Microsoft has just announced four new starter kits for Visual Studio 2005. They include a Windows Starter Kit, Personal Website Starter Kit, Time Tracker Start Kit and Club Website Starter Kit. If they are anything like the starter kits for VS2003 they should be awesome! I use a starter kit for my www.vsdntips.com web site and www.sddotnetdg.org user group site. Here at work we also use the IssueTracker starter kit for keeping track of programming tasks, bugs and feature requests. So check them out, you won't be sorry.

Microsoft has just announced a plug-in for VB.NET 2005 Beta 2 that does refactoring from Developer Express Inc. Unfortunately it won't be built into the language like it is for C# 2005 :-(

The University of Illinois tied for 17th place in the world finals of the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, which concluded Thursday. That's the lowest ranking for the top-performing U.S. school in the 29-year history of the competition.

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If you are an MSDN subscriber, you can download Beta 2 of Visual Stuido 2005! Click here to download.

You walk across the parking lot, unlock your car and get inside. Then you lock all your doors, start the engine and shift into REVERSE, and you look into the rearview mirror to back out of your parking space and you notice a piece of paper stuck to the middle of the rear window.

So, you shift into PARK, unlock your doors and jump out of your car to remove that paper (orwhatever it is) that is obstructing your view. When you reach the back of your car, that is when the car-jackers appear out of nowhere, jump into your car and take off! Your engine was running, (ladies would have their purse in the car) and they practically mow you down as they speed off in your car.

BE AWARE OF THIS NEW SCHEME THAT IS NOW BEING USED.

Just drive away and remove the paper that is stuck to your window later, and be thankful that you read this email. I hope you will forward this to friends and family...especially to women! A purse contains all identification, and you certainly do NOT want someone getting your home address. They already HAVE your keys!

VBRun is a new resource center on MSDN that highlights the best Visual Basic 6.0 content, shows new ways to use Visual Basic 6 and Visual Basic .NET together, and Visual Basic .NET training. Is Microsoft trying to appease the VB6 programmers petitioning to have them update the language or just trying to get them to change to VB.NET? Check out the site and you be the judge.

Back in October of 2004 it was time to buy a new cell phone. Being the geek and sometime photographer that I am, I wanted to get the best quality camera phone that I could from my carrier (Verizon). The highest resolution camera they had was the Motorola V170 that took 1.2 megapixel photos! Wow, I was impressed and thought this will be good to carry around and snap decent quick photos and hopefully work well when I go to concerts.

Well, unfortunately this phone falls short on delivering my goals. When I took photos at the Verizon store they looked good of course because I could only see them on the small screen on the phone. Once I got the photos off of the camera (unfortunately past the time Verizon would let me take the phone back), I found out that none of the photos were good enough to keep.

Okay, I admit, I am a little picky, but you be the judge. Below is a picture I took about a week ago of the building where I work. As you can see, the building wall is completely washed out, the colors are horrible and it does not even seem to be in focus. Recently I was at a concert trying to take pictures (about 10 feet from the stage) and none came out at all. I was standing next to this guy with a "normal" camera phone and his were coming out great :-( My sons "normal" phone takes better pictures than this phone… okay they are smaller resolution but the exposure is a lot better and they are not fuzzy.

I recently took the phone into Verizon and they did a major software upgrade to it. I have noticed that the camera tries harder to adjust the exposure, but as you can see if still falls way short. So now I'm left with this phone that takes horrible pictures, is much larger than most cell phones and much heavier too. So my advice to wait until something better comes along if you want higher picture resolution.

Every year the morning show (Dave, Shelly and Chainsaw or commonly referred to as the DSC) on KGB 101.5 in San Diego puts together a “best of” CD and sells it during the Thanksgiving/ Christmas holiday season. They take the proceeds and give out $1,000 at a time to people in need. Usually people really down on their luck and need to pay their rent, car payment, bills etc.

Well, this past Christmas (2004), along with the CD they also produced a full-length movie, a comedy of course, called the JK Conspiracy. They did the usual 12 days of Christmas and gave out $1,000 to needy people before they went on Christmas vacation. But this CD/DVD combo sold so well, it brought in almost $250,000! After production costs of around $40,000 they have a lot of money left over.

So what are they doing with it? Well, they are giving it back to the community. Starting in March, every day that they are live on the air until the end of the year they are giving away $1,000 so someone in need. How cool is that! The other morning a mother wrote in and told a story about her daughter’s cars engine blowing up and having to be replaced. Of course her daughter could not pay for this so the she had the engine replaced. Then on the heals of that, the daughter’s car insurance became due and the mother just could not afford to help out. This is where the DSC stepped in and helped out.

The DSC has always been the best morning show I have ever heard, no matter what city I am in and I have been listening to them just about since they started. I have always been impressed with what they do with the money with their “best of” CD’s, but this latest “stunt” just really blows me away. Thanks DSC. How are you going to top this in 2005?

After recent events, rush this living will to your lawyer:

I, _________________________ (fill in the blank), being of sound mind and body, unequivocally declare that in the event of a catastrophic injury, I do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means. I hereby instruct my loved ones and relatives to remove all life-support systems, once it has been determined that my brain is longer functioning in a cognizant realm. However, that judgment should be made only after thorough consultation with medical experts; i.e., individuals who actually have been trained, educated and certified as doctors.

Under no circumstances -- and I can't state this too strongly -- should my fate be put in the hands of peckerwood politicians who couldn't pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it. Furthermore, it is my firm hope that, when the time comes, any discussion about terminating my medical treatment should remain private and confidential.

Therefore, I wish to make my views on this subject as clear and unambiguous as possible. Recognizing that some politicians seem cerebrally challenged themselves (and with no medical excuse), I'll try to keep this simple and to the point:

1. While remaining sensitive to the feelings of loved ones who might cling to hope for my recovery, let me state that if a reasonable amount of time passes -- say, ____ (fill in the blank) months -- and I fail to sit sit up and ask for a cold beer, it should be presumed that I won't ever get better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.

2. Under no circumstances shall the members of the Legislature enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own damn business, and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren't in a permanent coma.

3. Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case. I don't care how many fundamentalist votes they're trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else's life and leave me alone to die in peace.

4. I couldn't care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don't know these people, and I certainly haven't authorized them to preach and crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own business, too.

5. It is my heartfelt wish to expire quietly and without a public spectacle. This is obviously impossible once elected officials become involved. So, while recognizing the wrenching emotions that attend the prolonged death of a loved one, I hereby instruct my relatives to settle all disagreements about my care in private or in the courts, as provided by law. If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living ____ (fill in the blank)

I found this on: http://blog.bioethics.net/2005/03/new-living-will-form.html