(by way of Hervey) First it was Eric Gunnerson(goin' to the movies), now Keith Ballinger (to Media Center)? Keith Ballinger? How could it be? Well, I can understand wanting to do something new....I get to all the time!   It's just so...hard...to....grok! (hmmm Hervey's link to Keith's post seems to be wrong so just go to Hervey's post for more info...)

Keith is the first person who really got me (and SO many of us) excited about web services.

Keith is the first person from Microsoft that I had personal contact with when Microsoft started their whole community thing. He replied to a question I posted on a newsgroup and I ran into the kitchen to tell my husband “Keith Ballinger actually just replied to a question of mine in a newsgroup!!” My husband was ummm, beyond confused, and just gave up, shrugged his shoulders and said something like “that's nice, honey.”

But the funniedst thing I have to say about Keith is my surprise the first time we met in person at how young he is. I figured he had to be at least way older than me since he new so much. So it was also my first real eye opener to how much incredible talent Microsoft has reigned in (or maybe that was my eye opener to how old I really am? since now I think young=under 40!)

I have been heading to the WSE Newsgroup lately to deal with some of my questions. Since I have a policy of trying to answer at least one question if I am asking a question, I  have been reading through lots of the questions. Of course, I haven't found one that I could answer that hasn't been tackled yet. And...even so, not many I could have answered anyway. Hervey Wilson seems to be mostly responsible for answering questions right now until there are more people with some expertise. But I am seeing a lot of really cool questions as people are digging into some interesting scenarios. I am definitely learning a lot by perusing this list. I recommend it.

Today we had the first meeting of the Vermont Software Developers Alliance. There were 40 people there and we had an amazing array of business types represented. Not only across technologies (where Microsoft had about a 60% share) but everything from contractors to businesses to upwards of 60 employees. There were companies who do consulting and companies who have software products. There were companies who consult for any type of business and companies who have expertise in particular markets - very strongly represented in Vermont is Health Care software but there was also representation of folks who have expertise in software for accounting, manufacturing, insurance and other industries.

It was really exciting since nothing like this has happened in Vermont before, while there are many state or regional software business associations around the country.

I'm equally thrilled to be able to accomplish something I have been trying to find a way to do for a long time - which is to share my now extensive resources with my local community beyond just learning about .NET programming.We have formed a temporary board to replace the steering committee which I was on and I will be on this board as we really bring this organization into being a legal entity and after that, we will vote for a real board of directors.

If you are in Vermont and are in the business of software, definitely check out the website www.vtsda.org where there is already some info, a place to list your information and take a survey so we can continue to understand what types of needs we all have as a group!

Thea Burger is happy to discover that there will be a women's luncheon at the TechEd in South Africa at the end of October. I look forward to hearing what it is like!!

A number of things gelled together this morning that necessitated this post.

a) this post by Jeff Prosise of Wintellect about the conundrum he has when asked so many questions in an email that are already answered in one (or more) of his (and others') books. But he is concerned (from experience) that suggesting the book as a reply, that the person would think he is only attempting to promote book sales. However, if you saw the email Jeff recieved, it is full of incredibly basic questions and way beyond what is reasonable to ask in an email to a stranger. Jeff is very generous with his time, but this person was basically asking for a personal education by email from Jeff.

b) I asked a question on the WSE newsgroup that turned out to be not about WSE but my own lack of good debugging knowledge. I haven't read John Robbin's (what I know is an) excellent book on Debugging in .NET. John is another one of the 3 founding partners of Wintellect. Also thanks to Hervey Wilson for his patience in answering my many recent questions in the newsgroups!

c) In July I had a conversation with Jeffrey Richter who was curious about how I found the experience of trying to work in C# when my real knowledgebase if coding in VB. The things that I found confusing astonished Jeff who (very politely) asked if I had ever read his book on programming with .NET.  I know that this book (Applied .NET Programming in  C# or VB version) book is a bible. I have had it here and passed it on to a vtdotnet member and had looked at bits and pieces but not read it. I actually have re-ordered it and am still awaiting my new copy (which I won't give away this time). Jeff, of course is the 3rd of the Wintellect founding members.

