My latest codeguru column, C++ Language Changes for Visual Studio 2005, has been uploaded to the CodeGuru site.

Scott Bellware has to reschedule his appearance at the East of Toronto .NET User Group, much to our regret. We're looking forward to announcing the new date soon. The good news is that Marcie Robillard has stepped up to the plate and agreed to shuffle her “DataGrids and GridViews” talk forward a few months. Same time, same place, same URL. See you there!

Kate

On Tuesday, June 15th, Scott Bellware will be at the East of Toronto user group (meeting on the Durham Collage / UOIT campus at Simcoe and Conlin.) Scott will talk about Unit Testing and he's bringing his own prizes:

I have loved this trick since I saw it and I've just decided it's time to share it. Say you have some application or folder open, but it's minimized or has stuff on top of it, and you want to drag a file to it. Here's how I was taught to do that: grab the thing you're dragging, and drag it down to the taskbar, then wait patiently without letting go. If you let go, Windows will nag you:

So you wait, eventually the window opens up, and then you drag back up from the taskbar before dropping. If you're trying to drag another file into a product like FrontPage and a file is already open, you want to drag all the way to the top menu bar, otherwise the new file will just be inserted into the open document -- hardly ever what what you want.

Next time, try this instead. Get your drag started, and after moving the icon just a few pixels, and without letting go of the mouse button, use your other hand to ALT-TAB. Pop around to the target app and let go of the ALT-TAB, then let go of the mouse button to drop your icon onto the target. This is faster and less frustrating and now I do it all the time. I just checked, and you could do this even in NT 4, if not before. I just never knew, until I saw Scott Hanselman do it in a presentation. Very neat trick.

Kate

Now people I haven't even met are blogging about donuts... not that the back door he describes could persuade me to scan my own groceries, until the UI improves dramatically. It's forever telling me to put the bag back on the scale or take things off the scale until I'm ready to abandon everything I've bought just to make the process stop.

Kate

My blog about knowing what you want when you're networking (a job, an article, or whatever) triggered some more thoughts about knowing what you want in other situations. This post is about meetings.

I hate meetings. One of the great things about having so many remote clients is that I don't have to go to meetings. [Many years ago we were doing some work that ended up in Visual C++ 4. One day my Microsoft contact called me, saying "I'm just going into a meeting and need to know a, b, and c." We talked for about five minutes and then he headed off to the meeting. Four HOURS later he called me back to tell me the results of the meeting and as I got off the phone I was filled with gratitude that I had not been in the meeting. It's been an important part of my business model ever since.] But if you're going to go to a meeting, the least you can do is make it worthwhile. The key to this is to know what the meeting is for and what you want from it. These are not always the same thing at all.

Every meeting, no matter its nominal purpose, can give you something you want. A status meeting is an opportunity to be recognized for recent accomplishments and to get the credit you deserve. Or perhaps it's an opportunity to get a decision maker to make a decision the way you want it made. A sales meeting is easy; you want the sale, or permission to submit a proposal, or to be put on the list of bidders. A "let's get this stuck project unstuck" meeting or a kickoff meeting have obvious purposes, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't stop to think about what you want from them. Do you want to be assigned the unsticking tasks? Do you want a deadline moved? Do you want someone else's behaviour to be redirected?

Occasionally I wander into meetings without particularly thinking about what I want from them, just because it's the regular meeting or because my client invited me. Those meetings are boring and horrible. About 90% of the time I decide in advance what I want from the meeting. I usually put a little thought into how to get it, but what seems to really matter is just knowing what I am aiming for. Almost without fail, I get it. (If I go as part of a team and discuss it out loud with my team mates before we go, I have never got less than I wanted.) And this isn't just a matter of taking advantage of the unprepared people who wandered into the meeting without a plan and can be bent to my will . The really neat meetings are the ones where everyone in the room knows what they want and we dispense with the rest of the nonsense and get down to brass tacks. Then we really get things done, and I don't hate those kinds of meetings at all.

