and Black Marble present Visual Studio 2010 and Managing the Application Lifecycle with Team Foundation Server

08-Jan-2010 10:56:53

Microsoft and Black Marble bring their exploration of developer tools and application lifecycle management to Edinburgh, following successful events in London and Yorkshire.

Event date - 25-Feb-2010 Registration from 9:30am, Event Starts at 10:00am. Lunch at 12:30pm. Event ends at 4:30pm
Location - Conan Doyle Room, Waverley Gate, Edinburgh

Pragmatic Business Value of using SOA and implementing an ESB

04-Feb-2010 11:20:21

Robert Hogg is taking part in "The Microsoft Application Platform in association with TechNet: Connecting business applications, partners and devices". The event will provide a perspective on the current state of the Integration and Application Platform market including current and future trends in this domain and an introduction of the Microsoft vision and strategy for an Application Platform.

Robert will be speaking on the "Pragmatic Business Value of using Service Oriented Architecture and Implementing an ESB" - See how using SOA can ease development cycles inside your business and how using the BizTalk Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Toolkit enables you to build services that can be quickly located and connected, without creating a brittle point-to-point link. We will discuss how to improve the service lifecycle of development, testing, and deployment by using the messaging, routing, and transformation capabilities of the BizTalk ESB Toolkit.

Event date - 09-Feb-2010 10 - 10.45am
Location - Microsoft, Thames Valley Park, Reading

Developing Scalable Azure Applications

04-Feb-2010 11:49:31

Steve Spencer and Iain Angus are presenting at the NxtGenUG meeting on 23 February on Azure.

This demo-led session will provide an introduction to Windows Azure and the Developer tools; covering design/provisioning considerations for websites as well as an overview of worker roles, load balancing, queues and Azure storage.

For details from NxtGenUG click here! and to register with NxtGenUG for the event click here.

Event date - 23-Feb-2010 7:00pm - 9:00 pm
Location - Faraday Wharf, Holt Street, Aston Science Park, Birmingham, B7 4BB.

Small Business Server – What it means for your business

08-Feb-2010 11:26:57

An introduction for small businesses from those with a single computer and up to 30 workstations. Understand what Microsoft has in mind for you, what is Windows7, a look at Office and SharePoint 2010 – what’s new and how it will affect you, how to manage your systems safely and prepare for the future, Small Business Systems networks and integrating your workplace.

Speaking at this event is Rik Hepworth. Rik is the IT Director at Black Marble - for over 15 years he has been involved at some level with almost every aspect of computing technology and service provision.

To register for this event email - events@amshire.co.uk

Event date - 27-Apr-2010 Free Breakfast 09:00 Registration 09:15 Starts 09:45 Free Lunch 12:00
Location - The Heatons, Green Lane, Stockport, Cheshire, SK4 2NF

Office and SharePoint 2010 – To benefit your business

08-Feb-2010 11:36:34

For IT professionals and those managing up to 75 users, an in depth look at what Microsoft bring to you with Office and SharePoint 2010, the benefits they will bring to your business and how you can plan for the future.

To register for this event email - events@amshire.co.uk

Event date - 11-May-2010 Free Breakfast 09:00 Registration 09:15 Starts 09:45 Free Lunch 12:00
Location - The Heatons, Green Lane, Stockport, Cheshire, SK4 2NF

Plan your business roadmap

08-Feb-2010 11:37:30

Where can you go from here with Microsoft Applications, and how it all fits together? This session is also for IT professionals and will demonstrate how you can benefit from future integration.

To register for this event email - events@amshire.co.uk

Event date - 25-May-2010 Free Breakfast 09:00 Registration 09:15 Starts 09:45 Free Lunch 12:00
Location - The Heatons, Green Lane, Stockport, Cheshire, SK4 2NF

WCF Data Services

26-Feb-2010 02:38:19

Black Marble’s Iain Angus will be one of the first to present at this year’s Developer Day Scotland, on WPF Data Services. He will be keeping it simple with this demo driven session looking at how WCF, REST and LINQ come together to form Microsoft's latest data access technology.

Visit the Developer Day Scotland Website for more information.

A version of the full agenda (subject to last minute tweaking!) is also available.

Event date - 08-May-2010 09:30am
Location - Continuing Professional Development Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow G4 0BA

Developments in MultiCode and Concurrent Programming with .NET 4

26-Feb-2010 02:54:19

Black Marble’s Barry Wimlett is presenting for the first time at a DDScotland on concurrent programming and multicore development.

Why you need to understand this and what (new) tools exist to help developers in .net ( and new in .net 4.0, announced at PDC )

new concurrency libraries
functional languages
task orientated design

Visit the Developer Day Scotland Website for more information.

A version of the full agenda (subject to last minute tweaking!) is also available.

Event date - 08-May-2010 2:30pm
Location - Continuing Professional Development Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow G4 0BA

The Interoperable Session

26-Feb-2010 03:00:19

Black Marble’s Richard Fennell is joining Microsoft’s Simon Thurman during Day Three of the QCon Conference in London (10-12 March)

It is the fourth annual London enterprise software development conference designed for team leads, architects and project management is back! An event in the UK with opportunities for learning, networking, and tracking innovation occurring in the Java, .NET, Ruby, SOA, Agile, and architecture communities.

Richard and Simon’s session takes place on Friday at 2pm: “The Interoperable Session"

Registration is open.

Simon Thurman is on Twitter!

Event date - 12-Mar-2010 2pm
Location - Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, London SW1P 3EE

Understanding the Microsoft Design and Digital Agency Proposition

01-Mar-2010 01:05:54

Black Marble is fresh from MIX10 and what happens in Vegas is definitely not staying in Vegas! We invited representatives of creative agencies to come along and find out how Microsoft is aiming to embrace the design channel and make it easy for digital agencies to work with the rest of Microsoft platform to deliver truly innovative solutions to their customers.

Agenda

Understanding Microsoft Design Agency Proposition

Overview of the Microsoft Platform
- Azure
- Live Services
- Mesh
- Tools

Silverlight
- DeepZoom
- Video
- Photosynth
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Silverlight running on your desktop (PC and Mac)

The Expression Tools
- Web
- Design
- Blend
- Deep Zoom

WPF - Silverlight’s big brother

Web Content Management with SharePoint

New User experience
- Multi Touch
- Surface

Where Next?
- Expanding out of the design world

Audience: This event is aimed at digital/design agencies with an interest in exploring how they can improve their experience on the Microsoft platform.

Event date - 20-Apr-2010 9:30am-1:00pm
Location - Black Marble

Black Marble Presents Microsoft TechDays in the North – Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft’s Matt Nunn

03-Mar-2010 02:39:02

Microsoft are celebrating a number of product launches and innovations during TechDays: a week of technology and social events. Black Marble is joining in with a Northern event exploring how you can get the most from the latest technology releases including Visual Studio 2010 and SilverLight4 and explore how Microsoft's platform and tools bring together the clients, servers and services needed to build rich engaging applications.

This event is marking the launch of Visual Studio 2010 with a focus on Best Practices. It opens with a session by Black Marble covering Best Practices and ALM with Visual Studio 2010, and is followed up by Matt Nunn, Visual Studio Product Manager, speaking on “Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 for Everyone”.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 for Everyone

Are you still using Visual SourceSafe? Is your source code in Subversion? Have you hobbled together a set of open source tools that just “get the job done”? Team Foundation Server 2010 is the best next-step from Visual SourceSafe and other version control systems. In this session we will dispel the myths for why you aren’t already using Team Foundation Server, show you how get started—including migrating your existing code from Visual SourceSafe—and introduce you to some of the additional capabilities of Team Foundation Server that will enable you to set up continuous integration builds—with quality gates – and document and track items from your backlog. If you’ve been thinking about trying Team Foundation Server, now is the time to check it out.

Speaker Bio

Matt Nunn is a Sr. Product Manager with Visual Studio where he has led technical product management efforts for the last 4+ years focused on the ALM products and the business of Application Lifecycle Management with Microsoft tools.

Prior to joining the Visual Studio team Matt spent 3 ½ years working on the SQL Server team where he helped to launch SQL Server 2005 and 1 ½ years with the Microsoft Office team helping define and promote Office as a development platform.

For 10 years prior to joining Microsoft, Matt worked as a technical consultant and project manager designing and building software systems with various consulting companies both in the US and the UK.

Matt has numerous magazine articles and conference talks to his name including sessions at Tech Ed and PDC over the last 12 years.

You can contact Matt - mattnunn [at] microsoft.com

Stick around after this morning session as there is another: "Mix in the North" Fresh from Mix10 in Las Vegas, Black Marble is bringing all the key news and highlights from the Microsoft Web Conference. Along with Black Marble, Microsoft’s own SilverLight Guru, Jesse Liberty, will be speaking!

Event date - 15-Apr-2010 Registration 9:30am | Start 10.00 | Finish 12.30
Location - The Courtyard, Holiday Inn, Tong Lane, BD4 0RP

Black Marble Presents Microsoft TechDays in the North: Mix in the North and Jesse Liberty, Microsoft SilverLight Guru

03-Mar-2010 02:52:34

Fresh from Mix10 in Las Vegas, Black Marble is bringing all the key news and highlights from the Microsoft Web Conference. Now in its fifth year, the MIX conference is a gathering of designers and developers who are building the world's most innovative web sites. From sessions on UX, design and development and covering technologies such as SilverLight, Expression and Windows Phone, Black Marble will bring you everything you need to know.

Plus Black Marble welcomes Jesse Liberty, Silverlight Geek, and Developer Community Program Manager for Microsoft (US).

Building A Highly Extensible, Decoupled Silverlight Open Source Application with MEF and RIA Services using Lean, Test Driven Development, An International Team of Volunteer Programmers, and lots of Advil. (level 300)

This talk will use the Silverlight HyperVideo Platform open-source project on CodePlex as a case study in building highly extensible Silverlight applications. Among the topics we will focus on are:

New features in Silverlight 4 and how they made life easier
The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) added to Silverlight 4
WCF RIA Services for connection to a back-end db
Handling inter-module communication when the requirements are that modules cannot assume which other modules will be created, there can be no dependencies on order-of creation and unanticipated modules must be able to communicate with existing modules.
Using Markers, Injected Markers and polling to trigger events while viewing a video.
A Quick introduction to Lean, TDD and Kanban

Speaker Bio:

Jesse Liberty, is a Developer Community Program Manager for Microsoft (US). Lately he has been focused on Component-based, Test-Driven, Cross-platform line-of-business application development, and has led the development of the open source Silverlight HyperVideo Platform.

Liberty is the author of over two dozen books, and his blog is a required resource for Silverlight programmers. His twenty years of programming experience include stints as a Distinguished Software Engineer at AT&T; Vice President of Human-Computer Interaction at Citibank and Software Architect at PBS/Learning Link.

During the morning there is a session on Visual Studio 2010. Along with Black Marble, Microsoft’s own Matt Nunn will also be speaking!

Event date - 15-Apr-2010 Registration 1:30pm | Start 2.00
Location - The Courtyard, Holiday Inn, Tong Lane, BD4 0RP

Richard Fennell at the SharePoint Evolution Conference

11-Mar-2010 12:30:35

Richard Fennell will be discussing testing and SharePoint in the ‘from the trenches’ community track at the SharePoint Evolution Conference on Wednesday 21 April. The conference runs between 19 and 21 April, at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London

The conference is over 70 sessions dedicated to IT Pros/Developers/Designers/Information Workers/Business Adoption and Power Users, and aims to be Europe’s Premier SharePoint Conference for 2010.

Event date - 21-Apr-2010 Wednesday 21 April
Location - Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London

Architect Insight Conference 2010 – SQL Modelling Services

11-Mar-2010 12:35:32

Click here to register.

Robert Hogg is taking part in an interactive session on SQL Modelling Services on Day One of the Architect Insight Conference at Microsoft London.

The fifth annual Microsoft Architect Insight Conference builds once again on the success of previous years with another line-up of compelling guest speakers ready to share their opinions. The theme of this year’s event will focus on how successful architecture is rapidly becoming a key business differentiator both for today’s architect, and for tomorrow’s.

This time round we are moving back to a full two-day, three-track format, with the added flexibility for architects to attend one or both days. There will be three dedicated breakout tracks that will focus on the needs of the Enterprise, Solution and Infrastructure architect and in addition we will run a parallel set of interactive discussion based tracks for those that wish to delve a little deeper.

Event date - 31-Mar-2010 11:05 am
Location - Microsoft London (Cardinal Place)

Architect Insight Conference 2010 – Extending the reach of Visual Studio TFS

11-Mar-2010 12:43:37

Richard Fennell is taking part in an interactive session on Extending the Reach of Visual Studio TFS on Day One of the Architect Insight Conference at Microsoft London.

Event date - 31-Mar-2010 4:40 pm
Location - Microsoft London (Cardinal Place)

DDD South West, Using the new Developer and Test features of VS 2010

21-Apr-2010 11:52:01

How often do you find that bugs are reported in testing that are hard to reproduce in development? With Visual Studio 2010 there are a whole range of tools to assist in this process. In this demo lead session I will show an end to end demo of:

Creating an automated build
Defining and running manual tests in Microsoft Test Manager
Logging bugs in TFS that include debug information such as videos and Intellitrace generated by the tester
Fixing the bug based upon the information stored by the system to aid the debugging process

Venue: University of the West of England (UWE) Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS16 1QY

To find out more or register for this event click here

Event date - 05-Jun-2010 9:30-10:30
Location - Bristol

First Typemock Academy Launch

26-Apr-2010 11:28:00

Richard Fennell [link to his blog] is speaking at the 1st Typemock Academy Launch at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, joining key Typemock figures such as Eli Lopian, Gil Zilberfeld and Roy Osherove. Richard is speaking on “Implementing projects with Typemock Isolator”.

Why not follow Black Marble on Twitter for more on our speaking engagements?

Event date - 27-Apr-2010 16.30 - 17.00
Location - Oslo

Putting Some Testing Into Your TFS Build

28-Apr-2010 12:44:05

Richard Fennell is speaking at the Norwegian Developers Conference 16-18 June. The conference will focus on agile program development on Microsoft platforms. This is the first of three sessions.

Continuous Integration and scheduled builds are an important part of any development process. To get the best out of these tools, as much testing as possible should be wired into the post build process. With the 2010 release of Visual Studio we get the Lab Manager product that allows us to deploy our automated build to a virtualised test environment for either manual and⁄or automated testing.

In this session Richard will show by doing an end to end demo, how an application can be built, deployed and tested with the Lab Manager environment.

Event date - 17-Jun-2010 9 am – 10 am
Location - Norwegian Developers Conference, Oslo

Making Manual Testing a Part of Your Development Process

28-Apr-2010 12:57:23

Richard Fennell is speaking at the Norwegian Developers Conference 16-18 June. The conference will focus on agile program development on Microsoft platforms. This is the second of three sessions.

Software has always needed to be tested manually, automation can help, but it is never going to replace the need for manual testing totally. How a team manages this requirement for manual testing can be key to a projects success or failure.

In the 2010 release of Visual Studio, Microsoft have provided a whole new set of tools to aid in this process – Microsoft Test Manager. In this session Richard will show how MTM can be used to assist a tester in creating detailed, accurate and repeatable testing that are a joy to use (well might be stretching a point there!). Also Richard will show how the tooling can allow these manual tests can become the basis for automated tests and Coded UI tests, and how the advanced logging features of the tools allow bugs to be accurately passed back to developers for speed the production of fixes.

Event date - 17-Jun-2010 3 pm – 4 pm
Location - Norwegian Developers Conference, Oslo

Developing Testable Web Parts for SharePoint

28-Apr-2010 01:02:38

Richard Fennell is speaking at the Norwegian Developers Conference 16-18 June. The conference will focus on agile program development on Microsoft platforms. This is the third of three sessions.

The development of components for use in SharePoint is a complex process, and often seems to fly in the face of what is considered good development practice in a Test Driven Development world.

In this session Richard will show how using some good design practices and tools such as Typemock Isolator you can develop testable components for SharePoint (2007 & 2010); often without even having to have SharePoint on your development PC.

Event date - 18-Jun-2010 10:20 am – 11:20 am
Location - Norwegian Developers Conference, Oslo

Software Project Management War Stories

01-Jun-2010 10:53:16

Robert and Steve are speaking at Epicenter 2010 – The Irish Software Show.

Robert Hogg and Steve Spencer take a pragmatic look at what things make projects succeed including how to manage software developers, how to be managed and how to finish a project with your sanity intact.

Event date - 08-Jun-2010 11am
Location - Epicenter, Irish Software Show, Dublin

SQL Modelling Services

01-Jun-2010 10:55:56

Robert is speaking at Epicenter 2010 – The Irish Software Show

SQL Modelling Services is a wave of products forming the foundation of Microsoft's next generation SOA platform. SQL Modelling Services will provide new ways of developing, hosting and managing WF, WCF bound with a modelling solution to allow focus on business design that is the future centre of IT architecture.

This session will aim to provide an overview of the unified future of WCF, WF, BizTalk, the SQL Modelling Services Metadata core, end to end modelling in an enterprise environment and how Oslo delivers these executable models into the business.

Event date - 08-Jun-2010 4.45pm
Location - Epicenter, Irish Software Show, Dublin

Visual Studio 2010

01-Jun-2010 11:02:51

Steve is speaking at Epicenter 2010 – The Irish Software Show.

Event date - 08-Jun-2010 4.45pm
Location - Epicenter, Irish Software Show, Dublin

Application Lifecycle Management

01-Jun-2010 11:18:09

Iain is speaking at Epicenter 2010 – The Irish Software Show.

Event date - 08-Jun-2010 1.45pm
Location - Epicenter, Irish Software Show, Dublin

Windows Phone 7

01-Jun-2010 11:21:09

Robert is speaking at Epicenter 2010 – The Irish Software Show.

Microsoft has completely transformed its mobile platform with the launch of Windows Phone 7 - a new, holistic design system, with a visually appealing layout and motion to innovative function and hardware integration.

At Black Marble Robert has a history of developing Mobile applications for Windows Phones, and this session he will provide an overview of the new platform as well as exploring the development environment available on the Windows Phone.

Event date - 11-Jun-2010 11.00am
Location - Epicenter, Irish Software Show, Dublin

Agile is so old hat, all the cool kids are doing lean now!

01-Jun-2010 12:00:31

Richard Fennell speaks on Agile at the West Yorkshire branch of the British Computer Society.

There is a great deal in the IT press about Agile methodologies. The discussions are often painted as a black and white choice between Agile and more traditional development methods. In this session Richard will discuss this whole area:

What are the main agile processes in use today
What are the key components that make up Agile methodologies
How do these relate to Lean processes
How these tools and techniques can be used to improve the quality of your software development process

For more information, visit the WY BCS Website.

Event date - 30-Jun-2010 6.30pm
Location - TBC

Advantages for your Business in implementing Visual Studio 2010 (July)

17-Jun-2010 03:46:38

Black Marble invites you to attend an exclusive event on the benefits of moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Focusing on the key advantages, our experts will guide you through the full Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) story, and how following best practice can provide quality in development and delivery.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 provides a rich set of integrated tools and server infrastructure coupled with flexible and agile processes that represent a breakthrough for development tools, help you manage and optimise your entire software development process.

On 29 July at the Royal College of Physicians (and again on the 12 August), Black Marble is hosting a seminar and roundtable event that will address any queries you may have about implementing Visual Studio 2010 for your organisation.

Speaking at this event is Black Marble’s Engineering Director Richard Fennell, MVP for Visual Studio (ALM) and our Development Director, Steve Spencer. Both Richard and Steve speak on these topics at a National/International level.

Event date - 29-Jul-2010 Registration: 09:30 | Start: 10:00 | End: 14:00
Location - Censors, Royal College of Physicians, 11 St Andrews Place, London NW1 4LE

Advantages for your Business in implementing Visual Studio 2010 (August)

17-Jun-2010 03:52:56

On 12th August at the Royal College of Physicians, Black Marble is hosting a seminar and roundtable event that will address any queries you may have about implementing Visual Studio 2010 for your organisation.

Event date - 12-Aug-2010 Registration: 09:30 | Start: 10:00 | End: 14:00
Location - Censors, Royal College of Physicians, 11 St Andrews Place, London NW1 4LE

Advantages for your Business in implementing Visual Studio 2010 (22July)

21-Jun-2010 10:40:15

On 25 July at Black Marble (and again on the 5 August), Black Marble is hosting a seminar and roundtable event that will address any queries you may have about implementing Visual Studio 2010 for your organisation.

Our speakers all speak on this subject at a National and International Level. Speaking at this event are Black Marble’s Engineering Director Richard Fennell, MVP for Visual Studio (ALM), Development Director, Steve Spencer, Senior Consultant, Iain Angus and Senior Developer, Robert Hancock.

To register for this event, or for more information, you can call Katy Hicks on 01274 300175

Event date - 22-Jul-2010 Registration: 09:30 | Start: 10:00 | End: 14:00
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Cleckheaton, BD19 6BW

Advantages for your Business in implementing Visual Studio 2010 (5August)

21-Jun-2010 10:50:38

On 5th August at Black Marble, Black Marble is hosting a seminar and roundtable event that will address any queries you may have about implementing Visual Studio 2010 for your organisation.

To register for this event, or for more information, you can call Katy Hicks on 01274 300175

Event date - 05-Aug-2010 Registration: 09:30 | Start: 10:00 | End: 14:00
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Cleckheaton, BD19 6BW

Advantages for your Business in implementing Visual Studio 2010 (10August)

21-Jun-2010 10:57:19

On 10 August at Microsoft Edinburgh (Waverley Gate), Black Marble is hosting a seminar and roundtable event that will address any queries you may have about implementing Visual Studio 2010 for your organisation.

Our speakers all speak on this subject at a National and International Level. Speaking at this even are one of our Consultants, Iain Angus and Senior Developer, Robert Hancock.

To register for this event, or for more information, you can call Katy Hicks on 01274 300175

Event date - 10-Aug-2010 Registration: 09:30 / Start: 10:00 / End: 14:00
Location - Microsoft Edinburgh, Waverley Gate, Edinburgh.

WCF Data Services

23-Jun-2010 12:22:07

Visit the Developer Day Scotland Website for more information.

A version of the full agenda (subject to last minute tweaking!) is also available.

Event date - 16-Jun-2010
Location - Room 120 of the Claremont Building at Newcastle University

Black Marbles Annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies - 2011

30-Jun-2010 01:31:20

Return of our roadmap for all things Microsoft – what came out in 2010 , including what you might have missed, what is due in 2011 and our educated opinion of the road beyond. A must-attend event for all IT managers and Business Decision Makers to ensure you know what to expect, so you can plan your year ahead, and see where everything fits together.

This year we will be covering:

Windows Desktop
Windows Server
SharePoint
CRM
OCS/Lync
Exchange Server
Dynamics Overview
Customer Advisory Team
Virtualisation - Desktop / Server
Forefront
Azure
BPI - BizTalk - SQL
SQL Server
Developer Tools

“Lot of information in short time - Well done!”

“Very informative as always - Thank you.”

“Robert is a good presenter and seems very knowledgeable … Personally speaking the section on developer tools was most useful.”

“Excellent Event - Right balance between marketing pitch and technical overview. Good working examples of how the IT can help the business.”

“Rik was awesome!”

Also taking place on the 27 January, at the same venue are:

Enabling Agile Development with Cool Tools

Event date - 27-Jan-2011 Registration 09:30, Start: 10:00, Finish: 13:00
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Understanding Microsoft Design and Digital Agency Proposition

28-Jul-2010 01:30:54

Black Marble uses its deep technical background to engage with Digital Agencies to bring a wider technological reach to the services you offer – enhancing existing innovative interactive experiences for your customers with new technologies and delivery techniques.

Black Marble’s skills complement those provided by Digital Agencies – by combining our technical knowledge and experience with the creativity and resourcefulness of your agency.

Black Marble can take your skills and experience and extend your reach beyond your existing customer base.

Audience: This event is aimed at digital/design agencies with an interest in exploring how they can improve their experience on the Microsoft platform.

Event date - 19-Aug-2010 Registration from 09:30 | 10:00 – 14:00
Location - Microsoft, Building 3, Carmanhall Road, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Dublin 18

From Express to Ultimate: Improving Productivity with Visual Studio 2010 - 21 Sept

01-Sep-2010 11:37:20

There are a number of versions of Visual Studio, all offering features that can greatly improve the productivity of your whole development process. In this session we will look at some of the key features that differentiate the various SKUs of Visual Studio 2010 so as to allow you to renew up the most appropriate version for your organisation.

Through demonstrations, we will cover Express, Professional, Premium and Ultimate.

Event date - 21-Sep-2010 Registration: 09:30 | Start: 10:00 | End: 14:00
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, BD19 6BW

From Express to Ultimate: Improving Productivity with Visual Studio 2010 - 16 Nov

01-Sep-2010 11:42:59

Through demonstrations, we will cover Express, Professional, Premium and Ultimate.

Event date - 16-Nov-2010 Registration: 09:30 | Start: 10:00 | End: 14:00
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, BD19 6BW

From Express to Ultimate: Improving Productivity with Visual Studio 2010 - 12 Oct

01-Sep-2010 11:43:04

Through demonstrations, we will cover Express, Professional, Premium and Ultimate.

Nearest tubes are: Victoria Station: Victoria, Circle and District Lines

Event date - 12-Oct-2010 Registration: 09:30 | Start: 10:00 | End: 14:00
Location - Microsoft London (Cardinal Place), 100 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5JL

From Express to Ultimate: Improving Productivity with Visual Studio 2010 - 14 Dec

01-Sep-2010 11:43:06

Through demonstrations, we will cover Express, Professional, Premium and Ultimate.

Nearest tubes are: Victoria Station: Victoria, Circle and District Lines

Event date - 14-Dec-2010 Registration: 09:30 | Start: 10:00 | End: 14:00
Location - Microsoft London (Cardinal Place), 100 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5JL

Mix in the North

01-Sep-2010 12:27:39

Join speakers from Black Marble and Microsoft to find out what you need to build the next generation of rich internet applications, websites, as well as demonstrating Windows Phone 7 and multi-touch devices. Find out more about Microsoft’s web platform and tooling with Silverlight 4 and Expression Blend, Internet Explorer 9, Silverlight and XNA on Windows Phone 7, and running it all together on Windows Azure.

This full day event is free, and includes lunch.

We are joined by Microsoft speakers Michael McClary, Will Coleman and Mike Taulty of Microsoft for this event.

Event date - 13-Oct-2010 9:30 Registration | 10:00 start | 13:00 lunch | 17:00 end
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

Architecture Forum in the North 2010

01-Sep-2010 03:21:52

Following up on the success of the Architecture Forum in the North, 2008 and 2009, Black Marble and Microsoft are again running a day featuring the top architecture experts in the UK.

Focusing on “Tools and Methods for Architects”, Black Marble and Microsoft invite you to join us for an unique opportunity to provide IT Managers, IT and software architects from Northern businesses the chance to learn about the latest technologies and best practices from Microsoft in the field of Architecture.

As well as the Black Marble speakers, returning this year are Microsoft Speakers Simon Thurman, Simon Davies, Mark Richardson and Giles Davies also we will be joined byRanjit Sodhi, of Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS).

Event date - 08-Dec-2010 Registration - 09.00 Start Time - 09.30 End Time - 17.00 Lunch: 12:30 – 14:00
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

Key Things we use in SharePoint 2010

01-Sep-2010 04:03:59

Black Marble has been using SharePoint 2010 for over a year, and this event provides a unique opportunity for us to share our in-depth knowledge of the collaborative product focusing on the key features we make use of.

Our event enables you to meet our team and discuss with us the technology and how it can benefit your business, based on our pragmatic experience of implementing this great new product from Microsoft.

Event date - 03-Nov-2010 9:30 registration | 10:00 start | 13:00 end and lunch
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

Using SharePoint 2010 for Content Publishing

01-Sep-2010 04:26:26

SharePoint 2010 can be used to create a dynamic and striking internet experience for your users.

SharePoint is more than just a collaboration and productivity solution for inside your business – it can also be used to present your company to the world as an Internet delivery platform. SharePoint provides a rich site definition for delivering an Internet presence and Web content management (WCM) infrastructure that is highly extensible.

Black Marble combines our top level SharePoint skills and experience with our website creation and delivery knowledge to bring you the very best team to produce your business’ internet presence. Whether you have your own style or want us to design one for you … Black Marble can deliver.

Event date - 03-Nov-2010 13:30 registration and lunch | 14:00 start | 17:00 end
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

From BizSpark to WebsiteSpark: Working the Microsoft Platform

06-Sep-2010 01:27:15

As a Network Partner in the Program, Black Marble draws upon its years of experience as a technology company, experienced in software and web development as well as with working with digital agencies, to provide guidance and advice to contribute to an on-going, mutually beneficial ecosystem around the Microsoft platform.

BizSpark and WebsiteSpark provides fast, easy access to current Microsoft software and production licenses as well as professional technical support from Microsoft.

This event will bring our Spark members, and any potential members, up to date with the current Spark-situation and answer any questions you might have about the programs.

Event date - 13-Oct-2010 6pm – 7:30pm
Location - Holiday Inn at Tong

VBug Autumn Conference – The Step Up to ALM

13-Sep-2010 10:08:09

Many Visual SourceSafe users will be fully licensed for TFS, but unaware of the benefits it can bring to their development process. In this session I will show that with Visual Studio 2010 the upgrade path for Visual SourceSafe users is not a daunting as in previous versions.

By taking this path a team can greatly enhance their development process to include integrated features areas such as automated build, manual testing, work item tracking and reporting.

For more information, including details on how to register, visit the VBug site.

Event date - 28-Oct-2010 TBA
Location - Loughborough University

The Developers Group Meeting

13-Sep-2010 10:43:00

Richard is joining this meeting of The Developers Group to speak about using Typemock Isolator to enable testing of both well-designed code and nasty legacy systems.

Test Driven Development means there is a constant need to be able to fake out sub systems within your code to allow testing e.g. fake the calls to a data store so the business logic can be tested. This is all well and good if you are in a greenfield project, or the code is well designed, however most of us are on legacy code bases where is this not that easy. In addition, some technologies such as SharePoint make the faking of sub systems very hard. In this session Richard shows how Typemock Isolator can be used to address many of these issues.

For more details, including how to register, visit The Developers Group website, with a closer look at the agenda here.

Event date - 20-Oct-2010 TBA
Location - EMC, London

Enabling Agile Development with Cool Tools

11-Oct-2010 09:54:48

Black Marble are joined by DevExpress’ Gary Short for this afternoon looking at agile development and cool tooling.

During the first half of this afternoon, Black Marble's Richard Fennell will be exploring how the tools and the process allow the team to communicate both internally, with team members, and externally, to their customer, in a far more efficient manner. So while agile development is at its core about people and enabling them to communicate better – the tooling should be not be ignored.

At this event we will show how using the tools within Visual Studio 2010, focused around the new ALM Scrum Template for TFS, a team can plan and track their work more efficiently.

For the second half, guest speaker Gary Short will be discussing How to Eat an Elephant or, how to architect a codebase wide refactoring project. In this advanced refactoring session, we'll look at such things as functional decomposition, code criticality, the correctness continuum, sub-tree refactoring index and prioritisation. All these terms will be defined, explained and demonstrated, so that by the end of this presentation you'll have the knowledge and confidence to architect such a refactoring project... or eat an elephant, whichever you prefer.

Gary Short

Gary Short works for Developer Express as the Technical Evangelist on the frameworks team. He has a deep interest in technical architecture, especially in the areas of technical debt and refactoring. Gary is a C# MVP and gives presentations at user groups and conferences throughout the UK, Europe and the US.

Also taking place on the 27 January, at the same venue are:

Black Marble's Annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies - 2011

Event date - 27-Jan-2011 2pm – 5pm
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

Avviso Preview Event - Black Marble

15-Nov-2010 05:40:05

We would like to invite you to a preview of Avviso. Avviso is a cutting-edge Microsoft SharePoint communications solution, designed to help internal communications professionals create more impact and engage with their people.

Content, delivered in SharePoint 2010 but with creative design is now being brought to life on Avviso, a new, exciting “plug and play” framework developed by leading editorial designers Words&Pictures, with Microsoft Gold Certified Partners Black Marble. The two companies have joined forces to create Avviso which delivers high-impact, visually arresting content within an IC context. The results are remarkable.

Avviso offers a central hub to aggregate and target content to internal audiences by extending the content management and publishing features already contained in SharePoint 2010.

Event date - 14-Dec-2010 Registration 9.30 | Start 10.00 | End 14.00 – including a complimentary lunch
Location - Black Marble

Avviso Preview Event - London

15-Nov-2010 05:48:35

Avviso offers a central hub to aggregate and target content to internal audiences by extending the content management and publishing features already contained in SharePoint 2010.

Event date - 16-Dec-2010 Registration 9.30 | Start 10.00 | End 14.00 – including a complimentary lunch
Location - Microsoft London - Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5JL

Learn How Black Marble can help Digital Agencies provide New User Experiences

23-Nov-2010 10:21:44

Black Marble’s skills complement those provided by Digital Agencies – by combining our technical knowledge and experience with the creativity and resourcefulness of your agency.

Black Marble can help your agency extend your reach and enhance your customer’s experience by highlighting what the Microsoft Platform can provide – as well as helping you deliver it.

Black Marble worked with UK-based digital design company magneticNorth (mN) to create a Surface experience for the new Visitor Information Centre opened by Marketing Manchester. The map application, designed by magneticNorth and developed by Black Marble, allows visitors to the Centre to have a unique hands on opportunity to explore places and locations they might want to visit across the city, and is now featured on the Microsoft Surface Showcase.

Black Marble is working with a design agency to create an engaging, informational hub based on SharePoint, that is vibrant, delivering dynamic content to the organisation. By implementing technologies such as Silverlight and SharePoint for rich media delivery, Black Marble is adding an extra layer to the agency’s approach.

Plus we can highlight how you can take advantage of the Microsoft tools as part of the WebSiteSpark programme which provides software, support and visibility, with no upfront costs and minimal requirements. WebsiteSpark provides fast, easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools and production licenses of server products as well as professional technical support from Microsoft.

Black Marble, through WebsiteSpark, creates an ongoing, mutually beneficial ecosystem between Microsoft, Web professionals and us - jumpstarting the creation of high-quality Web sites and applications on the Microsoft Web platform.

In addition, Black Marble can deliver your solutions on mobile platforms including Microsoft’s innovative Windows Phone 7, which brings a new dimension to mobile technology. Our history on the mobile platform includes working with a corporate design agency to create a complete GPS-based, handheld golf system.

Black Marble can take your skills and experience and extend your reach beyond your existing customer base.

Audience: This event is aimed at digital/design agencies with an interest in exploring how they can improve their experience on the Microsoft platform.

Event date - 17-Dec-2010 Registration from 09:30 | Event 10:00 – 14:00
Location - Black Marble

Ten Reasons Why we Recommend Microsoft SharePoint 2010

26-Nov-2010 02:15:14

SharePoint 2010 is the collaboration platform that enables you to connect and empower people through formal and informal communities, within the enterprise and beyond, and to manage content throughout the information lifecycle. In addition, it makes it possible to cut costs by lowering training and maintenance expenses and increasing IT productivity, all within a governable and compliant platform.

Today, most organisations support telecommuting, and they expect employees to be “always on, always connected,” even when they are away from the office. SharePoint 2010 offers a diverse set of capabilities that extends people’s access to resources and allows them to be productive regardless of the tools or devices they have available.

Black Marble has been using SharePoint 2010 for over a year, and this event provides a unique opportunity for us to share our in-depth knowledge; providing an overview of SharePoint 2010, and highlighting 10 great features that in our view, make it a stand-out product. Our event enables you to meet our team and discuss with us the technology and how it can benefit your business, based on our pragmatic experience of implementing this great new product from Microsoft.

Among the ten things covered:

Better Web Publishing
Social Computing
Managed Metadata
Service Architecture
Farm Health Analyser
Office Web Applications

Event date - 17-Feb-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

Using Typemock Isolator to Enable Testing of Both Well Designed Code and Nasty Legacy Systems with Richard Fennell

15-Dec-2010 10:54:57

Test DrivenDevelopment means there is a constant need to be able to fake out sub systemswithin your code to allow testing e.g. fake the calls to a data store so the business logic can be tested. This is all well and good if you are in a greenfield project, or the code is well designed, however most of us are on legacy code bases where is this not that easy. In addition, some technologies such as SharePoint make the faking of sub systems very hard. In this session, using C#, Richard shows how Typemock Isolator can be used to address many of these issues.

Event date - 17-Nov-2010 18.30 - 21.00
Location - Room 120 of the Claremont Building at Newcastle University

Using SharePoint 2010 for Content Publishing with Rik Hepworth

15-Dec-2010 11:01:18

See the kind of site that can be delivered using SharePoint 2010 for either internet or intranet-facing publishing sites. Using a recent project delivered by Black Marble, Rik will run through the problems they had to solve and point out pitfalls and good practice they have learned along the way.

Event date - 17-Nov-2010 18.30 - 21.00
Location - Room 120 of the Claremont Building at Newcastle University

Jumpstart Workshop Roadshow - Windows Azure Platform

16-Dec-2010 10:29:37

The Microsoft Developer & Platform Group is pleased to announce a Metro Workshop event focused on Developers covering the Windows Azure Platform, for Microsoft partners and customers. Delivered through workshop style presentations and interactive tuition, the workshop will focus on ‘jumpstarting’ attendees into building scalable applications on the Azure platform.

This event is part of a Roadshow around Ireland other dates are:

Belfast 26th - November
Cork 30th - November
Galway - 1st December
Dublin - 7th December
Derry - 25th January
Dublin - 26th January
Dublin - 11th February

These sessions are presented by Black Marble's Steve Spencer and Robert Hogg

Event date - 25-Nov-2010 9.30 – 13.00 (9.00 welcome)
Location - Dublin

Acceleration Lab Roadshow - Windows Azure Platform

16-Dec-2010 10:43:16

The Microsoft Developer & Platform is pleased to announce a Metro Acceleration Lab focused on Developers covering the Windows Azure Platform, for Microsoft partners and customers. This half-day session will give participants (expected to have a solid working knowledge of the technologies) one on one time with an architect to have an Architectural review; Scenario white-boarding and validating and troubleshooting.

This session gives participants a chance to bring their laptop and applications in for review and technical support. Our goal is to give partners and customers the chance to finish the programme with ready and tested applications.

This event is part of a Roadshow around Ireland other dates are:

Belfast 26th - November
Cork 30th - November
Galway - 1st December
Dublin - 7th December

These sessions are presented by Black Marble's Steve Spencer and Robert Hogg

Event date - 25-Nov-2010 14.00 – 17.30 (13.30 welcome)
Location - Dublin

Ten Reasons why we Recommend Microsoft SharePoint 2010 - 8 Feb

20-Dec-2010 05:53:52

Among the ten things covered:

Better Web Publishing
Social Computing
Managed Metadata
Service Architecture
Farm Health Analyser
Office Web Applications

In addition, Black Marble can provide a low cost SharePoint consultancy solution through benefits you may have already acrrued as part of your Software Assurance agreement - days that can be used to plan an implentation of, or migration to, SharePoint 2010 (BVPS or SDPS). The number of engagement days is determined by your SA coverage and your SBL representative can calculate your allowance.

Event date - 08-Feb-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

Avviso Preview Event - 19Jan

22-Dec-2010 03:57:48

Content, delivered in SharePoint 2010 but with creative design is now being brought to life on Avviso, a new, exciting “plug and play” framework developed by leading editorial designers Words&Pictures, with Microsoft Partner Black Marble (Certified to the Gold Standard in Portals & Collaboration). The two companies have joined forces to create Avviso which delivers high-impact, visually arresting content within an IC context. The results are remarkable.

Avviso offers a central hub to aggregate and target content to internal audiences by extending the content management and publishing features already contained in SharePoint 2010.

Event date - 19-Jan-2011 Registration 9.30 | Start 10.00 | End 13.00 – including a complimentary lunch
Location - Black Marble - Woodland House, Woodland Park, Cleckheaton, W Yorkshire, BD19 6BW.

The Creative Side of the Microsoft Platform

23-Dec-2010 04:00:18

Plus at this event we will be sharing our experience of Samsung SUR40 (Surface 2), having worked with the Surface Team over the past year, readying applications for launch.

Black Marble can help your agency extend your reach and enhance your customer’s experience by highlighting what the Microsoft Platform can provide – as well as helping you deliver it.

Black Marble is working with Words and Pictures to create an engaging, informational hub based on SharePoint (Avviso), that is vibrant, delivering dynamic content to the organisation. By implementing technologies such as Silverlight and SharePoint for rich media delivery, Black Marble is adding an extra layer to the agency’s approach.

Black Marble can take your skills and experience and extend your reach beyond your existing customer base.

Audience: This event is aimed at digital/design agencies with an interest in exploring how they can improve their experience on the Microsoft platform.

Event date - 02-Feb-2011 Registration from 09:30 | 10:00 – 14:00
Location - Black Marble - Woodland House, Woodland Park, Cleckheaton, W Yorkshire, BD19 6BW.

SQLBits: Introduction to SQL Modelling Services

04-Jan-2011 11:24:45

Robert Hogg is speaking at SQLBits – The 7 Wonders of SQL in York on 1 October. The event runs over 3 days (30 September – 2 October).

Robert’s session will provide an overview of the future of the tools, language constructs, the SQL Modelling Services Metadata core, discussion on end to end modelling in an enterprise environment and how SQL Server Modelling services delivers these models into the business. Demonstrations of the M language , M -> SQL and the Data driven Quadrant User Interface will be given.

Event date - 01-Oct-2010 2:40pm – 3:40pm
Location - University of York, Heslington Campus, York, YO10 5DD

Avviso Preview Event - 16Feb

10-Jan-2011 11:20:57

Content, delivered in SharePoint 2010 but with creative design is now being brought to life on Avviso, a new, exciting “plug and play” framework developed by leading editorial designers Words&Pictures, with Microsoft Partner Black Marble (Certified to the Gold Standard in Portals & Collaboration). The two companies have joined forces to create Avviso which delivers high-impact, visually arresting content within an IC context. The results are remarkable.

