Connected systems developer competition

Have you already started creating cool applications using Visual Studio.NET 2005 and/or SQL Server 2005? Then show off your innovative ideas in the connected system developer competition for a chance to win $50,000
More details here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/devcompetition

SCJA beta exam for free

Sun certified java associate is an entry level certification testing your skills on the basics of java and object orientation.
Since this exam is just being introduced interested people can take the beta exam for free and the registration opens on the 1st of June. The exam is for 3 hours with 122 questions(This is because it's a beta exam)
Check the following URL for more details http://www.sun.com/training/certification/java/associate_beta.xml

Breaking changes in .NET 2.0b1-2.0b2 and 1.1-2.0b2

Download a list of breaking changes from the earlier .NET versions to the current 2.0 beta 2 version in help file format. This will be helpful for anyone planning on migrating to the 2.0 version
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/BreakingChanges.chm

Avalon and Indigo beta kits released

Now you can download the beta kits for avalon and indigo from the following URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b789bc8d-4f25-4823-b6aa-c5edf432d0c1&displaylang=en&Hash=8T6PHSD
Well i really want to get my hands dirty on this but i am packed with things need to be done for the next few weeks. So i guess i have to put it down on my "Try it later" list...

SLIIT Presentation on Microsoft.NET and VS.NET

Yesterday did a presentation for the university student of SLIIT on the Microsoft.NET platform and the Visual STudio.NET IDE. This is the first time i am visiting this university and it really has a good infrastructure. I was given a tour around the university and it is well equiped and good facilities too.
As for the presentation it went ok i guess. It was more on an introductory level and most of the students were not exposed to the .NET platform much. I hope they gathered enough background to start exploring the .NET platform further.

Article on VB.NET 2005 new features

My article on introducing the new features of VB.NET 2005 is published on the Simple Talk technology journal. Check it out at the following URL:
http://www.simple-talk.com/2005/05/06/visual-basicnet-2005/

.NET show reaches 50 and features Bill Gates

The .NET show as you know has downloadable videos with news and interviews on microsoft technologies. It has reached the 50th episode and features a special interview from Bill Gates.

Peek .NET 2005: Untangling Connection strings

Did you ever thought about instances when the conection string becomes messy and why it is just not OO. And did you ever come across problems of extracting certain information out of your connection string?Well .NET 2005 has a cool way of doing this with the introduction of connection string builders. It allows you to create the connection string by setting properties to the connection string builder objects and then extracting the connection string from it. You can also pass in a connection string and extract information out of it easily.

For example:
SqlConnectionStringBuilder builder = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder(); builder.ConnectionString = "workstation id=PRASANNA;packet size=4096;integrated security=SSPI;data source=PRASANNA;persist security info=True;initial catalog=SampleDB";
Console.WriteLine(builder.InitialCatalog);

This will display the initial catalog("SampleDB") extracted from the connection string using the SQL Server specific connection builder object. Now that looks much cleaner that writing code by splitting the connection string and so on. There are different connection builders available for different supported RDBMS as well as a generic connection string builder.

VS.NET 2005 Really Rocks

I installed VS.NET 2005 beta 2 provided during the asian summit today and i am hooked on to it. There really is a whole lot and i do mean a WHOLE LOT of features to look at. I will blog more about the interesting features i come across

Parting thoughts after the summit

Well the final day we left from the Oriental hotel after the MVP summit and decided to roam around in Singapore for one extra day.
Just to summarize on things it was really great getting to meet a few of the people behind the products from Microsoft and the fellow MVPs from various countries in the asia pacific region. I am pretty sure the MVP global summit will be even bigger and i hope i will be able to spare some time to attend it in september

MVP Asian summit day 4

Today was the final day of the summit and we had a few more sessions on .NET 2005.
Later We had a beer party in the evening at the river front in singapore. It was fun and had a few beers. Got to have a good conversation with Justin (Triplez) and though it may sound weird but we were talking abt generics and C# over beer (thats what i really loved about the summit. It was something common and not something strange to talk about geeky stuff). And
Triplez is really into any programming languages with the curly braces and thinks the curly braces has more curves than a woman.
And then only i got to know Howard our dear MVP lead is on a reality show called eye for a guy. He is trying to win over the gorgeous VJ Denise Keller. So i gathered with a few MVPs and we were watching the show in the night.

MVP Asian summit day 3

We started off with some training presentations on the developer track. Todays sessions were mostly focused on VS.NET 2005, code named whidbey.
Later we were taken to a big shopping mall where we just roamed around and did a bit of shopping. It was a bit of a boring day comparatively with the other summit days.

MVP Asian summit day 2

Today was the opening sessions on the MVP summit and we had the summit conferences at the Suncity hall. It was a full day event today with some keynotes from some Microsoft officials. The event was launched with some hefty drum beatings. Got to meet Cally Ko the regional director for the MVP program in south east asia and Sean O'Driscoll the global director for the MVP program.
Later after the first day sessions we went on a night safari to the Singapore zoo. There were a few entertainment shows as well including performances from belly dancers and a fire eating show. I took some pictures with a big live snake around my neck. Though it didn't feel weird while i was holding it, felt really weird whenever i think of it later

MVP Asian summit day 1

Arrived in Singapore at around 2.30 pm with the rest of the MVPs from Srilanka. We arrived at the Mandarin Oriental hotel the official hotel for our stay in Singapore. We had the registration for the 4 day event as well as a cocktail party in the evening.
During the cocktail party met up with a few Singaporean MVPs including Justin (Triplez) and Serena Yeoh (Firedancer) a Malaysian MVP. Also met William Tay a Singaporean MVP specialising in web services ( He wrote a real good article on the MSDN site titled “Routing Secured SOAP Messages Through Multiple SOAP Intermediaries Using WSE 2.0” ).
Later got to see an unofficial demonstration of the Paladin framework from Firedancer, along with a few singaporean MVPs over a cup of coffee . For those who dont know what Paladin is, it is a framework developed by Firedancer, enabling you to rapidly create applications in a more OO manner and without SQL statements. So anyone interested on this framework can download it from the gotdotnet web site. Though it is in alpha it has a great potential to be a very successful framework.

Back in Srilanka

Returned day before yesterday after the MVP Asian summit. Got to interact with lots of MVPs around asia pacific and with a few Microsoft employess as well. The theme for this summit was "Get Connected" and had ample opportunities to get to know many fellow geeks.
I'll follow this post with the event summaries of each day i wrote while i was there and probably update them with a few pictures as well later. I am not sure i am allowed to blog about the sessions because of the NDA with Microsoft though...