I gave myself a nice little present last night: I spilled water on my Linksys router. Now I can’t get a DHCP address or connection with a wired port (but I can get in over wireless). And it won’t connect to my DSL host Bellsouth. Guess I’ll...

Some late-night/early morning birthday observations: Next year on this day, I’ll have to begin lumping myself into the 40–49 age bracket. But not this year! I have in recent years felt gypped because my birthday falls near or sometimes...

My colleague Joe Stagner gave the Tech-Ed Podcast team a piece of his mind, and a glimpse at his past (click the picture below to watch). My favorite quote by Joe: "Hacking other people's websites is illegal, and I have never engaged in any illegal...

I'm halfway through my second day of helping staff the booth with the Windows Mobile team. I'm surrounded by an amazing array of devices, some even running Windows Mobile 5.0. People are definitely curious about this next OS, when they can get it on their...

If you weren't able to get into Tech-Ed and wanted to, some overflow slots opened up. You'll have full access to the whole conference but will have to sit in overflow seating (read: a different room watching on video) for the keynote address. Still, not...

Imagine you showed up to one of the Microsoft offices in Redmond with a question on CLR compatibility like "Will my .NET 2.0 apps work on the 1.1 runtime?" Imagine that instead of being handed a white paper or given a URL, they actually walked you back...

Here’s a great way to blow of steam after you’ve sat through hours of technical presentations at Tech-Ed: Mobilizer Madness . It’s a technology powered scavenger hunt around the Orange County Convention Center. Team up and match wits...

Looks like I've hit the big time, being featured on the Events section of MSDN . I'll make sure I find enough to write about so that my section is neither empty nor filled with drivel. OK, a little drivel is fun. And bonus points to you if you recognized...

I am Mario . I like to jump around, and would lead a fairly serene and aimless existence if it weren't for my friends always getting into trouble. I love to help out, even when it puts me at risk. I seem to make friends with people who just can't stay...

We're putting together some of our marketing materials for next quarter's MSDN Events. I'm interested in your opnions of the session abstracts in this post (read on to find them). Do they make you feel compelled to see the content? Do you like the titles? Are these too "markety" for developers? Your feedback is welcome! Thanks. ...

At the MSDN Event in Atlanta yesterday, we had an intruder so I had to defend the Microsoft Across America blockade runner...

I am getting old. I know it for 2 reasons. 1. I have to be at the MSDN event at 7:00 am on Thursday. As such, I don’t want to be up late watching a movie that starts at 12:01 AM. 2. I am not such a Star Wars nut as I was when I was 12, otherwise...

Wow. I’m not even a dark lord of the Sith but I’ve sold out. If you’ve tried to register for the Atlanta event on Thursday and are getting a “registration closed” message, please don’t let that deter you. We have a...

I've been off the road for a while, helping to prepare the next quarter's content for MSDN Events (which is going to knock your socks off by the way!). I can tell you that it's a deep dive into ASP.NET 2.0 where you'll see cool UI stuff, great data stuff...

I just read this recent article on MSDN that covers some neat aspects about how native XML web services in SQL Server 2005 might be used. Of particular interest is the samples of PERL scripts for executing T-SQL via SOAP.

These days it’s less frequent that you’ll need a GUID. But sometimes you do. I remembered a little utility called GUIDGEN.EXE would create one and place it on your clipboard. I didn’t have that installed, so on a whim I browsed to www.guidgen.com not...

Hmm, it appears that the server hosting my graphics and sample code files is offline. I'll have to check into that. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I have noticed that more and more the word experience comes up in relation to a person interacting with their pc/phone/device/whatever. In addition to (I think) the "XP" in Windows XP coming from eXPerience, there's the Experience Pack for Tablet PC...

I just picked up from Doug Turnure’s blog that David Chappell will be speaking at the May 18th meeting of the Atlanta VB.NET study group about “Understanding Inigo” (see below for abstract). I hear seats will be hard to get, so come...

So last week I spent a little time with Michael Earls collaborating on two webcasts we’re doing about developing for Windows XP Media Center Edition . We worked at my house for several hours, my kids drifted in and out, and I gave Michael some food...

I have some friends of mine that run an on-again, off again blog site called ShiftyEye . The engine is a home grown ASP (!) app written by my colleague D. Clay Smith and contributed to by Clay and my bud Harris (who's leaving Atlanta and moving to New...

Have you seen Darth Vader's Blog ? Very well written, and several comments are really funny. I don't think this is a marketing trick by Lucas, just an eloquent fan.

Really. Win a car. It actually happened to someone in Greensboro, NC who attended my event. The Microsoft Across America truck was at the event, and people who toured the truck were entered in a drawing to win a car. One of my attendees, Bob Gusek, was...

This is National TV Turnoff Week . So turn it off, and get out and do something. Come to think about it, pretend your CRT or LCD display is a TV, quit reading this blog post, and go do something physical. :-) Television tells a story in a way that...

Often I have to seriously evaluate the usefulness of mobile versions of many websites. Not so with the mobile version of Georgia Navigator . With this page I have instant mobile access to traffic information, incidents, and even traffic cameras. Check...