Hello, I'm   Jason

.NET Valley (PA) - Microsoft announced at the Microsoft MVP Engagement yesterday in Malvern, PA that they will be increasing their support for user groups. As part of this initiative, .NET Valley will be handing out a free copy of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2. This year, Microsoft will release two of the most anticipated releases in the company’s history; Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The DVD includes Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition Community Technology Preview, and the newest edition to the Visual Studio 2005 family, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

In addition to receiving Visual Studio 2005, everyone in attendance will receive other swag including a copy of the latest ASP.NET Pro magazine. Also, we will be raffling off three copies of Microsoft IT Professional software. The winner will have their choice of receiving Microsoft Project, Microsoft Virtual PC, or Microsoft Digital Image Pro.

In continuing these efforts, Microsoft will sponsor the .NET Valley events in June and July at Luzerne County Community College in Nanticoke, PA. More information about these events will be release at a later date and time.

I must say that the RSS feeds with Gmail are nice for feeds that you check out from time to time. However, for feeds you read through every day, it’s not. I don’t see how viewing one item at a time can be beneficial for users. The other problem with it is that they finally decided to sneak in sponsored links. I had a feeling that it would only be a matter of time. Free email with a capacity of over 2GB (and climbing daily) is too good to be true. Let’s see what else they have up their sleeves…

I usually try not to blog about my favorite sports teams, but I just had to post about the ESPN Page 2 article titled “A tale of two empires”: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=bakay/050518.

During next weeks .NET Valley event, WindowsAdvice.com will be introduced to Northeastern Pennsylvania. Following a presentation about two of Microsoft’s most anticipated software releases ever (Visual Studio 2005 and MS SQL 2005), information regarding WindowsAdvice.com will be shown. The event will be held at Keystone College in LaPlume and will be sponsored by Microsoft. Click here for more information about the event.

On Wednesday, May 25th, .NET Valley and Keystone College will host an Introduction to Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0 Beta 2. The presenter will be our very own Jason N. Gaylord. For directions, please visit the >directions link on the website. Room information can also be found on the >directions page.

In a recent interview at VS!Live, Tom Rizzo, the director of product management for Microsoft SQL Server, answered some questions about SQL Reporting Services and SQL Server 2005. You can read the transcript here: http://www.ftponline.com/channels/database/2005_03/rizzo/.

As mentioned in an article written by Rick Westmoreland of AntiSource.com, Microsoft has decided to add a more robust security application to their library. I originally mentioned that Microsoft purchased Sybari awhile ago. Windows OneCare, the new application, will span system performance, PC maintenance, data protection and security in an “easy-to-manage” service (accdg to the Microsoft.com announcement). For more information specifically about this, visit http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/may05/05-13WindowsOneCarePR.asp.

Last night on MTV, XBox 360 was revealed to the world. I don’t want to take away from the new XBox, the technology, and the games, but I don’t think the show was really worth it. I think that MTV did a horrible job presenting the new system. Everything they showed (with the exception of the games) can be found at www.xbox360.com. The rest was simply fluff. For those of you who did see it, I’m sure you’d agree that all of the games looked fantastic. Kudos to Microsoft for taking the next step in the gaming world.

I have added my “AntiSource” articles to my website. You can check them out at http://www.jasongaylord.com/articles/?articletype=AntiSource. The articles I write on AntiSource.com include security issues and virus warnings. Some of the other authors have written reviews on hardware and software that pertains to viruses, security, logging, etc. If you’ve never visited the site, be sure to check it out!

ASP.NET 2.0 introduces a new section to the web.config file called ConnectionStrings. Some previous projects in ASP.NET 1.1 created this section so you may be familiar with it. This section allows users to add connection strings in their web.config for different data sources. An example of one using SqlExpress 2005 is shown below: