Well, I'm in the airport in Portland about ready to fly home.  This trip has been quite fun and much more enjoyable that other similar trips.  For example, I had the opportunity last night to go hang out at the PADNUG (Portland Area .NET User Group) to see/hear a great presentation on LINQ (Language INtegrated Query) that is forthcoming in Orcas - Visual Studio .NEXT/.NET 3.0.  The presentation was given by Nick Muhonen and was pretty awesome.  Recently, we had a presentation at our UtahDNUG on LINQ by Fabio Cavalcante that was also very good.

Following the meeting I hung out with a few of the guys from the group which was lots of fun.  I had my concerns about getting back to the hotel from the place and after having been given two different sets of directions from the group, I followed the advice to go across the Steel Bridge and found my way back ultra-easily

Today, I had the opportunity to man our booth at the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Launch Tour and demonstrate our product to several people and had lots of interest.  What a wonderful day.

On top of that, I had rented an H3 (Hummer) and had a blast driving it.  Aside from the low (narrow?) windshield I very much enjoyed driving it.  Were I to actually purchase one, however, I don't know if my wallet would enjoy me driving it.

My trip here was preceded with a brief two-night stint in Santa Barbara, which proved to be very productive and lots of fun.  So all in all, I've had my hands full, but it's been fun all the while.

I've been kinda quiet these past few days, but that not for lack of desire or for a lack of content.  Rather, I have been intensely busy on nailing down some functionality in some software projects as well as remodeling my bedroom.  I tore out the carpet, the padding, the baseboards, the shelving on the closet walls and completely revamped the room.  I built from scratch a new shelving system (which I have yet to totally finish, but it's hard being out of town), a new entertainment center, painted the walls (including an accent wall), installed new carpet with deluxe padding, put in a new bed, and the works.

It's been a fun experience and well worth it.  I hope to be more focused on the blogging moving forward, but I also need to finish the furniture...it'll be great!

In an attempt to help spread the word, the next DevUtah Geek dinner is coming up this next Wednesday (that's 2 days from now).  Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend being that I'll be in Portland for the Microsoft CRM 3.0 Launch Tour on the 23rd, but the past events have been fantastic!  Instead, I'll be making a visit to the Portland Area .NET User Group.

Don't miss the Geek Dinner if you can help it.  I've attached the details below.

**EVENT SUMMARY**

DevUtah's February Geek Dinner will be held at the Miller Business Innovation Center on Wednesday February 22 at 6 PM.

David Spann and Alistair Cockburn will lead a discussion on "Introducing Agile to the Organization". If you’ve heard of Agile methodologies but can’t get others in your organization interested; or if you’ve been a member of a high performing Agile team but can’t find the right words to convince upper management to spread the "gospel", this discussion may be helpful. David and Alistair will take your questions before they begin and will respond to as many as possible. Being agile by nature, they want to meet your (the customer’s) interest. If you’ve only heard about Agile, feel free to do a little research and post beginner questions as well.

**SPEAKERS**

David Spann is high-tech management consultant who focuses teams on making a reasonable return on investment while exceeding customer expectations. David has helped conduct each of the annual Agile Software Conferences since the first one held at Westminster College in 2002 and is currently involved with Alistair Cockburn in developing Utah's Agile Project Leadership Network.

Alistair Cockburn is an internationally known project witchdoctor and strategist. He co-authored the 2001 Manifesto for Agile Software Development and the 2005 project management "Declaration of Inter-Dependence" and has written several best-selling books.

**MENU**

A build-your-own taco buffet will be catered by Megan Faulkner Brown.

The meal cost is $12. You can prepay from the wiki or just bring cash to pay at the door.

Please RSVP:

http://www.phil801.com/devutah/index.php?title=2006_February_Event

As I arrived home from the Utah .NET User Group meeting last night I was greeted with a very pleasant surprise.  My brother had been by and left a paper on my desk which read:

Hi Aaron!
Happy Birthday!
Your Pal,
”Weird Al” Yankovic

My brother drives a Park City shuttle, frequently taking people to and from the airport.  Well, it turns out that Al and his wife, Suzanne, and their daughter were heading to Park City on my brother's shuttle.  He called me later in the day, informing me of his passenger.  In terms of being a fan, I don't know of a greater “Weird Al” fan than myself.  I absolutely LOVE his music and creativity.  I'm jealous and wich I could have been there.

Apparently, and this is why my brother needs a phone so badly, he went to check his phone to see if Al would call me, but had no service.  Of all the times to not have service!

I do thank him, however, for being thoughtful and providing me with a personalized note.  What a treat!

(The picture, for those uninitiated, is a capture I made from his 'All About the Pentiums' video - one of my all-time favorites; and a frequent MSN Messenger avatar that I employ)

I'm very happy with how the Utah .NET User Group went tonight, despite obstacles.  We've had some issues with our mail server.  Apparently a very small percentage of the emails sent out were actually received.  Despite not receiving their emails, we had about 50 people show up which was fantastic :)

We had a group of students/developers from Neumont University demonstrate and talk about their ORM solution (named NORMA - Neumont ORM Architect) which will be released as an open source beta on Feb 17th.  Their solution was very impressive.

