I received the dreadful news coming out of my alma mater via text messages at a conference in Tampa on Monday. Each update left me more horrified as the news unfolded. There are no words to describe the unprecedented horror that took place at one of my...

Well, the cat is out of the bag ! "WPF/E" now has a real name: Microsoft Silverlight . There's a lot of news on this announcement around the web right now. Check out Tim Sneath's summary . This is going to be a really exciting technology for web developers...

Last week, I lamented the fact that Virtual Earth has been virtually ignored and provided some thoughts as to why I thought that was so: Poor marketing. I still think that's a major issue, and have been sharing my thoughts on that with the product team...

Well, we took the month of March off, but tomorrow morning is the April arcDevBrainPick . arcDevBrainPick is your chance to pick the brain of your local Microsoft staff. It's an open-forum talk radio like format where you can chat in your questions and...

The next Philly.NET Code Camp is soon approaching. Code Camp will be on Saturday, May 19th at the Microsoft office in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Bill Wolff and the Philly.NET community leaders are now in the planning stages and accepting session proposals...

After the NYC Code Camp last month, a bunch of the speakers went out for a couple of drinks and appetizers. We got on the topic of writing books and articles. There were folks like Don Demsak promoting the notion of independent self publishing vs. folks...

The .NET Valley user group is hosting TechBash 2007 in Nanticoke, Pa on May 19th. TechBash promises to be similar to a code camp. If you live in northeast Pennsylvania and aren't able to drive to one of the bigger cities for a code camp, TechBash is for...

You know, of all the online "Live" services that Microsoft has, I think the mapping service has been one of best. However, hardly no one knows about it! On Thursday last week, Google added their new myMaps feature to Google Maps. Wow! The tech community...

EntLib 3.0 just dropped . Go get the bits here . For more details, see Tom Hollander's most excellent blog . Via Tom , here is a quick summary of the most significant changes: Validation Application Block . Allows you to centrally define validation rules...

April must be code camp month in the Mid-Atlantic states! If anyone from the NY/NJ/Eastern PA areas is interested in traveling a bit to the south & west for a code camp, there are four of them coming up: Saturday, April 14th - Pittsburgh, PA : Website...

I must have missed the final announcement on this one last month? If you're running Visual Studio 2005 SP1, the additional update needed to resolve some of the Vista compatibility issues is now available (it was in beta previously). This is a separate...

Last year, Microsoft announced their new Expression suite of designer tools. Included in the suite are three tools for designers to build graphics, web sites, and rich XAML-based WPF user experiences as well as a library tool for storing these works of...

The 5th annual FinServ Dev Con is coming up in NYC later this month. It will be at the Grand Hyatt hotel on Park Avenue at Grand Central Station April 25th and 26th. Register now while seats are still available! Now in its 5th year, the Financial Services...

Via Scoble ... Check out these cool mashup applications from Thirteen23 that take advantage of the Windows Presentation Foundation on Windows Vista. These applications also work on Windows XP, but you'll need to install the .NET 3.0 Framework first. The...

Now I can finally stop buying CDs! Enough said . [Update 04-03-2007:] Okay... the Steve Jobs reality distortion field may be wearing off. As the folks at Engadget note, the devil here may be in the details .

What is AOL doing?! I've long enjoyed listening to AOL's streaming radio service . Their Shuffle and Shuffle Hits channels are great for variety. One minute Frank Sinatra, the next Snoop Dogg. At home, I usually listen to this on my secondary machine...

Now in its fourth year, the Unwrapped for Financial Services Webcast Series is back for a week starting today! Sessions will be both technical and strategic in nature, covering the newest Microsoft solutions for Capital Markets, Retail Banking and Insurance...

I wanted to extend a warm welcome to a couple of folks from the Philadelphia area .NET community have recently started blogging. Check out the following: Andy Schwam - http://blog.ingenuitynow.net Andy has been one of the leaders of the Philly.NET user...

By the time I made it down to Cherry Hill after getting a flat tire repaired on my car, it was 6:30 and an hour into the first .NET UG meeting in south Jersey. I was surprised to find standing room only. There were about 5-6 folks crowded in the hallway...

This week in Redmond, my team hosted a summit of approximately 50 tech buffs who don't normally use Microsoft technologies. It was an attempt to brainwa-- to give them a chance to learn more about what Microsoft is up to these days. The hope was that...

Pittsburgh Code Camp is coming up in just about two weeks! For more information, visit the Pittsburgh Code Camp site to register and get more info. Code Camp is a free, 1-day event put on by the local Pittsburgh community to help promote software development...

Spring is in the air. Can you believe it was up to 80 degrees again this week in Jersey?! It's time for what's going on at the user groups in NY, NJ, and PA again. Here's the line up for April: New Jersey NJ MS Developers Group - Thursday, April 5th ...

Last Thursday, a bunch of folks in the NJ community got together to have a planning meeting for the New Jersey User eXperience user group. The Gaslight Brewery was fun place to hang out and have a few brews. But it's not a great place to host a user group...

Last week, I attended the AJAX World East conference in NYC. The show was hosted by Sys-Con publishing at the Roosevelt Hotel near Grand Central Station. Most of the usual AJAX suspects were there showing off their AJAX tools and frameworks. The biggest...

Philly.NET continues to spread its wings. Last month, a new group was born in Center City. This month, the Philly.NET community is starting a new user group in south Jersey . It seems the .NET user group phenomenon keeps spreading further south down the...