And whilst talking about smart client apps, this entry from new blogger Chris Pratley describes how OneNote came about. I use this product an awful lot, although I've never understood why it's not just an extension for Word rather than a separate product. I presumed that OneNote came from work by Microsoft Research rather than a discussion between two senior managers.
Moving forwards, Paul Thurrott writes about rumours of new enhancements for OneNote in the first service pack. I'd also like to see some enhancements to the notes organisation facilities - I'm already finding it hard to quickly navigate to the note I'm interested in; support for some Word-like features such as tables would be nice too, as well as better integration with Outlook so that I could link a task or a calendar appointment to the relevant note.
If you're a UK- or US-based ISV starting to build smart client applications with .NET, you might want to take advantage of this programme to get a free starter kit containing books and software (US version here). Thanks to Paul for the link.
It would be great to build a community of British-based bloggers who are writing about .NET and related technology. So I've started the ball rolling by creating a list of all the bloggers known to me who fall into that category.
So - who am I missing?
A list of .NET-related blogs written by UK authors. You can download this list in OPML format for use in your favourite RSS aggregator.
One of the responsibilities I've recently taken on is that of planning the content for TechEd Europe 2004. This year should be the biggest TechEd yet in Europe, with 300 sessions across nine tracks. The European TechEd has always had a slightly greater developer bias than the US event, because we also have an IT Pro conference a few months later in the same year, and we're also introducing an architectural track this year as well as an increased mobility focus with a Mobility DevCon happening alongside the main event. Co-ordinating the content is a major undertaking and I'm starting to realise how much work goes on behind the scenes to make an event like this happen!
We're now accepting submissions for third-party sessions to be presented at the conference. We've polled previous attendees and find that people enjoy hearing a mixture of sessions from Microsoft (to hear the "official" line) and from independent speakers (to get a different perspective informed by real business scenarios). Each year, we get far more proposals than we can actually include, so the quality bar is quite high, but we're always on the look out for imaginative new ideas and compelling content. A few tips as to what we're looking for:
The submission form asks a session title, a brief abstract, details of the content and an explanation of how the session would add value to the conference programme. You might want to pull these pieces together along with a brief bio and details of previous experience to expedite your session submission.
Hope to hear from some of you with some great session ideas!