I'm sick of those referral spams so they are going directly to be "permantely deleted" by outlook. So if you want to get an email to me, don't put that word in the subject.

http://www.AcehAid.org

I think it's time for me to start focusing on concepts like Contract First and tools like ThinkTecture's WSCF as well as Kirk Allen Evan's new WSE2 templates. Web Methods mask messaging from us and using them in VS.NET makes me think I am working with objects. I think I have done more than enough with Web Services to finally get rid of the training wheels and prepare my head for Indigo. And definitely check out John Bristowe's and Benjamin Mitchell's thoughts on this.

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I guess they got a little tiresome only because there were so many but it was fun how many people put together some really creative April Fool's jokes. Also it made it hard to post anything that was serious because who would believe it?

The best was Matt Hawley who has been blogging about his move to go work for Microsoft over the past few weeks. Yesterday he blogged - haha that was all an April Fool's joke, which kind of made any one reading those posts scratch their heads, wondering - what the heck is funny about that? It turned outo that the joke WAS on us, because he really is going to Microsoft. Good one, Matt.

My posting about the VB keywords The and A, was actually a group effort by a bunch of VB people: myself, Kathleen Dollard, Rocky Lhotka, Jackie Goldstein and Billy Hollis. Obviously a spoof. But I thought everyone's contributions were pretty clever and funny. Hardly anyone memed it though, oh well.

The funny thing about that post was that it was so obviously a joke, however my own comments made people think that I didn't get it was a joke! As if I found the press release somewhere else and was upset about it. Ha ha. So I did get you! Nah nah nah. And the other funny thing that happened, was that Kathleen and I (who love each other, really, we do!) had a little unplanned cat fight on our blogs. So in case that worried anyone, no need - we were giggling about it. She's not off her rocker. But she did get some good digs in on me, didn't she. Hmmmmmm....

Anyway, it was fun to do. I have been planning that since the MVP summit last  year.

http://www.AcehAid.org

I have posted my powerpoint and demos from my ADO.NET 2.0 session. I loved doing this session. I even got to do it twice. I had lots of rave reviews from attendees. A big win-win. I am hopefully going to do it again at the Mid Atlantic Code Camp when I go to D.C. in May and again at my user group. It is a great session. I hope I find more venues to do it at!

You will find the powerpoints and demos on this page under "What's New in ADO.NET 2.0". The slant of the talk was to ASP.NET developers, but it's all back end goo, so it's for everyone. As Alex Homer points out, yes, I have working SQL Query Notification demos in here!!

This is the same talk I did at Code Camp III in Waltham on March 12th. Thanks to all of those attendees for being my guinea pigs. I was able to improve the talk a lot thanks to your feedback!

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I see a bunch, but am especially happy for Sahil Malik, that are brand new. Also, Bill Vaughn did of course, retain his MVP status. I was in that speaker lounge where he wrote about how much grief he got from some Microsoft people (though I thought it evolved into much more light hearted ribbing over the next few days) and his response was basically that it had the intended effect. It brought a big time awareness to the fact that there are a lot of people and businesses who are not ready for VB6 to be retired.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Hmm - looks like they've reached an impass on the name for an umbrella website where all of the code camps can get listed and linked from, as well as other info relating to code camps, the wiki, etc.

Is it

CodeCamps.com

or

CodeCampHQ.com

go vote here! (that's Thom Robbin's website)

You can only vote once. (and no this is not an april fool's joke)

http://www.AcehAid.org

This is my bookmark to an article I really want to read, but I want to do it away from email, i.m. and the phone. It is a topic that I get stuck on because I basically understand it, but not enough to deal with more detailed questions..

Routing Secured SOAP Messages Through Multiple SOAP Intermediaries Using WSE 2.0

It's written by William Tay, who is one of my WSE2 pals - though I think I ask him many  more questions on i.m. about WSE2 than he asks me! Hmmm, I wonder why? (Because he understands this stuff at a much deeper level than me, that's why!!)

http://www.AcehAid.org

tons of snow melted in the last day. My whole front garden is uncovered as well as a bit of dog poop that has ummm, "landed", over the winter (and then got covered over with snow) thanks to our two newfoundland doggies.

