I wish you all a merry X-mas and a happy new year! As special gesture I've prepared a little dance for you. See the link below... :-))

 My special dance for you

On the website of SubMain you can download a free copy of the ebook: C#/VB.NET Coding Guidelines. This 100+ page book can help you to write better readable and structured code.

Topics covered:

• Naming Guidelines
• Class Member Usage Guidelines
• Guidelines for Exposing Functionality to COM
• Error Raising & Handling Guidelines
• Array Usage Guidelines
• Operator Overloading Usage Guidelines
• Guidelines for Casting Types
• Common Design Patterns
• Callback Function Usage
• Time-Out Usage
• Security in Class Libraries
• Threading Design Guidelines
• Formatting Standards
• Commenting Code
• Code Reviews
• Additional Notes for VB .NET Developers

 Downloadpage C#/VB.NET Coding Guidelines ebook

Yesterday Microsoft released the long awaited Service Pack for Visual Studio 2005. Many bugs are fixed and there is also new support for processors or for for example SQL Server Compact Edition.

• Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite SP1 (Standard, Professional, and Team Editions of Visual Studio 2005);
• Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server SP1;
• Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions SP1;

It is currently installing on my machine... Unfortunately, the service pack which fixes issues with Windows Vista is still in beta and isn't available yet. Expected 2007Q1...

Two days ago Microsoft released to the web the Microsoft Printer Compatibility Library 1.0. The Printer Compatibility library is a new Visual Basic 2005 PowerPack and will help you with migrating your Visual Basic 6.0 projects to Visual Basic 2005. By simply adding a reference to the Library, declaring a Printer, and making a few minor syntax changes, your project will be able to print using the Printers collection and Printer object as it did in Visual Basic 6.0. This will give you more time to focus on enhancing your project with Visual Basic 2005.

 Get it now

Yesterday I have booked my flight to the MVP Summit in March 2007 in Seattle.... That means that I've decided to visit this event!! As a first year MVP I don't know exactly what to expect from this event. I was a bit in doubt to go. But after a chat with Sander Gerz, I decided to go. He is a C# MVP and also board member of INETA Europe. He runs in the Netherlands with Dennis Vroegop (also a C# MVP) the .NET User Group (dotNed.nl). They both decided to stay a couple of days longer to do some sightseeing. And, unfortunately for them, I will join them :-).
The plan for after the MVP Summit is to rent a car, do some sightseeing in neighbourhood of Seattle and then drive to Vancouver in Canada. We will fly back from Vancouver to Amsterdam. I'm really looking forward to this trip!

 Microsoft MVP Summit
 Seattle, site, maps and some pictures
 Vancouver, site and a nice promo video

Since a year I'm a real fan of RSS feeds... Instead of browsing and searching for news about my favourite topics, the news comes automatically to me! I tried also a couple of feedreaders... FeedDemon, RSS Bandit etc.. Last month I've found FeedReader and since that moment I'm really happy with it.

• It's lighweight, so very fast;
• It's very easy and simple to use;
• It's localizable;
• It's free!

 Feedreader website

TechEd 2006 Developers has ended. It was a great event. A lot of sessions, our INETA booth and not forget to mention Speakers Idol. I made part of the judges and we were critical but fair. The speakers could win an own session slot on the next TechEd 2007, also in Barcelona. The final is won by Bart de Smet, who did a perfect job by letting the audience choose which topic they liked. He was amazing and of course he earned a place in the International Speakers Bureau of INETA Europe.

 My photos (thanks to Sander Gerz)
 Bart de Smet

Today I installed the component package DXperience Enterprise. This set of tools is really amazing... WOW! As a MVP and chiefeditor for more then 10 years, I saw many component suites of different vendors. But what I saw today was really great. I have only one advise... visit their website, download an evalution version and play with it. You have all you need, Toolbars & Menus, Grid, Charting, Editors and a Reporting tool with enduser designer!

It is a long time ago that I saw I product, which looks so great! I know, you know the real value of such a suite after a couple of projects working with it, but I'm gonna like this toolkit. Highly recommended!