Avviso offers a central hub to aggregate and target content to internal audiences by extending the content management and publishing features already contained in SharePoint 2010.

Event date - 16-Feb-2011 Registration 9.30 | Start 10.00 | End 13.00 – including a complimentary lunch
Location - Black Marble - Woodland House, Woodland Park, Cleckheaton, W Yorkshire, BD19 6BW.

Avviso Preview Event - 23Mar

10-Jan-2011 11:26:28

Content, delivered in SharePoint 2010 but with creative design is now being brought to life on Avviso, a new, exciting “plug and play” framework developed by leading editorial designers Words&Pictures, with Microsoft Partner Black Marble (Certified to the Gold Standard in Portals & Collaboration). The two companies have joined forces to create Avviso which delivers high-impact, visually arresting content within an IC context. The results are remarkable.

Avviso offers a central hub to aggregate and target content to internal audiences by extending the content management and publishing features already contained in SharePoint 2010.

Event date - 23-Mar-2011 Registration 9.30 | Start 10.00 | End 13.00 – including a complimentary lunch
Location - Black Marble - Woodland House, Woodland Park, Cleckheaton, W Yorkshire, BD19 6BW.

Our Top Ten Reasons why SharePoint 2010 is Great - 24Feb

11-Jan-2011 10:02:21

Among the ten things covered:

Better Web Publishing
Social Computing
Managed Metadata
Service Architecture
Farm Health Analyser
Office Web Applications

Event date - 24-Feb-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Our Top Ten Reasons to Migrate to SharePoint 2010 - 24Mar

11-Jan-2011 10:09:37

SharePoint 2010 is the next generation collaboration platform that enables you to connect and empower people through formal and informal communities, within the enterprise and beyond, and to manage content throughout the information lifecycle.

In addition, Black Marble has experience and knowledge to help smooth your migration from earlier versions of SharePoint (2003 or 2007) to 2010 from our experience in this area.

In addition, Black Marble can provide a low cost SharePoint consultancy solution through benefits you may have already accrued as part of your Software Assurance agreement - days that can be used to plan a migration to, SharePoint 2010 (BVPS or SDPS).

Event date - 24-Mar-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Black Marbles Annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies - Feb9 2011

12-Jan-2011 05:04:54

This year we will be covering:

Windows Desktop
Windows Server
SharePoint
CRM
OCS/Lync
Exchange Server
Dynamics Overview
Customer Advisory Team
Virtualisation - Desktop / Server
Forefront
Azure
BPI - BizTalk - SQL
SQL Server
Developer Tools

“Lot of information in short time - Well done!”

“Very informative as always - Thank you.”

“Robert is a good presenter and seems very knowledgeable … Personally speaking the section on developer tools was most useful.”

“Excellent Event - Right balance between marketing pitch and technical overview. Good working examples of how the IT can help the business.”

“Rik was awesome!”

Event date - 09-Feb-2011 Registration 09:30, Start: 10:00, Finish: 13:00
Location - Black Marble

Avviso Preview Event - 18Feb

19-Jan-2011 01:15:07

Content, delivered in SharePoint 2010 but with creative design is now being brought to life on Avviso, a new, exciting “plug and play” framework developed by leading editorial designers Words&Pictures, with Microsoft Partner Black Marble (Certified to the Gold Standard in Portals & Collaboration). The two companies have joined forces to create Avviso which delivers high-impact, visually arresting content within an IC context. The results are remarkable.

Avviso offers a central hub to aggregate and target content to internal audiences by extending the content management and publishing features already contained in SharePoint 2010.

Event date - 18-Feb-2011 Registration 14.00 | Start 14.30 | End 16.00
Location - Microsoft, Dufours Place, Soho, London

Avviso Preview Event - 10Mar

19-Jan-2011 01:15:09

Content, delivered in SharePoint 2010 but with creative design is now being brought to life on Avviso, a new, exciting “plug and play” framework developed by leading editorial designers Words&Pictures, with Microsoft Partner Black Marble (Certified to the Gold Standard in Portals & Collaboration). The two companies have joined forces to create Avviso which delivers high-impact, visually arresting content within an IC context. The results are remarkable.

Avviso offers a central hub to aggregate and target content to internal audiences by extending the content management and publishing features already contained in SharePoint 2010.

Event date - 10-Mar-2011 Registration 14.00 | Start 14.30 | End 16.00
Location - Microsoft, Dufours Place, Soho, London

The Step up to ALM – an Introduction to Visual Studio 2010 TFS for the Visual Sourcesafe User

08-Feb-2011 11:32:48

Richard Fennell Presents at the VBUG Spring Conference, on Day Two on “The Step up to ALM – an Introduction to Visual Studio 2010 TFS for the Visual Sourcesafe User”.

Many Visual Sourcesafe users will be fully licensed for TFS, but unaware of the benefits it can bring to their development process. In this session I will show that with Visual Studio 2010 the upgrade path for Visual Sourcesafe users is not a daunting as in previous versions. By taking this path a team can greatly enhance their development process to include integrated features areas such as automated build, manual testing, work item tracking and reporting.

Event date - 29-Mar-2011
Location - Wokefield Park, Mortimer nr Reading RG7 3AH

Lab Management and Automated Build

14-Feb-2011 01:05:00

This session looks at the new build architecture, workflow and build types in Team Foundation Server 2010 and how the new Lab Management capability can automate the provisioning of a virtual environment and deployment of a release into that environment during a build.

More details on this event here, including details on how to register.

Presented by Richard Fennell.

This is a Live Meeting.

Event date - 14-Feb-2011 13:00 - 14:00 GMT
Location - Live Meeting

NE Bytes Presents Avviso: A Content Management Framework for SharePoint 2010

16-Feb-2011 12:03:09

Rik Hepworth returns to NE Bytes to present on Avviso, a content publishing framework for Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

As a follow-up to his session last year on using SharePoint 2010 for content publishing, Rik will demonstrate and discuss Avviso – a content publishing framework for Microsoft SharePoint 2010. Avviso allows content authors to create highly visual, impactful pages without technical skills. At the same time it enables quicker creation of site-specific designs and templates by web professionals. Suitable for internal and external web sites, Avviso takes the basic publishing functionality in SharePoint 2010 and enhances it, delivering a more user-friendly, flexible toolset. Rik will demonstrate Avviso and talk about some of the thought processes behind its inception and development.

More details on the NE Bytes site, including how to Register.

Event date - 23-Feb-2011 18:30
Location - Claremont Building at Newcastle University

Our Top Ten Reasons why SharePoint 2010 is Great - 28Apr

24-Feb-2011 01:23:25

Among the ten things covered:

Better Web Publishing
Social Computing
Managed Metadata
Service Architecture
Farm Health Analyser
Office Web Applications

Event date - 28-Apr-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Managing the application lifecycle from requirements to retirement with Team Foundation Server 2010 - 31st March Dublin

11-Mar-2011 03:06:39

Richard Fennell is speaking in Belfast and Dublin on behalf of Microsoft Ireland on “Managing the application lifecycle from requirements to retirement with Team Foundation Server 2010

For further details and information on how to register:

Dublin | Belfast

Event date - 31-Mar-2011 Welcome from 09:00, event runs 09:30 – 12:45
Location - Microsoft Building 3, Sandyford

Managing the application lifecycle from requirements to retirement with Team Foundation Server 2010 - 1st April Belfast

11-Mar-2011 03:10:07

Richard Fennell is speaking in Belfast and Dublin on behalf of Microsoft Ireland on “Managing the application lifecycle from requirements to retirement with Team Foundation Server 2010

For further details and information on how to register:

Dublin | Belfast

Event date - 01-Apr-2011 Welcome from 09:00, event runs 09:30 – 12:45
Location - The Fitzwilliam Hotel, Belfast

Better testing with lower costs - How to save time and resources using Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Test Manager - 31st March Dublin

11-Mar-2011 03:13:23

Richard Fennell is speaking in Belfast and Dublin on behalf of Microsoft Ireland on “Better testing with lower costs - How to save time and resources using Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Test Manager”

For further details and information on how to register:

Dublin | Belfast

Event date - 31-Mar-2011 Welcome from 13:15, event runs from 13:45- 16:45
Location - Microsoft Building 3, Sandyford

Better testing with lower costs - How to save time and resources using Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Test Manager - 1st April Belfast

11-Mar-2011 03:17:04

For further details and information on how to register:

Dublin | Belfast

Event date - 01-Apr-2011 Welcome from 13:15, event runs from 13:45- 16:45
Location - The Fitzwilliam Hotel, Belfast

Our Top Ten Reasons why SharePoint 2010 is Great - 23Jun

05-Apr-2011 02:37:01

Among the ten things covered:

Better Web Publishing
Social Computing
Managed Metadata
Service Architecture
Farm Health Analyser
Office Web Applications

Event date - 23-Jun-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Our Top Ten Reasons to Migrate to SharePoint 2010 - 2Jun

05-Apr-2011 03:08:41

In addition, Black Marble has experience and knowledge to help smooth your migration from earlier versions of SharePoint (2003 or 2007) to 2010 from our experience in this area.

Event date - 02-Jun-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Technical Debt

07-Apr-2011 05:46:38

C# MVP and DevExpress Evangelist Gary Short will be speaking on Technical Debt. Technical Debt is the silent killer that stalks all software projects. In this talk, Gary will firstly define Technical Debt before going on to show how to attach a financial value to your Technical Debt, and explaining why that is important. He’ll then look at some anti-patterns that can lead to Technical Debt and the fixes for them, before closing with some metrics you can use to find Technical Debt in your own projects.

Gary Short

Follow Gary on Twitter: @garyshort

Event date - 12-May-2011 2:00 - 4:30
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Cleckheaton, BD19 6BW

Lab Management and Automated Build

08-Apr-2011 10:48:01

More details on this event at Microsoft's Event Page, including details on how to Register.

This is a Live Meeting.

Event date - 12-Apr-2011 13:00 – 14:00
Location - Live Meeting

Agile is so old hat, all the cool kids are doing lean now

20-Apr-2011 10:40:49

Richard has been invited by the Edinburgh Branch of the BCS to speak on Agile methods.

More information is available on the Edinburgh Branch website, including further details on the location.

Event date - 11-May-2011 6.30pm
Location - University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum

Windows Azure Boot Camp for Beginners

26-Apr-2011 01:23:47

Black Marble’s SQL Azure MVP Steve Spencer will be joining him for the two sessions at Microsoft London (Cardinal Place).

If you are a UK developer looking to take advantage of cloud computing, but you haven’t yet taken the plunge, this free half-day of training is the quickest way to get up-to-speed with Microsoft’s offering; Windows Azure. It will take you from knowing nothing about the cloud to actually having written some code, deployed it to the cloud service and made a simple application available on the public Internet. You’ll get all the information you need to get up to speed with Windows Azure in a packaged and compressed form, ready for your consumption, without having to trawl through books, blogs and articles on your own. There will be experienced people available to guide you through each exercise. Once you have the basics in place, you’ll be off and running.

Event date - 27-May-2011
Location - Cardinal Place, London

Connected Development - supported by Microsoft TechDays

03-May-2011 11:36:35

Black Marble is taking part in Connected Development - an event run in the North of England supported by Microsoft TechDays. Industry speakers from Microsoft and Gold ALM Partners Black Marble and nFocus will cover the latest news and announcements for Application Lifecycle Management and Developing for the Microsoft Platform.

The speakers include:

Black Marble (Gold ALM Partner)

Richard Fennell, Engineering Director/ALM MVP/ALM Ranger
Robert Hogg, Managing Director/CSD MVP

Microsoft

Giles Davies, Technical Specialist
Mike Taulty, Development Evangelist
Simon Thurman, Technical Sales Professional
Martin Woodward, Senior Program Manager, TFS Group

nFocus (Gold ALM Partner)

Danny Crone, Technical Director

Full details about the event can be found at Microsoft Events.

The topics covered include:

TFS for Everyone
What's new in SilverLight?
From manual testing to automated testing
Developing for Windows Phone 7
Virtualisation of the Test Environment
Developing for Azure
Developing for SharePoint
Managing your project with TFS

Event date - 26-May-2011 Arrival/Registration: 09:30 - 10:00 | Welcome/Keynote: 10:00 | Wrap up/Close: 16:20 - 16:25
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

Architecture and Installation of TFS

05-May-2011 02:52:35

Team Foundation Server 2010 includes a number of architectural changes including Project Collections, Build Controllers and Application Tier Load Balancing. This session will provide an overview of the key changes and also discuss the new Administration Console and installation options, including the Basic configuration.

Click for more details on this event, including details on how to Register.

Presented by Robert Hancock.

This is a Live Meeting.

Event date - 12-May-2011 13:00 – 14:00
Location - Live Meeting

Application Lifecycle Management for Independent Software Vendors

13-May-2011 01:04:50

Richard Fennell will be speaking on “Extending Testing into the Lab” at the Microsoft event: Application Lifecycle Management for Independent Software Vendors”.

This event will look at the hot topic of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and the part Visual Studio 2010 has to play in helping companies deliver great software.

This day is brought to you by the Microsoft UK Developer and Platform Evangelism team and some great industry experts. It is primarily intended for UK based partners developing software products.

Visit the Microsoft Events site for more details, including how to register.

Event date - 27-Jun-2011
Location - Microsoft, Thames Valley Park, Reading

Developing for Windows Phone 7 – From Concept to Marketplace

03-Jun-2011 04:16:48

Robert Hogg is speaking at Microsoft Ireland’s Remix Dublin event on 9th June. In his first sessions he is being joined by Robert Hancock to discuss our Award-winning TFS Phone Explorer application.

Microsoft has completely transformed its mobile platform with the launch of Windows Phone 7 and in this session we will provide an overview of the new platform as well as exploring the development environment available. There will be a particular focus on a mobile application for accessing Team Foundation Server.

Visit the Remix Dublin website for more details, including how to register.

