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.)

-------------------------

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

Friday, December 08, 2006 10:46:15 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

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

Friday, December 08, 2006 10:09:04 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

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!

Friday, December 08, 2006 7:56:06 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

 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

Friday, December 08, 2006 7:14:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

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

Wednesday, December 06, 2006 7:47:13 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

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

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 10:29:34 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1] 

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!

Monday, November 20, 2006 4:17:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

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

Wednesday, November 15, 2006 7:06:40 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

We've finally cleared a path through the jungle, just watch out for tigers! Registration for the January 18-19 event is now open!

So satisfy your inner geek and come mix, mingle and share with geeks from all walks of technology in a great location.

More about the location: http://www.kalahariresort.com

More about the event: http://www.codemash.org

Heard enough? Register for CodeMash now: https://www.codemash.org/register.aspx

Friday, November 10, 2006 4:24:58 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Darrell Hawley is speaking on Web Service Enhancements and Duane Collicott is doing a tutorial session on dasBlog. It should be a great session. I really wish that I could make it.

Link to AADND in November

Wednesday, November 08, 2006 1:44:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

 The Dancing DE is still out in the wild! Unfortunately, I wasn't there with my video camera this time...

Link to Drewby: Caught on Camera (Again)

Tuesday, November 07, 2006 9:53:04 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Jim Holmes has posted a ton of pictures out on Flickr of the Kalahari Resort and Indoor Water Park where CodeMash is going to be held in January.  

Link to FrazzledDad: CodeMash Venue Photos

Tuesday, November 07, 2006 9:51:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

This is a great opportunity to engage the product team that wrote VSTS. They are interested in your feedback and questions around Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, and Testers.

Join the chat on Wednesday, November 8^th, 2006 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006 8:31:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0]