There were so many robins and finches bouncing about today, too!

http://www.AcehAid.org

[this was all part of our April Fool's gag. I love Kathleen and don't think she's gone off her rocker]

I have known Kathleen for many years and consider her a friend. BUt Kathleen does tend to get a little, ummm, passionate about VB. (understatement). I just don't know where she is going with this?!

http://www.AcehAid.org

I am just not sure how to react to this! These changes could push more VB programmers to C#. But also, buried in this press release was a hint that Microsoft is going to actually try to patent these new keywords. Give me a freakin' break!

With the upcoming release of beta 2 of Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0, Microsoft is today announcing changes to the Visual Basic language that is part of Visual Studio. Continuing to focus on making Visual Basic the most productive language on the .NET platform, Microsoft is adding new keywords to the language.

The new "The" keyword assists programmers in identifying particular data objects or computing resources. This keyword will identify any default resources, such as printers, directories, or databases. This allows code constructs such as:

If The Database.IsDown OrElse The Database.IsTooSlow Then

    The Database.IsProbablyOracle

End If

“We think developers can definitely benefit from this. They won’t have to worry about locations of default resources,” according to Victor Silver, PR Manager for Visual Basic.

The new “A” keyword allows access to generics. Generics are a previously announced feature of .NET 2.0 that allow programmers to work without knowing anything about what they are working with.

VB Guru, Rockford Lhotka was hoping for additional keywords. When contacted for his comments on these changes, he said "I think they should have included "an" as well as "a", because the current decision leads to "a awkward situation for some words".

Past president of the highly influential Northern Colorado .NET SIG, Kathleen Dollard responded, “It’s a good first step, but I was really hoping they’d include adverbs”

Jeffrey Rochstar, author of several prominent books on .NET says, “I’m happy to see these additions for VB, but since they cut ‘that’ at the last minute, it seems that C# still has the advantage with 'this'."

These changes may be in response to pressure by the newly-formed Joint Organization of Keyword Enthusiasts. This group has been pushing for a full English sentence structure. There manifesto states that Visual Basic should be significantly more verbose. A spokesman said “Duh! Without periods, they still aren’t sentences,” and went on to say, “I think the backward compatibility problems presented by punctuation like semi-colons are solvable.”

According to Visual Basic Language Progression Manager, A.J. Thejays, the keywords are being added to the language to "enhance the ability of Visual Basic developers to create code in a more natural language. Adding "the" and "a" brings them closer to actual English sentences." Thejays continues explaining that a great number of Visual Basic developers come, not from the Computer Science bacground, but with degrees in many Liberal Arts programs. "These are people who are used to communicating in proper English. We think that this be beneficial to the coding experience."

Microsoft has not announced a timeframe for the new keywords, nor whether to the Visual Studio IDE will introduce a new color for the new class of keywords. Apparently, Microsoft has also applied for patents.

No one from Microsoft was available for additional comment because of Microsoft’s scheduled company-wide day of silence on April 1.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Boy am I out of the loop! I hung out with my friends four children last night while she was having surgery and her hubby was at the hospital too. We had a blast. The girls range from age 4 to 12. While the 12 year old was doing her homework, she asked my opinion on one of her questions she was working on. She was doing theoretical probability! In 7th grade! She had questions like "if you drew 12 cards from a deck of cards, how many clubs do you think you would get, and why". "If all of the diamonds were removed from the deck and you drew 12 cards again, how many clubs do you think you would get and why?" I don't remember what I was doing in math in 7th grade (a million years ago...) - but I sure don't recall it being that!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Here, Doug Seven (did you know Doug swallowed the red pill) explains in his words what CodeZone is all about. Much easier to digest and comprehend than the marketing speak.

 

http://www.AcehAid.org

I have a client who has crazy wonderful ideas about what they would like their software to do. They don't go by any rules of "what software should do". I told them from the beginning "just dream...I'll let you know what I can and can't make happen."

Sometimes these ideas are really hard to implement, sometimes not so bad. It's really gratifying when I get emails that say "this works great! I love it!!!"

http://www.AcehAid.org

...which would it be?

Lately, this thought has popped into my head every time I read a new post from Elizabeth Grigg's blog.