Event date - 09-Jun-2011 9am – 10am
Location - Concert Hall, RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4

Windows Phone 7.5, ReMix Developer

03-Jun-2011 04:18:56

Robert Hogg is speaking at Microsoft Ireland’s Remix Dublin event on 9th June, and following on from the earlier session exploring what is available now for developers with Windows Phone 7, this session will explore what is coming in Windows Phone 7.5: codenamed: Mango. All the announcements from Mix and TechEd will be covered.

Visit the Remix Dublin website for more details, including how to register.

Event date - 09-Jun-2011 11am – 12pm
Location - Location: Concert Hall, RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4

Multi-Touch and the Microsoft Surface Experience, Remix UX

03-Jun-2011 04:20:56

Robert Hogg is speaking at Microsoft Ireland’s Remix Dublin event on 9th June, and in this session in the UX strand he will be examining the Surface, exploring Natural User Interfaces, showing the art of the possible with this great technology. This session will cover everything from Windows 7 multi-touch to Surface, and how to choose the right platform for your multi-touch experience.

Visit the Remix Dublin website for more details, including how to register.

Event date - 09-Jun-2011 3:30pm - 4:20pm
Location - Concert Hall, RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4

Our Top Ten Reasons to Migrate to SharePoint 2010 – 28 July 2011

10-Jun-2011 03:51:45

In addition, Black Marble has experience and knowledge to help smooth your migration from earlier versions of SharePoint (2003 or 2007) to 2010 from our experience in this area.

Event date - 28-Jul-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Application Lifecycle Management – Supporting the Software Development Process from Inception to Retirement

07-Jul-2011 02:07:45

Software development is not just about writing code. The whole development process needs to be managed from the initial idea, though design, development, and testing, and into production. This session will discuss how this Application Lifecycle Management process can be managed. As a case study, Richard will discuss the use of Microsoft’s TFS 2010 for both .NET solutions and for developers using other platforms.

About Richard Fennell

Richard is the Engineering Director of Black Marble Ltd, a Microsoft Gold Partner based in the North of England. Black Marble specialises in BizTalk & SharePoint based business automation.

As Engineering Director Richard is responsible for the delivery of systems and tools to allow the company, and clients, to deliver solutions efficiently. All Black Mable’s development activity is underpinned by Microsoft Visual Studio Team System using an agile process model. Richard is a Microsoft MVP for Visual Studio ALM (nee Team System), a Typemock MVP and a Certified Scrum Master.

He is a regular presenter at community events in the UK and Ireland (and the rest of the world given a chance) where his most common subject is software testing and the development process.

Event date - 20-Jul-2011 18:30, refreshments available from 17:45
Location - Old Broadcasting House, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds

Black Marbles Annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies - 2012

07-Jul-2011 02:44:07

Return of our roadmap for all things Microsoft – what came out in 2011 , including what you might have missed, what is due in 2012 and our educated opinion of the road beyond. A must-attend event for all IT managers and Business Decision Makers to ensure you know what to expect, so you can plan your year ahead, and see where everything fits together.

Event date - 26-Jan-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Holiday Inn, Leeds/Bradford

Test Driven Development and Mocking 101

22-Jul-2011 03:58:19

All round guru Richard Fennell travels down to the deepest, sunniest South Coast to talk about Mocking, TDD and why they're made for each other.

They'll be Pizza, probably a nugget and a bit of swag :)

If you are not a member of NxtGenUG, you are more than welcome to attend. We just ask you register on the site, to help us to plan numbers and refreshments. Once registered on the site, you can then register for this event from this page.

Richard Fennell

When people talk about unit testing and test driven development (TDD) the examples tend to be for greenfield solutions. Unfortunately few of us are in a position day to day to completely rewrite our systems in this style, we are working with legacy solutions. However, this does not mean the advantages of TDD are not open to us.

In this session Richard will show how using unit testing and mocking frameworks we can extend the testing of legacy solutions including SharePoint.

Event date - 21-Jul-2011 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location - St Andrew's Hall, SOUTHAMPTON

Re-Build - IT

01-Sep-2011 10:35:58

Black Marble will bring you the key announcements and developments from Microsoft Build about Windows 8, highlighting how we can all take advantage of the future of Windows.

Windows 8 is expected to feature support for System on a chip, Touch first interface, HTML 5 applications, . It is expected that Microsoft will deliver Windows 8 in 2012, but why wait that long to get ready? Join us for a comprehensive overview of what’s new, what’s bad and how to get connected to Windows 8 – on whatever device you prefer!

This session will be cover all key announcements for the IT professional: CTOs, IT Managers, CIOs, IT Architect and Business Managers.

Event date - 12-Oct-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

Re-Build - Dev

01-Sep-2011 10:38:34

Description: Black Marble will bring you the key announcements and developments from Microsoft Build about Windows 8, highlighting how we can all take advantage of the future of Windows.

Windows 8 is expected to feature support for System on a chip, Touch first interface, HTML 5 application5, . It is expected that Microsoft will deliver Windows 8 in 2012, but why wait that long to get ready? Join us for a comprehensive overview of what’s new, what’s bad and how to get connected to Windows 8 – on whatever device you prefer!

This session will be cover

Windows 8 Overview
Developing for Windows 8
Developer Tooling changes
Delivering Windows 8 applications
Visual Studio vNext

This session will be cover all key announcements for the development professional: Team Lead, Developer, Senior Developer, Developer Architect.

Event date - 12-Oct-2011 13:30 Registration | 14:00 Start | 17:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

Architecture Forum in the North 4

01-Sep-2011 10:41:23

The top Microsoft Architecture Forum in the UK returns for its fourth year.

Black Marble and Microsoft invite you to join us for an unique opportunity to learn about the latest technologies and best practices from luminaries in the field of computing.

This year we have an exciting range of speakers covering how you can meet the challenging business environment, while still equipping Architects with the knowledge and tools needed to succeed.

A full agenda will be available up to four weeks prior to the event, but it is likely to book up early!

Audience: CTOs, CIOs, Senior Developers, IT Architects, Developer Architects.

Event date - 08-Dec-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 17:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

Delivering High Impact WebSites with SharePoint

01-Sep-2011 10:49:00

SharePoint 2010 creates a dynamic and striking internet experience for your users.

In this session, we will demonstrate how SharePoint delivers powerful web content management tools, while retaining excellent integration with your line of business applications - taking your website beyond the commonplace.

This will cover:

How to use the content authoring tools
How to publish content
How to integrate search, rich media, and social computing
How to control content with Workflow

Plus, we will demonstrate how with Avviso, content authors can create highly visual, impactful pages without technical skills. At the same time it enables quicker creation of site-specific designs and templates by web professionals, and is suitable for internal and external web sites.

Guest Speaker - Dan Haywood

Currently working for Microsoft as a Technology Solutions Professional (TSP) within the Digital Marketing Platform Group (DMPG). Dan has worked exclusively with Microsoft technologies for the last 8 years and specialises in Microsoft SharePoint. His focus now is now Digital Marketing, where, within DMPG, his is focussing his efforts in driving the use of SharePoint as an engaging and rich web content management system. Other areas of interest are Microsoft FAST search for SharePoint, the SharePoint community and networking.

You can follow Dan on Twitter @danhaywoodEvent date - 17-Nov-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

Working with Visual Studio: Lab Management

01-Sep-2011 10:51:51

Providing hardware resources for your testing effort can often be a problem. In this session we will look at how using Microsoft Lab Management to provide virtualised environments and Microsoft Load Test Agent to scale out your testing to use desktop machines, you can better meet the testing requirement of complex modern development projects.

This session will look at the new build architecture, workflow and build types in Team Foundation Server 2010 and how the new Lab Management capability can automate the provisioning of a virtual environment and deployment of a release into that environment during a build.

Event date - 01-Sep-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

The new experience for developing SharePoint solutions in VS2010

01-Sep-2011 10:58:16

The development experience when working with SharePoint solutions has had a reputation for being awkward, and in the past it certainly was daunting for a developer new to the area. However, with Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint 2010 the process has been much improved. In this session we will show how the new templates in Visual Studio and sandbox modes in SharePoint make the whole experience more straightforward, and how third party tools such as Typemock Isolator can be used bring general development techniques such as effective unit testing to the world of SharePoint.

We will show how you can get more out of your existing SharePoint investment by using it as an application and integration platform with Visual Studio, demonstrating how developers can build powerful applications quickly through re-use existing skills and tools.

Event date - 01-Sep-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

Using Visual Studio 2010 to Enable Agile Development

01-Sep-2011 11:00:00

In this session we will demonstrate how Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) can be used to provide the underpinnings for a successful agile development team.

We will be exploring how the tools (TFS) and the process (Application Lifecycle Management) allow the team to communicate both internally, with team members, and externally, to their customer, in a far more efficient manner. So while agile development is at its core about people and enabling them to communicate better – the tooling should be not be ignored.

At this event we will show how using the tools within Visual Studio 2010, focused around the new ALM Scrum Template for TFS, a team can plan and track their work more efficiently.

Event date - 01-Sep-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

Implementing the Secure Development Lifecycle in your ALM Process

01-Sep-2011 11:36:56

Security should be at the forefront of minds when developing Enterprise-grade solutions, however, it rarely is. This session will look at how implementing Microsoft's Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) into your development process can improve quality, reliability and long-term maintainability.

The SDL helps you build software that’s more secure by reducing the number and severity of vulnerabilities in your code, as well as helping your organisation comply with a variety of regulations and compliance issues.

Event date - 26-Jan-2012 13:30 Registration | 14:00 Start | 17:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

Implementing the Secure Development Lifecycle in your ALM Process

01-Sep-2011 11:38:55

Event date - 01-Sep-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

A Guide to Successfully Adopting the Cloud for IT Managers

05-Sep-2011 04:35:32

In addition, we will demonstrate how one business has successfully adopted the Cloud for their business - it will explore the reasoning behind why they chose to move their solution to the Cloud and the technical decisions made along the way.

Event date - 17-Nov-2011 13:30 Registration | 14:00 Start | 17:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

DDD North – Re-Build – A One Hour Developer’s View of Windows 8

22-Sep-2011 11:53:35

Robert Hogg and Steve Spencer present A One Hour Developer’s View of Windows 8, following their recent attendance at Microsoft Build at DDD North at the University of Sunderland.

Join us for a comprehensive overview of what’s new, what’s bad and how to get connected to Windows 8.
This session will be cover:

Windows 8 Overview
Developing for Windows 8
Developer Tooling changes
Delivering Windows 8 applications

You can still register to attend DDD North but places are limited!

@dddnorth @roberthogg @sdspencer

Event date - 08-Oct-2011 10:45 – 11:45
Location - University of Sunderland

.Net Developer Network presents Re-Build – A Developer’s View of Windows 8

22-Sep-2011 12:00:48

Robert Hogg presents on Windows 8 at the .Net Developer Network

At Build in September, Microsoft previewed Windows 8. Following the fanfare, what is there in Windows 8 for developers? It is expected that Microsoft will deliver Windows 8 next year but why wait that long to get ready? Join us for a comprehensive overview of what’s new, what’s bad and how to get connected to Windows 8.

This session will be cover:

Windows 8 Overview
Developing for Windows 8
Developer Tooling changes
Delivering Windows 8 applications

Visit .NET Developer Network to register for this event.

The .NET Developer Network is a free user group based in Bristol (England) that serves .NET developers in the South West of England. The aim is to develop and promote the .NET developers, architects and IT pros of Bristol and the South West. Through monthly meetings we generate a lively community and act as a focal point for the professionals of this area.

@dotnetdevnet @roberthogg

Event date - 08-Nov-2011 18:00 (Doors open)
Location - University of the West of England

TFS for the small team – hosted in the cloud

21-Oct-2011 11:38:43

Previous versions of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) have required that a team have a server at their office. This is not always that convenient for small or distributed teams. With the previews of the next release of TFS (no date announced as yet), Microsoft has shown a hosted version of TFS that runs on their Azure service. This allows a team to collaborate on the same code from any location without having to consider the IT issues of owning and managing the physical box.

In this session we look at the hosted version of TFS, its UI, the new features it exposed from TFS vNext and how to integrate with other systems.

Note the standard non-hosted version of TFS uses the same UI as the Azure version so this session will be of interest even if you plan to host your own TFS vNext.

Event date - 30-Nov-2011 9:30 registration | 10:00 start | lunch at 12:00
Location - Black Marble

Our Top Ten Reasons why SharePoint 2010 is Great - 24Nov

21-Oct-2011 11:42:04

Among the ten things covered:

Better Web Publishing
Social Computing
Managed Metadata
Service Architecture
Farm Health Analyser
Office Web Applications

Event date - 24-Nov-2011 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

The Right Tools for your Application Lifecycle

08-Nov-2011 12:36:48

Software development is not just about writing code. The whole development process needs to be managed from the initial idea, though design, development, and testing, and into production. This session will discuss how this Application Lifecycle Management process can be managed, and what are the right tools to do that – Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.

Please note – this event takes place in DUBLIN

Event date - 06-Dec-2011 09:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End
Location - Fitzwilliam Hall, Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2

An Afternoon of Windows 8

08-Nov-2011 12:39:01

At Build in September, Microsoft previewed Windows 8. Following the fanfare, what is there in Windows 8 for developers and the IT professional? It is expected that Microsoft will deliver Windows 8 next year but why wait that long to get ready? Join us for a comprehensive overview of what’s new, what’s bad and how to get connected to Windows 8.

This session will be cover:

Windows 8 Overview
Developing for Windows 8
Developer Tooling changes/li>
Delivering Windows 8 applications

Event date - 06-Dec-2011 13:30 Registration | 14:00 Start | 17:00 End
Location - Fitzwilliam Hall, Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2

Our Top Ten Reasons why SharePoint 2010 is Great - 7Feb

09-Jan-2012 11:16:24

Among the ten things covered:

Better Web Publishing
Social Computing
Managed Metadata
Service Architecture
Farm Health Analyser
Office Web Applications

Event date - 07-Feb-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Our Top Ten Reasons why SharePoint 2010 is Great - 22Mar

09-Jan-2012 11:16:32

Among the ten things covered:

Better Web Publishing
Social Computing
Managed Metadata
Service Architecture
Farm Health Analyser
Office Web Applications

Event date - 22-Mar-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Our Top Ten Reasons why SharePoint 2010 is Great - 21Jun

09-Jan-2012 11:16:33

Among the ten things covered:

Better Web Publishing
Social Computing
Managed Metadata
Service Architecture
Farm Health Analyser
Office Web Applications

Event date - 21-Jun-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Considerations when Migrating to SharePoint 2010 - 23Feb

09-Jan-2012 11:25:25

Black Marble has guided many companies through a migration from previous versions of SharePoint to SharePoint 2010, and this event provides a unique opportunity for us to share our in-depth knowledge; providing an overview of SharePoint 2010, and highlighting what you need to consider when planning your own migration to 2010.

