I want both of my readers and good friends to come to CodeMash so I'm going to pitch it again today... :) 

CodeMash is an amazing event with some real world class speakers. They are coming to Sandusky for $99.00 for this amazing conference. For a grand total of $302.24 (including taxes and other fees that we are forced to pay) you will be housed and feed both physically and mentally for 2 days! If you want, for another $88.00 (+ taxes and fees) you can stay over Friday night and enjoy the water park soaking in the water, warmth and all of the knowledge that you have pumped into your brain over the previous two days.

Link to CodeMash

The PDC 2007 will be October 2-5 with a couple of preconference days.  There's not a ton of detail, but the PDC is always the forward looking, we are about to release some things that are huge type of event.

You should definitely put this on your calendar.

Link to PDC announcement page

I'm feeling inadequate It's kind of amazing, this is a hot blogging day for me and Scott Hanselman still has me outpaced even though he's in Tanzania at the moment.

What's even more amazing is that all of his posts are interesting and informative.

Not to sound too much like a fan boy (borrowing a line from Scott himself) but several times this week I've been asked questions and the answer has been listen to X Hanselminutes on topics from Reflection to contact management in A Better Outlook. I've been doing a lot of driving lately and I've caught up on a lot of the Hanselminutes that I haven't had time to listen to before.

Side Note-------------------------

I got a Kensington FM transmitter for my IPod (bought before the Zune came out...) and listen to a ton of podcasts while driving. (I'll post about those soon and add them to my blogroll.)

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It's been cool getting to "know" Scott through the podcasts. If you don't listen to it, you should. I've learned about a lot of little things that I have not had time to explore and gotten better explanations to a lot of things that I already knew.

Some examples:
I have not had time to investigate PowerShell

Windows PowerShell (MONAD) Part II
Jeffrey Snover, PowerShell Architect
Microsoft Command Shell (MONAD)

This is one of the best and most concise explanations of how Scrum works

The Line of Scrummage

I have changed how I do email because of this one

A Better Outlook

I was actually mentioned in this one about one of my little pet topics Code Generation

Code Generation

What was fun about this was how surprised he sounded when he said my name.

I also like the non-programming topics, such as HDTV, Diabetes Technology and the Hanselminutiae topics.  

Link to http://www.hanselman.com

James Avery is buying! :) If you read his blog and attend his session, he'll buy you a beer...

If it's good enough for Scott Guthrie, it's good enough for me - I'll take you up on that beer too.

Link to the .Avery blog

Wow I'm behind on this one! Drew points out that you could win a Zune just by blogging about CodeMash!

Help us spread the word! Blog about CodeMash and win a Zune media player!

Link to Drewby: CodeMash: Spread the word, Win a Zune!

 Some of you know me and know that I'm really interested in VSTO (that's Visual Studio Tools for Office) and that I've got a serious XML background having taught the XML Bootcamp for a number of years...

I've been following the Office Open XML standard for a while now but I just saw that Ecma is going to adopt the standard. Novell and Corel have already jumped on board to support this in Open Office. This is cool stuff...

Link to Press release 9 December 2005 - Ecma International creates TC45 to standardize Office Open XML File Formats

Dave Strenski is coming in to give a session called "Solar Photovoltaic Power in Ypsilanti, how it works". He was behind getting the Ypsilanti Food Co-op running on solar power. He's going to talk about how that happened, the tech involved and the economics of solar power.

Source: This month's meeting at AACS

Dianne Marsh and Bill Wagner (Senior Consultants at SRT Solutions and central to getting CodeMash going) are both on DNR this week!

Link to CodeMash Organizer and CodeMash Speaker Mash it Up on Dot Net Rocks | SRT Solutions

One of my favorite restaurant's in Ann Arbor has WiFi now! In addition to their fantastic staff, good food and family feel - you can get more work done there now. If you do need to get work done, bring headphones as the CNN can be distracting. Yes, they now have TVs as well. That means that it's a fantastic choice for game day too!

Register for CodeMash! .NET, Java, PHP, Perl, Ruby and more under one roof - come learn what the other technologies know that can help you!