Kate

One of the topics that came up and then became a theme at the Women in Technology Luncheon at TechEd was networking. One thing I said was such a surprise to me when I first learned it that I want to repeat it here. When you're looking for something, you need to keep in mind that someone out there wants, no NEEDS, to give it to you. I'm serious. If you're looking for a job, the person who is going to hire you isn't going to do so to be nice, they NEED another programmer or a project manager or an architect or whatever it is you are. If you want to write an article, there are editors who are looking for authors, who come to conferences for no reason other than to find authors. If you wrote a cool piece of code that you plan to sell for money, there are people who NEED that piece of code and just have to have the functionality it provides. You're not asking for favours. You're meeting their needs. They're meeting your needs too. That's what makes the world go round. Hook into that, and you'll get a lot of what you want.

Along with that comes the responsibility of knowing what you want. Very few people (if any) go to a conference needing to advance someone else's career. So if you are wandering around with the vague goal "I would like to advance my career" then you aren't going to find someone with the matching need. And really, why should someone else do the work of deciding what will advance your career? You're the one who knows what you're willing to do and what you really want. So stop for a minute and think about it. Then walk around knowing "I want to write an article" or "I want a new job" or whatever. And know the parameters of it, too. You want to write an article. Only for money? Or would a no-fee web site have a chance at publishing your words? You want a new job. Are you willing to move? How much do you want to earn? The time for deciding that is not while the no-fee web site editor's offer is hanging in the air between you, or right after the Microsoft recruiter has asked if you want to come out for an interview.

Know what you want. Know with as much precision as possible. Ask for it every chance you get. Don't waste people's time asking for things you can't actually accept, and keep in mind that when you ask you also offer. Know what you are offering.

Kate

Marcie blogs about donuts so I don't have to.

As for snacks at TechEd, just don't get me started.

Kate

Friday morning at Tech Ed I was talking to some folks on the C++ team about the language changes that are coming for C++ and what they really mean. I don't mean that “ref class” means a class whose memory is managed by the runtime. I mean “what is the importance to a language of its syntax, and of changes to that syntax?“ How does changing a language affect the community of people who are using that language?

Managed Extensions for C++ was an attempt to bring the CLR to C++ without changing the syntax of C++. It had the side effect, in my opinion, of changing the spirit of C++, of preventing you from writing “real“ C++ for the CLR. The new language, to be known as C++/CLI, changes the syntax, but oddly enough that makes writing C++ for the CLR more C++-like than ever.  The idioms, the ways of thinking, the patterns of development, transcend the syntax. We get destructors, we get templates, we get type-agnostic code. I want this new syntax to be widely accepted, and for people to move to .NET without leaving C++ for C#. I want this partly for selfish reasons, of course: there's value in being a C++ expert only as long as there are other C++ programmers doing my kind of work. Otherwise I'm just the last person to see the light and move to C#. But I also truly believe that if you've gone to the trouble of learning C++ (and really learning it, so you like templates and destructors and operator overloading and the like) then you are foolish to wander away from that and learn a different, less powerful language. You can't beat C++ for interop, and it's a first-class CLR language for libraries, services, and other back end work. Front end work is tough because certain product teams haven't built C++ wizards and designers, but it's not impossible. I for one am agitating for wizards and designers that support C++ and I'll report back as I make progress there.

To me, this is a turning point for C++, a chance for people who rejected the framework to stick with C++ or rejected C++ to go to the framework to get the best of both worlds. But I know that there's a limit to how many times you can change a language, and if this version is as poorly-liked as Managed Extensions, times will not be happy. The good news is I like C++/CLI a lot, and believe it will succeed as a language to bring .NET to C++ and C++ to .NET.

Who else feels the way I do? Stan Lippman, for one. He says “I personally guarantee that anyone that feels passionate about C++ will be both delighted by and engaged with the C++/CLI language that will be shipped with Visual Studio 2005.“ You might feel that “delighted“ is a bit strong, but wait till you see for yourself. And if you hate Managed Extensions, you'll chuckle to read how he feels about them. 

