Brian H. Prince

What happened at PDC do you ask? Lots of stuff. We are shipping more bits now than we ever have. First, watch this slide deck we have put together that is a quick lap around the PDC and find out what makes you smile. And then you can go to www.microsoftpdc.com/videos to watch all of the sessions, and drill deep into each topic. This will give you something to do on your Zune while travelling over the river and through the hills to grandmothers house this holiday. I want to thank the Findlay .NET UG and the Knoxville .NET UG for hosting me, and for everyone coming out to the meetings. I also want to thank Kevin Grossnicklaus . He was the first to put a deck together,and he shared it with us to save work. Mike Wood also helped by making sure we hit all the top points, and polished up my shoddy hack job on Kevin’s deck.

Wow! A year has come and gone and the second annual DogFood conference is done. We had 19 partners come together to put on a two day event for customers in Columbus, Ohio. We had attendees from four hours away! There were over 45 sessions. I was able to deliver a talk on using Azure. There were 400 attendees over the two days, and I think everyone had a lot of fun, and learned a lot. I want to thank everyone who came to my session, and please connect with me if you have more questions about Azure. The slides are here:

This is the second year for the dog food conference, brain child of Danilo Casino. It is a local event, put on by MS and our partners. This year we have two full days, with four tracks. We have both local MS employees, as well as some blue badges coming in from out of state. Many of the presenters are local rock stars that work for our partners. This event is free (unless you are in pubsec, then you have to pay for your food). It was a great event last year, and I hope to see you there. Since the event is two days, we have two registration links. Please bear with us, it’s just how the machine works. The reg links: Thursday Registration Link Friday Registration Link · **Attendees must register for each day separately** What : · Please join us for the 2 nd Annual Dog Food Conference.  We will have MS speakers, MS partners, ISVs, MS MVPs and community leads presenting 40 topics. The story behind “Eating one’s own Dog Food” When: · November 12-13, 2009; Attendees...

https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=142763 Details on the event is below: When: December 7, 2009 Location Microsoft MTC - Aon Center 200 E. Randolph Suite 200 Chicago, IL 60601 United States Recommended Audiences: Solution Architects, Software Developers, Developers, Architects nPlus1.org is hosting its fifth Architecture Summit on December 7th at the Microsoft MTC in Chicago, IL. The topic of this summit will be Patterns and Principles. Morning Session (Optional): An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Are you new to OOP? Do you want a refresher on the benefits of Interfaces and the differences between implements and extends? The morning session is a two hour introductory course of Object Oriented Programming. If you are new to OOP the lessons in this session will prepare you for the more advanced topics in the afternoon. If you are already well versed in OOP then feel free to come have a ref...

PSR stands for Problem Step Recorder, and is a tool that ships in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It was designed to help support professionals have users record the steps of their problem so they can see what is going on. It fixes the ‘See the big blue ball in the lower left-hand corner?’ problem. While we have remote connection capabilities, and screen recorders, those can be hard to setup for a typical user, and takes too long to show something simple. PSR is really lightweight and helps with the initial triaging of the problem. And let’s face it, if you are reading this you are probably the IT Support team for your family. You are probably feeling a lot of angst about the upcoming holidays, especially Thanksgiving, which is the one holiday you are forced to hang around with people you actively avoid on Twitter and Facebook. You are not alone, we all feel like this. In the 50’s it was everyone asking the family member who was a physician about medical questions all day. Now ...

I was at the HDC this past week in Omaha, NE. I had a blast! It was a great conference, and I got to speak with a lot of the local developers. People were really excited about the pending launch of Windoes 7 and the keynote from Scott Guthrie on the new VS2010 build. I interviewed a bunch of people on what their favorite Windoes 7 feature is. There is one surprising guest half way through. Thanks to David Giard who was the wizard who edited the video. You should check out his blog, and his webcast. It's a great show.

I have a lot of friends who really like to work in Python and Ruby, so I thought I would pass this announcement on. If you are into Python and Ruby, you might want to check out www.codemash.org , a great event I help with coming up in January. Today we announced the release of the IronRuby and IronPython CTPs for .NET 4.0 Beta 2 . This is the third preview of IronRuby and IronPython running under the Dynamic Language Runtime that is built directly into .NET 4.0. As before, this release allows you to use IronRuby objects and types as .NET 4.0 dynamic objects from within C# and Visual Basic code. These binaries are roughly equivalent to the functionality found in IronRuby 0.9 and IronPython 2.6. Take a look at Harry Pierson ’s blog post about this release as well, especially if you’re more into snakes than gemstones.   Try it out To try out this release: · Install NET 4.0 Beta 2 or Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 · Download either IronRuby or IronPython · Follow any of the...

