MSDN: List of Breaking Changes .Net 1.1 -> .Net 2.0

We, the .Net developers, will eventually move on to the .NET 2.0. As detailed in several articles, some of them posted here, too, we might experience troubles or unexpected applications behavior when we port the existing .Net 1.1 software to the new .Net 2.0 Framework.

Here it is a list of Breaking Changes reported / noticed by Microsoft when porting applications to .Net 2.0

http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/listofbreakingchanges.asp

Breaking changes are changes in either the .NET
Framework (runtime breaking changes) or Visual Studio (design/compile/project
upgrade) that make certain application and development scenarios behave
differently. These are not necessarily changes that we have found to impact an
application, rather these are changes in behavior discovered during design
review and testing that could potentially impact an application. In all of our
application compatibility testing, we've found fewer than 10 of these impacting
an application.

Gartner: IT Staff to Shrink 15% by 2010

Next 5 years will shrink the IT... My question is: Where? Accross the Globe ? Ok... But accross means average and average does not mean the percentage applies to each country.

Maybe the shrinking process will push the IT Solutions to offshore...

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3508386

The 'Dirty Little Secret' About Longhorn

Longhorn was (and still partially is) the big secret, how can you have a little secret about it?
It is a whole bunch of secrets that keep on showing up.

Apparently Microsoft dropped their intention of having Longhorn built on .Net 2.0. Why?

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1820607,00.asp

Project Management: Organizing a Team Project

Great article on Project Management even if it is extracted from a book. I know I'll get the book after reading this article.

It is quite a long article, but the ideas expressed here makes you feel that the author speaks out of experience: been there - done that.

It is useful to read this one no matter your position within an IT Project: management, development, quality assurance...

http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Administration/Organizing-a-Team-Project/

Embarrassing release of Netscape 8 :-)

Not AGAIN !

For me Netscape was always embarasing. At least they are constant...

It looks that "Netscape 8 Breaks Internet Explorer". Read below:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1821003,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000610

or:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1818585,00.asp

Again about Google vs. Microsoft

Here's another article about Google compeating with Microsoft, this time as official words from the Google Chief. He does not consider Microsoft a competitor... yet.

He also denies any preparation or investment in another Operating System, but considering his words there it is room for speculating... Googne will never do what "others" did well, they will do something "better".

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/43428.html

Phone Etiquette for Success

We use phones a lot for handling our Project Requirements or Customer Support. Now that we have VOIP, I am on the phone more than 50% of my time in the office. Each one of you probable is doing the same on a different scale.

The next article, talks about handling phone calls, it is not what I was looking for (a phone - etiquette), but it contains some nice thoughts and funny stories.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/42386.html

Why do we have QA ?

This is an article that I do not agree with entirely.

It is nice to read and realize the obvious need of having a QA Team, but in order to have a professional QA team you need people with experience, dedicated and involved ones. This means QA is a process and only years of activity will lead a QA to become what is expected out of him / her, the rest is just luck.

I do not agree with hiring temporary QA team members, this can cause unaffordable expenses, waste of time to train them and bad team dynamics.

I do not agree that good QA Team members are not that committed to a company: how else you become valuable and familiarized with that company’s methodologies and specific projects.

I guess all these opinions came up out of some negative experiences the author had..

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000067.html

.NET - working with files: simple methods

Some simple examples in .Net / working with files. I needed them but I never used these methods, I always used string parsing or other tricks.

Now I know.

http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/052505-1.aspx

Porting applications to the new .NET 2.0

It looks there are issues porting applications from .Net 1.1 to the upcoming 2.0 version. Who did not expect that?

We kind of got used with version differences and things that just stop working after a while. Should I remember CDONTS objects (Windows Email Objects) that are no longer supported and replaced with CDOSYS, or so many other like these ? Some of the changes are justified and constantly pushing for new is understandable, but it looks to me that this "period" since one software version issued until second version shows up and takes over by automatically generating problems for the version one applications, gets shorter and shorter.

They say "portability" is important to Microsoft and they will correct all the issues. Well... this phrase is great but it is based on a wrong supposition: what portability? They call portability when releasing another version of the same software :-)

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1820225,00.asp

Great Hackers

This is about developers, hackers, ... us.

Great article, really worth reading, even if it is a long one.

http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html

DHTML References.

Web Developers, check out the following links and use my favourite: View Source, then practice ...

