Bipin's website (well, that's one of them)

Bin's latest book:

IDEP’s appeal to assist survivors of the Padang Earthquake

www.idepfoundation.org

Dear Friends of IDEP,

Thank you so much to everyone who has sent questions about whether IDEP will be working in the Padang area to assist with the ongoing recovery efforts after the recent earthquake. Following is an overview of IDEP’s plans to work with our local partner in the area KOGAMI to assist some communities that seem to have been “forgotten” to start recovering their lives.

Background

At 10:49 am on March 6th 2007, West Sumatra experienced an earthquake which measured 6.2 on the Richter scale. The epicenter of the earthquake was 50 km from the major Indonesian City of Padang. A second earthquake struck at 12:49 pm. Tremors were felt as far away as Malaysia and Singapore, 430 km from the epicenter.


Map of the epicenter of the quake – people in Padang fleeing the area – example of one of the many destroyed buildings due to the quake

The most affected district was Solok, located 96 km northeast of Padang. Tanah Datar, Agam, Padang Pariaman, and the cities of Bukittinggi, Padang Panjang, Pariaman, and Padang were also affected by the earthquake. Thousands of buildings collapsed, glass doors and windows shattered, power lines toppled and phone lines were either cut or overloaded. Over 135,000 people were left homeless.

Padang is considered one of the highest risk areas in Indonesia for Tsunami and earthquake vulnerability. Please see the following TIME Magazine article which explains why: www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1139873,00.html

Considering the high level of infrastructure damage, the loss of lives from this massive earthquake was much less than expected with a little over 70 people reported deceased. IDEP believes that this result is partially due to the extensive disaster preparedness work and community evacuation drills that have been facilitated in the area over the last 2 years by our partner KOGAMI.  

KOGAMI are a highly effective group of volunteers tirelessly working to educate the people of Padang and encourage the local government to take the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis seriously. KOGAMI have been utilizing IDEP’s Community Based Disaster Management Kit in their efforts to educate the local population of Padang and have been a major catalyst and facilitator for education and training.  

KOGAMI has undertaken disaster preparedness training and socialization in every Kelurahan or area around Padang. Their continuing efforts have resulted in a noticeable growth in awareness, preparedness, and anticipation of disasters within local governance and the community. For more information about KOGAMI see: http://www.kogami.or.id/


IDEP’s local partner KOGAMI at work in the area - KOGAMI’s Director Patra explains plans to the Mayor of Padang - Area Evacuation Map

Immediately following the earthquake KOGAMI began working with The Fire Department of Padang to undertake extensive Search and Rescue while conducting a rapid needs assessment for the area.

The International response to the disaster was good with the International Civil Defence Directory, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN Human Settlements Programme (Habitat), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Resident Coordinator, World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) all working on the ground relatively soon after the disaster happened. Due to this fact IDEP / Kogami decided that it was not necessary to launch a direct emergency response initiative.

Due to the large number of organizations working on the ground after the earthquake IDEP / KOGAMI decided that it was not necessary to launch a direct emergency response initiative following the earthquake.

However, in the period after the quake KOGAMI continued to monitor the response and recovery efforts in the area and found that certain areas had been overlooked and did not have access to the support they needed. KOGAMI then conducted a detailed assessment of these seemingly “forgotten” areas and their findings are the basis for this appeal.

Our plans to assist Earthquake survivors in the Padang area

Buildings in the Padang area are particularly prone to the devastating effects of earthquakes due to their construction methods. The majority of buildings around Padang are highly prone to collapse during a seismic shift. With the reconstruction of thousands of buildings now needed in the area it is important that new appropriate technologies for earthquake proof construction be socialized in the area.


Examples of the many completely destroyed homes that KOGAMI has identified, these families need help to rebuild their homes & lives

IDEP / KOGAMI propose to:

Construct at least one ‘earthquake-proof’ house which will be used as a training and educational model for the community, local government, reconstruction agencies and key stakeholders in the Padang Pariaman area. The cost of this construction and training will be US $9,000. The wooden house that IDEP / KOGAMI plans to construct for demonstration and educational purposes, has been engineered to withstand movement during earthquakes and can be replicated by communities and agencies in the area. Please see the diagram below for the design of the earthquake proof houses.

Many people in remote areas on the outskirts of Padang have not had the support that they need to even start to cover the basic living needs.

