[buug] Fwd: Pearson Education User Group Program Newsletter -- December 2008

[Michael Paoli]

Forwarded (slightly redacted):

----- Forwarded message from usergroups at informit.com -----
     Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 16:07:17 -0500
     From: "InformIT User Groups" <usergroups at informit.com>
Reply-To: "InformIT User Groups" <usergroups at informit.com>
  Subject: Pearson Education User Group Program Newsletter -- December 2008
       To: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu

Pearson Education User Group Program Newsletter
Issue 11—December 2008

Thank you for reading the Pearson Education User Group Program monthly  
newsletter
for official group members. Please pass this along to your colleagues  
and share
our news and offers.


News & Announcements

Special Holiday Contest — Win a Bundle of Books!
Enter by December 31, 2008 for your chance to win a bundle of free books of
your choice from the InformIT catalog! Select the appropriate link below,
choose your User Group's operating state, and click Submit to reach the
entry form.
    • InformIT User Group Contest
	http://www.informit.com/user_groups/contest.aspx
    • Cisco Press User Group Contest
	http://www.ciscopress.com/user_groups/contest.asp

Social Media Survey — Here's What You Said
Thanks again to all participants! We received a total of 647 responses. Look
for another set of interesting data points in the next UG newsletter.

    Do you use social media? Why?
    • 89% use some form of social media on a weekly basis
    • 59% use social media to gather information on new technologies

    Most popular sites?
    • 71% use Google/Yahoo Groups at least once a month
    • 84% use Wikipedia at least once a month
    • 41% use Facebook at least once a month

    Least popular sites?
    • 83% never use Second Life or Friendster

_________________________________________________________________


New Podcasts on InformIT

OnPodcasts - PDC Podcast Round-Up

Miss out on this year's Microsoft Professional Developers Conference? We've
captured videocasts with Anders Hejlsberg and the C# team, the Oslo team,
Paul Vick, Brad Abrams, the Concurrency team, and many others! All are
published in our OnMicrosoft podcast channel: www.informit.com/onmicrosoft.

"Oslo" — Microsoft's Modeling Platform
Paul Vick provides an overview of "Oslo"—the tool, the language, and the
relational repository. Learn what it is, how it works, and why it matters.
http://www.informit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=a08bc700-0179-4b42-86a9-4e32af15b498

Windows Communication Foundation 3.5 Unleashed
Matt Winkle presents concepts from _Windows Communication Foundation 3.5
Unleashed_, the essential resource for software developers and architects
working with WCF. Learn best practices or programming with WCF.
http://www.informit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=3e528a5a-8ea0-4c24-bf08-1102a8810be1

Building and Maintaining Frameworks
.NET Team Program Manager Krzysztof Cwalina discusses his work building
frameworks and offers valuable insights for developers building framework
libraries.
http://www.informit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=dc623016-05ad-4df7-965b-7d6d6e76d263

Visual Basic 10: New Features
Paul Vick and Lisa Feigenbaum discuss the features in the latest release of
Visual Basic 10 announced at PDC 2008.
http://www.informit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=f57d341c-da28-4856-9a86-699ecdd1d845


_________________________________________________________________


In the Store

Adobe Illustrator CS4 On Demand
By Steve Johnson/Perspection, Inc.
http://www.informit.com/title/0789738384

Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0
By Juan Sanchez, Andy McIntosh
http://www.informit.com/title/0321545370

Cyber Crime Fighters: Tales from the Trenches
By Felicia Donavan, Kristyn Bernier
http://www.informit.com/title/0789739224

Framework Design Guidelines
By Krzysztof Cwalina, Brad Abrams
http://www.informit.com/title/0321545613

Programming in Python 3: A Complete Introduction to the Python Language
By Mark Summerfield
http://www.informit.com/title/0137129297

Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++
By Bjarne Stroustrup
http://www.informit.com/title/0321543726

SQL Server Forensic Analysis
By Kevvie Fowler
http://www.informit.com/title/0321544366

The "Oslo" Modeling Language
By David Langworthy, Brad Lovering, Don Box
http://www.informit.com/title/0321606353

The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition
By Daryl Cagle, Brian Fairrington
http://www.informit.com/title/0789738155

The Power of IP Video
By Jennifer C. Baker
http://www.informit.com/title/158705342X

Windows Small Business Server
By Eriq Neale
http://www.informit.com/title/0672329573

Xcelsius 2008 Dashboard Best Practices
By Loren Abdulezer
http://www.informit.com/title/0672329956

Be sure you're logged in when shopping and have entered your membership code
to receive your 35% discount! See all titles: http://www.informit.com/store

   _________________________________________________________________


User Groups of the Month

Michigan:  West  Michigan  Cisco  Users Group (WMCUG) is a non-profit,
independent  users  group  which  is dedicated to the open exchange of
information in the fields of internetworking and the advanced technologies
that support the business goals of an organization. WMCUG focuses primarily,
but not exclusively on Cisco products and solutions. Within this framework,
WMCUG hopes to build a community to share best practices and provide a forum
for members to grow as individual contributors in the technology arena. For
more information, visit http://wmcug.org.