How can you learn more? I have an upcoming codeguru article on the syntax. Herb Sutter had a horrible timeslot at TechEd to talk about this, but you can find the slides at http://216.55.155.2/docserver/slides/DEV333_Sutte%20v3.ppt (I think you need to be a TechEd attendee to log in.) There are links all over http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/ as well. I am indeed delighted with the new syntax (am I hopeless or what, but I actually laughed with happiness when I saw how properties are done now,) and I hope you will be too -- for my sake and yours.

If you're working in C++ now but you're not working on the CLR, should you learn Managed Extensions -- the __gc stuff -- or wait for Whidbey? I guess I'll say get a copy of the Community Technical Preview (it's still pre-beta) and start learning Whidbey/2005 syntax now. If you are using __gc now, get ready for things to be a whole lot nicer really soon.

Kate

One of the hidden advantages of being a woman in any group that has mostly men is that you don't have to line up for the bathroom. Obviously some time this week the folks running the convention centre noticed this line-up imbalance, because they've changed several women's rooms to men's:

Kate

Today I did my webcast, sat on the panel for the Women In Technology Luncheon, and have been hanging in the Cabana ever since. The Cabanas are so cool! There are so many smart people here, and attendees come by with a problem and a tremendous concentration of smart people gather and solve the problem. And because of the location, everyone seems to come by. I am seeing old friends and listening to wonderful conversations. It's full of RDs, too.

If you're at TechEd and you haven't spent time in a Cabana yet, you really really have to. Trust me. The breakout sessions will be on the DVD. Come to the Cabana and even if you don't have a question, just listen in! There are presentations too, but sit close if you want to hear them.

(If you're here this afternoon, and wondering whose cell phone is playing O Canada, that would be me. It attracts Canadians remarkably well.)

Kate

I can't believe it's only Day 2. My feet are sore enough to have been here a week! Today I stayed in the hotel for a while catching up on work, then went over to the convention centre for a book signing. Unfortunately you were all more interested in eating lunch than coming by the bookstore :-(. Found a quiet place to do a bit more work, then to the RD booth for more insanity. Some very smart fellow got 6 3/4 out of 22 on the quiz -- almost beat the record which is 7. This is a seriously hard quiz. If you think you can do better, come on by.

What do you think has this crew so interested?

It's CodeRush and it is seriously cool. Scott Hanselman is making animated gifs, flash demos, you name it of this tool because you have to see it to know what it does. I saw it and I loved it. This is a high-power piece of floor: Clemens Vasters, Mark Miller (it's his product I believe), Scott Hanselman,  Goksin Bakir (just the top of his head), and Mitch Roebush (his back anyway.) That's four RDs in one place and a whole lot of brain power. The feet in the background include Guy Barrette and Malek. And let me just say, my feet love the extra thick carpet in the Microsoft Pavilion.

Kate

This year there are two flavours of speaker shirts at TechEd: the darker (more attractive, I think) blue belong to Microsoft people and the lighter ones to third parties -- that would be me. I wore one of mine today and since I have booth duty tomorrow (RD booth -- 49 and 50 in the Microsoft Pavilion in the Exhibit Hall, come on by) I'll be wearing the other one. I'm hoping to get a third shirt tomorrow. I don't know why I packed any of my own clothes, really, folks have been handing me shirts every time I turn around. No-one gives you pants as swag though. Too bad!

As well as the shirt, I have a slightly decorated badge:

I figure I might as well make myself easy to spot. So if you can't recognize me from the picture (upper left corner) on the bingo card, you can recognize my badge Most of the RDs are wearing the Regional Director Program button also, and we tend to know where each other are. So if you still need a Forte or Huckaby signature, if you missed Clemens and Scott in the RD booth tonight, or left before Goksin arrived (oh yes, he did come by later!) then flag down any RD you see and ask us if we've seen the one you're missing.