IDEP / KOGAMI propose to:

Supply at least 9 complete sets of household needs kits for families who are having difficulty recovering from the quake. These kits will include basic food needs, bedding, and kerosene lamps. These sets (including cost of distribution to families in need) have a value of US$ 300 per set, minimum support needed to implement this activity is US$ 2,700.

People in the Padang area are extremely prone to disaster and ongoing community education and capacity building for disaster preparedness and management is a priority issue in the area.


The KOGAMI team at work conducting evacuation drills and teaching basic techniques for Search & Rescue & Emergency First Aid

IDEP / KOGAMI propose to:

Conduct community events and workshops which will increase awareness and understanding in local communities and local government about appropriate systems for building earthquake proof homes and Community Based Disaster Preparedness.

This project will not only provide rebuilding and relief to specific families in desperate need but also act as a working example of effective building techniques for earthquake prone areas.

Should support for this initiative be forthcoming the KOGAMI team will work in the area for 4 months to socialize the earthquake-proof building technology, build the demonstration home in conjunction with local community representatives and other stakeholders and ensure that the technology and information is disseminated to local communities and government agencies. KOGAMI will also distribute the household needs kits while documenting the entire process and reporting on the results.
 

How you can help...

IDEP is urgently seeking immediate support for assisting affected communities with some basic reconstruction while educating local stakeholders in earthquake proof housing technology.

To make a donation please go to our website: www.idepfoundation.org/idep_donate.php

Currently, IDEP can accept donations by two means:

1) Online Credit Card Donations through the National Heritage Foundation

Visit www.idepfoundation.org/idep_donate.php and select the ‘On-line Credit Card Donation’ option. You will be directed to the National Heritage Foundation website where you can process your donation through their secure site. Donations are accepted on our behalf by the National Heritage Foundation in the USA which is a registered 501-(c)(3) charity. Donation made through NHF are tax deductible in the United States.

Don’t forget, when you register your donation on our website, if you wish to earmark the funds for a particular project please indicate the project name.

2) Wire transfer to our bank account

[see website for details bank transfer details...]

If you are wire transferring funds please notify IDEP by filling in our donation registration form  on-line at: www.idepfoundation.org/idep_donate.php or emailing donate@idepfoundation.org. Please indicate the amount, the originating currency (i.e. US  dollars, UK pounds, etc), bank name and city from which the transfer was made, your name (as you would like to be listed on the donor list), and the date of the transfer. A receipt will be sent once the funds have arrived. Also, if you wish to earmark the funds for a particular project please indicate the project name.

Thank You so much to everyone who can help make this recovery project possible and for any support you are able to  provide.

Overview of Earthquake Proof Housing Technology that will be used as part of this project:

Check out this post from Mike Dodaro, which begins with:

What else do you need to know about the Entity Framework?  We've documented basic syntax and provided a few samples.  How can we improve the documentation?  Send us scenarios you want to implement.

Somasegar announced (with great pride) the availability of the first Beta of Visual Studio Orcas a few days ago. There is a huge VPC available for download, but also express versions. Some other varieties (perhaps an MSI installer) are coming on MSDN Subscriber downloads as well. READ MORE

[A New DevLife Post]
 

huh?

[A New DevLife Post]

 Wierd connection right? But ever since I started using Vista, I have had the song "Have a Heart" (from Nick of Time) pop in my head frequently. There is something about the tone and length of the "Default Beep" (Windows Ding.wav) that matches the very first "Hey!" of that song! (Though of course Bonnie Raitt sings it a million times lovlier than my computer.) It's crazy. "I can name that tune in one note!", right? But still, every single time that beep sounds, the tune starts up in my head and I finally had to share this.

The joke here is that Microsoft actually hired Robert Fripp to create the many of the sounds in WIndows Vista, though I don't think the little Ding comes from anywhere but a computer.

Here's the auction page for it.

Tablet PC/Ink related sessions & HOLs I see on the MIX site:

SESSION:
Ink for Designers and Developers
Speaker(s): Sam Geroge - Microsoft
Audience(s): Designer, Developer
Imagine if your users could add handwritten annotations over online photos, greeting cards or video (including live playback of your handwriting). Learn how to use Ink to take your Web sites to new heights of interactivity, personalization, social interaction, and usability. Learn the key design principles for Ink, and see how to code for Ink in the browser and on the server.