Our event enables you to meet our team and discuss with us the technology, how it can benefit your business and how you can plan your own migration, based on our experience.

Event date - 23-Feb-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Considerations when Migrating to SharePoint 2010 - 24May

09-Jan-2012 11:25:26

Our event enables you to meet our team and discuss with us the technology, how it can benefit your business and how you can plan your own migration, based on our experience.

Event date - 24-May-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

What is New in Azure - 8Mar

09-Jan-2012 11:49:39

This session will explore what’s new in Azure – opening up with an exploration of what Azure is, and how it has grown and developed since launch in February 2010. Plus, we will highlight how we assisted one company make a move to the Cloud – why they made the decision, and how it was implemented.

Plus Black Marble is certified to deliver Planning Services Days around Azure (AZDPS), and this session will outline more on how to make use of them.

Event date - 08-Mar-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

What is New in Azure - 28Jun

09-Jan-2012 11:49:42

Plus Black Marble is certified to deliver Planning Services Days around Azure (AZDPS), and this session will outline more on how to make use of them.

Event date - 28-Jun-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

How to Plan your Application Lifecycle Implementation with TFS11

09-Jan-2012 12:29:07

Software development is not just about writing code. The whole development process needs to be managed from the initial idea, though design, development, and testing, and into production. This session will discuss how TFS11, the next version of TFS currently in Beta, provides a flexible toolset to enable your Application Lifecycle Management process from the initial planning phase to final deliver to production – Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS).

Plus, if you have Software Assurance Benefits Black Marble can assist your TFS Implementation Planning Process through Developer Tools Deployment Planning Services (DTDPS)

Black Marble holds the Gold Competency in Visual Studio (ALM).

Event date - 13-Jun-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

What is New in Visual Studio 11 and TFS 11

09-Jan-2012 12:34:48

Windows 8 provides a whole new UI and underlying architecture, to develop against this new tools are needed. To address this need Microsoft have announced Visual Studio 11 – a new version of the development platform that as well is the usually new version enhancements provides tooling for all the emerging Microsoft platforms.

But developer tools alone are not enough, individual needs to coordinate their efforts. To address this need Microsoft have also announced TFS 11 this many new features to aid the smooth running of software projects.

Black Marble is authorised to deliver Developer Tools Deployment Planning Days (DT DPS) as part of your Software Assurance Benefits.

Black Marble holds the Gold Competency in Visual Studio (ALM).

Event date - 08-Feb-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

How Black Marble can Enhance the User Experience for Design Agencies

09-Jan-2012 12:38:25

Black Marble uses its deep technical background to engage with Design Agencies to bring a wider technological reach to the services you offer – enhancing existing innovative interactive experiences for your customers with new technologies and delivery techniques. Our skills complement those provided by your Agency – by combining our technical knowledge and experience with the creativity and resourcefulness of your agency.

In addition, Black Marble can deliver your solutions across platforms including Microsoft’s innovative Windows Phone 7, the new Microsoft Surface or SUR40, Windows 7 and Windows 8, across slate devices and using Kinect.

Black Marble can take your skills and experience and extend your reach beyond your existing customer base – come along to our event to explore all these platforms and how we can help you enhance your customer’s experience.

Audience: This event is aimed at digital/design agencies with an interest in exploring how they can improve their experience on the Microsoft platform – delivering creative experiences on Microsoft technology.

Event date - 09-Feb-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Delivering Creative Experiences on Microsoft Technology

09-Jan-2012 12:38:26

Black Marble uses its deep technical background to explore how to enhance existing innovative interactive experiences with new technologies and delivery techniques. Drawing on our deep technological background, our skills complement those provided by your design team (either internal or external) – by combining our technical knowledge and experience with the creativity and resourcefulness of the team.

Come along to our event to explore all these platforms and how we can help you enhance what is possible.

Audience: This event is aimed at anyone with an interest in exploring how they can improve their experience on the Microsoft platform – delivering creative experiences on Microsoft technology.

Event date - 10-May-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble, Woodland House, Woodland Park, Bradford Road, BD19 6BW

Search Architecture (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:14:51

Discussing the Search offerings available from Microsoft for SharePoint, including their capabilities. It will also detail scaling of Search Architecture, and the Search Process itself.

Black Marble holds the Gold Competency in Portals and Collaboration, as well as Silver in Search, Content Management and Digital Marketing.

Black Marble is authorised to deliver SharePoint Deployment Planning Days (SDPS)

This is the first in the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 30-Jan-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

What is New in Azure? - 6th Feb (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:30:36

This session will explore what is new in Azure - opening up with an exploration of what Azure is, and how it has grown and developed since launch in February 2010.

Black Marble is certified to deliver Planning Services Days around Azure (AZDPS), and is a member of the Azure Circle.

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 06-Feb-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

Why migrate from Visual SourceSafe to Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:30:38

Do you still run your source code on Visual SourceSafe (VSS)? Did you know it will be retiring from mainstream support by July 2012? There is a way to migrate your code to Visual Sutdio Team Foundation Server (TFS) - whether you are using 2008 or 2010. This session will outline the benefits of moving from VSS to TFS.

And if you have Software Assurance Benefits (DT DPS) - how you can leverage these to have Black Marble assist

Black Marble holds the Gold competency in Visual Studio (ALM)

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 20-Feb-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

Content Management with Avviso and SharePoint 2010 (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:30:40

An introduction to Avviso - a cutting edge Microsoft SharePoint communications solution, designed to help internal communications professionals create more impact and engage with their audience across the enterprise.

Black Marble holds the Gold Competency in Portals and Collaboration, as well as Silver in Search, Content Management and Digital Marketing.

Black Marble is authorised to deliver SharePoint Deployment Planning Days (SDPS)

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 12-Mar-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

Visual Studio Team Foundation for Everyone (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:46:03

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere (VS TEE), unites your development teams - even if your developers work on non-Microsoft platforms, they can use TFS as their Application Lifecycle (ALM) solution, providing a hetergeneous development environment that means work can be tracked across the whole ALM process.

This session will outline what Visual Studio TEE is, and how it can be used.

Black Marble is authorised to deliver Developer Tools Deployment Planning Days (DT DPS) as part of your Software Assurance Benefits.

Black Marble holds the Gold Competency in Visual Studio (ALM).

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 19-Mar-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

Designing Applications for the Windows Phone (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:46:05

This session will explore design considerations for the Windows Phone - what to think about once you have come up with your great application idea, including looking at how we put together the user interface for our own Windows Phone applications.

Black Marble's TFS Phone Explorer Application was a winner of the Redgate Windows Phone competition in 2011.

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 28-May-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

Introduction to Azure (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:46:06

Hearing a lot about the Cloud, and in particular Windows Azure, but sure what it is, or how it is relevant for your business? Join us in this session for an introduction to Windows Azure, and how your business could benefit from a move to the Cloud.

Black Marble is certified to deliver Planning Services Days around Azure (AZDPS), and is a member of the Azure Circle.

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 16-Apr-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

An Introduction to Lab Management (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:56:04

Visual Studio Lab Management is an extension of Microsoft Test Manager that helps you to optimise the use of Microsoft Hyper-V technology to manage and use virtual machines in testing, building, and developing applications in Visual Studio 2010.

Visual Studio Lab Management is integrated with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) to enable you to manage multiple physical computers that host virtual machines and to manage the storage of virtual machines, virtual machine templates, and other configuration files in SCVMM library servers.

This session will provide an introduction to the Lab Management tools.

Black Marble is authorised to deliver Developer Tools Deployment Planning Days (DT DPS) as part of your Software Assurance Benefits.

Black Marble holds the Gold Competency in Visual Studio (ALM).

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 23-Apr-2012 09:30 - 10:00
Location - Online

Microsoft Surface - It is not just Touch (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:56:05

Microsoft Surface Technology enables developers and designers to deliver amazing, social and interactive experiences with a 360 degree interface. This session will explore design considerations when working with Microsoft Surface Technology – it is so much more than a Touch device, and it is important to consider how to make use of object interactions and other specific Surface technology features.

Black Marble is a global Microsoft Surface Premier Partner.

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 30-Apr-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

How to Kickstart your ALM Process (Online)

19-Jan-2012 10:56:06

This session will explore why you should have an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) process within your organisation, and how we can help you kickstart that process through the use of Developer Tools Deployment Planning Services (DT DPS)

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Black Marble holds the Gold Competency in Visual Studio (ALM).

Event date - 21-May-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

Creating Data Aware Visio Diagrams in SharePoint 2010 (Online)

19-Jan-2012 11:18:37

This session will introduce and discuss the elements required to be able to generate data aware diagrams using Visio Services in SharePoint 2010. It will cover the different sources of data that can be used, SharePoint specific configuration elements and a description of the process of creating a data aware diagram.

Black Marble holds the Gold Competency in Portals and Collaboration, as well as Silver in Search, Content Management and Digital Marketing.

Black Marble is authorised to deliver SharePoint Deployment Planning Days (SDPS)

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 16-Jul-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

Designing for SharePoint (Online)

19-Jan-2012 11:18:40

Exploring design principles for creating impactful websites with SharePoint.

This session is aimed at Marketing Teams, Designers and non-technical implementers and users of SharePoint 2010.

Black Marble holds the Gold Competency in Portals and Collaboration, as well as Silver in Search, Content Management and Digital Marketing.

Black Marble is authorised to deliver SharePoint Deployment Planning Days (SDPS)

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 14-May-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

An Introduction to SQL 2012 (Online)

19-Jan-2012 11:18:45

Want to know what to expect? What became of Denali? This session will provide a brief overview of the new features in SQL 2012.

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 26-Mar-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

What is New in Azure? - 18th June (Online)

19-Jan-2012 11:21:48

This session will explore what is new in Azure - opening up with an exploration of what Azure is, and how it has grown and developed since launch in February 2010.

Black Marble is certified to deliver Planning Services Days around Azure (AZDPS), and is a member of the Azure Circle.

This is part of the Black Marble series of online webinars exploring different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

Event date - 18-Jun-2012 09:30 - 10:00 GMT
Location - Online

An Introduction to SQL 2012

19-Jan-2012 11:36:27

Following the launch of SQL 2012, this session will provide an overview of the new features.

It is promising greater uptime, fast performance and enhanced security features for mission critical workloads, as well as managed self-service data exploration and interactive data visualisations as well as enabling the creation and extension of solutions across on-premises and public cloud.

Event date - 18-Apr-2012 09:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End | Lunch included
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

Aligning your Business with the Cloud

19-Jan-2012 11:36:28

Black Marble is certified to deliver Planning Services Days around Azure (AZDPS), and is a member of the Azure Circle.

Event date - 18-Apr-2012 13:30 Registration | 14:00 Start 17:00 End | Lunch available
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

A Day with Windows 8

19-Jan-2012 11:57:30

Almost a year on from Windows 8 fanfare at Build, what has changed in Windows 8? Join us for a comprehensive overview of what’s new, what’s bad and how to get connected to Windows 8.

The morning will be focusing on what IT Managers need to know about Windows Server 8, given the radical new features available, and the afternoon will be developer-focused – providing an overview of the key changes and features.

Event date - 30-May-2012 09:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 17:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - The Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford (Tong)

Architecture Forum - London

24-Jan-2012 10:07:57

Registration – you can register direct for Microsoft Cloud Day or contact Black Marble events@blackmarble.com

Our Architecture Forum is now the fourth track in the Microsoft Cloud Day – Windows Azure, Windows 8, Devices and Open Source Innovations. With both events running on the same day in London, we have been working behind the scenes to bring them together to ensure the best opportunity for you to see the best speakers in the industry, all under one roof!

With a Keynote by Scott Guthrie, and four tracks covering everything from High Performance Computing, infrastructure, Office 365, Windows Phone and Team Foundation Server, it will be a great day!

Look forward to seeing you there!

Event date - 22-Jun-2012 9am – 6:30pm
Location - Vue Fulham Broadway, Fulham Broadway Retail Centre, Fulham Road, SW6 1BW, London

NE Bytes presents ‘TFS for Everyone’ with Richard Fennell

08-Feb-2012 11:59:14

Richard Fennell will be speaking at the NE Bytes User Group on the 15 February, with a session on his guest blog post on the UK Visual Studio blog on how TFS is not just for .NET developers. It can be used from a whole range of development platforms and operating systems, and he will be including demos using Eclipse and Ubuntu.

Details about timing and how to register will be made available on the NE Bytes website.

Event date - 15-Feb-2012
Location - NE Bytes

NxtGenUG Cambridge presents: A Developer’s View of Windows 8

19-Mar-2012 01:06:07

Robert Hogg is presenting at NxtGenUG Cambridge on 21 June on A Developer’s View of Windows 8. He will cover:

Windows 8 Overview
Developing for Windows 8
Developer Tooling Changes
Delivering Windows 8 Applications

Visit the NxtGenUG website for full details on location and how to register.

You can follow Robert and NxtGenUG on Twitter.

Event date - 31-Jul-2012 7pm - 9pm
Location - Redgate, Newnham House, Cambridge, CB4 0WZ

DDSW: Unit Testing with Visual Studio 11 Beta

23-Apr-2012 04:17:01

Richard Fennell is speaking at DDD South West in May!

His session is: In the Visual Studio 11 Beta there are major changes to the way unit testing frameworks are implemented, you are no longer limited to MSTest it is now a pluggable model. In this session I will show what is now available ‘out the box’ and what other options are open to allow you to leverage the testing tools you want to use.

For more details visit the DDDSW website.