So what am I getting at here? Clearly there is SO much excellent information out there. Clearly it is impossible to get to and digest it all. I wish I was able to find the time and energy (like the amazing devourer of .NET books, Jason Salas) to read all of these books that I have heard SO many wonderful things about. But I also wish I had time to take my dogs for longer and more fun walks, etc. etc.

I think it also gets back to the wonderful point made by Leon Bambrick that reminds me not to beat myself up that I am not an expert (or even 1/2 of an expert) at debugging in .NET. There are SO many things in .NET that are fascinating and important to know and leverage. I *do * know that in time, I focus on one thing after another and learn more and more and more -- just not all at once. It's been two years already! Eeek.

So I just suppose that this post is a reminder to myself and anyone else who could use it that you and I are not inadequate! <g>

Very exciting news!

Jonathan Goodyear, Doug Seven, Scott Watermasysk and Drew Robbins have just become part of the Microsoft Regional Director program.

My huge congrats to all. This is an excellent group of additions!!

Thanks to Mike G for an email about the coolest app we saw at PDC last year - the physics illustrator that was demo'd by Microsoft Research. Now anyone can get it (well anyone with a tablet...) here.

I downloaded it and played with the existing demos and look forward to more play time but back to WSE now.

But it's cool cool cool. Big Kudos to all involved.

Timberline Interactive, Inc.  is looking for a .NET contract development person for 4-8 weeks, full-time to work on a custom e-commerce platform.    Requires 1+ years experience with ASP.NET and VB.NET, as well as some experience with MS SQL2000 stored procedures.  Initially, the work would be on-site in Middlebury but the contractor could work off-site after the first week or so.  Assignment could start as soon as next week (10/4/04).

Please, no moonlighters.  The contractor needs to be fully available during normal working hours for the duration of the assignment.

Submit summary of experience, resume, three references, and compensation requirements to:

Rick Fitzsimmons
President, Timberline Interactive, Inc.
36 Main Street, P.O. Box 992
Middlebury, VT  05753
rfitz@tli2.com

This is from the policy tracing file created by my client where I am fiddling around and trying to use policy to sign with a use usernametoken. Here's a screenshot and then just a copy/paste so you can read the actual message. My point here is not to get help ,but to show you the level of detailed information that is output by WSE2 so that if you need to do some problem solving, you've got gobs of info. Pretty educational stuff.

<wset:message action="http://tempuri.org/GetUserInfoInit" messageId="uuid:ef64131b-543d-4df6-a50e-ec90cd6a6e5d" appDomain="FieldApplication_TESTS_UI.exe" time="2004-09-28T11:21:45.7968275-04:00">

<wset:compile qname="wsp:Policy" wsu:Id="#Sign-Username-1" usage="Required" canEnforce="true">

<wset:compile qname="wsp:MessagePredicate" usage="Required" canEnforce="true" />

<wset:compile qname="wssp:Integrity" usage="Required" canEnforce="true">

<wset:annotation>Looking for a satisfactory token in the current message's token collection...</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>Looking for a satisfactory token in policy enforcement token cache...</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>DerivedKeyTokenAssertion will never be satisfied with existing tokens during compilation or enforcement. Not satisfied with this token: Id=SecurityToken-8e8a551b-5120-4506-902b-8e3abd171fef, Type=UsernameToken</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>ISecurityTokenManager.PermitsPolicyEnforcementTokenCaching is set to false in the token manager registered for this token type. We will assume this assertion is enforceable. Failures will be revealed during enforcement.</wset:annotation>

</wset:compile>

</wset:compile>

<wset:enforce qname="wsp:MessagePredicate" usage="Required" satisfied="true" enforced="false" />

<wset:enforce qname="wssp:Integrity" usage="Required" satisfied="false" enforced="true">