We have been trying to simplify our product lineup and skus over the past few years for all of our products. Customers want it to be simpler. I have bought software before, and in comparison we have some of the simplest licensing, but we can always do better. Windows 7 has fewer skus, and now VS2010 does as well. Having different skus is important, but the trick is to have the right number. Too much choice leads to consumer confusion and dissatisfaction. Studies have shown that too many choices leads to a dissatisfied customer. Let’s say you go into a store and there are 100 different types of jeans on sale. You spend some time, pick the ones you like and bring them home (preferably after paying for them.) You will be ok with your selection, but not really happy. You will always have the doubt in your head as to the question if you actually picked the right pair. Perhaps the one with the super special boot leg cut would have been better looking with my sandals. Now that I have you...

VS2010 beta 2 has been released. Go get it now. It comes with a go live license, so you can use it in production, and we will support it. You need to understand that it is still a beta though. The RTM date is March 22, 2010, so if you have a project that is going live around then, it might be best to build it with the beta than building it with VS2008. We have committed that there will be a smooth upgrade path from beta2 to RTM so you don’t have to worry about the proper retention of source code, and work items. I plan on posting some unboxing videos soon, but I wanted to hit some of the top features (at least that I think are my favorite features). TFS is now much easier to install. You can install on Windows 7, on a desktop PC, and with SQL Express. It takes about 20 minutes now. There is a new basic profile with TFS that installs the core features, making it super easy to get source control and work item tracking up and running for your team. There is a new code onl...

We have just wrapped up the first Windows 7 launch tour. We hit all of the major cities. Now that we have brushed the dust from our boots, we are heading back out and doubling back to hit more local cities. If you weren’t able to make it to one of the big launches you should sign up to make it to one of these local launches. There will be some cool prizes as well. I will be speaking at the Nashville event (Franklin, TN), and the Columbus event. I hope to see you there. From the official invite…   ------------------------- TechNet & MSDN Events Present: Highlights from “the New Efficiency” Launch Join us as we explore how Windows® 7, Windows Server® 2008 R2 and Exchange Server® 2010 deliver on the new efficiency where cost savings, productivity and innovations come together. At this free event we’ll cover the “best of” content and deliver highlights from “the New Efficiency” Launch events taking p...

Stephen Toub is on the Parallel Computing Platform team at Microsoft. Jennifer has convinced him to spend a week on the road in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, speaking to customers and visiting user groups. See her blog for more details on the tour. He will cover concurrency and tools for how to easily develop parallel solutions. This will be an important part of the framework going forward because of the many core problem. As the number of cores in CPUs increase, we will start to have issues with concurrency. We will also want to write code that leverages that hardware. BUT, writing multithreaded code is very difficult, and is insanely hard to debug. Microsoft’s challenge is to provide a framework as part of the platform to make it easy for developers to build parallel applications, with a great degree of quality and productivity. The official abstract and bio is below.  Date/time Location Registration Mon 10/26, 9-11am Microsoft office 2555 M...

For some time now I have been working on a book with Chris Hay titled “ Azure in Action ”. The book will be published by Manning, hopefully around March 2010. We only have a few more chapters to write, and then we start the long editorial process. But I know many of you can not wait until March to get the book. This is where the MEAP comes in. MEAP stands for Manning Early Access Program, and it allows readers to read the first chapter for free, or buy the book now. If you buy the book early you get access to the draft chapters as they are written, and get access to an authors forum to provide us feedback on the book, and get questions answered. I was in the middle of writing another book for Manning when I mentioned that I was surprised they didn’t have a dedicated book for each part of the Windows Azure Platform. Later I found out this simple little comment set off a flurry (well, maybe a passel) of activity in setting up the other books in the series, and finding the write aut...

I   caught up with Caleb Jenkins at the MVP summit. We commandeered a conference room, and talked about how all developers need to care about architecture. Developers should think of architecture at the code level and the benefits of Dependency Injection.   ARCast.TV - Caleb Jenkins On Dependency Injection

A while ago I wrote a quick article titled “Three Scenarios: When the Cloud Makes Sense”. The article goes into three core scenarios where cloud computing make sense. Not everything should be run in the cloud, and I wanted highlight a few times when it is a clear win to do so. The role of the person making strategic decisions (lead dev, architect, or IT manager) is to look at their portfolio and decide what system benefits from moving some or all of it to the cloud. The benefit could be a cost savings, reduction in management overhead, or enabling a use of the software that wasn’t possible in the limited on-premises data centers we have. Please check out the article.

We recently wrapped up a 17 city road show covering real work experiences with Azure. We had both an IT Pro session, and a developer session. While we were in Nashville we webcasted the event. If you weren’t able to get to one of the events, now is your chance to see the recordings. We cover the architecture, and development of solutions running on Azure, as well as how to manage and provisions the solutions. Just because the app is running in the cloud doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be managed. You just aren’t spending as much time managing the underlying infrastructure. You can replay the videos, or download them for offline viewing. The IT Pro one has also been published to TechNet here . TechNet Events Presents: Real World Azure https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032425946&role=attend&pw=WE45G3T7   MSDN Events Presents: Real World Azure - Live Meeting https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032425948&role=attend&pw=E45W7...

I have been really impressed with Windows 7 since the early internal builds I was allowed to use. I am still constantly amazed how a new version of a product (of any product from any company) can have more features, have a larger kernel, support more hardware, and be faster, lighter, and easier to use. I don’t think that has every happened before. I decided, just for fun, that I wanted to learn why this is the case. Did we remove some long forgotten sleep loop in the kernel? Or did we just delete all of the verbose comments and validation checks? It turns out it was none of those things. And so I set out to put together a talk on the subject. I just think the internals is very interesting, and insight into how things work can make troubleshooting easier. While I do put a lot of time into preparing a new talk (60-80 hours), I still like to beta test a talk with a smaller, intimate audience. David Giard provided me with such an audience with his internal user group at Sogeti in Mi...

Just a quick post in case you are interested. CINNUG has been doing a series of special events. This one is a firestarter on ASP.NET MVC. Firestarters are great for getting up to speed on a technology you don’t know anything about. You can walk in the door knowing nothing about MVC, and walk out with a good grasp. From their announcement: CINNUG is hosting an ASP.NET MVC Firestarter event on Saturday, Oct. 17 th at the MS office in Mason, OH (near Cincinnati).  I was hoping that the people on this list that believe this could be a good event would please publicize the event on their blogs and/or tweet about it.  This will be the third firestarter event that CINNUG has put on and the previous two have been successful with some people coming in from TN and MI to attend these one day, focused events.  Registration Link: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=140750 Info: If you know nothing about ASP.NET MVC, then this event is for you.  ...

My buddy Jon Box will be presenting at the WinMoDevCamp in Memphis. The event is on 9/29 from 6p to 8p, which is next Tuesday. From the announcement: We're really excited to announce a barcamp style event, called WinMoDevCamp, for the upcoming Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 OS! The event inspired by BarCamp, SuperHappyDevHouse, and MacHack, iPhoneDevCamp and préDevCamp to develop applications (local and web based) for mobile devices that run the Windows Mobile 6.5 Operating System. Attendees will include mobile developers, web developers, .NET Developers, UI designers, and testers, all working together. Development projects will include both solo and team efforts. While some attendees will wish to work solo during the event, we encourage attendees to team up, based on expertise, to work in ad-hoc project development teams. All attendees should be prepared to work on a development project during the event. Attendees will be able to: Learn about the upcoming platform, the roadma...

This event will feature the top 5 industry standard practices for creating and managing quality controlled custom solutions built on SharePoint.  If your organization has struggled with how to best implement a custom line of business applications in a predictable and structured process, this event is for you.  During this session you’ll learn how Application Lifecycle Management tools and techniques can be applied to the process of creating custom web parts and other SharePoint additions.  These techniques will vastly improve the quality and predictability of all your custom line of business applications being delivered through SharePoint.   Date Location Register Southfield, MI Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Microsoft Office 1000 Town Center Suite 1930 So...

