I got the opportunity to participate in the We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge (under the umbrella of GiveCamp) in Dallas this past weekend.  As I wrote in a previous post, this event matches charities in need of technical assistance with coders and other tech geeks willing to give up a weekend to help out a good cause.  Most of the needs were web related, and ranged in scope from adding functionality to an existing Internet or intranet site to completely building a new web presence for the organization.

I was part of the team working with PaxUnited to create a new, more interactive website.  These folks specialize in conflict resolution and mediation services and training for students, educators, and the public at large.  Their old site was completely static and, without the in-house expertise to maintain it, it was quite stale.  Our team, consisting of Todd Stone, Andrew Dalgleish, Jay Smith, and Nathan Woodward (sorry Nathan, I don’t have a link for you… send me one and I’ll add it) built a new site for them.  Thanks also to Andrew’s wife, Jenny Leder, who wasn’t technically on the team but nonetheless rescued us from graphic design hell.

Our choice of CMS for this project was the mojoPortal framework.  We had the option of using SiteFinity or Graffiti, but opted to go with a smaller, more extensible product to allow for easier custom development.  All said, I really enjoyed this product – it’s open source and, with the exception of the dozens of stylesheets, was fairly easy to modify.  I was only slightly disappointed that I didn’t get to use my strongest skillset, specifically database development, on this project, but it was fun to break out of the usual routine and do something different.

Sadly, we didn’t win any awards, but I believe we made a difference in the charity to which we were assigned.  Our contacts there were gracious and appreciative, and I expect that they will get a lot of mileage out of the new site.  We’re still working with their web host to get them set up on a Windows hosting plan, but for now the new site resides here.

It was a very rewarding but also a very tiring weekend; I’m still about 10 hours behind on sleep.  No rest for the weary, however; I’ve got two major projects to complete before Friday, and then I leave to speak at SQL Saturday – Tampa on Saturday.  If you’re in the area, stop by and drop in on my session about scripting SSIS.

I received notification a few days ago that I was selected again to participate in the We Are Microsoft charity event in Dallas.  For those not familiar, this event is intended to seek out and assist qualified charities whose technology needs exceed their budget for same.  Developers, DBAs, and designers come in from as far away as Arkansas to spend the weekend designing, coding, and consuming large amounts of caffeine and sugar.

I haven’t found out who my teammates are or which charity we will be representing, but I’m looking forward to jumping into this again.  There may still be spots available for volunteers - if you’re in Dallas the weekend of January 16th, you should come by.  If you’re attending, please give me a shout.

This weekend, I had the unique opportunity to donate some time to a worthwhile charity organization. Through the efforts of the Dallas-area .NET user group community (and specifically, Toi Wright), Microsoft, BravoTech and a number of other vendors, the first annual We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge was born in a flurry of activity over the last three days. This event was held in Dallas and matched up 100 or so developers with 18 charities in need of development services.

I was placed on a team assisting SER Child Development Center with developing a new website . This organization aids low-income families by providing low-cost child care and education, as well as adult education and career development services. From the outset, the organization staff were prepared and readily available; they arrived at the kickoff with design ideas, a packet of information as well as a USB drive full of electronic content and photos. Juan Torres, the CEO and President, and Dr. Carol Johnson-Gerendas, director of the center, were very enthusiastic about this project, volunteering to stay with us for as long as necessary to bring us up to speed on their needs. These two were gracious and appreciative, and made us feel like our efforts really will make a difference.

My team initially consisted of four people, but we lost one member to the flu on Friday. The other remaining members were Ryan Magnusson, a developer working for Wal-Mart in Arkansas (yes, he actually drove in for the weekend) and Raymond Sanchez, a web developer local to the Dallas area. After reviewing the charity's business model and website requirements, we opted to use a SubSonic starter kit for our project. This allowed us to quickly roll out the base application (essentially a CMS) and gave us a framework on which we could develop a couple of requested custom components. I took on the role of project lead as well as writing the custom components, the latter of which was very gratifying since I don't get to write as much code as I used to.

Like all software projects, we had a few glitches. The most frustrating issue was the web space provided for the event had a number of issues which were not resolved until the last day of the event.  This left us with the unfortunate choice to leave their existing site in place (having run the demo from my laptop, where the code resides) until we resolve the issues with their web host. We also had a phantom error in SubSonic that slowed us down for a few hours. Since we only had 48 hours in which to work, sleep was simply an afterthought (in fact, one of the guys actually pitched a tent in the break room and slept on site). But the food was good and plentiful, they kept us filled up with caffiene, and the facilities were spacious.

 We also had the opportunity to be interviewed by some of the guys from GeeksWithBlogs.net, which was published as a podcast [listen here] .  This was my first - and hopefully not the last - podcast interview.

All things considered, the project was a success; when we met with the charity staff at the wrap-up meeting on Sunday, they were highly impressed with the product. Though we didn't win any awards, I'm confident that we have created a solid application on which they can promote their charity for many years to come.

The We Are Microsoft event was billed as a "first annual", suggesting that this will be an ongoing gig. It was suggested that perhaps other user groups will follow suit and host their own WAM event.  As for me, I'll be first in line to participate again next year. And maybe I'll bring my tent....