Florida:  The  Mount  Dora  Macintosh Users Group(MDMUG) aims to help,
educate, inform, discuss and just plain revel in the experience of owning a
Macintosh computer. MDMUG provides support and advice to anyone currently
using  or who is considering using the Macintosh OS. Discussions cover
Macintosh computer hardware and software problems and solutions, as well as
advice for the future purchase of systems and accessories. Everyone from the
Mac novice to the Mac professional is invited to participate. For more
information, visit http://www.mdmug.com.

   _________________________________________________________________


Authors and Events: December

December 10 — MSDN Events Unleashed: The Best of PDC
The Southeast Valley .NET User Group (SEVNUG) is presenting highlights of
this year's Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Phoenix,
Arizona. Discussions include overviews of new technologies like Windows
Azure, C#4.0 and ASP.NET 4.0. They will also focus on recent releases that
you can take advantage of now, including the WCF REST Start Kit and the
Silverlight Toolkit. For more information, visit http://tinyurl.com/66k3bt.


December 11 — Harvard Club of Washington, D.C.
Harry  Lewis, co-author of "Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty and
Happiness after the Digital Explosion," will speak at the Harvard Club of
Washington, DC. (http://www.informit.com/title/0137135599)

Happy Holidays from the Pearson User Group Program Team!
Jamie Adams, Andrea Bledsoe, Heather Fox, Lisa Jacobson-Brown, and Emily
Nave

Have a User Group event in your area? Let us know!
E-mail details to usergroups at informit.com for consideration in next
month's newsletter. Please include "User Group Event" in the subject line.

   _________________________________________________________________


User Group Offers
http://www.informit.com/usergroupwelcome

Get a $10 rebate on Que titles!
It's easy – buy any two books from the list below and get a $10 rebate.

• Adobe Photoshop CS4 On Demand
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=078973835X
• Adobe Flash CS4 On Demand
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789738368
• Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 On Demand
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789738376
• Adobe Illustrator CS4 Professional On Demand
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789738384
• Adobe InDesign CS4 On Demand
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789738392
• Office 2008 for the Mac On Demand
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789739232
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 CS4 On Demand
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789739313

Official form and address information is included inside each book. This
rebate is good on eligible purchases made between 12/01/09 and 01/31/09, and
all  submissions  must  be  postmarked  no  later than 02/28/09. Visit
participating retailers, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Follets, Fry's
or InformIT to purchase your books.

Affiliate Program gives back
Visit the Affiliate Program FAQ page today to learn more about an easy
and effective way to put money back in your group's pocket – by earning a
referral fee on every purchase on InformIT.
   http://www.informit.com/affiliates/faq.aspx

Are you on Facebook? Do you Twitter?
See a complete list of links to Pearson pages. Join and follow us today!
   http://www.informit.com/promotions/promotion.aspx?promo=136778

Questions?
Please contact usergroups at informit.com and include your user group name,
relevant topic area, and type of inquiry in the subject line (for example:
"Southern California Cisco Users Group – Networking").

Save 40% on Select Microsoft titles
Use discount code DecDiscount when shopping on informit.com* to receive
40% off the following books during the month of December:

• Microsoft Access 2007 LiveLessons
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789738015
• Microsoft Office 2007 LiveLessons
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789737795
• Microsoft Windows Vista LiveLessons
   http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789737787

* Please note discount code is case-sensitive.

Safari Books Online: User Group Discount
Imagine having instant access — online and fully searchable — to  
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and other top resources from Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, Sams, Cisco
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Lynda.com, and more — the brands you trust and the authors you love. Safari
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library at your fingertips.

Safari Books Online offers a special 15% discount to InformIT User Group
members on annual Safari Books Online subscriptions purchased before
December 31, 2008. You must be a registered InformIT User Group Member to
receive the discount. Subscriptions must be purchased at
http://safari.informit.com/subscribe. Enter coupon LVEBQWA at the time
of checkout to redeem your discount.

Offer Details: Not valid with any other offer. Coupon is good for a one-time
15% discount on a yearly Safari Library or Safari Bookshelf account. Offer
valid for new subscribers only.

   _________________________________________________________________


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