I love the concept of Nullable<T> being able to deal with null data coming out of the database - especially ints and datetimes. The only problem is that I cannot figure out how to leverage Nullable<T> with data coming from a database. I still have to test for null. I have also talked with Sahil Malik at length about this. He is just as confused. I have tried it in a number of different spots -- from the data layer to the business layer --  with no luck.

Let's say I'm working with a Nullable<Int32>. I have created a SqlDataReader from some SQL Server data.

Nullable<Int32> does not seem to grok System.dbNull. (Invalid Cast). That means I cannot assign mySqlDataReader.item("myintfield") directly to my Nullable<Int32> when it is null.

Though you *can* cast an Int to a Nullable<Int>, you cannot use DataReader's GetInt32 method on a null database value. (SqlNullValueException). Therefore I can't get at the null value this way either (without explicitly testing for Null myself).

So, let's say I load the data into a DataTable.

I happen to know that my null integer is in the "someintdata" column of my 2nd row - so I am just coding specifically to test that data. This column is an Integer.

.NET will not implicitly  cast myTable.Rows(1).Item("someintdata") into my Nullable<Int>. It won't even compile and helpfully suggests that I explicitly cast it.

Nor can I explicitly cast it. That attempt throws an InvalidCastException. It doesn't like the null.

So it seems that no matter what,  I still have to test for Null before I can extract the data. And if I have to do that, what is the Nullable<T> buying me in this case?

(This is one of those posts that I worry I have *really* missed something obvious and am going to look like a total fool, but I am just going to go for it anyway...)

http://www.AcehAid.org

In preparation for ASPConnections, I am revising my What's New in the Whidbey Base Class Libraries talk for the 3rd time. I first wrote it against the PDC bits and presented it last February. Then I revised it with the May 2004 bits to present at DevTeach in June. For ASPConnections in November, I used the October CTP (which I put on my demo box just days before the conference). Now I am updating it again using the November CTP. I am also trimming it down and shifting some of the focus. Most importantly for this version of the talk (as for what I did in November) is to focus on what is of use and of interest to developers writing ASP.NET Applications. I think these bits are really close to what we will see in Beta 2. If it is out before this conference, I will definitely update the demo box before the show.

http://www.AcehAid.org

That Casey is too much!

And you've gotta love this response.

http://www.AcehAid.org

You would think that by now I would be used to the amazing places that there are .NET user groups. But I think I will never be jaded. I loved reading this post about some Microsoft folks presenting at the Romania .NET Users Association (yes of course, an INETA member!)

http://www.AcehAid.org

Starting with a keynote by Bill Gates and filled with .NET stars from the Middle East (including INETA MEA Region Head, Goksin Bakir) and also some from the states (Kimberly Tripp, Patrick Hynds and Stephen Forte), this years MDC starts in a few days. Over on geekswithblogs, Mohamed Ahmed Meligy writes about how excited he is to attend this event.

http://www.AcehAid.org

The Vermont.NET January meeting's presentation by Mario Cardinal was about Enterprise Library. All of Mario's work was based on the specifications because the product had not yet been released.

The Microsoft Patterns and Practices team has just announced that the Enterprise Library has indeed been released. Check it out!

http://www.AcehAid.org

In addition to my In Depth Tablet Web Applications presentation at Windows Anywhere in (2/6-10 in San Francisco) I just found out that I get to be on a panel with a bunch of Tablet developers and vendors (who are also developers).

Influencing Tablet PC Solutions–Tablet PC ISV, Wednesday, February 9, 2:00 pm to 3:00pm

Here are the other members of the panel session, all of whom have done some major tablet pc development and have real products on the market. I'll be the dabbler (or is that doodler) on the panel, that is for sure!

Joerg Lenz, SOFTPRO
Sean Campbell, 3Leaf 
Steve Hoffman, ActiveInk Software 
Josh Einstein, Einstein Technologies 
Teresa Shu, xThink 
Brad Baldwin, Agilix

http://www.AcehAid.org

Loren Heiny pointed this out. For $25 you can get into the exhibit hall at this 6 conference show in San Francisco (feb 6-10). I'll be there to speak at the Windows Anywhere conference  - In Depth: Tablet PC Web Development.

Here is the list of exhibitors

If you are in the northeast - you can get into the expo hall at the Sys-Con Web Services Edge East conference (Feb 15-17) along with  the keynotes and workshops for free.