Cool animations and YES they are DHTML. Nothing much (well... maybe a little bit of something like VML). Check them out and ignore the Music in the background. But do check them out !!! I loved the 2D ones.
http://www.dhteumeuleu.com/

CSS Samples, Menus and all that:
http://www.stunicholls.myby.co.uk/

Several Samples here, too. Actually, the entire website worth browsing.
http://webreference.com/dhtml/

Complex Set of CSS/JavaScript Tools here:
http://www.bindows.net/

You can even find JavaScript Games in here (along with several other usefull components and articles). By the way, check the links under this site for other sites... :
http://webfx.eae.net/

Another Section of one Site that worth browsing entirelly:
http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/

Follow up on the new launched Open Source Company

Here are some comments I liked about the news on New Open Source Enterprise Database Company Launch.

I do believe such a product is needed and I do believe it will record a great progress.... but competing Oracle?

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1819249,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000608

Open-Source Database Company Debuts

Because we are talking about Open source, here it is a new initiative: a new Database Engine, Open source, a real competitor for MySQL and even more, an enterprise system. It is supposed to be based on PostgreSQL.

Great initiative, it was needed.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1818911,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000608

Software Industry on the Brink of Choosing Open Source

Pros and Cons related to Open Source, the biggest boohoo for Microsoft.

Of course I like Open Source, just think at the basic, Right-click and View Source and at what did it mean for you. How much did you learn from this?

If we get to Linux and other open source projects as database systems, web scripting and programming tools, then the advantage is much bigger.

What are the influences of the Open Source practices on the IT Industry? Here are some:
- More and more jobs for the guys used with the Open Sources technologies.
- Lower income for the Software Companies due to more and more alternatives provided by Open Source Technologies.
- Lower paid jobs for the IT professionals specialized only in big software companies tools.
- More inventions and faster evolution in software.
- More Jobs to support for software products, to provide help
- New jobs, such and Open Source Project Manager or any other control, QA and management job
- Patent and Licensing Nightmare
- Better trained programmers

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/43205.html

Projects Don't Fail, People Do

Projects don't fail; the people who manage project managers fail.

Not only Software Business is a gambling area, but several others. Starting with the Initial Idea or identified Problem, the concept and design of a Software Project is a labyrinth, where each decision might weight more than anyone involved might imagine. It all depends on people a lot.

Even if the above quote represents a reality, this is not something new and it is not entirely true. In most of the cases a project "fails" because of people, but there are cases when project fail by circumstances: economics, client's financial state, competition, ...

Still... the obvious fact is that a software project is based on people more than anything. Use not prepared managers or not trained resources or not skilled architects or not inspired marketing guys.... and there are more chances to fail.

http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1397,1752663,00.asp

Book on VB.NET 2005

O'Reilly Book on VB.NET 2005. Short and plenty of samples. Unfortunatelly only one chapter is available here, it worth looking.

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/vbadn/chapter/ch02.pdf

IT Book Reviews

I found a link where Joel Spolsky describes what he considers fundamental readings for a developer. I was pleasently surprised to see that I've been studying some of them. Check them out and I hope you will have same surprise.

We have 5 of them on the shelves in our company today...

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html

Gain performance by not initializing variables

One of the most "annoying" requests developers get on a project are time limitations on performance per screen. For example they get the request on a web project that all screens should load in less than 5 seconds, no matter what and if it doesn't happen like that they should re-design that screen for better performance.

If designed and written carefully, screens will just follow the requirements, but sometimes, even if developers do their best in not wasting loading time, the screens are just too complex.

There are lots of things that can be changed for a better performance. Here's one of them:

http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/DontInitializeVariables.asp

Gates Spills Details on Office 12

New Microsoft Office coming up. What is it about? Read below.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1817549,00.asp

For the Network Admins and not only: Security Assessment

This is a brief review for a Networking Security Book. Small, beginner article on obvious security issues.

http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Security/Network-Security-Assessment/

Netscape Combines Browser Features

Netscape? Wrong moment to launch the new Netscape Browser version (8.0)... Firefox has it all. IE still the King, but Firefox coming up quite fast. Opera recorded a very well deserved million of downloads in a short time since launch. Where is Netscape's place in all that ? Probable nowhere.