I think I just about have one piece of badge bling for every category on my blog. I got an INETA card after I took the picture. I forgot to bring my MVP lapel pin, sorry MVP program.

And of course, I can relax and think about badges and shirts and such because I did my talk and it went well. I will try to get my code (and my slides for that matter) on CommNet.

Kate

The talks must be seriously good this year. No-one is in the halls! The show is sold out, the red-jacketed aides are keeping people out of talks that are full, and yet I am not seeing many people at all. They must all be sitting in talks, or in the exhibit hall collecting swag. I have seen a few folks laden down with big bags of stuff.

I am also seeing a lot of women. I am walking by sessions and hearing women speak. I am seeing women with speaker badges and I don't know them! This is really cool. Being a woman should never be something that fast-tracks you to speaking but nor should it exclude you, and when the percentages are lower for speakers, even attendees, than in the industry as a whole it feels wrong. This year it feels more balanced. Fun!

Several people have come up to me and asked me to initial over my picture on the RD Bingo card. When I'm feeling extroverted I have even handed out extra bingo cards to those who don't have them. I've seen the fabulous prize now and let me just say that even the most swag-jaded of those I showed mine to said “ooh, cool, I want one of those.”

C++ talks are few and far between this year. Kang Su had one already, mine is in 45 minutes, there's a 64-bit one tomorrow and the super vital important “language changes for Whidbey” talk is Friday afternoon at 2:45. Aaargh. I will be on a plane. If you don't already know the language changes that are coming then you need to be at that talk. Change your plane tickets if you must. Come do the HOL that lets you play with the new features, or at least some of them, as well, it's DEV11 and it's in Room 6F.

Kate

After an awful pair of flights (weather delays, and far too much time in the Chicago airport) I reached San Diego about midnight local time. Even as tired as I was, I appreciated the small airport, and the pretty drive to the hotel along the water. It's warm but not hot, and the palm trees are neat.

Registration was as I expected - lines were huge, the process was quick once you got to the front. The wireless is spotty but working now. RDs are a ton of fun and the convention centre is both huge and full of food. I haven't seen my room yet but will in a few hours.

I now have a handful of cards for RD Bingo and the Apprentice.NET so if you see me before you get one, ask me for one. And since I'm on the card, if you see me and you already have one, get me to initial it. Booth 49 and 50 is where the RD program can be found.

Kate

I do believe I'm ready for TechEd.

The suitcase is packed -- but not too packed, have to leave room for swag. I have my passport for the border and my driver's licence for registration (I had  a huge delay at PDC because I arrived at the conference centre without photo ID). I have my eyeshades and earplugs for the plane. I have my Regional Director program button and my little Canadian flag to put on my badge holder. I have some US cash so I can get overpriced coffee in the Chicago airport. My demos work. The webcast software is on the new laptop. The VPC and my session are on my little 20 gig USB drive as well as the laptop. I even found my MSDN card. I have sunscreen in my carryon, I have the MP3 player and the digital camera, chargers for everything (it's going to be another long trip through security) and all the bits and pieces of paper that make me feel warm and fuzzy -- hotel reservation, plane ticket, my schedule, ... yep, I'm ready!

Yesterday I wore my Tech Ed 99 Tshirt. That conference really changed the way we make software and changed us as a company. I hope Tech Ed 2004 does the same for you, if you're going.

Kate

On Patrick Tisseghem's blog I spotted a link to a Sharepoint quiz. I was pleased to get 9 out of 10 (I lost one mark by underestimating Front Page, easily done.) There are other office quizzes you can take when you get to the site. Nice way to keep from working on a beautiful morning.

Kate 
 

Scott Hanselman is planning a world of fun for the RD Booth at Tech Ed. I'm beginning to feel sad I'm only signed up for two hours. Probably the coolest thing is that someone will win an invitation to the “Influencers Dinner” Wednesday night -- but only if you can prove your .NET prowess.