 

http://www.AcehAid.org

multi-item auctions are REALLY wierd on ebay.

According to EBay's algorithm (designed for the thrifty, not for the charitable) nobody is supposed to have to pay more than the lowest winning bid. So, though many have already bid more than $100, there are still not enough bids to push away the last of the $100 winning bids. Therefore all of the "winning bids" still are sitting at $100. I don't know what it will take to get these things moving. Lots of bids. Lots and lots of bids. EBay doesn't really like charity auctions, I think.

Here's from the eBay site about multi-item auctions:

Bids are displayed when you click on the "Bidders list" link. Bids that are not currently winning show their bid prices, but bids that are winning show the price that they would pay if the auction ended immediately. This means that, in the Bid History, all winning bids show the same price per unit – the lowest winning bid. To place a winning bid (a bid that wins at least some units), you need to exceed this price.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Don Kiely says he just can't get good Indian food where he lives in Alaska. When he came to Vermont in July we took him out for Indian one night. It was his only requirement during the whole visit. Now he is in Alberta and I see that he went out again with John Bristowe for Indian last night.

Don who is a new addition to the INETA Speaker Bureau is speaking at the Alberta.NET user group today as an INETA speaker. Yippee.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Poor Dave. Already a "grumpy old git" at such a young age.

It seems that students are not only not being taught math properly, but they are being given high marks for very poor achievement. I really thought this was going to be something about the "no child left behind" plan and elevating grades to keep funding coming (yes, sadly, I can envision that it has come to this) but this is about the U.K. education system. Dave's depressed about this. Rightly so.

http://www.AcehAid.org

People keep emailing me to say how great the latest INETA newsletter looks (Jan '05 went out a few days ago but is here online). I have nothing to do with it's wonderful good looks.

Sheri Nawrocki is the graphic designer extraoadinaire. Though she is a professional graphic designer, she also knows a lot more about .NET than most designers (and has access to whatever she needs to know). So she is a great graphics person to partner with on .NET projects, don't you think?

Sheri is working on her own design website, SheriBDesigns, (you know, the old shoemaker's kids syndrome), but watch this space. Sheri tells me that my pointing to her website will light a fire under her to finish it up. Hey, what's a friend for?

http://www.AcehAid.org

I finally finished outfitting my Toshiba M200 tablet. I bought memory in November so it has 1GB and just bought an extra battery (on ebay, no less!), a USB CD/DVD drive and the cool little portfolio that was designed for it so I can use the tablet without even taking it out!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Mark Fussell writes that the Hands on Labs for WSE2 have been updated for the SP2 version, added to and released. Mark refers to the first rev of these HOLs  written by Aaron Skonnard, as "without doubt the best resource for getting up to speed with understanding WSE 2.0 quickly." I couldn't agree more. I have mentioned these HOLs in many posts and both my WSE2 presentation and an upcoming article make many references to them i.e. "please refer to the HOLs for more details on ______" just about everything.

So the one I worked with Security & Policy C# version now has a VB partner! Hooray. Though I loved the opportunity to keep working on my C# skills, it's really hard to deal with two learning curves at once.There is also one for Messaging in both C# and VB.

See Marks' post for more details. If you want to learn WSE2.0, you must must must do these HOLs.

The security one also is the best resource I have seen for installing certs into your windows box, by the way!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Thanks for the reminder Dave! Since I'm going to Code Camp (sure hope my sessions get selected), his post made me think to actually book my room.

So I booked a room at the Waltham Westin. Funny, they have an internet discount of 15% but it is a non-refundable reservation. I could get a 21 day AAA discount, but it, too, is non-refundable. So I paid the regular room rate. (I just hate being locked into anything) Got two beds. Looking for a chick roomie for 3/12 to split the cost.

http://www.AcehAid.org

I can't believe I wasted SO much time designing a drawing UI in both BLInk! and on my [ink on the web] Doodle app.

I just dropped an Agilix InfiNotes Note control into an asp.net web page and poof! Actually, I didn't "drop" it, it's a windows forms control, so I embedded it via an Object tag. You can't do this with the free trial really, you have to have the full blown app so that you get the right dll. Which I will be getting ASAP. (I don't regret the time waste because I learned a LOT.)

http://www.AcehAid.org

Can someone tell me what is special about this screenshot of my ink on the web application running from within Visual Studio? You can click on it to see a full size image.

http://www.AcehAid.org

ObjectSharp is bidding on 5 consultants in our charity auction for Aceh Aid at IDEP. Owner (and  RD and auction item, himself) Barry Gervin lists what he will be asking of the consultants if he wins! It helps to understand that each of the people in his list have well known specialties and they are quite the opposite of what he is planning to ask of them.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Hooray!!!

