Lance's Whiteboard

Occasionally when searching on some topic, I find myself bumping into the same blog over and over again and getting great results every time. 

This article hit WAY too close to home for me:

I have used a combination of Microsoft MSN and Google internet tools and services for years now, and have flipped back and forth a few times on my preferences  Here is where I currently stand with my usage of Google tools & services vs. Microsoft MSN tools & services:

I was playing with some of the PDC05 session samples (session PRS404) again this weekend and the sample had a script to extend the default ASP.NET membership and role tables.  I could have just used my ASPNETDB instance installed on SQL Server 2005, but I didnt want to impact anything I was working on with my "real projects".  Therefore, I needed yet another ASPNETDB instance to apply their sample SQL Scripts on.   I toyed with temporarily detaching the current ASPNETDB instance from SQL2005 and creating a new DB as a one-off, but that left me feeling a bit dirty and it wouldnt help me when I needed a 3rd instance to play with.  Then, I recalled the power of using file-system attached SQL Express Databases offered in the new version.  I had played with this earlier in the beta's when using the SQL Express provider to attach a DB located within the APP_DATA folder of my website, and it seemed to be a perfect solution. 

I began tinkering with my CSS again recently and instantly got frustrated with the skins offered on this blog host.  The lack of support for more reasonable skins in the ASP.NET Weblogs site is pretty bad, and I'm getting a bit jealous at the extensive skin support on other .TEXT sites such as dotnetjunkies and sqljunkies.  I always liked the cache' and feeling of being on the .NET blogs equivilent of Boardwalk/Park Place with my blog being hosted by an official Microsoft site (www.ASP.net) but that is starting to wear thin these days. 

There were a number of interesting exhibitors at the PDC this year.  Beyond the swag, I found a few interesting products here and there.  Here are a few that leap to mind:

Last night, David and I stumbled into the "Ask the Experts" and enjoyed talking with Anders Heijlsberg and discussing Linq on the whiteboard.  There were noticeable "pods" of developers surrounding the marquis MS "Rockstars" like Don Box and Anders.  In addition, there was plenty of lively discussions around the Language teams with Brad Abrams, Eric Meijer, as well as many other product teams.  Overall it was a fun night...

Well, my plan to blog my way through PDC05 didnt work out as planned.  I have been so absorbed with the constant train of sessions, and followup discussions that I have been busy from 6:00am to midnight every single day.  I'll try to do a brain dump after I get back home, but for now, here are some quick impressions: