VS.NET 2005 releases are coming

VS.NET 2005 professional and SQL Server 2005 developer edition are available to download for MSDN subscribers. So if you are a MSDN subscriber and cannot wait to get the CD/DVD, then rush to the subscriber download section.

New generation Microsoft exams

The new Microsoft exams are going to be released pretty soon and will be more targeted and specific. You can get more details on them at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/newgen/ .

Article on ADO.NET 2.0 factory classes

My article on ADO.NET 2.0 factory is classes is published in simple-talk at the following URL http://www.simple-talk.com/2005/10/25/adonet-20-factory-classes/
If there are any questions or comments let me know.

NHibernate 1.0 released

NHibernate 1.0 is released finally and it’s not a beta product anymore. Get more info at http://wiki.nhibernate.org/display/NH/Home 
Also check out some supporting projects available at http://www.ayende.com/projects/projects.aspx including support for Generics

CDNUG is an INETA member now

The Colombo .NET user group is now a member of INETA. So we have some very exciting news and announcements as part of the user group. Dont miss out the next user group meeting cos there are loads of surprises in store

Tech-Ed a review

The first ever Tech-Ed concluded last friday and it was pretty good. I didnt attend much sessions except for William Tay’s presentations on indigo and web services. I really wanted to attend this session and was looking forward to it and was not disappointed one single bit. His thoughts on compensating transactions is really something to think about. One problem was for the presentation on indigo the time alloted was just not enough.
Apart from that I got to attend the session by Gaurav Khanna on Developing high performance applications which was also very informative.
The MVP and .NET user pavillion was good and allowed us to pass the information on the Colombo .NET User group and information on Microsoft communities. Got to meet lots of .NET enthusiasts and was very enjoyable talking to them. Our MVP lead Lilian also joined us from Singapore for a short visit.
You can check the blogs of the other MVPs for some detailed review and some pictures. Mahasen also has a good review on the sessions he attended on Day 1 and Day 2

Re-awarded as MVP

I am re-awarded as a MVP for another award year starting from this month. The past award year was very rewarding and it opened up many avenues for me and provided me more ways to share my knowledge around the Microsoft.NET platform.
And as for this year, got a few things planned out that i want to do and i will keep them posted on this blog as and when it happens.

Java-Champions for Java as MVPs for Microsoft

Seems like Sun Microsystems has launched a program named Java-Champions to recognise leaders in the java community.
https://java-champions.dev.java.net/

A free SQL dependency viewer

SQLDependencyViewer is a handy tool from Red-Gate that shows the dependencies between objects in your database. A dependency diagram is produced that gives a view on how the objects in your database are interlinked. One feature i really like is, when you click on an object in the generated diagram it shows the objects depending on it and objects it depends on in different colours making it very easier to comprehend.
Filtering and selecting objects and saving the generated images are a few features that will make it more useful but nevertheless it is a good tool to have and it is free. Check it out at the following URL
http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql_dependency_viewer/index.htm