Look in your inboxes if you are subscribed. Or read it online!

Thanks for the major group effort that went behind this newsletter.

 

http://www.AcehAid.org

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=5552696499

go BID!

http://www.AcehAid.org

It is sunny out with fresh snow. I promised myslef that if the temp went above 10F I would hop in the car and go over to Mad River to do a few runs after lunch. I have not skiid ONCE this year even though I bought a ski pass, even though we moved to Vermont to ski, even though we bought a house only 7 miles from MRG just so we could go there easily. It's 9 degrees. Too cold. Keep working. Will I ever ski again?

http://www.AcehAid.org

by way of programmer-jobs@yahoogroups.com (which I must admit I NEVER subscribed myself to, but I will leave myself on it...)

Here is an example (just came through my inbox)

THIS IS A WORK-AT-HOME PROGRAMMING JOB:
Program database driven web app for small entertainment company.  Project will iinvolve any and all technologies that are appropriate with emphasis on SQL, asp (or .net), java, vbscript, html.  Web application will handle 1. searching for live entertainment (bands, DJs, motivational speakers, magicians, etc), 2. booking entertainment, 3. setting up an entertainers press kit file (so it can be searched) and 4. production management of an event.  Some modules are complete while others exist in MS Access and must be converted web apps.            

APPLY ONLINE AT:
http://www.programmingfromhome.com/Job.cfm/202729

http://www.AcehAid.org

hmmmm....I wonder if my husband reads my blog....

 

http://www.AcehAid.org

I have been asked about the auction being tax deductible.

Absolutely!

So get your clients and your companies to bid!! I told my clients about the auction and said "hey, can you hire me some help for when I get really stuck on something?" Even an hour of having someone like Kimberly Tripp take a look at their SQL Server setup would be invaluable!!

The PayPal account (acehaid@tides.org) that the winners send their $ to is a U.S. 501c3 non-profit. If you want to donate a lot of $ to them (regardless of your eBay bid or even if you win) you can even send a check or wire money.

More info is on this page www.acehaid.org.

http://www.AcehAid.org

SO cool. Maybe we'll get a gazillion bids now. Looks like the poster (who is a hero in my book) was a little confused about Aceh Aid at IDEP's mission, but who cares! We got a positive post on slashdot.

Happy happy happy.

 

http://www.AcehAid.org

Keith Pleas' "Guidance on Patterns & Practices: Security" hits the MSDN site.

Security Digital BlackBelt WebCast Series schedule is online.

http://www.AcehAid.org

By bidding, of course.

read more from Stephen on how to help.

http://www.AcehAid.org

I have to find me a Mac to play on because I have heard that the Real products for Mac are awesome. I won't even let Real anywhere near my computers (all Windows machines).

http://www.AcehAid.org

ahh that again

On the one hand you have Rocky Lhotka's perfectly reasonable "NO", on the other hand ADO.NET  not only encourages you to use and "abuse" webservices by enable the passing of DataSets from one end to the other, but with ADO.NET 2.0 we can pass DataTables too! And we will. Many many many of us will. Many more of us than the tiny percentage of .NET developers who do any interop. At the same time, ADO.NET 2.0 fixes the icchy dataset problem with remoting by making datasets now transmit as BINARY data, like the rest of the remoted objects. (I never had this problem because I have not coded ONE remoted application - ever. “My name is Julie and I'm a web service abuser“.)

Then of course is the whole new twist on this problem: teaching people how to use WSE with .NET clients and services. I do it all the time. I use it this way (because it is an easy way to implement security in the web services that I shouldn't be using anyway) and these are the samples I use when I teach other people how to use WSE. And I'm not alone.

And to confuse us just a little more, here's the latest  on .NET Remoting in .NET 2.0. Just remember: "no, nyet, niente, shake head vigorously."

So here are the messages:

1. Using web services in an end to end .net application is bad
2. Use remoting for end to end .net applications
3. Don't put all your eggs into .NET remoting because, if though it's not dead, in the future, you should be doing everything via services.
4. Here's how to do remoting in our closest future technology.

