Microsoft Goodwill

In an article at the Reg Developer (Microsoft extends Visual Studio handout program) Gavin Clarke reports that Microsoft has decided that the express versions of both Visual Studio 2005 and SQL 2005 will not cost anything. Initially, the plan was to offer them for free to get people interested and then to start charging for them.

To me, this is a good thing and will help generate more interest in Microsoft's programming languages. There is a steep price to pay to get legitimate copies of Visual Studio and many who may wish to give it ago don't have access to it via a corporate job. As more people give it a try they will find out how good Microsoft .NET technologies are.

Personally, I plan to get a copy for my ten year old son and his friend. This summer I am starting him on the path to programming/networking/hardware excellence. He doesn't have a sports interest, but his ability with computers has impressed me... I can't wait to see how he does.

Blog Ministry Post - Prayer Journal

Quicklink to my post at Blog Ministry discussing how a prayer journal can enhance your prayer life.

Top Job In America

Well, now isn't that cool. It seems that I am one of the luckiest employees around in that my job is the #1 top job in America according to MONEY Magazine.

That will teach me to complain.

Windows + Macintosh = WinMac

I can't help but laugh out loud at the ignorance of Mac owners. I am sure that there are still some die-hard Mac fans out there, and I applaud you for your devotion.

WATYF has written a great post over at MusicalNerdery.com about the ability to load Windows XP on to the new Intel based Mac hardware. For anyone who has kept up with or been involved in the whole "Microsoft versus Mac" debate, it makes for a great laugh.

Microsoft Atlas

Well, last month Microsoft issued a pre-release of a product called Atlas and just a couple of days ago they have updated the pre-release with more controls.

For those of you were aren't familiar with it, Atlas is Microsoft's development kit for AJAX. That's right, another framework to help out the lowly developer. Of course, this one is bent to working well with a Microsoft ASP.Net backend, but that is to be expected.

You can check out the features and download the pre-release at http://atlas.asp.net and read what the Reg Developer had to say here.

.NET Helper Tools

A coworker of mine recently pointed me at an article on MSDN by James Avery that lists the Ten Must Have Tools For Developers.

Wow. This is an awesome resource. Mr. Avery does a bang up job in describing why these tools are great and provides links to them all. On top of that, they are all freely available (with the exception of CodeSmith) and fill some important functions. Take a look!

Where Art Thou, O Rational

Having just read an article on the Reg Developer, I am struck by their question of what has happened to the once great company, and product, of Rational. For the company that created UML and produced the best, if not most expensive, software tools for design applications they have been suprisingly silent. Is this IBM's doing?

In case you didn't know, IBM bought Rational Software about two years ago. It was said, jokingly, at the time that IBM bought Rational because it was cheaper to buy the company than to purchase the licenses they needed for the software suite. It is expensive.

The article initially speculates that IBM is planning on replacing the Rational tools with others that it has developed, but the marketing manager for the Rational division disputes it.

Either way, Rational is as good as dead if they don't get out there and get visibility. Only time will tell.

Whirlwind of Life

Wow, what a busy few weeks. I must apologize for the significant delay since my last posting, there has been so much competing for my time that the blog lost. From college final exams (passed!) to project due dates at work, and not to mention an ISP change at home that has been less than perfect... whew. Now I just need to catch up on the technology news and let you know what I think of it!