Event date - 26-May-2012 12:00 – 13:00
Location - University of the West of England (UWE), Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY

Using Typemock Isolator to speed the development of SharePoint Web Parts

17-May-2012 05:45:29

Many Web Parts in SharePoint render for capturing data that is stored in a SharePoint list. This means that to test the Web Part you have to load the the Web Part within a SharePoint server. Then how do you test it? During this webinar, Richard Fennell will show how you can use Typemock Isolator to allow the development and testing of your Web Part without the need to keep redeploying it to SharePoint to check every minor change.

For more details including how to register click here.

Event date - 22-May-2012 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM BST
Location - Online

Microsoft Cloud Day - TFS: On premises to the Cloud

24-May-2012 05:45:24

Richard Fennell will be presenting at the Microsoft Cloud Day: Windows Azure, Windows 8, Devices and Open Source Innovations on the 22 June in London.

The migration of Visual Studio: Team Foundation Server (TFS) from an on premises application to the Azure cloud platform provides an interesting study of the issues many line of business applications face when being migrated. In this session we will look at the architectural changes required to make the move, how TFS uses Azure components and how the move to the cloud has altered the way TFS is developed, along with its product release cycle.

Event date - 22-Jun-2012 2:20pm – 3:10pm
Location - Vue Fulham Broadway, Fulham Broadway Retail Centre, Fulham Road, SW6 1BW

Microsoft Cloud Day - Successfully Adopting the Cloud

24-May-2012 05:47:33

Steve Spencer will be presenting at the Microsoft Cloud Day: Windows Azure, Windows 8, Devices and Open Source Innovations on the 22 June in London.

How we built a solution for Robust Details to help them move their business beyond its current manual systems. We created a hybrid solution implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Windows Azure and Microsoft Silverlight to create a solution that is secure, scalable and easy to manage, making the company’s processes more efficient and allowing for customer self-service. This session focuses why the technologies were chosen, and how they were used, concluding with a demonstration of the site.

Event date - 22-Jun-2012 4:30pm – 5:20pm
Location - Vue Fulham Broadway, Fulham Broadway Retail Centre, Fulham Road, SW6 1BW

Delivering an effective enterprise class development process with Microsoft and Black Marble

01-Jun-2012 03:03:35

This session will cover how to implement best practises using the Microsoft Visual Studio family of tools. Focusing on which methodology works best for your organisation, highlighting how to empower your team, improve communication and make the process transparent. It will include an overview of quality and testing, either automated or manual, as well as why security should be at the forefront of minds when developing Enterprise-grade solutions. With an overview of Architecture and Project Management in the process, it will also highlight how cross-team working with Java and .NET can be enabled with Team Explorer Everywhere (TEE).

Building on the latest Gartner 2012 Magic Quadrant report for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), Gartner has positioned Microsoft in the Leaders Quadrant. Highlighted as one of the only vendors to cover all aspects of the Software Development Lifecycle, Microsoft’s core aspects of continuous value delivery meets the demands currently driving companies – an integrated team approach including enterprise agile and cloud computing.

Black Marble will be joined by Allan Tong and Stephen Morrow of SQS, to discuss testing for enterprise applications and security testing considerations.

Click here for map and directions!

Event date - 05-Jul-2012 9:30 Registration 10:00 Start 12:30 Finish, followed by Refreshments
Location - Museum of London Docklands

NE Bytes presents ‘Enough About the Colour Tell Me About VS2012 & TFS 2012’ with Andy Westgarth and Richard Fennell

07-Jun-2012 05:14:31

Richard and Andrew will be giving us the low down on the new enhancements coming with Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server 2012. Come along to hear about all the improvements to the User Interface, the Code Editors, Project Planning, Project Management. Andrew and Richard will guide you through the myriad of SKU options and will also show off some of their favourite features coming in .Net Framework 4.5 for example bundling and minification..

You can register here.

Event date - 20-Jun-2012 18:30 to 21:00
Location - NE Bytes

Delivering an effective enterprise class development process with Microsoft and Black Marble - 13Sept

15-Jun-2012 04:47:23

Black Marble will be joined by Allan Tong and Stephen Morrow of SQS, to discuss testing for enterprise applications and security testing considerations.

Event date - 13-Sep-2012 9:30 Registration 10:00 Start 12:30 Finish, followed by Refreshments
Location -

Architecture Forum in the North 5

31-Jul-2012 10:28:30

Our Architecture Forum returns, now in its 5th year, and Black Marble and Microsoft once again invite you to join us for a unique opportunity to learn about the latest technologies and best practices from luminaries in the field of computing.

10:00 – 10:05 – Robert Hogg, Introduction
10:05 – 11:00 – Session 1 – Gary Short – How we Captured the Olympic Spirit.
11:00 – 11:45 – Session 2 – Andrew Fryer/Rik Hepworth – Behind every cloud is a cloud operating system.
11:45 – 12:00 – Break
12:00 – 12:45 – Session 3 – Paul Foster - Exploring new developer features of Windows phone 8.
12:45 – 13:30 – Session 4 – Giles Davies - Driving code quality with the Visual Studio architecture tools.
13:30 – 14:15 – Lunch
14:15 – 15:15 – Session 5 – Steve Plank – Title TBC
15:15 – 15:45 – Session 6 – Andy Dawson – Architecting SharePoint 2013
15:45 – 16:00 - Break
16:00 – 16:45 – Session 7 – Robert Hogg – Patterns and Practices for Cloud Computing
16:45 – 17:00 – Wrap up + Q&A Panel

Event date - 05-Dec-2012 Registration 09:30 | Start 10:00 | End 17:00 | Lunch Included
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

The Tenth Annual Technical Update - AM

31-Jul-2012 10:32:43

Our Annual Technical Update turns 10 – and what a great year of new releases from Microsoft to mark the occasion! Join us for our roadmap for all things Microsoft – what came out in 2012 , including what you might have missed, what is due in 2013 and our educated opinion of the road beyond. A must-attend event for all IT managers and Business Decision Makers to ensure you know what to expect, so you can plan your year ahead, and see where everything fits together.

From Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8, to Visual Studio 2012 and SharePoint and Office 2013 – join us as ever for our views on the new releases.

Due to the hectic schedule in this launch year for Microsoft, the afternoon will focus on all the news and announcements for developers and technical decision makers. Please join us for the afternoon session, The Tenth Annual Technical Update, for the developer equivalent.

Event date - 30-Jan-2013 Registration 09:30 | Start 10:00 | End 13:00 Lunch Available
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

The Tenth Annual Technical Update - PM

31-Jul-2012 05:14:03

From Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8, to Visual Studio 2012 and SharePoint and Office 2013 – join us as ever for our views on the new releases.

Due to the hectic schedule in this launch year for Microsoft, the afternoon will focus on all the news and announcements for developers and technical decision makers. Please join us for the morning session, The Tenth Annual Technical Update, for the IT manager equivalent.

Event date - 30-Jan-2013 Registration 13:30 | Start 14:00 | End 17:00 Lunch Available
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

Whats New in SharePoint 2013

02-Aug-2012 10:29:58

Welcome to our full day on SharePoint 2013. We will be sharing all the updates and announcements from the Microsoft SharePoint Conference around SharePoint 2013.

The morning will be focusing on technical and architectural changes, highlighting the differences between 2010 and 2013, and what the server implications are.

With the groundwork laid during the morning, the afternoon will be demo driven, focusing on new features, including the enhanced social side.

As more information is made available, we will update the content for this event.

Event date - 21-Nov-2012 Registration: 09:30 Start: 10:00 End: 17:00 Lunch Included
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

Welcome to Visual Studio 2012! Putting the ‘team’ in team foundation server - 13Sep

07-Aug-2012 10:37:21

Microsoft are launching a new version of Visual Studio this month, with the official launch taking place in September. Join us for a morning highlighting what’s new or changed in Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 2012, to make it easier across the whole of the ALM process whether you are running multiple teams with a scaled out TFS server for your enterprise or wishing to use the new Team Foundation Service offering hosted on Azure.

This event is perfect for any organisation with an existing implementation of Visual Studio, and wants to know what the roadmap for the product is, and how it will affect them.

Event date - 13-Sep-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

Welcome to Visual Studio 2012! Putting the ‘team’ in team foundation server - 26Sep

09-Aug-2012 02:25:40

This event is perfect for any organisation with an existing implementation of Visual Studio, and wants to know what the roadmap for the product is, and how it will affect them.

Event date - 26-Sep-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

What is New for you in SharePoint 2013? - Oct 17

20-Aug-2012 04:28:42

We will be highlighting the technical and architectural changes, highlighting the differences between 2010 and 2013, and the server implications are. Plus, we will look at new features, including the enhanced social side.

This event is perfect for any organisation with an existing implementation of SharePoint, and wants to know what the roadmap for the product is, and how it will affect them.

Event date - 17-Oct-2012 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch included
Location - Black Marble

Delivering an effective enterprise class development process with Microsoft Black Marble and SQS

30-Aug-2012 11:34:37

Black Marble will be joined by Allan Tong and Stephen Morrow of SQS, to discuss testing for enterprise applications and security testing considerations.

Event date - 12-Oct-2012 9:30 Registration 10:00 Start 12:30 Finish, followed by Refreshments
Location - SQS Group Limited, 7-11 Moorgate, London, EC2R 6AF

Steve Spencer at the Windows Azure User Group

05-Sep-2012 02:04:04

Steve Spencer will be presenting ‘Successfully Adopting the Cloud with Windows Azure, CRM and SilverLight’, at the Windows Azure User Group in Manchester on 10 October.

Windows Azure has provided an accessible platform to deliver hybrid solutions for customers. Black Marble has developed a solution that integrates Silverlight, CRM and Windows Azure. This talk will go through the development of the solution and discuss the reasons for choosing the technologies, some of the issues that arose and how it fit with the Black Marble development model.

More details on the other speakers, and registration information is available on the Manchester Windows Azure User Group page.

Event date - 10-Oct-2012 6pm – 9:30pm
Location - Shaping Cloud, Unit 1.1 Waulk Mill, 51 Bengal St, Manchester, M4 6LN

Designing Beautiful Apps – 8 to 88 inches

24-Sep-2012 10:41:25

Rik Hepworth will be speaking at the 1-day conference in Dublin, ‘Designing Beautiful Apps’. Bill Buxton, Principle Researcher at Microsoft Research will be keynoting, and Rik’s session is ‘8 to 88 inches – Designing for Everyone’. The focus of the event is the importance of design across all of Microsoft’s products and services including Windows 8. Showcasing how to help designers and developers design beautiful Windows 8 apps.

You can register here but if the event is full, it is also being streamed online.

Event date - 26-Sep-2012
Location - Aviva Stadium, Dublin

A Windows Azure Update

01-Oct-2012 03:49:27

Take time to out to explore a round-up of what’s new in Windows Azure from the last 12 months. Join our experts for their views on what’s been happening, what’s coming and how it will impact your business.

Plus we’ll take a look at how one company has benefited from a move to the Azure – Robust Details – implementing a hybrid solution with Dynamics CRM.

Event date - 17-Jan-2013 9:30 Registration, 10:00 start, lunch included, finishes 13:00
Location - Black Marble

A Windows Azure Update - PM

01-Oct-2012 03:51:07

Plus we’ll take a look at how one company has benefited from a move to the Azure – Robust Details – implementing a hybrid solution with Dynamics CRM.

Event date - 17-Jan-2013 13:30 start | 17:00 finish
Location - Black Marble

DDD North: Successfully Adopting the Cloud with Windows Azure, CRM and SilverLight

11-Oct-2012 10:32:29

Steve Spencer will be speaking at DDD North on how Windows Azure was used with CRM and SilverLight to create a hybrid solution.

You can follow DDD North on Twitter and join in the conversation with the hashtag #dddnorth.

You can follow Steve on Twitter.

Event date - 13-Oct-2012 9:30 - 10:30
Location - University of Bradford, Management Centre

DDD North: Gadgeteer for .NET

11-Oct-2012 10:42:30

Robert Hogg will be speaking at DDD North on Gadgeteer for .NET

Gadgeteer is a rapid prototyping platform for small embedded hardware devices, that has the advantages of .NET programming and simple assembly of electronics from a kit.

Using the software tools you know - C# and Visual Studio - you can use Gadgeteer to easily construct both simple and sophisticated devices.

This session will explore what is possible with Gadgeteer.

You can follow DDD North on Twitter and join in the conversation with the hashtag #dddnorth.

You can follow Robert on Twitter.

Event date - 13-Oct-2012 3:45 - 4:45
Location - University of Bradford, Management Centre

DDD North: Unit testing with Visual Studio 2012 RC

11-Oct-2012 10:50:08

Richard Fennell will be speaking at DDD North on Visual Studio 2012 and how unit testing is implemented.

In the Visual Studio 2012 RC there are major changes to the way unit testing frameworks are implemented, you are no longer limited to MSTest it is now a pluggable model. In this session I will show what is now available ‘out the box’ and what other options are open to allow you to leverage the testing tools you want to use.

You can follow DDD North on Twitter and join in the conversation with the hashtag #dddnorth.

You can follow Richard on Twitter.

Event date - 13-Oct-2012 2:30 - 3:30
Location - University of Bradford, Management Centre

Dotnetdevnet presents Gadgeteer for .NET

11-Oct-2012 10:57:33

Robert Hogg will be presenting on Gadgeteer for .NET for the DotNetDevNet user group in Bristol on the 5th February.

Gadgeteer is a rapid prototyping platform for small embedded hardware devices, that has the advantages of .NET programming and simple assembly of electronics from a kit. Using the software tools you know - C# and Visual Studio - you can use Gadgeteer to easily construct both simple and sophisticated devices. This session will explore what is possible with Gadgeteer.

You can follow Robert on Twitter.

You can register for this event here.

Event date - 05-Feb-2013 Doors 6:00pm - Meeting starts 6:30pm
Location - UWE (University of the West of England), Frenchay, Bristol - Room 2Q49

An Introduction to Windows 8 Development

25-Oct-2012 05:13:49

Everyone thinks they know what it is all about, but do you? Mike will provide an introductory session on what developers need to know about Windows 8, as well as showing off the new devices!

The event will cover the following topics:

Overview with a walk through of the user experience.
Developer overview with a walk around of the platform, tools, etc.
UX overview with a walk around the UX of the platform.
App walkthrough this session will explore some of the apps in store.