<wset:annotation>Looking for a satisfactory token in the current message's token collection...</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>Looking for a satisfactory token in policy enforcement token cache...</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>DerivedKeyTokenAssertion will never be satisfied with existing tokens during compilation or enforcement. Not satisfied with this token: Id=SecurityToken-8e8a551b-5120-4506-902b-8e3abd171fef, Type=UsernameToken</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>Invoking ISecurityTokenManager.LoadTokenFromSecurityTokenAssertion from the token manager registered for this token type.</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>ISecurityTokenManager.PermitsPolicyEnforcementTokenCaching is set to true in the token manager registered for this token type. A token will be loaded from the token manager and cached for subsequent message enforcement.</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>Invoking ISecurityTokenManager.LoadTokenFromSecurityTokenAssertion from the token manager registered for this token type.</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>Could not find a security token.</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>Looking for a satisfactory token in the current message's token collection...</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>Looking for a satisfactory token in policy enforcement token cache...</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>Found a token: Id=SecurityToken-0090e2a4-7f5e-4279-8292-6fcdc78a78f2, Type=UsernameToken</wset:annotation>

<wset:annotation>Found a token: Id=SecurityToken-2013f98e-5994-4a8b-87ed-2b80ade897f6, Type=DerivedKeyToken</wset:annotation>

</wset:enforce>

</wset:message>

(slaps herself in the forehead!)

I have been dancing circles around the fact that my client side policy was being totally ignored and I couldn't get a trace file generated from WSE2 either.

Doh! I was configuring the component that was doing the web service call, but the configuration info needs to be with the main app!

I know this, but I suppose I have been too determined that I was doing something wrong in my WSE2 setup to have thought of it. So it's here for future googlers.

When it is due to the fact that my web service and client application really ARE reading my policy files!

"Microsoft.Web.Services2.Policy.PolicyVerificationException: WSE464: No policy could be found for this message.”

I'm still in the middle of wiring this up. I have to say that the refactoring process is definitely time consuming (and very educational). It is MUCH easier of course to implement WSE2 when you are working with new projects.

I am working with a client app that has MANY components and many different web services. Even though it is working already, and seems foolish to attempt to tackle this, I know that if I can get this working with wse2 then I have accomplished and learned a lot.

Senior Programmer Analyst
Burlington, VT
6 months Contract  

This position is responsible for design, development and implementation duties for a web based aircraft finance tracking application.   This position will work closely with business personnel, as well as other IS and IT personnel to gather business and technical requirements needed to successfully design and develop new system features, enhancements to current functionality and defect fixes.  This position reports to the Manager, Structured Finance Business Systems.

Requirements
5+ years systems development experience with a concentration in mission critical web based applications. Expertise in VB.Net, ASP.NET, VB6, ASP, XML, XSL, XSLT, HTML, VSS and JavaScript. In depth knowledge of Microsoft SQL 2000, database design, programming and architecture.
MCSD or MCAD required. MCDBA and other certifications a plus
4 year degree in Computer Science or MIS or equivalent industry experience
Background in Structured Finance or other financial industry experience a plus.

Contact:
Kishore Khandavalli
iTech US, Inc.
Tel: 802 383 1500
Fax: 802 383 1501
www.iTechUS.com

This isn't lookin' good. It seems I may have to hand code my policies after all since my web service is not on localhost. When you click okay on this message you get a second one and finally enable policy flag gets unchecked. I've been trying to trick it, by creating the PolicyCache.Config file, by editing the web.config and more, but to no avail.

update ..and if I manually create a policy file, whether I name it with the extention config or xml, if I do anything in the wse2 settings config tool and save them (even if they have nothing to do with policy), the <cache name=“myconfigfile.xml“/> gets removed from the <policy> tags in my web.config. This can't be right. I must be doing something wrong.

okay- I seem to have picked up this “jig” thing from Ted Neward, but I just noticed something - that is MUCH more obvious when working with code you know well, rather than fiddling little samples.

With WSE1.0, you have to modify your client's proxy to the web service so that it inherits from Microsoft.Web.Services.WebServicesClientProtocol instead of the default System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol. Every time you update the web reference, you have to remember to go back into the proxy and make that change. I have gotten into the habit, but really it's just one more thing I need to remember, cluttering up my brain.

I have just modified the client component that has been working with WSE1 to use WSE2. When I updated the web reference in that project, the inherited class was automatically changed to Microsoft.Web.Services2.WebServicesClientProtocol.

