Yes, the first month of 2010 is almost gone and I'm just now getting around blogging about the past year and the year ahead. I guess time management should be on my to-do list for this year? The CodeMash Website One of the coolest projects I've worked on in 2009 was the CodeMash website . Brian Prince and Jim Holmes asked SRT if they wanted to help design a new website for CodeMash. Brian will be the first to admit that he's an evangelist first, a developer second and a web developer third. They gave us pretty much free reign to come up with a new idea as well as the freedom to implement the solution however we wanted. We worked with a Inner Circle Media to help plan the new look and feel of the site. They deserve kudos for the new look. On the back-end, I used ASP.NET MVC 1.0 along with SQL Server, Linq2SQL and Castle Windsor for my IoC container. We also integrated with the existing Sharepoint installation for sponsor maintenance, news and session submissions. User registration was all done in SQL. This was a great learning project. Registering for a conference is usually a simple process (from the registrants standpoint). On the back-end, when you're dealing with varying registration costs (based on the current date), discount codes, PayPal, and other things, it can get pretty complicated. A large suite of unit tests helped us catch a lot of stuff in the beginning, but a few bugs slippped through. Luckily, nothing major! I want to also thank fellow SRT developers Marina Fedner and Ben Barefield . Marina helped me out on the user registration portion and Ben was responsible for the REST feed that we all used for our mobile CodeMash applications . Stepping Down from GANG After being involved with the Great Lakes Area .NET Users Group (GANG) for many, many years (webmaster, VP and this last year as President), I did not run for re-election. There were some other projects I was taking on and last year's vice president David Giard was willing to take the reigns of the group. Dave did an amazing job last year as VP and is continuing to do great things with GANG in 2010 . I'll still be around to help out from time to time, but Dave is the man in charge now! VSM's C# Corner After helming Visual Studio Magazine's C# Corner for a number of years, Bill Wagner decided he wanted to devote his time to other things. He offered my name as a possible successor! I talked it over with him and VSM Editor in Chief Michael Desmond. Everything fell into place and I'm now honored to be following in Bill's footsteps as a VSM author. My first column has been published ( Interface-Based Programming in C# ) and I've got some positive feedback so far. My next article is in-process and I have to have the first draft done by February 1st or I'll be on someone's naughty list (and it won't be Santa's!). Microsoft C# MVP I was pleasantly surprised on January 1st to receive an email from Microsoft telling me I've received an MVP award for my C# and community work in 2009. Thanks to Microsoft and other community members I work closely with! 2010 Plans One of the big conferences for 2010, CodeMash , has already come and gone. It was a great conference and you CAN NOT beat the price. The amount of content and learning available is unheard of for the price you pay. I'm already looking forward to CodeMash 2.0.1.1. In February, I'll be attending the MVP Summit in Redmond. A great chance to get in touch with new technologies, talk with Microsoft reps and mix it up with other MVP's. Michael Eaton is already planning this year's Ann Arbor Give Camp . I've offered my assistance again this year and will post more on this even as it gets closer. Speaking: I'd like to do more speaking this year. While I usually get compliments on my presentations, I'm very hard on myself. I may be a good speaker, but I want to be a great speaker. That will come with practice. I've got some idea's for presentations on topics I'm passionate about (specifically, Inversion of Control and Mocking). I'm really looking forward to 2010! Technorati Tags: SRT , MVP , CodeMash , 2010