Maybe this isn't the message that is supposed to be coming down to people like me, but that's what it is sounds like by the time it does reach me. Am I consfused? Is Paris a city?

http://www.AcehAid.org

Doug Seven put our charity auction into the rotating ads on both the DotNetJunkies and SQLJunkies websites. Very kind. Go bid!!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Soma announces that we will have new icons so we can build programs that look like the programs we USE! Hip Hip Hooray!!!

many cheers for Microsoft responding to this very loud roar from developers.

I know I was one of bajillions who asked for this.

The icons and bitmaps that are given to us in VS2003 to use in our apps are the same as the ones that have been around for as long as I can remember ... maybe even since FoxPro 2.5?

http://www.AcehAid.org

feel free to use this button and link to our ebay auction!

Too busy to download and upload to your own blog? Here's the html which will use the image directly from my server. Remember to strip any excess formatting before you paste!

<A href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&amp;item=5552696499"><IMG src="http://www.thedatafarm.com/blog/content/binary/auctionimage.jpg" border=0/></A>

http://www.AcehAid.org

It seems to be a bad joke on everyone. Snow where it hurts and now snow where it hurts (our economy here in Vermont) not to have it. Uggh.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Drew Robbins got his bid in at Jan-23-05 06:00:14 PST! That's 14 seconds after it went live. I call that love!

Here's the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5552696499

http://www.AcehAid.org

Tonight is Robert Scobles Cheesy 40th Birthday party.

Happy belated birthday and have a great time.

The big 4-0 was one my favorite birthdays (so far.... )

http://www.AcehAid.org

and here is the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5552696499

http://www.AcehAid.org

I have had an old Micron laptop hanging around for years that I can't give away. Nobody wants it. It only has 40MB of RAM and it is not possible to increase it. Therefore you can't put Windows XP on it.

However, today I am upgrading it from Win95 to Win98SE, putting IE6 SP1 and Office XP (extra license) to give to a family that lives up the road from my parents. Their house burned down to the ground on Thursday and they have nothing. Not even their toothbrushes.

My mom told the teenage boy in the family that helps my her and my dad with their dogs about the computer (and that it's old and does not have the latest cool stuff on it) and he is beyond thrilled. It was certainly worth holding on to!!! So just remember that next time you look at that old hardware that you think is too dated to be of value to anyone.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Big thanks to the guys at thinktecture who found themselves a little late to reply "YES YES OF COURSE!!" to being in the first .NET Celebrity Auction to Aceh Aid at IDEP. They have offered to cover the eBay seller fees that Stephen and I have to pay for this auction. We have tried to contact eBay about removing the fee of 1.5% for any amount our auction recieves abouto $1,000 (that's the total not the 30 individual donations). eBay is very careful about trying to protect buyers from the many many fraudulent "charity auctions" and unfortunately it has made things extremely complex and difficult for Stephen and I in trying to make this thing fly.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Update: it was cancelled

In case you were wondering about the status of the mini Code Camp this weekend, it is totally on, regardless of the forecast.

Thom Robbins has said that if for some reason they do decide to cancel (sounds highly unlikely) he will post something over here on his weblog.

http://www.AcehAid.org

VTdotNET member Zachary Kent has set the date for the first Vermont Code Brew. It will be February 2nd from 6-8pm.

Zach has created a Yahoo Group to help manage this.

Group name: VTCodeBrew
Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VTCodeBrew
Group email address: VTCodeBrew@yahoogroups.com

The first meeting will be at his office so except Root Beer not Draft Beer!!

He's getting the knack of the blog world since his first Yahoo group post points to Bill Evjen's Code Brew post and Robert Hurlbut's Boston Code Brew post!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Just an FYI - PCConnection has a rebate up until 1/31 for a 128MB thumbdrive ($4.95 after rebate) and a 128MB SD card ($1.95 after rebate)! (plus shipping)

http://www.AcehAid.org

I just went through an interesting process with Michael Stiefel who is also presenting on WSE2.0 at the Web Edge conference.

What we are doing is basically a part one and part two talk.

His talk, "Securing Service-Oriented Architecture with Microsoft's WSE 2.0" is a more advanced version of my part two though it covers a lot of the same ground.

So after talking back and forth about it, I finally decided that I can just literally remove the 2nd half of my presentation. It was hard to do. All of my hard work at trying to learn this stuff so I can explain it - gone. My nature is to want to stay in the room for the entire day and tell people every single thing I know about a topic. But our allotted time is only 50 minutes! So this was the realistic approach. At least Michael's talk is at the end of the day, so he actually can go long if he needs to. I added the subtitle "laying the groundwork".

