CTO, Software engineer and Team leader
MSP
Silverlight and Windows Phone Workshop
Jul 23rd
On 13th I will have the pleasure to present a workshop at the University of Bonn. This workshop will introduce Microsoft Phone to students. The focus will be on mobile development, web services, Silverlight and introductory design in Blend. The participants will acquire the basic knowledge of these technologies, allowing them to have a good chance to further pursue on Microsoft career path.
Subject: Silverlight and Microsoft Phone
Start: 9:00 with 1 hour lunch break around 12-12:30
End: approx. 15:00 – 16:00
Location: Windows-CIP-Pool N222
Language: The talk will be given in English.
How to Consolidate 2 Microsoft Certified Professional IDs
Jul 5th
I am Microsoft Certified since 2006, Technology Specialist in SQL 2005 and Business Management Solution Specialist in Microsoft Dynamics. Thus, I already own an Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) ID that allows me to access Microsoft Certified Professional program.This program basically gives you access to review your certifications and the progress on your certification path. It also enables you to prove that you actually have those certifications.
As example, you can find mine by following the link: https://mcp.microsoft.com/authenticate/validatemcp.aspx and insert Transcript ID: 770644 and Access Code: radupoenaru.
New exam, new MCP ID
I recently took a Microsoft Certification exam. I passed it and now I’m Certified Technology Specialist in .Net 3.5. As a parenthesis, Microsoft, in its attempt to save the nature and thus paper, give the paper certificate only upon request. And because in my staying in Germany, I started appreciating more and more the nature, so I don’t believe that I’ll request it.
But more than this, the Certification center sent me a link to activate my Microsoft Certified Professional program. This also implies that you’ll get a new MCP ID. So I am in the position of having 2 separate places to show to my possible employers that I own the certifications.
MCTS in ASP .NET – exam 70-562
Jun 30th
Yesterday I’ve become Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in .NET Framework 3.5 ASP.NET Applications by passing the 70-562 exam!
First, I want to share with you my web development background:
- I have around 4 years of ASP .Net experience. Mainly, my experience is on .Net 1.1 and 2.0. I developed for mobile devices when there weren’t yet smart phones around us. I’ve worked on a solution that connected an Asus Palm to Nokia phones, first providing the interface, second providing the connectivity to a collection of webservices who provided encrypted and authentication for data exchanged.
- Then I’ve worked on a governmental website, creating features and maintaining it.
- Later on, I’ve managed the entire lifecycle of a website, from hosting, Windows Server / IIS maintenance to development and deployment of the website.
Let’s get to my experience in this exam…
Why .Net 3.5?
Almost all blog posts claim that the .Net 3.5 is just an extension of .Net 2.0, but when getting deeper, you realize that those developers who worked on it really produced a good quality product with many improvements and many added features over the previous version. Mainly, you’ll understand here the point of having a .Net 3.5 certification.
Comparing .Net 2.0 to 3.5 we’ll find a big difference. For example:
- ASP.NET AJAX
- New ListView and DataPager Controls
- LINQ
- WCF Support for RSS, JSON, POX and Partial Trust
- JavaScript Debugging and Intellisense
- Multi-targeting Support
.. and more on this you can read on Microsoft Official Statement.
Rhetorik und Präsentationsworkshop
Jun 18th
On 9th and 10th of June I had two days of Presentation and Retoric workshop. Our teachers were Anton Schweizer and 
Christopher Schleiden, both being Microsoft Student Senior Partners.
We were 5 students(unfortunately, one is missing from the picture), most of us Junior Students Partners. We were also preparing our first workshops. This training combined theoretical and practical knowledge, helping us in creating a better atmosphere and easier share the knowledge to our auditorium.
The workshop, who was a fully blown 2 days (on the second day we had like 10 hours). We started with a base line presentation. This was supposed to be a baseline, to understand where we need improvement and a comparison base for the presentation in the final, to see what we learned.
Workshop: Introduction to ASP .Net
Jun 15th
The next workshop of the Microsoft Student Partner in cooperation with the student body of Uni Bonn is coming!
This time is about the basics of ASP.Net and Visual Studio 2010. The workshop provides a starting point in Web programming by many practical exercises in small groups. Aim is the development of smaller Web projects, such as photo albums or guest books.
The registration is free. You can register until Thursday, the 20.01.2010 12: 00 pm by E-mail to schaller@informatik.uni-bonn.de. Space is limited by the number of available computers in the CIP pool. We have 24 fixed stations and six more places available for students with their own laptop. Please give at registration details if you will bring a laptop with Visual Studio 2010.
All participants can receive, upon request, a certificate of participation in the workshop.
Windows Phone 7 Coding Camp
May 12th
Just joined Microsoft Students Partners for few days, and me and my colleagues in Team West were invited to a Code Camp for learn developing for Windows 7 Phone with XNA. The camp was established in the castle, in Freusburg. We traveled from Köln after my RIA Business Applications presentation in the Springboard conference.
This special event joined together five very known and respected Microsoft Evangelists: Frank Fischer, Oliver Scheer, Frank Prengel, Tom Wendel and Jan Schenk. They are experts and known figures in programming world, with expertise in Windows Phone 7, Silverlight and XNA.
In the landscape of the castle, with Towers and defensive walls, we’ve been Knights .. of Code, of course (in German is Code Ritter). The organization was purely German: perfect! We had a lot of fun, lots of presentations and access to the knowledge gathered along the years of all five Evangelists.
In the first evening (who was right our Team West own event), we had the Microsoft Phone introduction by Frank Prengel (also known as Dr. Mobile) , XNA presentation by Tom Wendel (The Ant Man) and Silverlight presentation by Oliver Scheer, known as “Mr. deep zoom”. After all presentation, a collective brainstorming revealed around 30(!) ideas for implementing next day, who were judged from usability, possibility of creation and interesting points of view by our 5 Evangelists. Finally, we created teams based on the projects appealing to us. We followed our instincts and smell the code inside each application promise.
SpringBoard 2010 – RIA Business Applications
Apr 7th
Today I had the pleasure to present the “RIA Business Applications”. This was a conference of Microsoft Student Partners, of which I am a proud member. My talk covered the Visual Studio 2010 RIA business template, Silverlight 4 in general, RIA WCF and more than this, the Business perspective on software development.
Silverlight, Entities and RIA WCF service combined brings in business world a new approach, outclassing previous implementations of processes by taking what is good in both worlds, of web and desktop applications. It combines the power of a client side application with the web availability, offering a quick way to improve the experience of the business users.
First, we had a quick walkthrough through different options that a user can have when building a Silverlight application, for business or not:
- the Silverlight template, who offers only the basics required to create a Silverlight application
- Navigation template, who adds navigation and deep linking in the picture
- Business template, who, besides navigation, inserts also a RIA WCF service into the solution and links it to the corresponding Silverlight project.
Then we jumped into the code, the rest of the presentation focusing on features required by professionals :
- different templates for editing and viewing,
- Domain Data Source who encapsulates and exposes strong types,
- the CollectionViewSource object and its use,
- Drag&Drop databinding, Charting,
- cross field validation including the new INotifyDataError,
- Camera usage in a real application,
- Printing features in Silverlight 4 with custom templates,
- Clipboard interaction – copy / paste into Excel,
- Theming of application – usage and switching,
- Contextual menus at right click and their scopes and availability,
- the new Commanding feature from Silverlight 4
I had a lot to present, jumping from code to PowerPoint presentation, in a very fast pace.
Microsoft Student Partners
Mar 24th
Today I had the pleasure to make the first step in Microsoft Student Partners organization (West Germany branch).
It all started when I went to a very interesting workshop on Windows 7 VHD, presented by Daniel Neumann.
So I applied by sending to Microsoft Student Partners enrollment e-mail address a cover letter, my cv and a short description. After a while, I got a call from Anton Schweizer, Senior Student Partner, and I was invited to an interview.
I also had to prepare a presentation. It supposed to be a 10 minutes long presentation on a technical theme. Because I like very much Silverlight, I started preparing it as main subject.
The interview was very relaxed and I got the usual questions: why do I want to join Microsoft Student Partners, why Microsoft, how much time can I invest in this, where and when can I prepare workshops, discussions on Microsoft products.
Basically, I understood that the duties of a Student partners are very similar to ones of Microsoft Evangelist:
- create presentations for its colleagues in University
- prepare workshops and assist students while working on a certain theme
- involve itself in the students life and present Microsoft technologies to them
Very interesting .. I just wait to start! They said that I will get soon a response regarding my application.
Later edit:
I WAS ACCEPTED!