I then had the opportunity to talk about creating WinForms controls.  We created a simple control, touched on several attributes, created an Editor, a Designer, and an Extender.  It was lots of fun and I think it was well received.  I really look forward to following it up with a talk on creating ASP.NET controls - maybe next month or the month after depending on demand and enthusiasm.  It was very reassuring to have several developers come up to me afterwards expressing how much they enjoyed the presentation and how much work it saved them.  Awesome!

Boy! Time sure does fly!  One more month has simply flown by and here we are again at the doorstep of the next Utah .NET User Group (UtahDNUG) monthly meeting.  Tomorrow's meeting (technically today's - but I've not yet gone to bed) looks to be pretty exciting.  We have two presentations slated.  First off, a few students from Neumont University will take a few minutes (about 20-30 minutes) to show off their ORM (Object-Role Modeling) solution and talk about it.  Following that, I have the distinct opportunity to present to the user group on the topic of Component Development.  This presentation will hopefully be the first in a series of 4 or 5 presentations focusing on components, WinForms controls, ASP.NET controls, assemblies, libraries, patterns, et al.

I'm looking forward to it.  The meeting is, of course, free to attend and open to all.  We'll get started right around 6:00 PM.  Directions and more information is found on the group website.

See you there!

Microsoft has recently released a least-priviliged user account (LUA) whitepaper that's a great read if you're contemplating running as LUA (which you should be) or about to.  As any follower of my blog knows, I have been successfully running as a LUA for about 3 years now and absolutely loving it.  In that timeframe I have had ZERO viruses and ZERO mal-/ad-/spy-ware.  I've been a long-time supporter of Aaron Margosis' MakeMeAdmin, having customized it so that I have an admin console for VS 2003 and one for VS 2005.

At any rate, read it - it's good for you.

I don't usually post comics (though I happened to just a few days ago), but this one was simply too good to pass up.  Dilbert is hilarious.

Tonight I had the opportunity to present at the Northern Utah .NET User Group.  The topic was Threading.  Last year I gave a similar presentation on Threading and it went very well.  This time around I took a slightly different tact and talked substantially more about .NET 2.0 Threading enhancements.  It was a lot of fun and went very well and was very well received.  I wish we had had more time because I had a lot of information that I wanted to cover that I didn't get a chance to except briefly.  Thanks to the user group for giving me the opportunity to present - I'd like to again in the near future :)

I have the opportunity tomorrow to speak at the Northern Utah .NET User Group (NUNUG) meeting.  The topic is Threading.  If you had a chance to attend my discussion on Threading several months ago for the Utah .NET User Group, much of the material will be similar, but I'll be throwing in a few more tidbits, so it should be good!

Meeting time is 6:00 PM at the offices of Atmedica

405 South Main Street
Suite 500 (5th floor)
Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

If you're in the neighborhood, please stop by - we'd love to see you there!

Well, some might say it's about time and, frankly, I would agree.  I've updated my .Text Rating Control to include a few new features and enhancements.

Most notable of the updates are the following:

• The rating control can now be placed on the root of a community blog website, allowing users to rate content directly on the root, rather than from the individual's blog.
• Added a new 'smiley' rating image to complement the star, bar, and dot rating images.
• The 'top rated posts' list can, like the rating control itself, be placed on the root of the blog providing a top rated posts across the entire blog.
• The 'top rated posts' list can now be filtered by post type, allowing you to create a list of 'top comments' vs 'top posts', etc.
• Users' name and url is now saved across ratings so they don't have to reenter the next time (via a cookie).

In addition to the aforementioned items, several other smaller enhancements and bug fixes have been made.

If you're upgrading from the previous version (i.e. 1.0.1.0 or 1.0.1.2) you'll need to update your web.config and add some new sections as well as run a database upgrade script.  This information is all presented for you in an attached readme.txt as well as the full help .CHM file.

Thanks all for your continued support.  Please let me know how it works for you and what other features you'd like in addition to those already present.

To download the latest version, please click the link on the left.

[UPDATE: 02/07/2005]
Version 1.5.1.0 has been released and is now available for download (and I'm already working on 1.5.2.0).

Updates in 1.5.1.0 include the following:

• Added AllowAnonymousRatings boolean property to RatingSettings class.
• Added RequireComments boolean property to RatingSettings class.
• Changed RequiredFieldValidators on DownloadPageContents to Dynamic rather than Static.
• Updated control to render a single script block and function calls rather than repetitive inline statements.
• Fixed minor window positioning bug.
• Added cookie to store the user's name/url upon rating a post.

Stay tuned for some new, cool enhancements in 1.5.2.0 :)