This makes me very happy. I can free up that little space in my brain now for more important things! And it is one less barrier to getting regular programmers to use this stuff. Thanks WSE folks!

(I should point out that you get TWO proxy classes and this happens to the WSE2 version...)

I am finally converting my web service login and authentication procedures for one of my big production apps. Currently it is using straight web services, with a combination of soap headers and a System.Web.Security.FormsAuthentication ticket which is returned to the client as an encrypted string to be sent back with future requests as well as cached on the server. Lastly, I have a little user class that stores some details about the user that are used for authorization on the client end.

It's somewhat similar to a secure conversation model because my token also times out every two minutes and has to be regenerated, but I don't have to authenticate on every single message.

But an interesting difference is that I am explicitly authenticating at the user login (like we always have done, right?) whereas with the ws-security model, I will authenticate along with my actual requests. So if I were CODING all of this (which I'm not sure if I choose between hand coding in order to drill the stuff in to my brain better, or if I will just use the config tool and let that and policies do the grunt work for me -- and if you saw what a GORGEOUS day it is out - you'd probably vote for the latter, too! ) ...where was that sentence? Oh yeah, I will basically strip out the authentication that happens at login.

Thereare some cases where I am doing application updating and I require authentication at login for that process also. But for the other apps, I get to just rip out SO MUCH CODE - yippee - on both the client side and the ws side. Currently, on the client side, I am stuffing the token in the header of every ws call, so I won't have to do that any longer. On the ws side, every method takes that token and checks against the cache to see if it's still valid. So I get to take that code out. If it's not valid, I was returning nothing to my client and the client has to send back the login/pw (which is still available to the app) and get another token. So all *that* code can go, too.

Rip rip rip, delete delete delete.

Stay by that phone! Your parents/friends/aunts/neighbors are bound to be calling soon!

My friend and neighbor, Sarah Jane Williamson, is going to rent her fabulous property out for the year 2005.

The house is furnished and it is one groovy place. Sarah Jane has a very unique style. The house was completely renovated in 1986 and the barn from 1995-1997. Sarah Jane is an organic farmer and the perennial beds around the house are incredible. We spend a lot of time on Friday evenings there, in the summer and fall on her porch and in the winter, cozied up to the fire place. The house is on a paved country road and about 35 min. to Burlington. Huntington is a very cool community with a lot of entrepreneurs and artists living here as well as many old-time Vermonters which makes for an interesting mix. There are two small country stores and gasoline about 1 mile away and some cool small towns about 15 minutes in different directions. And she has DSL! It is really heavenly here. If you like winter stuff, you've got 30 acres of great cross country skiing and you are 10 miles from Mad River Glen for skiing in the winter and right near Camel's Hump for hiking year round. And of course, to top it off, you can attend meetings at Vermont.NET and VTSQL if you happen to be a geek. Burlington is one of the very cool small cities in the country with lots of great food, music and art. And well, Vermont is...just Vermont. Heaven.  We are also about 4 hours from Boston, 2 hours from Montreal and a quick cheap trip on Jet Blue to NYC. A little further to Seattle . Burlington has an int'l airport served by five major airlines as well as JetBlue and Independent which makes quick hops to D.C. This is what we call “having your cake and eating it, too!”

Here are pictures from Sept 23rd

I took these just now 10am Sept 26th as the clouds were on their way out.

VSLive lucked out when the hurricane diverted and missed Orlando. Now PASS, in Orlando next week, is dealing with Hurricane Jeanne. Watch PASS track chair Roman Rehak's blog for updates. The SQLPass site also has information and links regarding the Hurricane.

There is an AP article that has been picked up by a lot of papers around the world and I'll link to it on msnbc's site. The article is about using quantum physics for encryption via photons (light particles) - rather than the keys (strings of random numbers) we use today. It's pretty far out but not even totally new. There are a few companies already offering solutions (eg MagiQ Technologies) and Harvard is working on the availability on the web. Pretty amazing stuff. I guess in __ years from now, it will be as common as sliced bread.