Jim Holmes has announced that his latest brain child conference is open for registration. Of course, registration is free. So what is it? You don’t need to ask. If Jim is doing it, then it’s worth your time. Ok, if you don’t buy that, then how about a whole dedicated to learning how to better engineer software. All software, not just .NET stuff. The event will be at the Microsoft office, near Polaris, in Columbus, Ohio. Event Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 Time: 8:00 AM - 5:30 PM Welcome Time: 07:30 AM Eastern Time Location: Microsoft Corporation 8800 Lyra Dr. Polaris Center, Suite 400 Columbus, OH 43240 Location Website   Agenda: Time Session Speaker 8:15 – 8:20 Intro   8:20 – 9:30 Principles of Object Oriented Programming   9:35 – 10:45 SOLID Jon Kruger 11:00 – 11:15 Understandin...

While I was at devLink I presented a talk called "5 frameworks you can’t live without.” I wanted to talk to people about how to not be a plumber, and how to reduce the code you write to only what only someone like you can write. I also wanted to share some frameworks that I know a lot of people are using and having success with. This deck is very unsophisticated, and it has a very interesting origination story. I will be happy to share it with anyone who buys me a drink. Big thanks to Mike Wood for helping me with it. As a whole, devLink was a blast. It is always fun to attend it. If you didn’t get to go you should mark it on your calendar for next year.  

My good friend Wes Brock just let me know that Wintellect will be offering a 2 day training course on how to build applications for Azure for $499. The course will be delivered by Paul Mehner, online. This is great news, so you don’t have to travel to sit in on the class. The training will be on October 21-22, 2009. The course will cover: Section 1 - Introduction and Overview of the Azure Services Platform · Intro to the Azure Services Platform · Intro to Windows Azure Services · Intro to .NET Services · Intro to SQL Azure (future) · Service Registration and setup Section 2 - Windows Azure Services · Visual Studio “Cloud Service” Projects · Configuration of your Windows Azure application · Deployment of your Windows Azure application · Load Balancing Infrastructure · Use of Azure with non-Microsoft technologies (future) Lab 1a: Setup of your Windows Azure Account Lab 1b: Develop and deploy your first Windows Azure Application Section 3 - Microsoft .NET ...

I want to thank everyone that came out to the Community Leadership Summit in Nashville. If you missed it, don’t worry. There will be another one around CodeMash time. After the opening comments and lunch, we brain stormed a series of interesting conversations, and then scheduled them in a grid. Whomever came up with the session idea had to act as the proctor, and take notes. Each session lasted about 30 minutes. At the end of all of the sessions, each moderator presented the results of their session. Matt Hester recorded these summaries, and they should be available shortly. Until then, here are the notes. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to enter them into the local community wiki, so if someone wants to do handle that, that would be fabulous. Otherwise, I will try to get to in in October. At this point I am just transcribing the notes. They are not complete. Many times I don’t know what the intention of the note is. If you know, please leave a comment here, or update the wiki (...

If you want to learn more about what is new in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, you should attend this event. We will get you up to speed on the latest features, and how you can delight your users with some of these new features: DirectAccess, Group Policy and PowerShell, new Internet Explorer 8 features. New BitLocker, AppLocker and User Account Control Features Easy Windows 7 deployment Direct Access is great. It allows me to VPN into our corporate network without the VPN hoops. It sets up in the background, on demand, based on what resources I want to access. It also allows a remote IT Admin to manage my box (for example, to push a critical patch) at any time, not only when I finally VPN in. PowerShell is also pretty fantastic, for both IT Pros and developers. It is a very powerful shell that is object oriented, and has full access into the whole platform, so you automate a lot of your work. The list goes on and on. You can register here: htt...

If you are looking for a way to learn more about Silverlight, Expression, RIA Services, and the related toolkits, here is your chance. On September 17th, we will be hosting an online event, that will be keynoted by Scott Guthrie. But that’s not all. There will also be presentations by Tim Heuer, Brad Abrams, Karl Shifflett and others. You can register at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032423163&Culture=en-US .

You are invited to the Community Leadership Summit . Our goal is to gather together anyone who is rabid about the community: all of the community leaders, speakers, and contributors. We want to get together and share best practices, and learn from each other. This is OPEN. We aren’t just talking about .NET user groups. We are talking Ruby, PHP, Python, OSS, Linux, ALM, and anything else you can think of. It doesn’t have to be a big formal user group; your community might be the small group of folks that crack code at a coffee shop at 7am. Whatever it is, come on over. This summit is held twice a year, once in the summer, and once in the winter. The event will be held at Jack’s Bar-B-Que,  from noon until 4pm on August 12 th , 2009. The address is 416 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203. Their website is http://jacksbarbque.com . Register Here: http://tr.im/uKDt We are holding the summit the day before devLink because we know many leaders will already be in one place, making it ea...