For all of us very independent people I think it's a good exercise to do something like this. Hopefully it will help me in the future where I always feel like I am being remiss if I am not telling every single detail of my topic.

http://www.AcehAid.org

One of the groups that is intimately involved with Aceh Aid at IDEP is the local surf guides from Sumatran Surfariis.

Okay - yes they are adorable and hunky young guys, but that's not my point. They are part of the amazing effort that is being made in Sumatra. They have been writing about what they are doing and seeing and it's really interesting reading. Right here.

http://www.AcehAid.org

There is  a LOT going on around the Web Services Edge East Conference that is in Boston from Feb 15 - 17th.

Right now there is still a $300 discount available until Jan 21st.

15% discount to MSDN Subscribers (that's on the registration page).

There are a TON of special events that are free.

So, you can register for FREE to get an EXPO Pass (normally $50, but free courtesy of Microsoft) which also gets you into the Keynote (Ari Bixhorn from MS and Matt Ackley from EBay are doing keynotes).

Or you can register for that and the FREE tutorials.

All of the above is detailed on the registration page.

The INETA Sponsored Cabana night is free and requires no registration.

If you are in the Boston area, you should DEFINITELY at least take advantage of all of the free events going on!! Stay tuned for more details about the INETA Cabana night (Wed 2/16 6pm - 8pm).

http://www.AcehAid.org

I have a new client that I am doing some mentoring for. I think that I love this more than any other form of billable work.My mentoring clients are mostly companies that are just now getting started with .NET, so with my nearly 3 years of .NET experience and a bizarre memory of many resources ("oh yeah, I remember there was an article on that by so and so last summer"), I can really help VB6 developers leapfrog past a lot of their learning curves for the specific tasks they need to do (including planning and architecting the program).  I really really enjoy doing this. Getting paid for it almost feels like a bonus.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Awesome, thans Sofwaremaker for checking this out!

I am very excited to update to dasBlog 1.7. I know that Omar and Scott and their team have been working their butts off on it!!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Lora reports that there are 4 tablet pc's being given away at the Windows Anywhere conference, which is co-located with VSLive in SF Feb 7-10.

The first tablet will be given away at the pre-con.

The second at the end of the first day of sessions (Tuesday)

The thrid at the end of the 2nd day of sessions (Wednesday)

The last at the post-con.

Collect raffle tickets at each of the sessions (including mine, on Wednesday morning!)

Very cool.

http://www.AcehAid.org

They just don't work for me.

Next idea: Rich has made me a mini-white board that is on the wall right next to me.

Next time I get an email or a phone call of something I am saying "yes, I'll do that" I can just write it down on the white board.

We'll see how this latest attempt pans out.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Update 2/10/05: The auction raised an amazing $10,138!!!
Thanks to everyone who bid and helped us promote it.
We will hopefully be having another one soon.

---

1/23 9AM EST: WE WILL BE LIVE - GO HERE FOR DETAILS and LINK!

---

[I will put the start date here the moment we are able to and then I will put the link to the auction right here when it goes live, so if you are interested in the auction, bookmark this post!!]

PLEASE SEE STEPHEN FORTE'S BLOG POST REGARDING DETAILS OF THE 30 CONSULTANTS AND UPDATED DETAILS ON HOW THE AUCTION WILL FUNCTION.

30 of the top trainers and consultants in the .NET community will be auctioning off one hour each of their consulting time in a big EBay auction that will start sometime in the next few days (or early next week). Watch this space (and those of the auction items <g> for the date to be announced.

The auction is to benefit Aceh Aid at IDEP who is doing amazing disaster recovery work in Aceh Province Sumatra. All of the money goes DIRECTLY to helping the victims since Aceh Aid at IDEP is a local organization in Sumatra.

You can learn more about what they are doing from the above link, by reading Susi Johnston's weblog or by filtering on Asia in my own blog. This is the group that Keith Pleas and I have been working with so closely since the Tsunami disaster hit.

Who is in this auction?

Lots of INETA speakers, Regional Directors and Wintellects!!