I love doing this! I have to refactor some pieces of a big production application for a client. This also means stripping some functionality of the application and turning it into individual components which I have wanted to do, but could not justify billing my client for. But now I must do this in order to incorporate some new functionality that will also need access to this logic. Sometimes, working with “old code” is a huge bore, but this is fun because I'm making my code smarter and that makes me feel a little smarter.

When I first started looking at .NET, one of the new concepts that I kept running into was the “delegate” thingies. I kept seeing things written about them, but never walked away really understanding what they were. So it becamse my mission and the first time I really had a “DING!” go off in my head was an explanation in The Book of VB.NET by Matthew MacDonald. Unfortunately, I have long since passed this book on to someone in the user group so I can't quote it.

Anyway, I thought of this because Avonelle mentioned delegates and the difficulty that she has had getting her head around them and pointed to this article on KnowdotNET that gave her the “aha!” moment.

I actually had a more interesting realization about delegates this summer at TechEd when I was doing a TabletPC Hands on Lab that was all in C#. I couldn't understand why I had to keep writing so many delegates and then I realized that the delegates were creating event handlers! And THIS is why us VB background people have such a hard time grokking delegates. IN VB (past and .NET), event handlers come free. They are already there. If you drop a control onto a page, then you automatically have access to that controls list of events in your code. If you instantiate a class in your code, the class's events are available in the dropdown. So we never had to use delegates (not even available to use before .NET anyway) and therefore they didn't come naturally.

So you C++ and C# developers, next time your walking down the street and you see someone who is scratching their head muttering “delegates...I just don't get it”, and you are kind enough to attempt to explain and they STILL don't get it, don't just shake your head and walk away. You need to relate them to something that already IS in VB so that they have a bridge. Event Handlers are that bridge.

update with just a little more goo: Just an FYI for you VB'ers. I'm working on converting a login form from VB to C# ...oh the drudgery of solving casing problems!   Anyway, I thought I would point out that when you double click on a control to get it's default event, C# automatically codes up the delegate in the InitializeComponent method. So I clicked on an OK button and not only did I get my event code but it's delegate was auto generated as well (that's backwards - because the delegate makes the event handler possible)
  this.btnOK.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.btnOK_Click);

So if you just consider the relationship between this delegate and the familiar event handler

it might help a bit...

...and recruiters? Well, yes, actually.

I was reading this post of Casey Chesnut's where he is ranting about some of the annoying things recruiters do and says :

that disconnect being recruiters. you've got a high tech company on one end, then you've got technical workers on the other ... and smack in the middle, somebody that does not know technology

I couldn't help but think immediately of one of the SSL issues that is avoided with WS-Security. Things are secure when they are in the SSL pipe, but if you have an intermediary en route, your message has to exit the pipe and you can't be sure that the intermediary is secure. With WS-Security, you *do* have end to end security as the sender and receiver are the only ones who can interpret the message.

So I had to laugh when Casey made that statement, because I just couldn't help thinking of the somewhat skewed analogy!

(forgive the crappy photo - it's really hard to take one good pic of speaker and audience in a dark room and darn, all the chicks were on the edges of the room - but there were a bunch!)

Almost a year ago, Michele and I arranged through INETA for her to come to speak at Vermont.NET and of course come for a fun weekend visit. It was originally scheduled in June, when the lupine were in full bloom and “livin' is easy”, but unfortunately, in late May, Michele had some unexpected travel coming up so we rescheduled for September as she was already planning to go to Jim Murphy's group, NHDNUG in New Hampshire.

Although the weekend thing didn't work out wtih everyone's crazy schedules, Michele and I did get to spend a really fun day hanging out and hiking in the Appalachian Gap on the Long Trail. Luckily for her, the leaves have started turning early, so it is really beautiful here right now. She really had an insane trip, flying into Boston from San Diego on Sunday, driving the 4 hours to my house that night and then had to drive back to Boston on Monday night after the user group meeting. So I really wanted to be sure it was worth the effort she had put in to come all the way here.

Reading this post-meeting entry on her weblog, I think we did okay!

After a fun day on Monday we drove into Burlington for the meeting which was at a new location- the revamped offices of Gardener's Supply which is in a very special place called the Intervale in north Burlington.

