Hello, I'm   Jason

The .NET Valley event tonight will feature a presentation about ASP.NET 2.0 Personalization. The event will be held at the Luzerne County Community College. For more information, visit http://www.dotnetvalley.com/Events/260.aspx.

The ASP.NET forums were updated today with the latest version of the forums software, Community Server version 1.0. The updated software will allow Alex Lowe and the rest of the team at Telligent to manage the ASP.NET website more efficiently. Congrats guys on a successful conversion!

9Rays.Net has published a regularly scheduled version of Report Sharp-Shooter v.1.9. The new version has some improvements such as an automatic converter for quick transformation of Crystal Reports into Report Sharp-Shooter. The beta version of a new component which allows assigning formatted text with the help of tags has been added. This component also allows uploading text in RTF. The process of custom viewer and designer creation has been appreciably simplified. The PDF export filter now supports imbedded fonts. Henceforth, it is possible to export documents containing any national characters including Chinese, Japanese and any other.

As a reminder, the 9rays.net contest is almost over. There are only 10 days left in the contest. For more information about the 9rays.net Report Sharp-Shooter contest, visit http://www.jasongaylord.com/Contests/2005/April/.

Have you ever needed to find a free component to help fill a void with your application? If so, then this list is for you! Visit http://aspalliance.com/652 for a complete listing broken down by category.

Google announced yesterday at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference that there was a new Google website containing all of their APIs and Google Projects. The web side can be found at http://code.google.com.

Has anyone tried the new MSN IM 7.0 yet? It seems like more “fluff” than anything. I started using MSN IM because it didn’t have the bells and whistles (literally) that AIM and Yahoo! Messenger had. Has anyone found any good functionality with 7.0?

Attention all developers: If you did not know that Visual Basic 6 (VB6) support ends in 2 more weeks, you should now. According to MSDN online, VB6’s “Mainstream” support will end on March 31, 2005. The extended phase will last until March of 2008. There is a ton of controversy over whether the support should continue or not. If you think it should continue, visit http://classicvb.org/petition/. Many well known Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and other developers have already signed this online petition.

I must say that I’m very disappointed that SQL 2005 has limited the table information that you can view on a single screen. What I mean is that they have removed database diagrams from SQL 2005 and have also removed viewing the size of the columns from design view. So, if I need a screen shot of my database for a project, I need to use Visio or use Visual Studio 2005. I found it odd when I was looking for it today and found it missing. Some fellow ASPInsiders (Phil, Wally, and Paul) confirmed my findings. Its amazing how useful functionality is sometimes forgotten about while little things are never missed. ;)

Isn’t it fun when it comes time to upgrading server hardware, especially when you need to upgrade your first installed domain controller and exchange server to a new server? Even though its not a guaranteed flawless procedure, Microsoft has done a great job improving the migration in Server 2003. In most scenarios, you’ll want to keep the same server name. So, you’ll need an intermediate server to assist with the process.

1. Determine which server you’ll use as an intermediate server. Set the server up with Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2003 (if needed).
2. Migrate the Exchange 2003 mailboxes from the existing domain controller to the temporary domain controller (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;821829)
3. After all mailboxes are moved over, begin transferring the domain controller and Active Directory roles (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;255690)
4. After all roles are migrated to the temporary server, migrate the Exchange server roles (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;152960)
5. Test to be sure client computers can connect to the temporary server. If they can, repeat these 5 steps again, but with the temporary server and the new domain controller.