February DevCares Recap

February DevCares is history (at least in Columbus) and aside from a few technical glitches, I think things went well. My topic was new features in Vista and making application compatible with UAC. Jeff's topic was developing Gadgets and using Vistas RSS platform in .NET.

Aside from a few minor technical issues (it was kind of hard for Jeff to present RSS with a wonky Internet connection) things went very well. Drew gave me some good advice, and next time I'm not going to rely so much on my notes. I was too worried about trying to stay in-sync with the slides and I should have just talked to the group.

It was a relatively quiet group, but they asked some good questions, so they were definitely paying attention. Hopefully I was able to provide some value to their future Vista development AND demonstrate that those Apple commercials slamming Vista are totally full of crap!

I enjoyed Jeff's presentation, and especially in light of the network issues though he did a great job.

The content from both presentations will be up on the DevCares website soon. If you just can't wait, feel free to email me and I'll pass them along. Well, not Jeff's, you'll have to email him…

Next month's topic is "Extending Word, Excel and InfoPath 2007" and "Building Workflow Applications on SharePoint 2007" and you can register at the DevCares website. And no, I don't know who's speaking yet, but I'm sure it will be great!

I would like to thank Drew Robbins and Microsoft for the opportunity. I really enjoyed it!

Now, some pictures (courtesy of Arnulfo Wing)

I will be speaking at the February DevCares event in Columbus

This Friday, Febuary 23^rd, I will be presenting "Windows Vista for Developers" as part of Microsoft's DevCares event. It will be at the Babbage Simmel office in downtown Columbus.

I will be talking about some new things in Vista that developers can start taking advantage of now. I will demonstrate how to make your applications compatible with UAC, and if there's time how to use the new search functionality built into Vista. Jeff Blankenburg will be presenting on Sidebar Gadgets and Vista's built in RSS components.

You can register at http://www.devcares.com

Old Man Winter wins this round…

One "failing" of getting your news and current event information almost exclusively from the Inter-tubes is that reliable and up to date local weather and traffic is kind of hard to come by in a consistent, reliable manner. OK, I should say that up to date local weather and reliable and up to date local weather and traffic information FOR COLUMBUS OHIO is kind of hard to come by in a consistent, reliable manner. This caused me to find myself in the unenviable position of being unprepared for the "White Death" that befell the city while I slept.

I guess it's not all bad, I'm working from home today, and the lack of distractions has allowed me to get more done by 10:00 than I might otherwise get accomplished by lunch.

By the way, if I ever leave computers to become a mafia hit man, or a line backer, I want my nick name to be "The White Death." Yeah, that'll work.

And let me be clear my nick name is NOT "White Death." It is "THE White Death" and I expect to be addressed properly. For example;

The wrong way: "Hey White Death, would you like to come over this afternoon for pie and coffee?"

The correct way: "Hey The White Death, would you like to come over this afternoon for pie and coffee?"

Yes. Yes I would.

Kinda like a mail-order bride. But you know, for Geeks.

I am in a very happy and excited mood. Yesterday I ordered a brand new, sorta top of the line Dell Insprion E1705 laptop! Based on my mother's experience ordering from Dell, I fully expect it to be here before the end of next week.

Here are the drool-worthy specs:

• 2.00 GHz Core Duo 2
  
• 2 GB Ram
  
• 17 inch UltraSharp TrueLife screen (Jeff Blankenburg advised me to pop for the TrueLife upgrade. So if it's not worth it I'm, blaming him!)
  
• Vista Ultimate Edition (Why go half-way?)
  
• 256MB ATI Radeon X 1400 Hyper Memory (And if you are going to run Vista, what's the point in not using Aero?)
  
• 802.11g wireless network card (I didn't see popping for "N.")
  
• 9 cell battery (Hopefully I won't hear calls of "The laptop, the laptop, the laptop is on fire!")
  
• 160 GB hard drive (I wanted 200GB, but I was on a bit of a budget and I think Dell's HD prices are a little on the high side.)
  
• Bluetooth (small upgrade, but worth it.)
  
• 2 Year Warranty (Only two years. Hey, love is fleeting and I'm known for being fickle on occasion.)
  

I didn't get a case. Again, I think Dell charges a lot for a little in the case department. Besides, I've already found several nicer cases on-line that are either the same price or less. So there!

On tip, I priced this on-line, but called the order in. By portraying myself as being somewhat hesitant on the phone, I got an immediate $250 discount!

As for how much? Tsk tsk. I chose not to sully this discussion with talk of money, let us speak only of AMORE.