March 2004 Entries

Dave announced it here.  Alex Homer and Dave Sussman will be at TechEd - we are even working on some fun stuff for our booth (Sams).  We all hope to see you there.

We all know Jeff is amazing, but he got this site up and running in something like 3 days with content from some of us in the publishing world and everything.  The .NET Book Club promises to be a great place for discussion of various books and even a place to catch a cool preview of new books.  I gave Jeff a couple of raw format chapters from Alex Homer's upcoming ASP.NET 1.1 Insider Solutions. They are up there and Alex is also a member of the book club and I am sure would love to here your feedback.  Check it out!

The latest version of our Websites went live a few hours ago!  Please feel free to check out the new Que and Sams sites and tell me what you think.  I'll pass the technical stuff along since I didn't actually build them but any general feedback would be great since we are going to work on improving the content over the next few weeks.

You can watch it here.

The March 2004 edition was just sent out to my list of user group leaders.  If you don't get it and want it - let me know. Email me here.  If you are part of a user group - make sure your president/leader passes it along. There is some good stuff in there from Steve Walther, Scott Mitchell and Mark Schmidt. 

My visits to DevDays are over and the events are coming down to the last week.  From what I have heard the attendance ebbed and flowed but no matter where I was I saw lots of people attacking (well, not literally) the speakers with questions afterward.  I think the events helped to continue to spread the word of .NET and the fact that I could understand most of what was being shown continues to amaze me!  I think Doug sums up the comments/questions on the content level well - here. Hopefully, we will see DevDays again soon and in the meantime there are some great roadshows coming to a city near you!  More on that later.

Good news - It looks like Josh has an album in the works scheduled to come out next fall.  And a new site is coming soon - he promises.  http://www.joshjoplin.com/

Stephen Walther was named a Software Legend by Microsoft today in recognition of his contribution to the Microsoft developer community as an author, trainer and developer. Microsoft selected Walther to join the Legends because of his best selling title, ASP.NET Unleashed, which many developers cite as one of the most comprehensive and accessible resources on ASP.NET available.

 

With this honor, Walther joins an impressive class of other Software Legends, including Billy Hollis, Jeffrey Richter, David Chappell, Rocky Lhotka, Alex Homer, Dave Sussman, Juval Lowy, and David Platt.  The Software Legends program was created by Microsoft to recognize authors who have significantly contributed to the developer community and its understanding of the Microsoft .NET Framework.  

 

http://www.samspublishing.com/walther

 

My home away from home for the rest of the week.  I will be visiting with some folks on campus, checking in on DevDays in Seattle on Thursday, seeing some old friends and enjoying the spring rain.  At least it won't be snowing like it is suppose to here tonight! 

If anyone is in Seattle and wants to grab a coffee - let me know!

I finally got it!  So far I really like it.  It is a clamshell design that is only a tiny bit bigger than my old phone, but it is also a Palm.  It is really a big step for me who never even owned a PDA.  I am learning all about syncing and beaming.  It is so much easier to deal with all the phone numbers that people have. Now I just need to really clean up my Outlook!  I will report back after using it for a couple weeks, but so far, so good.

Because just about every Friday afternoon something really funny (at least to me) comes across my desk.  This week it is a list of analogies and metaphors - claiming to be actual examples from high school students' work. Now, whether they were written by high schoolers really doesn't matter, they were pretty funny.  Here are my three favorites.

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

This one is a little hard to find, but if you want a day dedicated to learning about security - for the IT pro or the developer - here it is!  And it is FREE in a city hopefully near you. 

Looks like Rob and Scott are ready to commit to the continuation of the raodshow! DC, Philly, Atlanta, Cincy, Phoenix and the Motor City!

I have Sprint and I am looking at upgrading my phone.  I am very interested in the Samsung i500 - anyone have any experience with this phone? It is looking good to me after some research but I thought I would also throw it out here. 

Now here is something I am looking forward to!  The Pixies are planning their reunion tour and it looks like it is getting close.  Today, they announced that the new retrospective will be out on May 4th.  You can read more here. 

The Pixies are probably my all time most favorite band.  I did see them in the early 90's at a small college gym in Ohio - it was excellent!  Despite almost being crushed - literally - it was one of the best shows I have ever seen.  I can't wait to see them again soon.

Because it has been requested and seems to be a popular topic right now...here is a bit on my orkut experience.  It is interesting to see who is out there, who ends up finding you and all that. I actually found my old friend Mitch out there and got caught up with him and his new e-mail address.  So that made it worth it. Other than that for now it is sort of a plaxo with photos and a bit of personal information. Unless you are looking for love - then it is a good networking way to find a date.  It does look like the people who are on it go and check it out frequently enough. I have not tried much with the groups yet but maybe I will. Would it be worth it to start a Que/Sams User Group group or are those involved in their user groups aware of all the books and coupons I send your UG leaders already? 

I got invited into the world of orkut today.  It is interesting and I see a lot of my fellow geeks out there.  I wonder if it will persevere or if it is just a fad...

We just launched the new website for Exam Cram books - http://www.examcram.com.  You can find all kinds of great certification resources there. 

Tomorrow the crew from Sams is heading to St. Louis for DevDays on Wednesday!  It is a classic roadtrip - gas up the van, pack the cooler and away we go. Anyone want to meet us in STL for beverages tomorrow night? I'll report on DevDays activities later this week.

We tried to come up with something fun, something creative, and something with a great prize.  Do you know Leo Laporte?  Widely recognized as a "geek guru" to tech enthusiasts around the country, Leo is the host of TechTV's "The Screen Savers" and a best-selling author. He regularly appears on "Live with Regis and Kelly," "ABC's World News Now," and "CNN's American Morning" as a technology expert. We want to bring Leo to your User Group!

I had the pleasure of getting to meet Leo when I was in San Francisco in February and he is an interesting and captivating speaker.  If you like hearing about and checking out the latest gadgets that every true geek must have then Leo is your man!  He showed us the latest in MP3 players, cell phones, TVs and other must-haves.  He outfitted our publisher in the finest winter jacket that will house all of those gadgets! 

Our contest is only open to User Groups so make sure your groups entry gets in by June 30, 2004.  I promise - It'll be an evening of geeking out you won't forget!  Visit www.samspublishing.com/ugcontest for more information and a registration form.

Jeff just pointed out Alex's new blog. Alex is also working on a new book coming out in April 2004 from Sams Publishing.

Alex also has a bit of preview available from the upcoming Sams book, ASP.NET 1.1 Insider Solutions (ISBN: 0-672-32674-4).  The book promises to to take developers already familiar with ASP.NET deeper into more advanced topics including the DataGrid control, creating re-usable content as both user and server controls, building secure applications, validating user input, integrating client-side script, providing great cross-browser support, and much more.