Tech Ed is next week! How scary is that? Here's some of what I'll be doing:

  - DEV331 "Visual C++: Using the .NET Framework in Win32/MFC Applications" is Monday afternoon, 3:15pm, in Room 10
  - Working in the Regional Director booth. If you're attending TechEd, be sure to get an "RD Bingo" card. Then find us (we're giving talks, hanging in the Cabanas, proctoring in the Hands on Labs and more) and get us to mark your card. Get a bingo, bring it to the booth, and get a prize. As for the booth (it's in the Microsoft pavilion) let's just say there will more prize opportunities there.
  - Doing my webcast again, this time Live From Tech Ed, at 11am Pacific time, on Wednesday. Of course, you can listen from anywhere, and I hope you do.
  - Serving on the panel of the Women in Technology lunch, Wednesday. All women at Tech Ed (for whatever reason) are welcome to come and join the conversation.
  - going to the Influencer party with MVPs, RDs, and assorted other VIPs.
  - meeting you! Why not? Set it up in RIO. I'd love to talk about whatever you're working on and why you want me to know about it, or how I can help you.

What else? Well I want to go to sessions and BOFs but I haven't had a chance to sit down with CommNet yet and plan that. I also have Cabana time and will be spending as much time soaking in information as I can. That includes information about what everyone wants to read about or hear about in talks, and what people are sick of already.

Kate

The latest INETA newsletter features a description of the East of Toronto UG's first meeting, written by our own Marcie Robillard. You'll find other useful INETA information and annoucements in there, including TechEd BOFs and the DevSource programming contest.

Kate

Finding your way around the new combined campus of Durham College, which has existed for decades, and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, which is brand new, is most certainly a challenge. As far as I can tell Durham has one giant building on the campus, a fractal called the Willey building and divided into wings and blocks named with letters (A, B, and then surprisingly JW.) The University buildings have stirring poetic names like UA1 (for University Academic) and the signs aren't up yet. Construction is everywhere, you have to use temporary roads, and the security guards don't know where the new buildings are. What fun!

Despite that, about 30 brave people managed to find us in UA1350, a super cool brand new lecture hall, and to hear Ed Musters talk about Garbage Collection. Shortly after I got home I learned we've got our official INETA status. Our name, at least for the moment, is East of Toronto .NET User Group. My next mission, since we have status and I've booked speakers until November, is to increase my swag inventory and to make the web site hum with downloads and information. And one attendee has already agreed to edit the campus maps to include the building we meet in

Kate

This morning I've had two emails asking if the user group is meeting Tuesday. YES IT IS. Please come, Ed Musters will be talking about .NET Garbage Collection. You can register at http://gtaeast.torontoug.net/535.aspx and I want you to register so we know how many are coming. Tell your friends, and I'll see you there!

So who tried to sneak a blog out into the world? Michele Leroux Bustamante, that's who. She's an RD, based in San Diego, and my go-to for the other kind of interop questions -- interop to Java and that sort of thing. For example, she's running  a Web Services Interoperability Education Day, on May 22nd, to show .NET and Java tools with WS-Security and WS-Policy support. So, read it!

Or whatever it is we end up calling ourselves. We're meeting on Tuesday the 18th, 6pm. It's not in the same place as last month - we outgrew that already. It's on the campus of Durham College and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, in a brand-new building called UA1 that isn't on the campus maps yet. Apparently it's just east of (and connected to) the Justice Wing (JW) of the Willey building. They suggested we park in the Champions lot and come in through the Athletic Centre.

Ed Musters, president of the Toronto group, will be speaking on Garbage Collection. Please visit the group site and register for the meeting so that we order enough pizza. There were issues registering before today, I know, so go do it while you're thinking of it, OK?

VSLive has been over for days and days and still no blog from me, because I'm tired as I always am after a conference. I used to blame it on the flying and the airport time, but since I drove to this one, it must be the conference itself. I did four talks, and yes that's a lot of talks, and a roundtable user group thing. I had a fun time with old friends, made some new ones, and stuck up for C++ on cue. The VSLive speaker list is RD-rich so I enjoyed seeing the gang.

