I've just quickly scanned an article in MSDN May 2007 called Create Advanced Web Applications With Object-Oriented Techniques.
I already know most of the techniques that were included in the article, but I thought it was very well written and very easy to understand for newcomers.  Have a go at it.  Fun Fun.

This is a great way to mash up different web content together (web service, RSS, etc.).
Think Linux / PowerShell pipe mechanism (i.e. ls | grep shoot | more) for web content.
Try it out here.
Here is a good webcast of it.

As usual, I started my day perusing hundreds RSS subscription (I used to use Outlook for this, but I am getting to like Google Reader more and more).

Lots of neat stuffs you can find just reading other people's writing.

For example:

http://thewpfblog.com/?p=92 (Talking Anna WPF application)

Funny thing is, although not as fancy as this WPF app, I was playing around with Vista Speech Synthesizer in .NET about a couple of weeks before and created the following console application in VS2005 and Windows SDK for Vista (you need to reference System.Speech.dll for this to work):

using System;
using System.Speech.Synthesis; 

namespace SpeechTest
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            using (SpeechSynthesizer ss = new SpeechSynthesizer())
            {
                while(true)
                {
                    Console.Write("Enter what you want me to say:");
                    string s = Console.ReadLine();
                    if (s.Trim().Equals(string.Empty))
                        return;
                    ss.SpeakText(s);
                }
            }
        }
    }
} 

Which work just fine minus all the fancy stuffs in Talking Anna.

To read more about this, you can peruse this MSDN magazine article.

http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=11087&fID=2740 (Designing .NET Class Libraries)

It feels good when what you are doing get confirmed by one of the experts like Krzysztof. He was talking about how to design class library (in this case .NET Framework itself) and how Microsoft staffs would write a sample code first on how the code would look like before even going to the case tools for diagramming, etc. I've been doing this sort of thing as long as I can remember when designing my own class library.

Most of the time I found myself working with Console application in .NET Framework is when I want to create a spike / test on a concept or idea.

Really... what is there to be excited about the old plain Console?

All you do mostly is: Console.WriteLine(...), yes?  And maybe a Console.ReadLine() at the end to stop the Console window from being closed automatically before you can see the results you want.

This is all too true in .NET Framework 1.x....

But not in 2.0...

Perhaps it's just me, but I didn't really bother looking over what's new in the Console class until recently.  And to my surprise. They added a lot of improvement into the class.  Like the ability to position the cursor, changing color, etc.

Take a look here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.console_members.aspx

Being the geek that I am, I couldn't help myself but being excited when I discovered this.  Even if it is not truly something new, but it brought back a lot of memories, a trip to memory lane if you will,  to the days when I was still doing DOS based development in Pascal, QBASIC, and the like.  Creating my own windowing framework and control libraries in QBASIC and Pascal :)

Oh... what fun :)

Today, somebody asked about how to reconfigure a default setup of SQL Server 2005 Express so you don't have to include the Instance name.

I've encountered this kind of problem myself in the past.  I mean... come on... what the heck with that long *#*^#!@ name SERVERNAME\SQLEXPRESS.  Why can't I just connect to it using SERVERNAME instead?

Well, guess what, you can.  Using a feature in SQL Server Client configuration called Alias. Mind you, this is a hack on the client machine and not on the server.  Meaning if you are going to use the Alias, you will have to configure it on every single client that will use the new alias.  If you would rather reinstall the SQL Server Express as a default instance, you can follow this link.

Me, I am fine with the alias technique since it does not require me to reinstall the server (pain in the ass, well, not really, but being a lazy ***...) and most of the time I need this to simulate a live environment on my development machine (instead of having to change connection string settings every single freaking time I want to deploy, I don't have to anymore since the name of the live server is being used as an alias on my local SQL Server Express installation).

Now, How do I do this, you might ask...

Well, lucky you, follow these simple steps (I will be using Named Pipes protocol for this example):

1. Say I have a SQL Server 2005 Express installed on my machine (JIMMYPC), with instance name: JIMMYPC\SQLEXPRESS
2. I then launch SQL Server Configuration Manager tool
3. Navigate to the SQL Server 2005 Network Configuration in the tree view, open that so I can see Protocols for SQLEXPRESS node.
4. I click on the Protocols for SQLExpress node, it will show me a list of network protocols available to SQL Server.
5. I enable the Named Pipes protocol by right-clicking on it and choose Enable from the context menu.  The tool will notify me that the changes will take effect when I restart the SQL Server service
6. I then click on the SQL Server 2005 Services node on the tree view.
7. Right click on the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) instance item and choose Restart to restart the service.
8. I navigate to the SQL Native Client Configuration node in the tree view, open that so I can see Client Protocols and Aliases sub nodes.
9. Right click on the Aliases node and click on New Alias… from the context menu, this will bring up the New Alias dialog box.
10. I enter a new alias in the Alias Name field.  For example: JIMMYPC (to simulate removing the SQLEXPRESS instance name)
11. I enter in the Server name in the server field. For example: JIMMYPC\SQLEXPRESS
12. I change the protocol to Named Pipes in the Protocol field, the Pipe Name field will be automatically populated by the tool.
13. Click OK to save the changes.
14. I then launch SQL Server Management Studio Express (or any other SQL Server client tool to connect to the SQL Server)
15. In the Connect to Server dialog, under Server Name field, I enter in JIMMYPC and click Connect button to make the connection.
16. The client tool should now be connected to the same JIMMYPC\SQLEXPRESS instance but using the new alias (JIMMYPC)
17. At this point, I can change my custom application setting connection string if needed to say: SERVER=JIMMYPC;DATABASE=mydb;Integrated Security=true instead of SERVER=JIMMYPC\SQLEXPRESS;DATABASE=mydb;Integrated Security=true and it should still work.