I just read the sad news about the death of a great .NET community person: David Boschmans. I knew David as being a great and nice guy that took the time to listen to the community. I heard at the VIP community weekend that he had health problems but that he was recovering. Rest in peace good man, you'll be missed.

Grz, Kris.

Hi,

if you're into Microsoft technology you'll probably know about Channel 9 and On10. While I was surfing/investigating the revamped ASP.NET site I noticed a new entry in the community toolbar: Channel 8.

Channel 8 is THE place to be for STUDENTS who want to code, connect and create technology. Stay plugged into tech news and share in the experience with students around the world just like you who want to see their creations come to life. This is also a back door directly into Microsoft just like Channel 9 but from a student point of view. This means access to the inside scoop about our products and life working inside Microsoft and information on cool things coming out. This is your community – a place for you to share your tips and tricks and even your problems. Go check out what others are doing and talk about what you think is cool.

I hope a lot of interesting content will come up there just like on Channel 9. More to watch for all of us.

Grz, Kris.

A site that I visit frequently just got a repaint job. It looks nice I must say. Be sure to check it out at http://www.asp.net/. If you should have any suggestions or remarks you can leave them in the Feedback forum.

Grz, Kris.

Just saw it on the download pages: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspx.

Apparently Microsoft also created several pages with some webcasts:

• Build Next-Generation Applications
• Work Collaboratively
• Develop at Light Speed

I know where the rest of my bandwidth of the month's getting spend on this weekend.

Grz, Kris.

Taken from the download site:

The Windows Server 2008 Developer Training Kit includes a set of hands-on-labs and presentations for technologies such as IIS7, Management, WCF, WF, Windows CardSpace, Windows PowerShell, Virtualization and the Transactional File System (TxF). The content was originally created by Microsoft's Developer & Platform Evangelism group as part of the Windows Server 2008 Touchdown training activities.
The seven hands-on labs included in this kit are based on the DinnerNow sample application.

Windows Server 2008 Developer Training Kit (Beta 3).

Grz, Kris.

Currently it's still in Beta phase but it sure does look promising to me after seeing this demo video: http://www.powershellanalyzer.com/demos/psaintrowmv.html.

Grz, Kris.

Since I was doing a lot of work with Excel this day and got tired of using my mouse constantly I looked up, and found, a nice keyboard shortcut overview: http://isamrad.com/dgainer/1_02-23-2006.pdf.

Grz, Kris.

Today I'm celebrating my lustrum on the ASP.NET forums. That also means that I started developing with .NET 5 years ago officially. I learned a lot in those 5 years and not only on a technical level. With this post I would also like to thank Patrick Vanoverbeke for picking me out of the crowd to start developing ASP.NET applications back then and giving me the opportunity to grow on a steady pace.

First I was more of a person that asked questions, trying to seek knowledge for problems. After a while I suddenly noticed a certain post, can't remember which one though, that I could provide the answer to. I did and got a friendly reply with a big thank you back. Well that gave a good feeling so I started out giving more and more answers. Somehow I got noticed by the moderation team and when they asked to join them I became a moderator to help even more people out. This year I also became an MVP thanks to my strong participation on the forums.

Grz, Kris.

One of the nice things when you gather with a bunch of tech minded people like yourself (Microsoft VIP Community Offsite 2007) is that you get to know urls to interesting tech stuff. Apparently already very known, except by me are the MSDN UK nuggets. Some small, interesting videos that highlight a specific topic in 10-15 minutes. I sure do like the idea as most webcasts are too long or they want to cover as much as possible in an as short as possible time span with as endresult that nobody gets the message.

Another one that I found related to that, and one that seems very new so most of my tech savvy friends don't know about it untill when they read my blog is this Nibbles site. It seems to only have some tutorials at the moment, especially focussed on Blend and Silverlight/WPF. As I'm keen on learning both I'll sure be checking this one out.

Grz, Kris.