Although I had told everyone the meeting would end at 8 so that Michele could get on the road (she had an 8am talk in Boston at SD East the next morning), she ended up giving us the equivalent of two incredible presentations and talked until 9!

I have never seen Michele present before and I was really bowled over by not only her knowledge (which I am *well* aware of ) but her really professional presentation style. Although quite focused on her content, I did keep thinking about my presentation style (which is pretty nascent right now) and wondered if time and experience would help me come near her confidence (which I'm sure she will say is just percieved) and ability to communicate deeply technical information.

I have to say that the women at the meeting were pretty thrilled to witness Michele. The only other woman that has ever presented at our group is me and I really have paled in comparison to most of the other pros that have presented there. So it was everyone's first real experience of having a serious female presenter. So for the women, I think a lot of them were just really psyched because they suddenly didn't feel as out of place as usual as the group is naturally dominated by guys. It's hard to explain, but sometimes these things really do matter even if you don't want them to.

All in all, I think Dave Burke's post sums up the general feeling of the whole group about Michele's presentation. It was basically....awesome.

And to top it off, she was wearing a pretty cool shirt from Newtelligence!

Tim Sneath teases us that he was leaving MIcrosoft U.K. and finally explained it was to go work at Microsoft in Redmond. Hmmm, now I can't bug Tim about trying to get into TechEd Europe as a speaker....as if that was even a remote possibility anyway. But you can't blame a girl for trying!

Tim Ewald really is leaving Microsoft. But he will be working at MindReef  (he already lives in NH) which is quite a coup for them - both MindReef and Tim. MindReef has some serious brainpower there. I only happen to know Dave Seidel (who coincidentally went to a very small and special college with my sister) and Jim Murphy who runs NHDNUG and came to Vermont to speak at one of VTdotNET's early meetings.

Congrats to all.

Yasser blogged that he is speaking at VS Connections. VS Connections is wrapped up with ASP Connections and SQL Server Connections too at DevConnections in Las Vegas in November. I sure hope his talk isn't scheduled at the same time as one of mine, so I can go learn!

(update: check out Dare's post on NewzCrawler (and others) as Denial of Service clients)

There must be a few people who have their aggregators set to check rss feeds every 10 seconds or something. I very rarely look at my stats because they don't really tell me much. But I have to say I was a little surprised to see that there were over 14,000 hits to my website today (from 12am to almost 5pm).

So where do they come from?

10,000+ are from NewzCrawler then a whole lot of other aggregators and then a small # of browsers.

Very strange. I get a few links and fewer comments, so I really don't think there's a lot of people reading this and of course I know that the high aggregator number is from frequent refreshes.

One thing that I love to see coming in through referrers is that people are starting on the Vermont.NET website that has a feed from my Jobs category here and there are a lot of click throughs, which means that my posting local IT jobs that I find in the local papers over coffee (or that my hubby is kind enough to point out) is a good resource for some people.

(talking smart client - windows forms app here, not asp.net)

I was using System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory to find DLL's that are to be loaded by reflection in a particular app. But when a user goes out and does something like look up something in windows explorer, that changes the definition of the system's current directory and you are no longer pointed to the startup path. Then when the user tries to load up the next form - it can't' be found! Oops.

GetCurrentDirectory's definition is “current working directory“. And even in the reference it explicitly says: “The current directory is distinct from the original directory, which is the one from which the process was started.“

So when you need to use the startup path, use the Application.StartupPath which is in the System.Windows.Forms namespace.

(oh, I'm just so embarrassed! )

The camera was handy, what can I say? Can you believe this cat, G.B.. He just loves newfoundland dogs! That's Daisy he's cozying up to. She's one of my parent's dogs who is visiting for a while - maybe permanently. Tasha is also a Newfie, just one who had an unexpected major haircut in July. We're hoping it will hurry up and grow back in before it gets cold!

well, it started a little early! If you check my last year's pics, we are now about 10 days earlier with the amount of color than last year.

Here are some pics I just took standing in front of my house. As I sit here, I can see the same stuff out of my glass doors in my office. These photos do not capture what I am seeing truly in terms of the colors so you might have to look elsewhere for some professional pics. It's just a wee Kodak DX3600 digital.

