I only mentioned the Made In Express Contest a few minutes ago and now I see there is a contest for Microsoft Atlas, their new AJAX / Web 2.0 framework. You have a chance to win an XBOX 360 premium and Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphones! What is it? This contest is all about creating awesome Mash-up applications using “Atlas” technology. Nothing ...

ASP.NET now supports something called Web Deployment Projects, which are an add-in for Visual Studio 2005 that is currently still in beta.  You can download the installer from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/reference/infrastructure/wdp/ I recently took them for a spin with a site of mine.  The key benefit I was after was the ...

Every now and then some high profile personality, perhaps one who once had close ties to Microsoft, about how .NET is really a total failure.  How it's clear that it isn't going anywhere.  That, as proof of these assertions, Microsoft cannot even manage to use it for its own products, so why should we?  Personally I think these ...

I had to buy a new box to install Team Foundation Server -- apparently it just won't work on my old Dell Inspiron laptop from around 2001 (P3, 866Mhz).  Seems it requires at least a P4 2.2GHz.  The complete system requirements can be found in the latest Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Installation Guide.  I also found this TFS ...

I gave a presentation on Visual Studio Team System last night to about 30 students at Wayne State University in Detroit.  I don’t think it was one of my better presentations, for a number of reasons, which I’ll lament here and attempt to improve in the future. First off, this was an earlier presentation than most of the INETA ...

I've recently been learning more about code snippets in VS 2005, and I've found some nice resources online.  Basically, if you haven't done anything with Code Snippets, they are a simple, extensible way for you to perform a relatively complex task within the IDE with just a few keystrokes.  For example, let's say you want to write a ...

Scott Guthrie has just posted an update on the new VS 2005 Web Application Project Template and VS 2005 Web Deployment Projects.  You can always learn more about this project on his website dedicated to vs 2005 web projects. Says Scott: The refresh build of the VS 2005 Web Application Project we are putting out this week contains a lot of ...

The next DevConnections conference will be held April 2-5, 2006 in Orlando, Florida at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort (where it has been a couple of times in recent years -- very nice hotel).  I will be hosting three sessions, and for the first time I'll have two sessions in the Visual Studio Fundamentals Track (normally I'm strictly ...

Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0 is now available.  It includes the Caching Application Block, Cryptography Application Block, Data Access Appliation Block, Exception Handling Application Block, Logging Application Block and Security Application Block.  Definitely worth checking out. From the website: The patterns & ...

I've uploaded my presentations from last week's ASP.NET Connections conference in Las Vegas to the ASPAlliance Resource Directory's Presentations area.  Enjoy!