But of course, I would probably go into some type of withdrawal shock if I couldn't "blog surf" like I do frequently throughout the day. And I would stop being constantly challenged to learn a gazillion new things about programming which is the result of reading (or scanning or surfing or whatever) such a great variety of different blogs.

But Beth's blog is definitely a stop and smell the roses kind of thing...kind of like having the t.v. channel stuck on PBS.

http://www.AcehAid.org

What does it mean to Sponsor a Vermont.NET meeting?

What you do: Pay for the pizza and soda

What you get:

• Get your company logo on the homepage of our website (www.vtdotnet.org) during the time of promoting the meeting (and afterwards sometimes if I don't update for the next meeting right away)
• Get your company  logo and thanks to you in all emails that go out to our lists that are geared towards promoting the meetings. We have a member list of 200 members, as well as a meeting announcement list that is those 200 + 100 more. That's 300 people who have explicitly asked to receive these emails!
• Get your logo on our THANK YOU slide that is in the powerpoint deck that plays during the meeting "warm up" and that I review at the beginning of my meeting. More info on this...
• If you would like, we can have literature about your products available to attendees.
• Our undying gratitude.

Take a look at the upcoming meeting schedule. Where there is not an INETA Sponsored event (note the logo below the speaker's name), we can use a pizza/soda sponsor. Our meetings can have anywhere from 20 - 40 attendees though we have had 50 on a few occasions, so the cost of sponsorship varies.

I can't believe it took me three years to think of blogging for pizza for my user group!!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Reading Jerry Delany's post about attending the Atlanta.NET meeting and a comment he made at the end about attending the Atlanta C# meetings because they are more advanced made me think of a problem I have been pondering lately with my user group , Vermont.NET, that is not uncommon.

We have been meeting for 3 years now - since Feb 2002. There are plenty of pepole in the group who have come frequently to meetings since the beginning and they are many who are pretty advanced. Yet we still have new people coming into the meeting all of the time. Of course, this is a microcosm of the whole programming community and not a new problem. I don't want to have to choose between sating the more advanced .NET programmers and ignoring the needs of those who are just moving to .NET.

What we are talking about (and I am waiting for someone in the group to grab this project and run with it...) is having a pre-meeting presentation that is more for beginners and then let the regular presentation continue to engage those who are interested in more advanced topics. There are many groups who do this so we can certainly learn from them. My idea is to have the beginner talks be done by user group members, which has so many advantages.

How is your user group dealing with the widening gap between .NET newbies and .NET pros?

update: I emailed Chris Pels who runs the Boston.NET User group and has been doing a 2-part meeting for two years. We will have an article on this in the April INETA Newsletter. If you aren't signed up for the newsletter (which you can do from the home page), they are archived at www.ineta.org/newsletters.

http://www.AcehAid.org

very cute!

http://www.AcehAid.org

An aftershock - 3 months after. 8.2 earthquake in the SAME spot as before. Hits at midnight, everyone of course fears another tsunami. Banda Aceh is the target again. Horror. Waiting to hear back from the folks in Bali...will post anything I hear...

update - you all probably know from the news, the earthquake has done a lot of damage in places (high death toll on the island Nias) but at this point, the fear of a tsunami has faded. Thank god. It is now morning there. Got word from folks in southern Indonesia who are awaiting contact with their aid workers in Aceh Province...

http://www.AcehAid.org

“Winter weather advisory in effect from 5 AM EST to 11 AM EST Monday.
Flood watch in effect from Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon "...

:-(

http://www.AcehAid.org

Kate Gregory notes that the speakers list (check the dropdown) on the TechEd site is filling in. She also already did the Brian count. There are (just guessing by names) 8 Brians and 11 women, so maybe the ration (I decided to leave that typo in tact since it made me laugh) is increasing? This has become fondly known as the Brian Factor.

What is nice to see is that after the early indication that a lot of the 3rd party (aka Non-Microsoft) speakers who are frequent TechEd speakers were not on the roster, it seems to have improved. I see lots of people that I know are not MS employees on the list. That's good for the community I think. PDC is the all Microsoft event. So an apparent reduction for TEchEd had (understandably) ruffled some feathers and egos.

http://www.AcehAid.org