Actually the big question is not that one. The question is: Why did Netscape choose to launch a browser that runs on Firefox engine most of the time, with a few exceptions when it uses Internet Explorer Engine ?

What a $#%k ?

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050519/techbits_new_netscape.html?.v=6

P.S. Check Release Notes at section Known Issues. Looks like a mess to me. Also... Internet Explorer rquired if Trident rendering engine used...

More On Why I Don't Use DataSets in My ASP.NET Applications

This is a follow-up on a previous article. The idea still stands: DataSets should not be used where possible. Of course there are areas where it might be better to use a DataSet, but in most of the cases we have other options.

The author considered necessary to post a follow up due to the large amount of feedback he received. Here's the link:

http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/051805-1.aspx

Fighting Image Problem: An IT Industry Rises in Pakistan

How come new IT industries rise up anywhere else but Romania, which is the third in the world as IT specialists according to BrainBench tests (Most Certified Citizens), not to mention the Romanians that contributed from the US side to US top 2.

Pakistan has the place 12 on the same list and does not show up on the Most Certified Nation top where Romania is 9.

Still, I can name so many other countries that have a more active development in this area than we have. There are some lessons to be learned out of this following article:

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/42934.html

Web Services Using JavaScript and .NET

This is an advanced-level article on how you can build a web service based on JavaScript (AJAX technologies I was presenting in previous articles) and .NET / aspx pages.

I find this interesting and worth paying a lot of attention. Goggle did it and it looks that all its tools are based on similar technologies.

Here's the article:
http://www.codeguru.com/vb/vb_internet/webservices/article.php/c7781__1/

Even if you are not advanced, you can still go to: http://www.xemantex.com/ and double-click on any word on that page to almost instantly get its meaning. Same thing, you can type any URL, like www.cnn.com and then double click on any word on that page and get a dictionary detail on it. Works only in English.

Networking guys: TCP/IP links

I was reading an article on one of my favourite sites and I thought I should post these interesting links / documentation for the networking guys, but not only: everyone interested in TCP/IP issues:

http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_toc.htm

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/GG243376.html

http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/html/

Let me know if it helped.

Must Read - The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code

This is a "must read".

When are you writing quality software? Is it just the Quality Assurance Team’s assignment to assure that you provide Quality Software, or is it an entire check list, or even more: the entire company’s responsibility?

How can we define a simple checklist that will let you know if you and your company deliver quality software?

Here’s a try. My opinion is that the article is written by a person that really knows what is it about. I could add to that list:
- Does anyone reviews your each and every developer’s code?
- Do you have a solid Configuration Management Process?
and others…

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

Thanks again Mihai G.

The Dunbar Number as a Limit to Group Sizes

This article, posted by Mihai G., reveals some interesting facts on "Dunbar Number".

It looks that we, as humans, are tied up on some numbers (statistically speaking) and these numbers do enforce some restrictions on our behavior as a group.

What does this mean in software? Well... each company represents a group and each group has specific behavior. This means that a group will develop specific characteristics depending on its size. Also, there are several online communities that might follow similar rules and restrictions.
It is interesting and funny at the same time.

http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunbar_numb.html

Projects vs. Products

My company is going through a Product Development phase even if it is mainly a Project Development Oriented Company. For the ones that don't make a difference between terms: products are developed for a large area of clients, representing an internal analysis / concept / design and development effort and will be market differently than a project which is usually built for one or only a few customers, fitting exactly their needs, without too many customizable options and totally owned by the customers.

Handling Products is different than handling Projects, and my opinion is that handling products is more difficult but also more challenging and interesting than handling projects. It is not enough to be challenging, but it HAS TO SELL. If the customer, in case of projects, is already there and knows exactly whan and when will get, the customer in case of products is not there and you have to guess what is the best thing you can offer to attract that customer. It is a simple gamble if you don’t take it serious. Here are some very simple thoughts:

http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view?id=262864

Successful Web Development Methodolgies

I was looking on the internet for some good article on how to choose the proper methodology (while developing our own methodology).
It is not a matter of what methodology to choose out of existing one, it is more like I am looking for how can I adapt an existing methodology to my company’s existing processes without altering the critical elements (as importance) from within that methodology.
This article express just a brief opinion on how to choose a methodology in this area, and the most important: it considers all options: Adopt, Adapt or Build Your Own.
I consider it a great reading, especially for QA department.