Dave Burke is putting Vermont fall pictures on his weblog too. You'll see from his photos why I love to kayak so much on our beautiful lake (the 6th largest lake in the country)!

This seems to be the general response I got from everyone at the meeting. I'll post on it myself soon. Michele is one of the best presenters I have seen. Combine that with her deep knowledge - and you have got an awesome presentation.

Telligent Systems is growing fast - and looking for 2 more .net pros. I love that one of the job descriptions states 4 years of .NET. So you were on the first alpha drop!! Or really, it is just to ensure that you are really experienced with .NET. C# is also prominent in the description. But what I love best is this:

You will also participate in community activities ranging from presenting at conference and software design previews, to building samples and answering online questions from customers.

Yes folks, that's part of the job! Sounds great. And it is a work from home job. Hmmmmm...

Actually, one job requires 2 years and the other 4.

Read more on Scott Watermasysk's blog or Rob Howard's.

BueCross BlueShield of Vermont

Network security job

details listed here

[found in 9/20 Burlington Free Press Business Monday section]

General Dynamics (U.S. defense contractor)

(oh look I can copy and paste!)

job info on career builder.com

Intro:
General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products is a proven solutions integrator of defense products for all branches of the U.S. Department of Defense. We have strong technology positions on key programs that are aligned with homeland defense and DoD's transformation initiatives. Our company is an industry leader in composites technology and production, chem/bio detection, protection systems, and integrated armament products for land, air and sea.

Job Responsibilities:
Support the enterprise engineering function by performing the following: Handle system configuration and integration, design specifications, and testing plans; Evaluate and manage applications updates, implementation, schedule, and problem resolution; Serve as the direct stakeholder contact for system based information; Responsible for standards and conventions, work products, deliverable quality and stakeholder satisfaction; Provide direction to IT service provider support staff for run and maintain activities as well as development efforts; Perform system administration functions for new and legacy systems; Participate in new system development and system integration; Develop and analyze system metrics and perform system audits; Collaborate with and assist the business systems process specialists.

Required Education:
Four year technical degree in Computer Science or Information Technology or equivalent.

Suss MicroTec  www.suss.com Waterbury, VT

Business Analyst  - Oracle centric job not listed on website so I'll type fast - watch for typos!

If you are an I/T/ pro and have extensive experience with Oracle Applications within the Order Management, Purchasing, Supply Chain Planning and Inventory modules, this position may be the opportunity that you have been looking for. The successful candidate will haev a proven track record. Min. requirements for the positiong include a BS in Comp Sci (or equivalent), 3-5 years experience in the implementation and post-production support of Oracle applications, excellent technical skills, experience with tools such as pL/SQL, Forms Reports, Discoverer and Oracle Workflow and strong interpoersonal and communications skills.

[found in Burlington Free Press Business Monday Supplement 9/20/04]

Information Technology Professional ...Human REsources Dept -- PeopleSoft (9/28 deadline for application)

Information Technology Manager - Accounting Information Services

www.uvmjobs.com

search on above listed job titles

[found in Burlington Free Press Business Monday Supplement 9/20/04]

Central Vermont Medical Center (Dartmouth-Hitchcock Alliance)

Barre VT

1) HEalthcare Info Systems Analyst - Financial (Crystal, Access, SQL other MS tools)

2) Healthcare INfo Systems Analyst - Clinical (very specialized skillset)

3) Info Systems Technician

All three jobs listed and described here

[found in Burlington Free Press Business Monday Supplement 9/20/04]

Programmatic access to the real time stylus is one of the real OOOH AAAAH features of the Tablet PC SDK 1.7. Larry O'Brien, who is a real tablet developer guru, has written an article on DevX that really digs into this wondrous API. This is not something that you would use in a typical data entry application, but I challenge you go check it out, think out of the box a little, and dream up some interesting scenarios. Aren't you tired of writing data entry applications anyway?

The initial website for VTSDA is now live.

If you are a Vermont Software Business or contractor, check it out and register for our first meeting. This is for any technology.

