That Kate Gregory is something else. It's one thing for her to go round the world training developers, but when she gets invited to Microsoft to train the 'softies, I'm even more impressed. Kate recently did a tour of Canada teaching about VS2005 Smart Client programming and is bringing her expertise to Redmond next week.

http://www.AcehAid.org

I ordered something from PC Connection yesterday. Their site is awesome -- quick and easy to get around. The ordering process was quick safe and I'm sure very secure. I have no problems with that.

However, since I was a dummy and typed in my credit card info off the top of my head, I did get a number wrong. So they sent me an email about it.

I originally deleted the email along with all of my other spam. It was from a girls' name (@pcconnection.com but I didn't notice that quickly enough) and the subject said Order ######## (with the real number in there) like so very many spam emails that come through the pipe.

This is what the email looks like (except I have masked the name of the sender as well as what might be the direct line etc...)

--------------------------------

We are ready to ship your order but the credit card has declined.  Please call us at the number below between 9am and 1am Eastern Time.  Thank you,

N******* ***********

Loss Prevention Analyst

PC Connection Services

**********@pcconnection.com

Phone:  800-800-**** Fax:  603-355 ****

www.pcconnection.com

The name is in  "reply blue" text as is half of the fax #. The hyperlink is to file:\\pcconnection.com, which of course fails. Therefore you would resort to calling the phone #. The phone # is not the same as the phone # on the website. So I came to the conclusion that my email and order # were scraped from somewhere along the pipe and not secured as I'm sure the credit card info was and they were luring me to call a different phone # to give my credit card details to god knows who!

I did call the phone # on the website and got my cc cleared up but had a long chat with a customer service rep about the fact that most professionals I know would advise everyone and anyone to ignore such an email and they should really reconsider how they communicate with their clients about stuff like this.

Sheesh!

http://www.AcehAid.org

I had a very strange problem with SQL Server 2005 April CTP today that I have "solved" but just want to put it out there in case anyone has this happen too!

I installed VS2005 Beta2 and SQL Server 2005 April CTP Developer on a completely repaved clean machine. There is nothing else on the box.

I did this before I went to D.C. so that's about 2 weeks ago. I ran through all o fmy demos and everything worked great. I went away for a week and still didn't turn that machine on for another week, until today. I was unable to log into the sql server from code or from the Mgmnt Studio interface, not even into the default database. On both the lowly user or even the admin account, I was getting "invalid user". I couldn't run any of my demos from Visual Studio. I tried all kinds of stuff and finally gave in and uninstalled and reinstalled and everything is now fine.

I would be very interested to know if anyone else has had this behavior. I know it's just a beta and expect wierdness, but am still curious.

http://www.AcehAid.org

This is not something I normally do, but is why I do have a "Purely Personal" category on this blog!

>
> TOP 10 (8 actually. The other 2 must have gotten deleted in  forwarding)
DOG PEEVES ABOUT HUMANS
>
> 1.  Blaming your farts on me...  not funny...  not funny at all!
>
> 2.  Yelling at me for barking ...  I'M A FRIGGIN'  DOG!
>
> 3.  Taking me for walks, then not letting me check stuff out.  Exactly
> whose walk is this anyway?
>
> 4.  Any trick that involves balancing food on my nose ... stop it!
>
> 5.  Any haircut that involves bows or ribbons.  Now you know why we
> chew your stuff up when you're not home.
>
>
> 6.  The slight of hand, fake fetch throw.  You fooled a dog!  Whoooo
> Hoooooooo -- what a proud moment for the 'top' of the food chain.
>
> 7.  Taking me to the vet for the "big snip", then acting surprised
> when I freak out every time we go back!
>
> 8.  Getting upset when I sniff the crotches of your guests.  Sorry,
> but I haven't quite mastered that handshake thing yet.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Well, wouldyalookatdat?!

MS is going to include 5 seats for Foundation Server with any of the team system skus.