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/successful-development

.NET - Bubbling Events Up the Control Hierarchy

One of the major problems I encountered among developers during project development in .Net is event handling when there are several levels of events bubbling up.
Of course that when application is simple, everything is simple, but when you are trying to do a great application interface, even worse: when the Customer wants everything to happen on one page and there it is no way to convince him on the possible risks, then events, and especially the order of raising those events might cause serious waste of time.

http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/051105-1.aspx

Wondering about IT salaries?

Are you curious about salaries in IT area?

Salary Wizard in US:
http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layoutscripts/swzl_newsearch.asp

SQL server developers Salaries - blog:
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?jobs.10.115838.4

Microsoft, Google salaries...
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?jobs.10.114899.17

Job Interviews Questions / Puzzles

Are you interested in what do "big" companies ask on their interview? Are there common elements among these questions? Is there a rule on how to be prepared and face an interview? The following links present some of the real experiences and questions posted during interviews at Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, IBM, Amazon, HP... etc.
The cool think is that you find out opinions from the offer and benefits, too, offices, rules, schedule and all that.

http://www.glaak.com/interviews/

This second link is related to Job Interview questions but it presents several puzzles that were indeed presented as interview questions or test. Some of them are really challenging, I already know a few friends that will jump on solving the logical problems right away. Laur? Roxana?... you maniacs...

http://www.techinterview.org/

How to hire: You Can't Find Programmers?

This article probable does not sound interesting to you considering that you are probable a developer, so why look for hiring programmers? I found it interesting since I am somehow on both sides: an employer and an employee.
As an employer, it speaks my mind, I fully agree with the methods described in here as hiring best practices. I found it interesting as an employer, because I am interested in offering something attractive and stable to the market, so I attract the proper resources.
As an employee, I find it interesting because I find out what are the possibilities the employer is considering when hiring me and what am I suppose to expect from them?

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000050.html

Move Over, Blue Screen of Death?

Ok, we have the Windows Blue Screen that messes out our lifes and gives us the horrible nightmare of loosing our work... not to mention the habbit of clicking Ctrl+S every few seconds...
Now, Windows seems to have a new fancy feature: Red Screen :-)
Red is usually the sign for something bad... C'mon.. Worse than Blue Screen ?

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1814654,00.asp

Post to Another .aspx Page

Hint on posting ASPX pages using Server.Transfer method.

http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/28094?trk=DXRSS_WEBDEV

Company Executives telling Software Makers:

We use to hear all kind of news, all kind of trends in IT (like Open Source for example), all kind of extraordinary features, inventions, etc... The question here is: what do all these actually MEAN for a Corporate Structure? What do all these new trends actually DO for the Company that is using the final product?
The message Company Executives passed on to Software Makers is: "We need software products that DO THE JOB". They have to work and they have to complete the required tasks as good as possible, no matter the "trend" or the "fancy" in it.
There it is another Idea here: cost. Companies no longer have the time and money to invest in software systems they used to have a while ago. So, make it fast, cheap and doing the job... Hmmm.... Wasn't it like this all the time? What's new in: "fast, cheap and do the job"?

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,1058043,00.html?cnn=yes

Radical Interface Approaches

Web Design has to adapt to the elements being presented and to the target visitors. Any non match between the design / interface aspect and the elements being presented by that web page will lead to a failure, no matter how much of a high-tech or artistic is that web presence.
In the following blog entry, there are two case studies that worth seeing. Check out the article and comments, too.

http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view?id=261889

How To Outsource

Even if this article is about taking offshore a Call Center type of business, it still represents a point of interest to me. It is interesting the way an offshore business is seen by the one that implements it and also by the Client that benefits out of the offshore solution. It is interesting to read the advices supplied by the offshore business consultant and the problems he experienced while initiating several solutions like these.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/42958.html

Mozilla Firefox Security Issue

Now this is so funny... Mozilla Firefox, the so called MS IE competition, with all the good words and all the nice features, with all the aggressive "rediscover the web" ad campaign, it proves it has similar issues as MS IE.
This is a biiig hit for Mozilla. It was starting to claim and gain against IE, especially because of its stability and security. Now what?

