OK the web is killing me! There is so much good information out there! No not much good stuff on the normal places (yahoo, msn etc) but one that I have been lurking on quite abut is http://www.makezine.com/. Phillip Torrone now has his blog there and all I can say is wow! Phillip is the Martha Stuart of the geek world, with way too much time on his hands and a creative mind. I only wish I had any time to replicate his projects. I just subscribed to MAKE Magazine as well just so I could have more envy of people who have the time to do fun projects.

With my new job I have discovered how much people in large organizations rely on other people to do there thinking for them. One prime example is Gartner (the research firm) as they describe themselves on there web site “We are the world's leading provider of research and analysis about the global information technology industry.” I think anyone who spends any time reading there “analysis” could find huge lack of real world experience and little depth of knowledge in many of the topics the cover but hey I am not here to batch them as they did get this one correct  Magic Quadrant for Web Services Platforms, 2005

I found a couple of cool resources today, they are nothing new but quite interesting.

The first one is the Microsoft Skills Assessment here you can look to see how well you know all types of developer topics. The second is Microsoft Learning Resources you will find all types of free training content here, the content is all normal Microsoft Official Curriculum. You can also read many books online for free from here are well.

If you have felt disconnected when using there mobile device then you need this application!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/downloads/global/default.mspx

I have been using a MS internal tool like this time for some time on my smartphone and wow it makes me effective when I am not online.

Recently Microsoft launched a site that helps people find interesting information about all types of development issues. it’s called Lunch with Microsoft check it out and let me know what you think.

Microsoft is now made two books available for free:

• Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers
• Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET

I have not read either book (I will over the weekend) but they look like a great way to help move to VB.NET.

WOW what an experience! I had a great time at JavaOne, I spent most of my time talking to developers about Java and .NET interoperability. The overall reception to Microsoft being at the show was incredibly positive. There are a lot of people who are having to make Java and .NET work together and they were glad to see that Sun and MS are working to make there lives better.

I also had an opportunity to be the camera man for some Cannel 9 videos, I will post again once any of them make it up on the site.

On Tuesday night we had a fun event at the “W” hotel across from the convection hall, the venue was great and the people who showed up were great to talk to, I hope to have some pictures up soon.

If you have not seen this it is quite cool what the RDs did at TechEd nice way to get an introduction to a bunch of cool information.

Groktalks 10 Minute Micro-Presentations

I the theme of JavaOne the SQL team recently release a Beta of there JDBC Driver for SQL Server 2005. My reaction was ok so…. well it’s a big so now that I know what it’s all about. There is a current version for SQL 2000 as well but the new one has a much better integration with SQLs capabilities. For more information http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=5180.

I other news on gotdotnet.com there is a project that will help in converting NUnit tests to VSTS Test scripts, check out the NUnit Add-Ons: Workspace Home.

Yes that is correct my relatively new employer Microsoft has send me to JavaOne… Yes that is as in the Sun sponsored developer event(http://java.sun.com/javaone/) I have know about this event for years but have never found a way to come to it. Years ago when Fawcette had a small conference call VBits in the mid to late 90’s there was one year JavaOne and VBits overlapped and I went over to check it out and wow it was a well done show then and it is still a a well run show. They have lots of toys and event to keep people involved (this includes 8 Xboxes) they even have a big screen playing movies all day.

For the more important aspect they have some good sessions for a Java newbe like me I will also try to sit through some hands on labs. So far all I have done is worked in the Microsoft Booth all day yesterday and talked to people about how platforms can effectively interoperate using WebServices. The reaction was great we had some interesting conversations.

And I had time to fit in some fun!

Yes that is correct! There is a community effort to bring VSTS to Eclipse. This project was started to GotDotNot.com but was moved to sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/vstseclipse/. This is a great development to let other developers access the VSTS services.

I finally got my i-mate SP3–i working!

I have been struggling the settings for weeks now and I did have it working with some AT&T settings but it stopped working when I did a sync to my computer. I have not tried the settings after another sync to my computer but I don’t think I will be trying that for some time any way.

Making SMS work with an SP3i on Cingular - eXpansys Singapore

Well I am sitting in Orlando International Airport waiting for my flight home and thinking back on a great TechEd experience. It was a strange thing, I did not go to TechEd last year as the last company I had worked for had lost the Commnet contract for TechEd and I just was too busy with other customers. So it was strange to be back at TechEd as a normal attendee and not as crew. I always had fun as crew but in the end it was nice not having to work that many number of hours… at the show I did the same level of effort overall but this time it was at all the cool parties

The first night got it rolling, I hooked up with several RDs and other influencers and had a great dinner.

As you can see we all had fun . Thanks to an attendee from Japan Kazuo Furuyama for the picture we invited Kazuo over to have desert with us after we had attacked hour dinners.

I saw some great talks about Visual Studio Team Systems, I do think this product has the opportunity to fundamentally change MS development shops! If you have not seen much about VSTS go get some information about it soon!

To help you get exposed to VSTS Microsoft has released a new dvd that has a timed version of Visual PC with a copy of a single server installation of VSTS. I have not played with the VPC Image yet but this is a HUGE thing (in my humble opinion) now we have hope of having this type of early distribution of more great products so customers can play with things early. I have no idea how these dvds will be distributed but I am sure they will be readily available.

I was incredibly lucky and got asked by Richard Hundhousen to co-present with him on Thursday on web security issues. We spoke in one of the big rooms with about 1000 seats and the feed back was great… Thanks a gain Richard for letting be share the stage with you, I am just sorry we will not get to do something at TechEd Europe but my sons birthday is July 4^th and I want to start living the whole ME encouraged “life/work” balance.

I am now looking forward to PCD in LA where I will be helping coordinate some events for the local users groups and other interested developers. I am making sure that any developer who wants to come to the evening events can get in to the conference center, look back here for details.

Let me know what you thought of TechEd and what you would like to see at PDC. Now time to get on my plain.

[Edit I did not get this posted as soon as I would have liked but here it is finally]