This will make lots of people happy.

However I am scratching my head a little because, if I understand Thom's explanation correctly the other night at VTdotNET, Foundation Server is aimed at huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge shops with lots and lots and lots of developers.

Anyway, I know a few small companies in Vermont that will be happy to hear this!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Microsoft New England is sponsoring a free showing of the new Star Wars flick that Rod Paddock says he would see again and again! Here are the details on Thom Robbins' blog.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Egad - Microsoft is now talking about Hawaii which is THREE product cycles out from what we are working on today.

VS2003

VS2005 (Whidbey)

VSxxx  (Orcas)

VSIhopetoberetiredby then (Hawaii)

http://www.AcehAid.org

Since I have an interest in WS-Federation and Liberty, I found this post from Tim Bray (by way of Robert Scoble) also notable. It's very difficult to always know what the big picture is of things like these - especially since I am pretty uninvolved in Interop still.

http://www.AcehAid.org

I found this interesting article on raising your hourly rates when you are a consultant. It is not directed at IT consultants, but just at consultants in general. I find it to be good objective advice. I had been billing the same rate for many many many years and have finally been adjusting to a new set of rates (still with a special rate for long-term clients) over the past few months. I know a lot of developers within our blogging .NET community that have made the leap to consulting in the past year or so. I have been working as a contractor since 1989, yet I sometimes need the same advice as a consulting newbie!

http://www.AcehAid.org

I have been thinking about the Birds of a Feather session that I am leading at TechEd called "Life on the Bleeding Edge" and hoping that there will be people there that are already heavily into technologies like Longhorn, Avalon, Indigo, or have used .NET for so long that they are almost bored silly with it. Tablet PC users, etc

I did not create the session because I have the answer, but becasue I think it's a really interesting question and am very hopeful that there will be a mix of early adopters and VB6 devotees for an interesting dicussion. Here's the info

http://www.AcehAid.org

I am going to be doing a webcast with DCC Glen Gordon on the topic of MARS - Multiple Active Resultsets - on May 25th. This is one of a pair of ADO.NET 2 talks that Glen and Mark Dunn are doing together, but I'll be filling in for Mark on this one. MARS is a topic that I have been digging into for almost the past year as part of my explorations of ADO.NET 2.0, so I'm looking forward to the webcast which will be full of how-to's and watch-out's!

The first webcast is an ADO.NET 2.0 overview that Mark & Glen will be doing on May 23rd.

Glen has a deep level of experience with SQL Server, so I am really looking forward to his perspective on MARS and am happy that Mark thought of me when he realized he had a difficult scheduling conflict.

You can register here for the MARS webcast.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Sahil Malik is in the final phases of his upcoming ADO.NET 2.0 book!!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Atlanta's Code Camp and the "Developer Developer Developer" event in the u.k

Here is a blog post from Plip on the u.k. event which is modeled after Code Camps.

Here is one from Atlanta Code Camp by Chris Williams.

Surely there will be more.

http://www.AcehAid.org

One of the things that I have been invited to do this year that I am really looking forward to is participate on the Advisory Board for the Software Engineering Department at Burlington based Champlain College. The funny thing about that links is that there is a picture of myself and architecture guru Keith Pleas on the page! That was taken at the Vermont.NET's June 2003 meeting where we had Keith come in as our INETA Speaker, Thom Robbins spoke also, MSDN was filming us as part of their video on how great INETA is and we helped celebrate INETA's 100th Speaker Bureau event! There were 50 people at the meeting. Champlain is proud to host our summer meetings.

Champlain is a very advanced with their technology and even just built a new building dedicated to it. They have a degree program in Software Engineering and even a offer a masters degree in I.T.

