I've just had my first article ever published on ASP Alliance, it covers System.Diagnostics.Debug and methods within it which can improve your code today. Please go check it out, great content here!
I just received my most recent TechNet email from Microsoft, what was the subject? Virtualization. Sogeti has a Director in Houston, John Cook, who is an MVP, in what area? Virtualization. Now, I have to agree, Virtualization is the best. As I write this I've got an instance of Windows Server 2003 R2 running in the background as a virtual machine where I'm developing for my current client. I keep VPC's around from which I do most of my presentations. It's great, given. But what does this craze say about the business of software? With very few exceptions (SQL Server and BizTalk notably) most enterprises are looking to go virtual for most of their applications. Why not SQL Server and BizTalk? Because they really work the hardware, if you will because they are solving computationally difficult tasks. Web servers can make very complex things simple, but usually they are not very computationally complex for most enterprises. I think this points to the fact that hardware is outpacing software and that it is time for software to discover the next truly big problem which will need such performance that you wouldn't think of virtualizing it. What do you think these are? What problems are the white elephants of enterprises which everywhere, the ones no one talks about anymore because it is merely accepted that they are "unsolvable"?
To complete my Arkansas trip, on July 3rd I spoke to the Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group and presented my talk "Introduction to C# 3.0". While there are not any downloads I can offer for that talk, it is all code made up on the spot in reaction to questions about the features, I would like to take a moment to thank them for having me out to speak. Jay Smith, President of the NWADNUG, was an excellent host and I enjoyed both speaking and hanging out with many of the members at Applebee's after the meeting. If you find yourself in Fayetteville AR, or are ever invited to come speak to this group, you should definitely visit them. Furthermore Fayetteville itself is a very pretty town, the trip in up I-540 reminds me what I miss about living somewhere that elevation happens, and there are plenty of great little shops in the area including one of the better board games shops I've run into in a long while.