HANDS ON LAB:
Ink in Web Applications
Audience(s): Business Decision Maker, Designer, Developer
Adding ink and annotations makes your Web applications far more interactive and enables users to add their own personal touch. This lab shows just how easy it is to add ink and annotation, which integrate seamlessly with other features of Web development. You will become familiar with a Web page for browsing photos; implement ink support; change the thickness and color of the ink; implement erasing with the back of the pen, and more.

(I think there are more HOLs. I just don't see them on the site yet)

I found some interesting ADO.NET labs and sessions on the MIX site today!

SESSIONS

Accessing Data Services in the Cloud
Speaker(s): Pablo Castro - Microsoft
Audience(s): Designer, Developer
Come learn about new Microsoft technologies that enable you to make your data available over the Web through a simple REST interface and using open formats such as plan XML, JSON or even RDF. We also discuss the underlying entity framework that makes it easy to model, publish, and program against your data over the Web.

Rapidly Building Data Driven Web Pages with Dynamic ADO.NET
Speaker(s): Samuel Druker - Microsoft, Shyam Pather - Microsoft
Audience(s): Developer
Come learn about how new technologies from Microsoft bring together the concepts of dynamic languages and ADO.NET and allow you to quickly develop data driven Web pages using ASP.NET dynamic data controls, scalable to even the most complex databases.

*note that Andrew Conrad wants to make sure you notice the word DYNAMIC in that session!

Deep Dive on Data Driven Experiences
Speaker(s): Aaron Dunnington - Microsoft, Tim Scudder - Microsoft
Audience(s): Developer
Come learn how technologies like Silverlight, Language INtegrated Query (LINQ), and SQL Server 2005 can help developers build impactful, dynamic applications that reach the broadest possible audience.

LABS

REST Services for Data Access over the Web
Audience(s): Developer
In this lab, build a data service accessible through REST that supports exchanging data in XML and JSON formats, with full query and update capabilities; and build an AJAX-based client and a managed code client.

Rapidly Building Data Driven Web Pages with Dynamic ADO.NET
Audience(s): Developer
In this lab, learn about Project Friday, an incubation effort in the ADO.NET team to enable quick, clean, and iterative development with instant results. Project Friday provides this functionality by leveraging the ADO.NET Entity Framework and the power of dynamic languages.

Tonight's VTdotNET meeting is a little different for us "must focus on business apps" VTdotNETters. Griff Townsend is coming up from Albany where he has done two XNA sessions (2-D and then 3-D) at the user group there.

I think it will be a lot of fun to open up our eyes to new ways (reasons for) programming. I am hoping that we'll be able to draw some of the students from Champlain College's Game Development degree program.

www.vtdotnet.org for more info....

I realized that I am somewhat like a sailor with a girl in every port, except that I'm a girl with a geek in every port.  When I learned that the weather might prevent me from flying the last leg of my trip home from Seattle last night (Seattle to Washington, then to Burlington), I didn't even have to think for more than a moment who I knew in the area. Andrew Duthie and his ever so lovely (and recently expanded) family live close to Dulles. Talk about a friend; he even came to pick me up at the airport! I got to visit briefly with their 4 yr old who Andrew and Jennifer woke up just long enough for a "hi" (Joseph and I fell hard for each other last time I visited). Wireless, a comfy bed, a beautiful new baby to meet. And happily for me, Andrew has recently become slightly obsessed with making the perfect cup of coffee, which I got to sample before we headed back to the airport this morning. Pretty convenient that he had a flight out this morning too.  

Thanks so much to INETA , Andy Robinson (leader of Bellingham.NET) and Paul Mehner and Camey Combs from South Sound .NET for getting me out to the Seattle area to present at their user groups.

I did a session on LINQ to SQL in Web Apps in Bellingham on Wednesday night after spending 17 hours trying to get there. (Snowstorm in Chicago - more details about that crazy flight here…)  I was amazed that people stuck around to wait for me since I didn't arrive until about 7:45! I did my session from 8 - 10pm and then drove down to Olympia with Paul Mehner who had filled in and did a full workflow session while I was trying to make my way up to Bellingham (what  a gorgeous flight!). I was up for 23 straight hours that day and between the adrenaline and my love for presenting, I think I surprised these guys that I was doing this session from what my body clock defined as 11pm - 1am!