So as a software professional, someone who has lots of involvement with Microsoft and also someone who spends a lot of time looking at [some] of the future products coming down the pipes, I do have something to offer the college as they plan for the next academic year of preparing students for the real world!

http://www.AcehAid.org

A component walks into a bar and ...

http://www.AcehAid.org

I am not a gamer. I don't know how to play Xbox, but I can spell it at least. Either way, I am really impressed by something on their new site that REALLY goes out of the box (no pun intended) with thinking about websites. It is something I have been heralding the geniuses at Hi-Res for years.

What is great is that you get to think and explore the site. It is not filled with hand holding explicit links. There's not much there, but what I love so much is the page you get to by clicking on the question mark. It forces you to think and play with it rather than being hammer on the head obvious. Brilliant stuff. And when I finally followed my instincts and found success, it was really gratifying.

http://www.AcehAid.org

This time it is about 30 miles from Padang. 6.9. Here's some minimal info.

Padang is in southern Sumatra whereas the earlier disasters were in the northwest, in Aceh Province.

Here is a map on the AcehAid website (IDEP Foundation) so you can see where all of these places are relative to each other. IDEP continues to work night and day in response to the nightmare tsunamis that happened in December and continue to rely on financial support.

http://www.AcehAid.org

The links on their site are currently a wreck, but you can go here http://www.ejhs.k12.vt.us/ to get more info. I have copied and pasted from their site, but again, thee links in the descriptions won't work very well. I have emailed them so hopefully they will be fixed soon.

Position:	Network Administrator
Deadline:	May 23, 2005
Description:	Full-time, 12 month position available to direct, coordinate and maintain local area computer network activities of the Chittenden Central Supervisory Union, Union #46 School District and Essex Junction School District.  BA in Computer Science or related field, plus 3 to 5 years as a network administrator preferred.  Certifications in or ability to obtain certifications in Microsoft, Novell and/or Cisco required.  For additional details please refer to the job description.  Excellent benefits package including family medical and dental insurance; life insurance; a retirement plan with up to a 200% employer match; tuition reimbursement; 11 paid holidays, paid vacation and other paid leaves.  For consideration, please send letter, resume/application and three letters of reference and salary requirements to the address above.

and these two which you won't retire early on but...

Position:	Microcomputer Specialist – Westford School District
Deadline:	May 25, 2005
Description:	Part-time position available, starting July 1, 2005 to serve our Westford School by performing a variety of specialized computer installation and support functions. Position pays $13.78/hour for 20 hours (2½ days) per week. For additional information please refer to the job description.  For consideration, please send letter, resume/application, and at least three references to the address above.

Position:	Microcomputer Specialist – Essex High School
Deadline:	Open Until Filled
Description:	Full-time position available immediately at our Essex High School to perform a variety of specialized computer installation and support functions. Position pays $13.43/hour, with an excellent benefits package including family medical and dental insurance; life insurance; a retirement plan with up to a 200% employer match; tuition reimbursement; 11 paid holidays, paid vacation and other paid leaves. For additional information please refer to the job description.  For consideration, please send letter, resume/application, and at least three references to the address above.

http://www.AcehAid.org

SENIOR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR
(full-time - Vergennes)
DR® Power Equipment, an information-intensive direct marketer, is looking for a Senior System Administrator to join our Information Systems Team. The ideal candidate will have 5 or more years of experience in the following areas: day-to-day systems deployment and administration, designing and managing infrastructure architecture, project management, systems security planning, procurement and supplier management, and budgeting and cost management. Our technical environment includes a multi-point wide area network, multiple Windows/ UNIX/MPE servers, an internally hosted eCommerce presence, stateful firewalling, 200+ desktops and Call Center ACD equipment. Key technologies include: Windows 2000/3, Exchange 2000, Oracle and SQL server, Cisco routers, and a host of supporting technologies.
We have several exciting initiatives in our plans and are looking for a self-starting team player to join us.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Rebecca Dias: WS-* and Liberty

Matt Powell Excellent News around Web Service Federation

Hervey Wilson Moving On...Federation Calls...  Active Directory Federation Server/Indigo/WS* - cool!!!

http://www.AcehAid.org