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/42962.html

Google Hacked :-)

It looks that even Google was hacked. Here it is the news:

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/42951.html

Cool JavaScript Slideshow

Slayeroffice is offering a set of JavaScript Tools and components for download, but also supply help and documentation for each. Check out the website - it is also offering JavaScript Games :-)
I selected out of Tools something that I consider useful when building projects or websites:

• Some Image Slide Show :http://slayeroffice.com/code/slide_show/
• Pick a Color by HEX Code or other attributes: http://slayeroffice.com/tools/color_palette/
• Get Key Code for any key pressed: http://slayeroffice.com/tools/keycode/
• Nice Top-Menu Effect: http://slayeroffice.com/code/focus_slide/

The assault on software giant Microsoft

Here’s an article about Microsoft… again!
Microsoft is a major subject across web, but, during last years, it became something usual to find the following subjects on the web: Microsoft vs. Linux, Microsoft Security Issues, Microsoft Sucks Kind-Of-Articles, Microsoft Products Due-Date Slip Again, also, Microsoft New product Announcement or Microsoft looking full of hope into the future.
Microsoft proved to be a visionary across years, why not continue in this visionary manner? Will it fail? Are there companies struggling to take MS giant down?
The next article is trying to draw some lines and guess an answer to these questions, focusing on MS “enemies” and weaknesses.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4508897.stm

Developers Seek Breakthrough for Fuel Cell-Powered Laptops

Technology update: scientists working on long lasting batteries, especially that Laptops, MP3 Players, PDA, etc... are in their golden era, so it is all about portability.
The basic battery last for about 2 hours, reaching to 4 hours or more.
Scientists are looking for a Fuel Driven Solution for batteries on these devices.

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/42804.html

SQL Server 2005's CLR Integration

What is CLR and what does it have to do with the SQL Server? Well, CLR = Common Language Runtime, the structure provided by Microsoft's .Net Framework, especially cross-language functionality. SQL Server 2005 will allow us, developers, to do something really cool (I think): to mess up the code and write SQL syntax among C# code or vice versa and get whatever result you need. Imagine yourself writing SQL Stored Procedures mixing the SQL syntax with C#, compiling and running the code. It is not that simple, but read the article to get a better idea.
I have no doubts this sounds cool. I have no doubt it will have an impact and will be the "new wave", same as the XML and .Net code mixture and even more, add to these some XML query tools.
Still... I cannot wonder: is it really useful? Do we need all this mixture? Are we... developers... more powerful now? Or we just have a few more possibilities to achieve same goal. Or we have just another software "version" that we have to by, because the "version" will eventually stop to be supported.

http://www.devsource.com/article2/0,1759,1791675,00.asp

Using Inheritance in CSS

Now... this is a small but interesting hint for the web developers. Test it and post comments.

http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/28035?trk=DXRSS_WEBDEV

GATES VS. GOOGLE: Search and Destroy

Everybody got pleasantly surprised by the evolution Google had. Except maybe Microsoft :-)
Here’s a nice article about the new competition Google vs. Microsoft. Is it a competition? Will these two have something to fight for (like an Operating System maybe:-) )?
This is a long article, but worth reading.

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,1050065-1,00.html

Thanks Axonn

Recipe for building 'dream teams' revealed

How do you build a Development Dream Team? How do you make it work perfect? What are the ingredients? The next article is far from providing an answer to these but it provides some information on the research in this area performed by some qualified scientists.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7322&feedId=online-news_rss20

(thank you Mihai for the link)

Why I Don't Use DataSets in My ASP.NET Applications

This was a revealing article for me. I realized that we usually get stuck into what we know, applying same method again and again because we feel comfortable with it, because we are sure that it will work. We also get lazy in investigating and learning more. Why change if it works? Well, in most of the cases there it is a better way of doing things.
In the below article we have DataReader versus DataSet comparison that is definitely useful if you don’t know it already. Read it and apply. It could use a little testing before we just jump into applying suggestions.
http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/050405-1.aspx

IBM Says to Cut Up to 13,000 Jobs in Restructuring

How do you take this news? Is this good news or is this bad news?
It might be good news considering that, if big companies will need to apply alternative measures to stay on the line, maybe these big companies will start to consider using offshore companies and, me, as a offshore company leader, I might feel some opportunities in this. It might also sound good because when the big ones shrink, the small ones might increase if the market needs remain the same or increase.
It might be bad news because IBM’s resources dismissal might be a result of IT industry overall tendencies and the, everyone will be affected.
On the other hand, IBM, as other major IT companies jumped into buying several other companies in order to cover specific areas or add value to their products. This might lead to a justified restructure operation considering that not all bought is according or can be converted to company standards or considering that not all bought might have the value expected or considering that not all existing resources have the quality of the new integrated resources, etc…