The next night I presented at the user group in Olympia.  This is the first time I recall a user group meeting that served something other than pizza! Camey had gone to Costco and we had sandwiches, chips, soda and chocolate chip cookies. Mmmmm.

This is the 4th time I've taught this session on what's coming up in ADO.NET in the next Visual studio which translates to Entity Framework and the data access integration with LINQ. It's all so new to most people and there is so much to show. From explaining the concept and purpose behind the entity model, to inspecting the schema files, laying out the various uses and of course, looking at Object Services, Entity client, Entity SQL and LINQ to Entities. Not to mention LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Datasets. It really is just way too much for one session and frustrating to figure out what to show without leaving out key information. In this session, there was a lot of interest in the actual schema files (and it is really important to take the time to understanding them if you want to really leverage Efs potential) so we spent a good amount of time in that space.

All in all, I think I whetted the appetites and curiosity of most of the folks at the meeting and that is really the best I can hope for in such a short amount of time.

On Friday I drove up to Microsoft (1 hour up, 3 hours back in rush hour traffic!) with my bag filled with Vermont Maple Syrup and goodies from Lake Champlain Chocolates and had some great meetings with some of my buddies on the ADO.NET team as well as the Mobility team (that's TabletPC and more).

After this, I was actually on a mini vacation! And now I'm in a plane flying east in to what promises to be some pretty nasty storms. We'll see how that goes….

Update - not quite home yet. When I do get home, I will post the links to the demos and powerpoints.

It seems each time I start to write a post about the 7th New England Code Camp ("Deer in the Headlights")  that was at the beginning of April, something has gotten in the way. But once again, this event was a blast and a great success. I drove down to Boston with Dave Burke and Laura Blood who were subjected to a much longer than expected business call that I had to be on. We also lucked out with the weather. The last time we had a code camp in Boston in march there was a pretty bad snowstorm (poor Dave crashed his car on the way down).

Chris Bowen and Chris Pels pulled off another great weekend. The schedule was packed for two days. Jason Haley, who cam ALL the way cross-country for this (and to visit friends and family) pulled together coffee and donuts for Saturday morning. Since I had to do a session first thing in the morning, Chris Pels knowingly saved a few chocolate glazed donut holes for me. Mmmmmm.

I did two sessions (LINQ to SQL in Web Apps and an Intro to ADO.NET Orcas) and led a chalk talk on the Entity Framework. The chalk talk was amazingly fun to do! We were in a small room but it was packed and we spent most of the time looking at the schema files and talking about the potential of Entity Framework in enterprise apps. I've never done a chalk talk before and it was an awesome group discussion.

As always, I love sitting in on Richard Hale Shaw's talks trying to soak up not only knowledge, but learn from his teaching style as well. Richard starts with his powerpoint decks from his training classes that have something like 200+ slides in them. Then based on where the session is going, he pokes around the deck and pulls up appropriate slides to help demonstrate his points.

Naturally, a bunch of us gathered at the Westin Waltham's hotel lobby bar Saturday night and I finally had to drag my butt to bed, but it was a blast! I definitely look forward to Number 8 and curious what subtitle will be created for it.

I am currently in Seattle where I did some really fun presentations (thanks INETA) at Bellingham.NET and South Sound .NET (in Olympia) on Wednesday and Thursday. (I'll write about them in a separate post). I put off travel until April so that I could avoid winter travel problems. That didn't work out so well.

Flying to Seattle on Wednesday through O'Hare proved to be (as usual) quite a problem as Chicago had a big fat snowstorm. When we landed at O'Hare, we had to wait one and a half hours for gate. Then I got off one plane and onto another. They boarded us (huge plane) and then we sat on the runway for 3 and a half hours before taking off for Seattle! Unfortunately, arriving in Seattle over 5 hours late meant that I was unable to drive the 2+ hours to Bellingham. So I boarded a 6:50 flight to  Bellingham and actually started my presentation at 8pm! (That was 11pm my time.) Luckily, Paul Mehner had driven up and did a fabulous two hour talk on Workflow while they waited for me to arrive. So they got 2 hours of that and then 2  hours of LINQ to SQL. A double header. After this, Paul and I drove (well, Paul drove) the 3 hours south to Olympia where he lives and I stayed overnight at his family's beautiful house on the Sound.

