VSDN Tips & Tricks has released a book on our store site titled "VSDN Tips & Tricks .NET Coding Standards". This book is a consolidation of many of the .NET coding standards available today in one easy to read and understand book. Written for the .NET 1.1 framework and Visual Studio 2003, this book will guide any level of programmer and development department to greater productivity by providing the tools needed to write consistent, maintainable code. The core of the book focuses on naming standards, how to order elements in classes, declaring methods, properties etc. properly and much, much more. Code tips are even included to help you write better, error free applications. All code examples are shown in C# and VB.NET.

"David McCarter once again demonstrates his knack for pulling best practices into one cohesive unit with his new book "VSDN Tips and Tricks: .NET Coding Standards". This book includes everything from how to set up your project to how to declare variables to how to use exception handling. It is a great place to start to build your own set of coding standards."
- Deborah Kurata 5/5/05

Microsoft releases it's beta of development tools for Longhorn! For more info and to download it, click here.

I heard from a few Microsoft "insiders" this past weekend that the release data for Visual Studio 2005 which includes .NET 2.0, Team Systems and SQL Server 2005 is November 9th. I guess we should keep our fingers crossed

Just a few years ago on the weekends, people started showing up on the median strip at busy intersections in San Diego selling the weekend edition of the Union-Tribune newspaper. Walking up and down a strip of cement just a few inches wide in the hot sun while cars go speeding past you does not seem like a very safe way to make a living to me. All it takes is one slip or miss-step and that person could easily be run over!

Why the Union-Tribune condones this activity is beyond me. I’m sure it does not take much for them to convince these seeming homeless/ low-income people to put their lives on the line for their newspaper.

I urge you to join me in boycotting any newspaper that does this until they stop this practice!

Apple Computer on Tuesday released 20 patches for its OS X operating system designed to fix flaws that could catch users off-guard.

The vulnerabilities apply to Mac OS X v10.3.9 and Mac OS X Server 10.3.9, according to Apple's advisory. The announcement comes roughly a month after Apple issued nearly a dozen patches for its Mac OS.

The advisory also falls just days after Apple's much ballyhooed release of the latest version of its operating system, Mac OS X 10.4, widely known as Tiger. The flaws were already addressed in Tiger, so the patches apply only to the previous version, known as Panther.

Security company Secunia on Wednesday rated Apple's OS X flaws as "highly critical." Among the flaws of greatest concern is a vulnerability in the OS X AppKit that relates to the handling of TIFF graphics files.

"If people view a malicious TIFF, it could result in running arbitrary code," said Thomas Kristensen, chief technology officer for Secunia. "TIFF is usually viewed as safe form to view things, so this makes it more critical."

Another issue of concern is an AppleScript flaw. If users visit a Web site and accept AppleScript from that site, they could find it executing different code than they had expected, Kristensen added.

For the complete article, click here.

Then you are going to dig this... Joe has just put up on the web for streaming a 2 hour live concert recorded recently in Anaheim, Ca. I just watched it and it's AWESOME! There is also and interview with Joe, pictures and more. Check it out by clicking here.