From Wintellect: Jeffery Richter, John Robbins and Jeff Prosise

A slew of amazingly brilliant RDs: Michele Leroux Bustamante, Jonathan Goodyear, Andrew Brust, Richard Campbell , Kimberly Tripp, Adam Cogan ,Malek Kummou , Jackie Goldstein, Goskin Bakir, Hector M Obregon , Patrick Hynds , Fernando Guerrero , Kate Gregory , Joel Semeniuk , Scott Hanselman , Barry Gervin , Clemens Vasters , Jorge Oblitas , Stephen Forte, John Lam, Edgar Sánchez, Thomas Lee, J. Michael Palermo IV, Vishwas Lele

And if that's not enough, a few more brilliant stars: Deborah Kurata, Ted Neward and Kathleen Dollard 

This is a wonderful contribution by these people and demonstrates what I love so much about this community.

So open up your hearts (to enable Aceh Aid at IDEP continue with their phenomenal and necessary work - it is still a horror story in Sumatra and we cannot let up), open up your minds (to having access to some of the most talented .NET programmer consultants in the world) and warm up those credit cards!

Also, since there are many more wonderful and brilliant people in our community that I am sure will want to do this too (we just had to limit ourselves for this first one) I hope that we can do more of these in the near future!

How this will work

This will be ONE BIG FAT auction. The top 25 bidders will win. Bids start at $100. The auction will last 10 days. Unlike a typical "multi-item" auction, where the winners would pay the amount of the lowest winning bid, in THIS auction, the TOP bidder will get first pick of consultants and then on down the line. You will pay your winning bid directly to Aceh Aid at IDEP's PayPal account: acehaid@tides.org.

Due Diligence

Online Donations are made via PayPal donation to acehaid@tides.org. The Tides Foundation is a US-based 501c3 non-profit, permitting tax-deductible contributions and supported by many corporate matching programs. PayPal takes most credit cards. For people who cannot use PayPal , there are other ways to make the payment. Money can be wired directly to Aceh Aid at IDEP or (for the 501c3 payment) checks can be mailed to Tides or money wired directly to them. So don't worry about not being able to participate. If you can do any of these 4 options, BID BID BID!!!

http://www.AcehAid.org

This is just a reminder

Tomorrow's meeting of VTSDA will feature a  panel of software business owners and marketing experts discussing effective marketing for our businesses.

The meeting is from 11:45 - 2:00 at the Ethan Allen Club in downtown Burlington.

See the VTSDA website for more details.

http://www.AcehAid.org

We all know that John Robbins, Jeff Prosise and Jeffrey Richter are .NET Rock Stars. But now it's official!

I also want to commend the author, Esther Schindler, on a great set of questions.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Digital Bridges is a program at Middlebury College and they are putting on a full day workshop wtih professionals from many different businesses that either do business on the web or provide infrastructure. Sounds interesting.

Here's more info on the event.

http://www.AcehAid.org

I am doing this talk at Visual Studio Connections on an inspiration from my painful experiences of diving into C# on occasion. There are a bunch of things that bite me over and over since I don't use C# consistently enough. I also remember spending about 1/2  hour trying to figure out how to say "OR" in C#. Lots of syntax things like how to construct IF may not seem hard, but if you have been doing it a different way for 5 or 6 years, it really is hard to sort out brackets here, parens there, brackets sometime, not others. And all of the problems that cause compile time errors that are not picked up by intellisense are huge pain points as well, especially when the compile time error message isn't really telling you what the problem is. Sure there are extensive books on the differences, but I am just going to try to point out the things that a VB6 dev probably uses the most frequently and the most naturally, and try to ease some of the pain of the transition. This isn't so much for the purpose of converting VB developers to C#, but being sure that folks are at least somewhat fluent in C# even if they go the route of VB when they make the move to .NET. This talk will actually be pretty much the same as if I were doing it VB.NET vs. C# as well.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Strategies for Winning Government Contracts - Practical Tips and Hands on Help for Small Business

Wed Jan 26

8:30 am to 4 pm

Capitol Plaza Hotel, Montepelier, VT.

More info

brochure (hang it by the water cooler!

http://www.AcehAid.org

lucky us!!! Rob Howard is coming to Vermont.NET on February 21st. We are getting a Black Belt ASP.NET Tips & Tricks talk. This is happening thanks to INETA as Rob is an INETA speaker.

I had tricked Rob into coming here with the promise of some fun snowboarding at near by Sugarbush, but unfortunately he had to change his plans and is now doing a quick overnight trip. This also means that we couldn't schedule him with other "nearby" groups - such as Montreal (2 hrs away) or Boston area (3.5 - 4 hours).

http://www.AcehAid.org