Do you want to learn how to use Scrum and TFS together? Do you want to learn from someone who has ‘been there, and done that?’ Check out this event, which is being put on by the Chattanooga TN .NET user group.   Details: August 6th, 6:00 PM 4080 Jenkins Rd., Chattanooga, TN (West Building) Agile software development is quickly becoming the approach of choice for companies who want to deliver quality software quickly, and the Scrum process is by far the most popular of these methodologies. Many have found value in coupling their existing development environment with the principles and practices of Scrum and Agile. This free two hour seminar will cover the basics of the Scrum process and demonstrate how to implement them using Visual Team Suite Foundation Server to create collaborative, productive Agile development teams. Dinner will be provided  and we will have door prizes  to  give  away limited, so register today. ...

ICC worked with the WPF team to develop a framework for bringing MVC to WPF, called MVC4WPF. MVC4WPF is a combination of code automation, efficient software architecture, and a maintenance-centric design to writing software that reduces both development and long term costs.  It promotes methodologies that get the best value out of junior developers while gaining all the advantages of mentoring by senior developers.  It uses Microsoft’s latest and greatest development technologies, including the .NET 3.5 platform, Visual Studio 2008, and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), to give you greater transparency into the development process at a very low overhead. ICC has released it as open source, and will be publishing the code on CodePlex. The code will be available after the launch. Information Control Corporation and Microsoft would like to invite you to the MVC4WPF launch on July 23rd. The event will include breakfast starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Microsoft Bui...

A little while back I wrote about a site called Thrive for IT Pros . We have launched a similar site for developers called Thrive for Developers . Microsoft has always been good about giving the information and tools developers need to build great software. Thrive is a way for  us to go beyond that. To help you learn the tools you need for your career, how to be a better developer, and do more with what you have already. I was really excited to be asked to be a part of this launch. Many of you have seen the Soft Skillz talk that I have done over the past year. They have also brought together a lot of content from the community, as well as tools to help you find that next job. That Soft Skillz talk originated out of a farewell talk I did as I left my team at Quick Solutions. It focused on retelling the lessons we had learned over my time there, so I could pass on some of our culture and tribal knowledge to the next generation of the team. The talk evolved, and became very popu...

Steve Guggenheimer announced the release dates of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 at Computex 2009 in Tapei. We will be RTM’ing Windows 7 in the second half of July, with general availability (that means it’s in stores, etc.) by October 22nd. Windows Server 2008 R2 will be available at the same time. This is awesome news! Warm up your download tools, it’s not far away. Everyone I know has been impressed with, and really likes Windows 7, even some of the most critical people I know. I think this is due to the changes in how the Windows team developed the OS, as well as how open they were to feedback, and their willingness to make changes. If you weren’t reading the Engineering Windows 7 blog, you should go there now, and read all of the posts. They are all quite fascinating. I got to be part of the IQ team, which is a very small part, but it was still fun. I would be given weekly builds to install on my machines, and to test out. While the Beta was of a very high quality, fo...

A while ago Martin and I sat down to discuss UML and how it is making a come back in VS2010 for architects. We had a great chat, and we learned how this isn’t your grandpa’s UML anymore. The way the VS team has implemented it is much more functional to everyone on the team besides the Big Up Front Planning Dinosaur. It will help you understand the lay of the land for that large system you inherited, allowing you to more easily see what is going on. http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Martin-Shoemaker-discusses-UML-in-VSTS2010/

nPlus1.org is hosting it's third Architecture Summit on June 10th at the Microsoft office in Nashville, TN (Franklin).  The topic of this summit will be Patterns and Principles. Session One: Software Patterns Patterns are an important tool to use as architects and developers. They provide a common vocabulary for us to design with, as well as a common approach to a common problem. Come learn about useful patterns, and how to use them in your everyday code. Session Two: How I Learned To Love Dependency Injection Dependency Injection is one of those scary topics that most developers avoid. It sounds all ‘high-falootin’ and complex. It’s not. Really. We wouldn’t lie. It’s a great way to manage complexity in your system, and a great way to make your system so much more testable. And isn’t that what we all want? Each session will be followed by open discussions periods. A catered lunch will be provided starting at noon when the welcome time begins. Register here: https://ww...

