I just discovered an interesting web site, The End of Free. This site lists latest news articles related to “free” Internet services such as free web e-mail.
As some of you have already heard, I have become a hugh fan of weblogs and specifically BLogger.com. After playing with BLogger for a day, I upgrade to BLogger Pro. It is amazing how much easier it is for me to update and maintain my web sites using BLogger. I only wish I could use it within my corporate firewall for private team web sites on our intranet.
So why am I sharing this with you? Simple. Pro Blogger has a new feature that allows me to publish new content through e-mail. Yep, that’s right. I am composing this entry from Outlook. Within seconds of sending out this e-mail, thecave.com will be updated. Talk about a great service! Now if I could publish my thoughts as I am riding the slopes…
So the new e-mail feature of BLogger is cool, but it has some problems with Microsoft Outlook. I don’t blame BLogger but Outlook. Why does Outlook try to out smart me by changing formats, etc? Even if Outlook is configured to send e-mail as plain text, it still does weird things from time to time. Guess that’s why I have been a long time user of Eudora Pro.
Microsoft has released a sample of Direct Internet Message Encapsulation using .NET. KeithBa showed off the code sample at the recent Web Service DevCon. The code seems nicely done. I am hoping to play with it later this week.
The hard drive of my daily used laptop kicked the bucket last Friday. I finally got a replacement drive and now I am going through the painful process of re-installing software. But one piece of software is making this more painful than usual, Visual Studio.NET.
I for one am a fan of VS.NET. It seems Microsoft has finally gotten it right. But this lovely piece of software is just too damn big. The install takes too long and the slightest problem can cause the installation process to take longer. I have been working to install VS.NET since 3 pm yesterday with numerous failed attempts. Funny how Borland’s Delphi ever did this to me.
I just completed the latest Microsoft Beta exam 71-316 and I now know I should have looked at the title of the exam, Development and Implementation of Windows-base Applications with C# and .NET Framework. This exam is jam packed with WinForm based questions, something I know little about. The exam I took covered areas such as security, configuration (gotta love those wonderful .config files), application packaging and deployment, Windows Form application development, debugging, setting up application menu and help systems, implementing custom controls, ADO.NET (both SqlClient and OleDb manager providers, connection and command objects, DataSet, DataView, data binding, and data editing), and finally XML (through various XML Readers and ADO.NET DataSet).
It’s a sad day. I finally stored my snowboard gear away. At least I had an incredible season with 35 days riding the slopes. WASTED was great and hopefully I will get around to posting all the photos online. I have collected some 270 photos from the various people who attended WASTED. The rest of the season included trips with Melanie to Killington, Vermont. And we ended the season together with one last wonderful weekend in Whistler. It was very hard to leave. But I guess there is always next year.