The next night I did my talk at the Souht Sound User Group and then spent the rest of the time with Camey Combs and her family, visiting the very cool Olympia Farmer's market and being treated to a fabulous home cooked meal. I'd call it a home away from home except they don't serve food like that in my house!

Today is my trip home. I fly from Seattle to Washington D.C. and then take a small flight to Burlington. However, Burlington is expecting a major snowstorm tonight - 100% chance, sleet and snow with 5 - 9 inches expected. So I don't have high hopes of getting home tonight. I have a great back up plan to stay at Andrew Duthie's however (MSDN Dev. Evangelist in Washington D.C. area) . (All links coming but I'm typing quickly so I can go board my plane.)

So place your bets. Will I get home tonight? Will the little prop plane fly into a big snowstorm and land in burlington at 11pm? Then will I drive another 1/2 hour in the big snowstorm to my house? We'll see how it goes.

These jobs are for Competitive Computing (aka "C2"). They are a Gold Partner and have some big name clients.

C# is a must for both jobs

Senior Software Engineer/Technical Architect

We are seeking a senior level software engineer/technical architect to lead design, architecture and development of custom application development solutions for large client projects. The successful candidate will have previous experience with ASP.NET (C#) development, with a strong background in web based development, object oriented concepts, relational database design and SQL Server development.  Strong hands on application architecture and designs skills are required for the position, with excellent written and verbal communications. Previous experience on large client projects and technical presentation skills are a plus. Bachelor's degree preferred, associate's degree considered, along with 5-7 years experience in an application development environment.

This is a unique opportunity to work in a highly collaborative team environment, on large challenging client projects, and offers significant growth potential for the successful candidate.

This has been on my mind for a while.... read more

[A New DevLife Post]

Tomorrow I am flying to Seattle then speaking tomorrow night at the Bellingham.NET User Group (which is even closer to the Canadian border than where I live) and then Thursday night at South Sound.NET in Olympia.

Thanks to my pal Camey Combs for suggesting the trip and to INETA and user group leaders Paul Mehner and Andy Robinson for making it all happen. Apparently, Camey and Paul have been promoting the heck out of this.

At Bellingham, I'll be presenting on LINQ to SQL and all the fun ASP.NET databinding you can do with it. In Olympia I'll be doing a 6 hour overview of ADO.NET Orcas. Just kidding. I wish I had all that time to talk about ADO.NET! Alright, so I will try to keep it under 4 hours. No? Nobody wants to stay at a user group until 10pm. How about 2 hours? Heck, I've done it in 75 minutes and 90 minutes in the past (and 2 hours and 15 minutes also). We'll see how it goes... [evil laugh].

LOCK THE DOORS!

Yay yay yay. I am not sure when this happened, but I just discovered that Pablo Castro will be doing the keynote at DevTeach (Montreal, May 14-18) and not surprisingly, he'll be talking about the Entity Framework. More here.

We have had some gorgeous snow reappear in the past week. Friday was an historic powder day at Mad River. I went on Friday and skiid like sh*t. I was so disheartened. Rich went yesterday and came home to say it was the best skiing of the year. Since it snowed more last night and today; and since Mad River was allowing weekday pass holders to ski for free this weekend,  Rich and I went again today.

On our first run, Rich took me into the woods. I'm a bit of a scaredy cat in the woods but, while I didn't swoosh straight down through the trees, I didn't have to pause and get my courage up between every turn like I usually do. It was actually fun. And nice powder!

Then when we hit the trails, something amazing happened. I started skiing the way I know I can ski, but rarely  seem to pull off except on the groomers. I ski on telemark skis - freeheel. I switched over from being a very experienced and confident alpine skiier of 30+ (on and off) years to tele about 5 years ago but never really regained my confidence.

But today my ski legs returned and I was just bopping down the hill doing what felt right. When I looked at (and blogged about) this great video of some tele guys at Mad River from Friday earlier today, it nearly made me cry to see these guys skiing the way I know I should be skiing. Perhaps it was watching that video and keeping that in my head, rather than the image of me really sucking! Who knows. But that's how I finally got to ski today and it just feels so good!

If only I had been skiing more frequently this year and this had happened earlier, because sadly, today was the last day of the season for Mad River.

So next winter, I have to start all over again. Oh well. At least I can end this season with a big smile!