Ian McDonald is the director and general manager of the Windows Server Group. He will be travelling through Ohio, and will be speaking at the Columbus Exchange & Windows User Group (CEWUG). The group meets at the Columbus Microsoft office. He will be talking about the experience of developing Windows. Agenda 5:30 to 6:05: Welcome time; meet the MS steering committee, pizza and beverages 6:05 to 7:05: An inside perspective of managing the Windows code base. 5 minute break 7:10 to 8:15: Finish, the intricacies of the people, process and technology of creating Windows Server. Where: 8800 Lyra Dr, Suite 400 Columbus, OH 43240 When: Wednesday: May  27, 2009 5:30 to 8:15 PM

So, you live in GR, and you want to go to ArcReady, but Detroit is just too far away? Then rest easy my friend. With some great help from Chris Woodruff , and the great folks at RCM Technologies, we are bringing ArcReady to Grand Rapids. The www.arcready.com site should be updated soon. The link to register is http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032413886&Culture=en-US . For information on what the sessions will be about, check out my post from last week .

nPlus1.org is on a hunt for a new look. The site has really taken off over the past six months, and they are ready for a facelift. Go design a new look, and submit it. First prize is $250 to Best Buy and a copy of Vista Ultimate. There are other prizes as well. Their site is built on Graffiti CMS, and you will need to either provide a template, or other materials to easily upgrade the site. Take a look at the official rules and requirements at http://nplus1.org/faceliftcontest/ .

Mike Wood and Jennifer Marsman put together this list of events in the area. I often get asked how people know about the events. It actually becomes sort of all over the place. There is the MSDN Events page, communitymegaphone.com, the web pages of your local user groups, word of mouth, word of social networking site, word of twitter, etc. There isn’t one place to rule them all. While that seems unfortunate, I don’t that is achievable, or worthwhile. The goal should be to announce the events in as many channels as possible. You don’t seen an ad for a movie just at the movie theatre, do you? Any way, on to the list: Event Event Date Website Cincinnati Silverlight Firestarter 3/28/2009 http://cinnug.org/ West Michigan .NET University 4/4/2009 http://dodn.org/WestMichiganDotNetU/ Central Ohio Day of .NET 4/18/2009 http://cinnug.org/cododn/ Lansing Give Camp 4/24/2009-4/26/2009 http://www.lansinggivecamp.org/ Kalamazoo X Conference 4/25/2009 http://www.kalamazoox.org/ Stir Trek 5/8/2009 ht...

LeanDog is an interesting company. They are located in Cleveland, on a barge. Yes, a barge, on the water. They run an agile shop, and deliver software solutions for their customers. The great thing is that they open up their space to a whole host of community events. I love it when companies ‘get’ why they should support and adopt the community. Jon, the founder, has an amazing amount of passion for agile practices, and experience helping teams adopt them. TDD is an amazing practice. It has had a huge impact on how software is developed today. It has shifted how tech teams look at writing software, and has dramatically increased the initial quality of the software, and reduced the long term maintenance costs as well. The trick with it is that it is very hard to learn, and takes at least six months if you are learning it by reading books and blogs. It is just one of those skills that you need to do with someone to fully get. You can reduce the learning time by doing this. If you a...

THIS IS NOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT WHEN THE RC WILL BE AVAILABLE! Many people have been running the beta of Windows 7 for a while now, and we have gotten some great feedback. I have been running weekly internal builds since build 7000 went public, and it gets better every time. I, personally, have been loving my experience with Win7. At some point in the future, we will be releasing a Release Candidate (RC) for Windows 7. Many of you with Windows 7 Beta installed will be sorely tempted to just upgrade to the RC. I can understand why, as I do build-to-build upgrades on my machines every week. It saves all that setting up, installing, and what not that you have to do to take a machine from bare metal to something that is productive for you. PLEASE, use Windows Easy Transfer, save off your files, and then do a fresh install. We ask you do this mainly so we can test a real world scenario. You CAN do a build-to-build upgrade, but that is not a scenario we are trying to test, and the point ...