Although I have given in to the desire to spend a nice fall weekend with my husband and some sorely missed non-geek friends in mid-October, Code Camp II (Oct 15-16th at Microsoft's Waltham,MA office) is going to be a great event. It is a weekend event - two loooong days filled with so much great content to get you up to speed on a variety of .NET topics. The event is free and there are many well-known speakers presenting.

Here is all the info and how to register!

This new book by Garret Keizer, who lives in Vermont, was featured this week in our local weekly, Seven Days.

I look forward to reading this book. It is about how people deal with wanting to help others, how people deal with being helped by others. It is not a book that is set out to answer questions, but to analyze this issue.

I am sitting here filling out paperwork and contracts, doing data entry, thinking about my work and in the meantime, I wonder why I do this stuff instead of hopping on a plane to Haiti or whereever I can to help people in real trouble. Every time I open up my web browser there it is (I have cnn.com as my home page). How do we manage to go about our daily lives. Certainly it is a form of self-preservation. It is a constant struggle for me as someone who is highly empathetic to other people's troubles.

I recently read a description of a character in The Secret Life of Bees who is empathetic to the point of having created for herself a wailing wall to deal with her uncontrollable grief when she hears about the hardships of even perfect strangers. Things like reading in the newspaper about a car crash where people were killed. Thank goodness this person lives in the 60's where she is protected from the onslaught of news that we have today. I completely understood this character and saw that she does not have whatever key it is that most of us do have to protect ourselves from internalizing the pain and suffering of others.

James Avery recently emailed me to see if I had experienced any problems with the refresh and some of the visualizers that I have written in the past.

As I had not yet bothered with the install I couldn't confirm for him but we got a pointer from Scott Nonnenberg to check that the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Debugger.Visualizers dll was referenced in the project.

Yesterday I got the dvd so I went ahead and uninstalled the beta (but no the framework or other dependent stuff since apparently, the refresh only adds Team System). Then I discovered the same affect that James had. My custom visualizers did not work, but the ones that came with VS did.

Here is how I fixed it.

The quick list:
In your visualizer's project
- Remove meehost.dll from references.
- Add a reference Microsoft.VisualStudio.Debugger.Visualizers
- Rebuild
- Copy resulting dll to My Documents\Visual Studio\Visualizers
In client application
-be sure that the visualizer's assembly (dll) is NOT referenced

The Julie-style verbose explanation

The original project referenced meehost.dll. This needs to be removed and replaced with a reference to Microsoft.VisualStudio.Debugger.Visualizers. Note that if you leave meehost in there and add the other, you will learn that they have duplicate classes etc which is why I removed meehost.dll. (This is in the actual project where you build the visualizer). Rebuild the visualizer and copy the assembly into My Documents\Visual Studio\Visualizers folder.

This still did not fix the problem totally as I got a new error that happened on both my custom and the included visualizers. I noticed that my visualizer assembly was referenced in the client project. That shouldn't be necessary as the visualizer is available to all projects once it's copied into the (above mentioned) folder. So I removed that and voila - all was well.

a little local flavor -

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/DESTINATIONS/09/21/diving.champlain.ap/index.html

Vermont Legal Aid

Job: Assistant Computer and Network Technician

Experience: Database Applications (which ones??), windows networking, general software support & Staff training, PHP, Citrix, MS Exchange experience a plus.

[via 7Days 9/15-9/22 issue]

New England Culinary Institute

Job 1: IS Support Specialist. Support ALOHA Point of Sales System and more.

Job 2: Adjunct Instructor - Computers

More info here.

[via 7Days 9/15-9/22 issue]

Vermont Student Assistance Corp

(by Sept 27th)

Job 1: Sr. Programmer/Analyst (JSAP/Java, Websphere, DB2) 5+ years exp.

Job 2: AS/400 admin

more info here on their website.

[via 7Days 9/15-9/22 issue]

Medical Lab Automation Software Company in Montepelier

Job: Web Development, Oracle, SQL Server, VB, Java & Win2K, Multi-Tier apps

2 years Minimum experience

resume and cover letter to info@gmlogic.com

Website: www.gmlogic.com

[via 7Days 9/15-9/22 issue]