Section: Blogs

Gave a talk earlier today about how we built MSDN2…

Nov 11, 2005 1 min.

I focused mainly on the Virtual Path Provider in ASP.NET 2.0, and how we use that to construct our pages on the new MSDN platform (visible live at http://msdn2.microsoft.com). I thought I should put up some links to additional information, starting with a link to the reference material currently available on the Virtual Path Provider. VirtualPathProvider Class (System.Web.Hosting)

Just arrived for ASP.NET Connections…

Nov 8, 2005 1 min.

Landed in Vegas for the conference, talk is on Thursday…. I’ll be talking about MSDN2.microsoft.com, but more specifically I’ll be covering the use of the Virtual Page Provider feature in ASP.NET 2.0, so if that type of thing appeals to you, come by and check it out!

Duncan’s Most Anticipated Xbox 360 games

Nov 5, 2005 2 min.

Brian and I have been spending a lot of our free time working on an upcoming Xbox 360 book (Xbox 360 for Dummies), which has resulted in me spending way too much time thinking about the day I will be able to pick up a box of my own to bring home. Looking forward to that day, and knowing that Brian and I have almost completely different tastes in games, I thought it would be interesting to list out the 5 games on the 360 I’m most looking forward to, and maybe Brian will do the same.

RSS feed authoring for those without blog software or an enjoyment of typing angle brackets

Nov 2, 2005 3 min.

Blogs and blogging software seem to be everywhere these days, and RSS has been a top buzzword for quite some time, everyone and their dog wants to take advantage of this new trend and technology. The problem is, it isn’t a simple process to create and maintain a valid RSS file. If you aren’t willing to run a complete blogging system or if you aren’t capable of hand-editing XML, then you don’t have a lot of options.

Moved my .Text blog from Atom 0.3 to Atom 1.0

Nov 2, 2005 1 min.

I only recently noticed that my blog software (.Text 0.95) had atom support built in, so I added a button to my main page, and then I noticed it was Atom 0.3. Since 0.3 was recently deprecated, I updated the Atom generating code to output 1.0 instead and voila; Much thanks to rakaz’s great guide on moving from 0.3 to 1.0, which enabled me to update my code with almost no knowledge of Atom 0.

Free sites update…

Oct 31, 2005 2 min.

I mentioned earlier how the Free Xbox 360 site was quite busy, and it is… tons of clicks, 12 sign-ups, and even one person has ‘gone green’ which is to say they completed their offer. Once 8 people (who click through your referral link) have signed-up and completed an offer, then you are all done, but the sign-up to completion ratio is not great, probably 1 in every 5, so a lot of folks sign-up and then find that they either are not interested in the available offers or they don’t think it is likely that they’ll get an additional 8 people to sign-up through them.

Some great podcasts on VB6 -> .NET and more…

Oct 28, 2005 2 min.

I was reading the dotnetjunkies.com newsletter and I spotted these podcasts, a series of them that I have never noticed before, even though they definitely the kind of content I’d be interested in hearing. [ Moving to .NET from VB6 and C++](http://devnet.developerpipeline.com/documents/dev051026dnc/ “http://devnet.developerpipeline.com/documents/dev051026dnc/") Juval Lowy discusses the different perspectives that VB6 and C++ developers bring to .NET including the challenges each group faces with the technology. (MP3 audio, 16:32 mins.

Nice mention of the upcoming Xbox 360 for Dummies book on xboxtoday.ca

Oct 27, 2005 1 min.

Xbox 360 for Dummies By Sean Lennox A new book entitiled “Xbox 360 for Dummies” might be exactly what some of us need The new Xbox 360 will be released on November 22nd here in North America. To help you along the process of setting up and using your new fangled contraption, the creators of the best selling “For Dummies’ series have written a book for the not so savvy Xbox users entitled “Xbox 360 For Dummies” The book is a basic how-to manual.