My best visual memory from the entire conference has to be watching Richard Hale Shaw trying to throw swag into the crowd -- tip for next year: boomerangs are not the ideal item to try to throw into the crowd . My favourite thing to say as the conference wound down: see you in two weeks! OK it's two-and-a-half, but still, Tech Ed is just around the corner!

Almost as soon as I noticed (and before I could report it) the only flaw I had found in dasBlog has been fixed. My C++ Category used to always come up empty, though of course I had plenty of posts in it, thanks to the punctuation in the category name. Today a completely painless upgrade to 1.6 fixed that. Yay!

I spent all day Monday hanging with almost all of the Canadian RDs. If you were wondering who we all are, you can find nine of us at http://msdn.microsoft.com/canada/rd/. Or check the individual pages such as http://kate.regionaldirector.ca. (If by chance you're reading this blog entry at http://kate.regionaldirector.ca, then you need to check out http://www.gregcons.com/kateblog/ which is my regular home.)

About the picture: I hate it. What can I tell you, I hate pretty well all pictures of me but the ones that people get hold of electronically I hate even more. Enough about that until I managed to replace it with one I can stand.

What do RDs talk about when you get us all in a room? Business challenges, personal challenges, what's coming in Whidbey, what we're excited about for Longhorn, patch management, and a bunch of other stuff that's under NDA for a while yet. We also talked about user groups, Deep Dives (like this Smart Client one in Toronto or this Web Services Security one in Toronto; there are some in Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Toronto too) and conferences. VSLive starts tomorrow, then all the TechEds through the summer and the Microsoft Partner Conference in July. Lots of chances for us all to get on stage. We also talked about the things we do beyond speaking, webcasts, and other community touches. Things like my Code Guru column, the RD column on MSDN, books, and developing content. Most people never think about where all the whitepapers on MSDN, the Hands on Labs and PDC and TechEd, and the presentations for tours and events actually come from. Sure, lots are written by Microsoft people, but plenty are written by smart folks who are really into the topic, and a lot of those are RDs. And of course, we talked about our day jobs and the work we're taking on. Don't forget, pretty much all the RDs are available for consulting gigs although some of us are less available than others.

Looking forward to the next one already.

So, read any good buffer-overrun articles lately? Notice how they like to show the hapless programmer cheerfully using strcpy() to copy 11 characters (or 11,000 maybe) starting at the location where only 10 characters worth of space was allocated? Or maybe it's strcat that, merrily continuing till it finds that null terminator in the source string, goes way past its boundaries. Did you ever think to yourself as you read these examples, “Why can't strcpy, strcat, and the rest of them save stupid programmers from themselves?” (It's ourselves, really, but we all suffer from a little denial that we could ever write that sort of code.)

That's an idea, let's replace the naive and trusting version of strcpy, that assumes no-one ever gives it inappropriate arguments, with another version that doesn't always do as it's asked! Why not? I'll tell you why not: this is C++. And if C++ had a motto, it would be “you're the programmer!” or as I sometimes say, “OK, it's your foot!” Seriously, changing the way strcpy behaves might break code that isn't broken or insecure right now. In C++, we're allowed to write code that some compilers wouldn't let us write.

And if you were going to rewrite things, you might like to change the signature anyway, so that you could return an error code or other information. That means what you really need is a replacement for strcpy (and the rest) that's a little safer. And maybe to have the compiler warn you on your calls to strcpy so you can go through by hand and switch to these safer ones case-by-case.

That sounds like a plan. And I don't even have to do it. It's coming in the updated versions of the C Runtime Library for Whid-- er, Visual Studio 2005. And while they're at it, they're adding some overrun protection to the STL in the same timeframe. Intrigued? Read the whitepaper on MSDN. Michael Howard, coauthor of  Writing Secure Code,  lays out some of the problems and how the secure versions of old CRT standbys can keep your code out of hot water.

The first meeting of the east of Toronto user group filled our room when up against serious competition in the form of a vital hockey game (hey, it is a Canadian user group, after all.) So I'm pleased to say that I have a room for the summer that holds TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY people. I rather doubt we'll fill that. I'll need a new room in September though, so drop me a line if you know of one.

And if you've joined my group (or someone else's) you can come to the special user group event at VSLive  on May 5th -- whether you've registered for VSLive or not! Then afterwards you can come to the VSLive Midnight Madness which actually starts at 8pm, again whether you've registered for VSLive or not. It's like a free peek at what VSLive is like, so you'll know for next year, and a user group event at the same time. We're going to have a round table featuring INETA speakers who are speaking at VSLive: me, Keith Pleas, Richard Hale Shaw,  and whoever else agrees to do it -- I'm not the only one who can line up speakers quickly, and this event is pulling together quickly.

You have to be a member of a user group, so if you plan to head to the Congress Centre in Toronto Wednesday night next week, join the group nearest you now, then register online. See you there!

If you're a regular reader of Julie Lerman's blog, you know she likes to announce other people's wins and successes whenever she can -- she's covered plenty of mine. So turn about is fair play -- Julie is just the third Rock Star interview for Ziff Davis' DevSource. Want to know what matters to her, and what she's doing about it? Read the interview.

Are you interested in C++ in the .NET world, but don't want to run out and buy Visual Studio just to try the compiler? Have you heard that the Microsoft compiler is actually a powerful, fast compiler for native applications as well as those targeting the runtime? Have you even wondered about using the Visual C++ compiler to build code that you'll actually deploy onto other operating systems?

Well, how about a free copy of the Visual C++ compiler? And linker of course, exactly the same tools that ship with Visual Studio. And libraries: the C Runtime Library and the Standard Template Library. Of course you can produce either native code or code that targets the Common Language Runtime. And to round out the toolkit there are four samples that show off some specific features of the tools, with accompanying whitepapers that explain those features and the samples.

Get yours today at http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/, where you'll also find links to the whitepapers.

Absolutely Seen and Recommended, with the disclaimer that some of the work in there is my own

Whenever you hold a free event, whether it's a user group meeting, a Microsoft-sponsored event, or a free seminar, you can expect about 50% of those who register to show up. We had 30 people registered for last night's first meeting of my new user group. A lot of people told me “I would love to be there, but I already know “What is .NET?” and I am NOT missing this hockey game.” So we expected about 10.

Instead we got 33, it was standing room only and I didn't even care that my aging laptop, no doubt sensing the imminent arrival of its replacement, currently on a truck headed to me from the States, blue screened on about slide 5! I just talked while it rebooted.

Next month we will be in a bigger room! Go Oshawa! (And thanks Leafs after all: without the game more people would have come than we could have fit in the room.)

And don't the stupid Maple Leafs, who clearly did not check with me before the game, go and lose last night, forcing a Game 7 which will be Tuesday -- my UG meeting!

Come on, east-of-Toronto people, you don't need to watch the game, we'll give you updates at the break or something. Or maybe it will go double-overtime again meaning you can watch the end when you get home.

My new user group (that doesn't really have a name yet) is meeting on Tuesday the 20th. That would be tomorrow. Over the weekend I realized it would be good, at this first meeting, to list the next few meetings and their topics. So I emailed three people who had said they would speak. By this morning I have five speakers booked and confirmed. What a great gang! So if you come to Oshawa on the third Tuesday of the month, you're going to see one of these terrific speakers: Ed Musters, Scott Bellware, Adam Gallant, Marcie Robillard, and Jason Beres. I'm still looking for more, and I'm also looking for sponsors, so if you're in the Oshawa / Durham / east-of-Toronto-but-not-exactly-Ottawa-yet zone, let's talk!

Why did I put this under consulting life? