.NET Rocks!

About a decade ago, there was a Visual Basic site, called Carl & Gary's VB Page, which was my regular stop for all my VB projects, information and programming research I was doing back then. Just a couple of months ago I (finally) took a closer look at the .NET Rocks!, to realize, that Carl, the host of this show, is actually THE Carl, who was running that VB page. That site simply rocked. As does the .NET Rocks!, the internet audio show, hosted by Carl and Rory :), originally targeted for .NET developers, but it is so much more. Currently, they are giving away the Toshiba Portégé® M200 Tablet PC, so hurry to enter and win! :)

Roman Holiday

Spent a week in Rome, Italy & enjoyed it. Very much. It was all I expected. Ancient Rome ruins, the catacombs, the Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, … The food is great, coffee excellent :) I found out that there is a considerable price difference in coffee price, when you order it inside (the bar, ~1 EUR) or outside (table, ~3 EUR). The pizza might not always be what you would expect, but the pasta really never disappoints.

VS 2005 Beta 1

Yesterday the net started buzzing... Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 is released... Express family of VS 2005 products is introduced... MSDN Product Feedback Center is launched... All this revealed on TechEd Europe in Amsterdam.
The Express products are, as it says, »lightweight, easy-to-use, easy-to-learn tools for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and novices who want to build dynamic Windows applications and Web sites.« They are supposedly going to sell very cheap. The family includes VB, C#, C++, J#, WebDev and SQL Server express products.

While waiting to get my hands on its big brother, I gave a C# Express a try. It looks nice, feels good and the included RSS ScreenSaver Starter Kit really puts an extra touch to the package.