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1812873,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000609

SQL Server 2005 Labs

For the ones interested in SQL Server 2005, MSDN provides some labs where you can learn directly online to build several practical items (this is why these are called virtual labs).
Check out the following link, sometime during starting one of the presented Labs, you wil be asked for a login and password, but you can also sign up if you do not have already.
Each one of the labs takes some time until completion, for example one lab can take 1 hour and 30 minutes, so look over these when you have some spare time.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tryit/hosted/sql/default.aspx

'Pulling' Requirements From the Suits

This article talks about something that I've learned by myself the hard way: in order to build the proper functionality for a system, the IT staff has to fully understand the business concepts of the problem the system is trying to solve.
Even if the so called Specifications / requirements, etc… were provided and no matter how detailed were these, the IT department finds itself in the position of searching and extracting several business elements, some of them quite complex and well hidden, but most of them obvious but omitted initially.
IT staff will have to be involved and qualified in the business area, too, or at lease fully qualified into understanding the business concepts. Quoting from this article: “The head of IT, regardless of role, must combine strategic direction with strong facilitation and communication skills.”

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/cio/article.php/3502551

HTML: TABLE vs. DIV

How do we design our web pages? Developers usually use tables in order to format their HTML, but that is not quite a healthy method (as the articles tell us). Of course it works, but it has serious considering other possible solutions as using DIVs and handle the content with JavaScript.
This next article is using as example Microsoft’s website and listing a set of reasons why tables are not good.

http://www.stopdesign.com/articles/throwing_tables/

A better way of designing the web page content is presented in the next article, that also provides the definition of TILT (Table Injection for Layout Technique).

http://glazkov.com/blog/archive/2005/05/02/476.aspx

Developer Support Site

Here's another developer support page that contains Articles, Tips&Tricks, Forums and Links on several technical areas as .Net, VB 6.0, SQL Server, JavaScript, ASP, XML
I found several interesting things here, while searching for a solution on software development problems.

http://www.eggheadcafe.com

Motivation: Overcoming Procrastination

The difference between a poor developer and a great one is motivation. Software development involves innovation / inspiration and hard work. I have seen great minds wasted because of not enough motivation and I have seen developers becoming what no one could imagine because of good motivation.
I believe that, especially in the areas where human mind and inspiration is used at maximum such as software development, motivation has one of the most important roles. Motivation is where you find the power to do more, to exceed, to excel, to go over it, to invent… Motivation is what makes a difference. The ones that motivate themselves more will achieve more.
Motivation is not only personal but also collective. The most important one is personal: where you find your reasons, define your ideals and dare to try.
Here’s a brief suggestive article on how to overcome your tendencies of "putting tasks off to the last possible minute".

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/overcoming-procrastination.htm

Microsoft Metro Threatens Adobe Acrobat

I was mentioning in some other post in this blog that I doubt on MS Metro format to represent any threat on existing PDF format by Adobe. Here's a very well documented article that sustains my opinion.

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/executive_tech/article.php/3502116

MySQL vs. PostgreSQL comparison

I was looking for some clear and professional comparison between MS SQL Server and MySQL, so I can figure out how much until MySQL will start to be user by professionals. I was only able to find a very well organized comparison between MySQL and PostgreSQL. Actually this is more revealing than the comparison I was looking for, because MySQL is still far behind, probable in a different category than MS SQL Server, considering the features implemented.

http://monstera.man.poznan.pl/wiki/index.php/Mysql_vs_postgres

Jim Allchin - From starving musician to Longhorn vice president

Who is Jim Allchin? Well, he is the Longhorn Vice-president, one of the most important people in Microsoft executive team - “the guy who is responsible for developing Windows”. Now, I started to get your attention, isn’t it? Considering the impact Windows had on the planet, he is quite a powerful guy.
The link below presents a very interesting interview (MOVIE) with Jim, where he presents himself, his work and his personal life. He is relaxed and the output is a funny worth-seeing video, even if it is kind of long.

Click here to see the interview

By the way, click here to see the guy that runs VS.NET and IIS Development teams at Microsoft. He's also doing a review on the next .Net version, presenting the key features directly on his laptop / office.