January 2004 Entries
So here I am sitting in the back of the big hall waiting for Alex to speak. I did my first talk this morning (Visual Studio .NET "Whidbey"), and it went fairly well, apart from my inability to type, and one of the demos toasting itself (worked fine in my trial run through). Alex and I have just done a talk together (ASP.NET "Whidbey"), where we build a few pages showing some of the new features, such as data source controls, master pages, site maps, and so on. Some good interaction between us, and one of the most enjoyable talks...
It's been a while since I've been to a classical concert, but boy was it worth it. Tonight I saw Alfred Brendel and his son performing some Beethoven Cello pieces, none of which I knew, nor can I remember their names. It mattered not because seeing someone of Brendel's caliber playing is a joy. As with anyone who is a master of something, there is always an economy in what they do. No stress, no strain. The ease with which he plays; it's effortless. He barely seemed to move his hands across the keyboard. His son is no less accomplished,...
Dan talks about writing books in response to a Chris Anderson post. Since I've been writing for several years it's worth confirming what Dan said.
You won't get rich. I've managed to make a living from writing because I do it full time and I've been lucky enough to collaborate on some successful books. But the market has been way down in the last couple of years - the Wrox collapse was partly due to that. Computer books also don't sell in the same numbers as Harry Potter. Even the few definitive books (Essential COM, Code Complete, etc), aren't in the...
The user group talk went well yesterday. Far too much to talk about, so ran over, and still had more to say. It's tough trying to go through all of the new features of .NET 2.0 in such a short amount of time.
A few engagements planned. First off is the London .NET User Group on the 20th January where I'm talking about ASP.NET 2.0. Next up is Vienna on the 28th January, where Microsoft is having a .NET Day. Alex & I are doing three talks. First I'm covering Visual Studio .NET 2.0, then we are both covering ASP.NET 2.0, and then Alex is covering ADO.NET and XML 1.1 and 2.0. The speaker following us is Bill Gates, so it's going to be a fairly important day for us. The evening before is going to be at the Vienna .NET User Group...
OK, I haven't actually been sitting around doing nothing since Christmas, but my posting regime isn't very organised. And no I haven't made a new year's resolution to post more regularly - I'm not that disciplined.
Christmas and new year were pretty damn fine. Christmas was at Mum's where all intentions of doing any work were soon displaced by Katie. I spent nearly the entire week entertaining her - 3 year olds are such fun. The excesses weren't too bad. Far too much food of course, but just a mild alcoholic stupor.
New Year on the other hand featured alcohol more than...
The first step on the way to blogs/articles etc for my personal site and for http://daveandal.net/. I've just installed .Text on http://blogs.ipona.com/. The aim is to provide a central location for blogs for me and my friends.