This event will be presented by Microsoft Developer Evangelist and Windows 8 Guru, Mike Taulty. Why not follow Mike on Twitter?

Mike will be joined by fellow Microsoft Windows 8 evangelist, and Creative Technologist Andrew Spooner.

Event date - 27-Nov-2012 Registration 09:30 | Start 10:00 | End 13:00 Lunch Available
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

ReBuild

25-Oct-2012 05:13:51

Black Marble will bring you the key announcements and developments from Build 2012. Everything you need to know about Windows 8, including showing off some new devices!

Black Marble has a team of 5 attending Build, to cover all the track, and bring back all the news you need to know to make up your mind about Windows 8.

This agenda will be updated as Build takes place.

Event date - 27-Nov-2012 Registration 13:30 | Start 14:00 | End 17:00 Lunch Available
Location - The Holiday Inn at Tong

Christmas Open Day

22-Nov-2012 02:31:33

Come and join us at Black Marble HQ for our Christmas Open Day! Great opportunity to catch up or just say hi.

As well as great food, there will be an opportunity to meet the staff, and have a look around our office and try out some fantastic devices …

Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense
Microsoft Kinect
XBox
Surface

Plus …

Mince pies!
Selection boxes!
Turkey sandwiches!

Event date - 12-Dec-2012 9am – 6pm
Location - Black Marble HQ

A Fresh Look at SharePoint 2013 - 6 Feb

08-Jan-2013 01:56:47

SharePoint makes it easy to store, sync and share all your important content. A new simplified user experience helps you streamline common tasks and create sites to keep teams in sync. New work management capabilities help you organise all your tasks from across SharePoint, Project and Outlook with indicators to help you prioritise your work.

We will be highlighting the technical and architectural changes, highlighting the differences between 2010 and 2013, and looking at what the server implications are. Plus, we will look at new features, including the enhanced social side.

This event is perfect for any organisation with an existing implementation of SharePoint, and wants to know what the roadmap for the product is, and how it will affect them.

Black Marble holds the Gold Content and Collaboration Competency from Microsoft, and is recognised as a key SharePoint partner throughout the UK and Ireland.

Event date - 06-Feb-2013 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

A Fresh Look at SharePoint 2013 - 10 Apr

08-Jan-2013 01:56:48

This event is perfect for any organisation with an existing implementation of SharePoint, and wants to know what the roadmap for the product is, and how it will affect them.

Black Marble holds the Gold Content and Collaboration Competency from Microsoft, and is recognised as a key SharePoint partner throughout the UK and Ireland.

Event date - 10-Apr-2013 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

A Fresh Look at SharePoint 2013 - 5 Jun

08-Jan-2013 01:56:50

This event is perfect for any organisation with an existing implementation of SharePoint, and wants to know what the roadmap for the product is, and how it will affect them.

Black Marble holds the Gold Content and Collaboration Competency from Microsoft, and is recognised as a key SharePoint partner throughout the UK and Ireland.

Event date - 05-Jun-2013 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

Migration Considerations for SharePoint - 13 March

08-Jan-2013 01:56:54

Today, most organisations support telecommuting, and they expect employees to be “always on, always connected,” even when they are away from the office. SharePoint offers a diverse set of capabilities that extends people’s access to resources and allows them to be productive regardless of the tools or devices they have available. SharePoint 2013 redefines collaboration and document management and represents a new way to work together.

This event provides a unique opportunity for us to share our in-depth knowledge; providing an overview of SharePoint 2013, and highlighting the great features that in our view, make it a stand-out product. Our event enables you to meet our team and discuss with us the technology and how it can benefit your business, based on our pragmatic experience of migrating customers from one version of SharePoint to another.

In addition, Black Marble has been working with SharePoint 2013 throughout 2012, and can bring our knowledge and experience to bear on your migrations strategies, looking at considerations around your content to ensure a smooth transition.

We are aware that many organisations will still be transitioning to 2010, and we are able to answer your queries/assist in this migration process too.

Event date - 13-Mar-2013 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

Migration Considerations for SharePoint - 8 May

08-Jan-2013 01:56:56

We are aware that many organisations will still be transitioning to 2010, and we are able to answer your queries/assist in this migration process too.

Event date - 08-May-2013 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

Migration Considerations for SharePoint - 3 July

08-Jan-2013 01:56:57

We are aware that many organisations will still be transitioning to 2010, and we are able to answer your queries/assist in this migration process too.

Event date - 03-Jul-2013 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 14:00 End | Lunch Included
Location - Black Marble

Technical Update for the Microsoft Platform 2013

08-Jan-2013 03:12:15

Ever wanted someone to explain the Microsoft Roadmap across the whole platform? Black Marble's Technical Update does just that - addressing how the products connect, what happened to them in the past 12 months, including what you might have missed, what is due in 2013 and our educated opinion of the road beyond. A must-attend event for all IT managers, Business and Technical Decision Makers to ensure you know what to expect, so you can plan your year ahead, and see where everything fits together. From Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, via Visual Studio 2012 and Windows Server, to Azure, SharePoint and Office 2013 – join us as ever for our experienced view of the road ahead.

Black Marble's Technical Update has been running for 10 years, and is presented by key experts Robert Hogg (MD, Microsoft Integration MVP, V-TSP) and Rik Hepworth (IT Director, V-TSP).

Feedback from previous Tech Updates:

"Excellent as ever. Really useful update and good to see which direction Microsoft are going as well as reminding me what Black Marble is good at."

"Lot of information well presented and summarised as always."

"Good dynamic and pace. Appropriate level of detail."

"Excellent event - right balance between marketing pitch and technical overview. Good working examples of how the IT can help the business."

This event has been moved from the 6th of March.

Event date - 20-May-2013 9:30 Registration | 10:00 Start | 13:00 End
Location - Cardinal Place, Microsoft London

Whats New in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server? - 13 Mar

08-Feb-2013 11:17:23

Microsoft are now using an aggressive release schedule for updates. Every 3 weeks for Team Foundation Service and quarterly for on premises installations. In this half day session we will look at the changes in both the Team Foundation Service and the on premises version of TFS 2012 in the updates since 2012 RTM’d last year.

Richard Fennell is a Visual Studio (ALM) Microsoft MVP, ALM Ranger and Microsoft V-TSP.

Event date - 13-Mar-2013 13:30 Registration 14:00 Start 17:00 End (Lunch included)
Location - Black Marble

Whats New in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server? - 15 May

08-Feb-2013 11:31:36

Richard Fennell is a Visual Studio (ALM) Microsoft MVP, ALM Ranger and Microsoft V-TSP.

Event date - 15-May-2013 09:30 Registration 10:00 Start 13:00 End (Lunch included)
Location - Black Marble

Tips for Visual Studio Lab Management (Black Marble Byte Size Webinar)

08-Feb-2013 11:33:54

In this session we give an overview of what Lab management is and discuss some common problems seen by companies as they attempt to adopt this technology.

Richard Fennell is a Visual Studio (ALM) Microsoft MVP, ALM Ranger and Microsoft V-TSP.

Event date - 23-Apr-2013 09:30-10:00
Location - Online

DevOps with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (and using tooling from PreEmptive) (Black Marble Byte Size Webinar)

08-Feb-2013 11:35:18

Microsoft have made major changes in how IT professionals in operations can interface with developers using System Center and TFS. In this session we will look at the tooling available with TFS 2012. This will include Intellitrace in Production, System Center using CodeUI for smoke tests, automated logging of issues in TFS from System Center and using the full version of the Pre-Emptive tools to monitor application health and usage.

Richard Fennell is a Visual Studio (ALM) Microsoft MVP, ALM Ranger and Microsoft V-TSP.

Event date - 18-Jun-2013 09:30-10:00
Location - Online

Technology Leadership Seminar - 18 Mar AM

08-Feb-2013 01:55:29

Black Marble is hosting the first in a series of events to help businesses develop and deliver corporate, competitive and aligned business strategy using best of breed technology, across the Microsoft stack. We do the research, highlighting changes and the impact on your business. From the expanding presence of the Cloud, to Security considerations in your software development process to how Windows 8 can affect your business both externally and internally. Technology experts from Black Marble bring you thought leadership covering developments in technology to help your business stay ahead of the game.

This event is targeted at the Senior Decision Makers in financial organisations – from Technology through Operations to Executive.

Black Marble is a software development and IT consultancy delivering solutions throughout the UK and Ireland, across the Microsoft platform. Our key staff are internationally recognised - we have Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and Virtual Technology Solution Professionals (v-TSPs) on staff (Microsoft Integration, Windows Azure, Visual Studio (ALM) and SharePoint). Black Marble is the winner of the First Annual John Lewis Great British Innovation in Retail Award 2012.

Event date - 18-Mar-2013 10:00 – 13:00
Location - Microsoft, Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5JL

Technology Leadership Seminar - 18 Mar PM

08-Feb-2013 01:57:12

This event is targeted at the Senior Decision Makers in Media, Comms and Retail organisations – from Technology through Operations to Executive.

Event date - 18-Mar-2013 14:00 – 17:00
Location - Microsoft, Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5JL

Technology Leadership Seminar - 20 Jun AM

08-Feb-2013 01:59:02

Black Marble is hosting the second in a series of events to help businesses develop and deliver corporate, competitive and aligned business strategy using best of breed technology, across the Microsoft stack. We do the research, highlighting changes and the impact on your business. From the expanding presence of the Cloud, to Security considerations in your software development process to how Windows 8 can affect your business both externally and internally. Technology experts from Black Marble bring you thought leadership covering developments in technology to help your business stay ahead of the game.

This event is targeted at the Senior Decision Makers in financial organisations – from Technology through Operations to Executive.

Event date - 20-Jun-2013 10:00 – 13:00
Location - Microsoft, Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5JL

Technology Leadership Seminar - 20 Jun PM

08-Feb-2013 02:01:20

This event is targeted at the Senior Decision Makers in Media, Comms and Retail organisations – from Technology through Operations to Executive.

Event date - 20-Jun-2013 14:00 – 17:00
Location - Microsoft, Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5JL

Global Windows Azure Boot Camp

11-Feb-2013 12:35:53

Black Marble is hosting the Yorkshire Chapter of the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp taking place in several locations globally at the same time.

Organised by and for the community, April 27th, 2013, comes with the possibility of joining a Windows Azure Bootcamp on your doorstep. This one day deep dive class will get you up to speed on developing for Windows Azure. The class includes a trainer with deep real world experience with Windows Azure, as well as a series of labs so you can practice what you just learned.

Black Marble’s event will be run by Robert Hogg (Microsoft Integration MVP) and Steve Spencer (Windows Azure MVP). Come along and join the global Azure event of the year!

Check out the prerequisites.

A Windows Azure Bootcamp on several locations globally at the same time.

Event date - 27-Apr-2013 TBC
Location - Black Marble

Introduction to Windows Azure Mobile Services (Black Marble Byte Size Webinar)

11-Mar-2013 01:44:18

In this webinar you will see how you can leverage Visual Studio 2012 and Windows Azure Mobile Services to add structured storage, push notifications and integrated authentication to your Windows Store applications

Event date - 30-Apr-2013 09:30-10:00
Location - Online

Introduction to Service Bus (Black Marble Byte Size Webinar)

11-Mar-2013 01:45:42

In this webinar you will be introduced to the Windows Azure Service Bus and see how you can leverage the service bus features to integrate applications with Windows Azure.

Event date - 11-Jun-2013 09:30-10:00
Location - Online

Building Applications for the Future

15-Mar-2013 02:45:57

Black Marble’s Engineering Director Richard Fennell is speaking at Grey Matter’s Building Applications for the Future with Visual Studio 2012.

This event will demonstrate how the improvements and new features in Visual Studio 2012 will help enhance your development process and develop apps for Windows 8. Richard will be speaking on Team Foundation Service/Server and ALM for Developers.

More details, including a full agenda and how to register can be found here.

Richard is an ALM MVP and ALM Ranger.

Grey Matter is a Microsoft Gold Volume Licensing Partner.

Event date - 22-May-2013 Registration: 08:30 – 09:30, Start: 09:30, End: 16:00
Location - Building 3, Microsoft, Thames Valley Park, Reading, RG6 1WG

Steve Spencer is speaking at NEBytes on Web API, SignalR, Windows Azure and Gadgeteer

14-May-2013 01:50:07

Steve Spencer is speaking at NEBytes on the Challenges of the .Net Micro Framework.

This session introduces Gadgeteer and the .Net Micro-Framework and moves into a practical implementation that uses web api, signal R and Windows Azure.

For further details, including how to register, visit the NEBytes website.

Event date - 15-May-2013 18:30-21:00
Location - The event will be hosted in Room 1.02 of Claremont Tower at Newcastle University.

Rik Hepworth is speaking at NEBytes on Lessons Learned from TFS 2012 Lab and SCVMM 2012.

14-May-2013 02:05:54

From TFS 2012 Lab and SCVMM 2012

Black Marble recently migrated their TFS2010 Lab to TFS 2012 and thought it would be a good idea to move to a single SCVMM 2012 instance to manage both lab and production Hyper-V whilst also moving to SQL 2012 Always On and Server 2012 across the board. Find out just how much fun that was as Rik discusses the process.

For further details, including how to register, visit the NEBytes website.

Event date - 15-May-2013 18:30-21:00
Location - The event will be hosted in Room 1.02 of Claremont Tower at Newcastle University.

Gary Short on an Introduction to Data Science at DotNetDevNet

14-May-2013 06:51:36

Data Science lives at the intersection of data analysis, programming and visualization and in this hour long presentation Gary will take a look at some of the tools used by practitioners to take raw data and turn it into a story that everyone can understand. He’ll cover such topics as statistics, computational linguistics, text mining and network analysis as well as the web scale technologies such as Hadoop and Pig. By the end of this session you will have a firm understanding of what it takes to be a data scientist.

For further details, including how to register, visit the DotNetDevNet site.

Gary is on twitter! You can follow him @GaryShort.

Event date - 16-Jul-2013 Doors open 6:00pm, meeting starts 6:30pm
Location - UWE (University of the West of England), Frenchay, Bristol, Room 2q49