A Blog for Graymad

I'm not convinced, based on my experience so far.

OK, so not much more than an hour later, and my upgrade from RC2 of Windows Server 2003, Web Edition to the RTM version is complete, and seems to have gone almost entirely smoothly. I say almost, because despite the fact that I was upgrading rather than doing a fresh install, I still had to manually install the VMWare SVGA video driver. I also had a sudden shutdown of the VM, but I'm not sure yet whether that was just a VMWare hiccup, or something more ominous.

...and diving into upgrading my Windows Server 2003, Web Edition RC2 to RTM. I wouldn't be worried about it at all but for the fact that I'm running Win2K3 in a VMWare v3.1.1 virtual machine, and Windows Server 2003 is only provided experimental support in that version. It worked fine for RC1, but locked up hard when attempting a fresh install of RC2. I managed to get RC2 running under VMWare by installing RC1 and then upgrading RC1 to RC2, so I'm going to try the same trick with the RTM version. If that doesn't work, then I'll pave the VM and try installing from scratch.

I know I'm not the first to comment on the rumors that Wrox may be going under, but one of the first things I thought of is all of the folks that I've met who work for Wrox, and who depend on them for their livelihood. Authors like Alex Homer, Dave Sussman, and Rocky Lhotka, to name just a few, were the main reason that Wrox became such a prominent name in the tech book market.

Just wrapped up the last of the first-pass edits on my MS Press books. A few more PDFs to review, and I'll be all finished.

I want to say thank you to everyone who attended my talks on March 4th at the MSDN .NET RoadShow event in Reston, VA, and the Central Maryland ASP Professionals user group meeting in Columbia, MD.

Like my friend, Steve Smith, I've reached an important milestone in my latest writing project. The initial revisions of my books, Microsoft® ASP.NET Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic® .NET Version 2003 Step By Step and Microsoft® ASP.NET Programming with Microsoft Visual C#™ .NET Version 2003 Step By Step, are complete. This brings the books in line with Visual Studio .NET 2003 and version 1.1 of the .NET Framework. All that's left now is the editing passes, and the books will be complete.

The latest snowstorm to hit the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. is now in full swing. It's some of the heaviest snow I've seen all winter (which is actually saying something this winter). I have to admit, that it looks pretty right now, but that doesn't make me any more enthusiastic about the shoveling I'm going to have to do tomorrow...ARGH!!!