Visual Studio

Grab the VPC here and read about the feature set here.

To be usable, crank up the default RAM size from 384MB to something higher.

Never thought I would see this, but MS has released the BDD 2007 managed source code that is used to build the MMC parts of the BDD. A good way to learn!

Check it out here.

Read more about it here and download it from here.

Noteworthy changes:
New processor support (e.g., Core Duo) for code generation and profiling
Performance and scale improvements in Team Foundation Server
Team Foundation Server integration with Excel 2007 and Project 2007
Tool support for occasionally connected devices and SQL Server Compact Edition
Additional support for project file based Web applications
Windows Embedded 6.0 platform and tools support

This sounds like it will be a nice gathering of developers that care about results more than what language a solution is programmed in.

They describe it better than I can:

CodeMash is a unique event that will educate developers on current practices, methodologies and technology trends in variety of platforms and development languages such as Java, .NET, Ruby and PHP. Held January 18-19, 2007 at the lush Kalahari resort in Sandusky, Ohio, attendees will be able to attend a world-class technical conference amid Ohio's largest indoor waterpark. So nobody will frown if you show up in shorts, sandals, and your loudest t-shirt. You might even win a prize for doing so.

CodeMash

I probably won't be there, so I don't think I can win the Zune for blogging about it, but I figured it was worth a mention anyway.

Apparently over 200 bugs and suggestions have been submitted to the VS 2005 SP1 beta since it opened up. Although I have had limited time to install and test it, so far VS 2005 SP1 seems a lot more stable, especially in the IDE, than VS 2005 RTM. I know a lot of people thought VS 2005 RTM was a bit rushed and it showed with the amount of strange bugs people ran into.

Keep an eye on this blog for ongoing VS 2005 SP1 news.

This is just a personal pet peeve that I see more and more programs doing. It is typically done by programmers that either didn't have time to come up with a decent icon or didn't know how to change it within Visual Studio. When I see programs that use defaults in their resources like 'Form1' and such, it just gives me the impression of sloppy coding, even if I haven't seen the underlying code.

Sure, you could use a resource hacker program to insert your own icons but I wish more programmers would not use the default icon sets.

Here is an example of what I am talking about if this isn't making any sense to you:

This made me crack up for some reason today.
Unintended insults, from autogenerated code.

[snip]

'------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'
' This code was generated by a tool.

[/snip]

HEY!
That's not very nice to call someone.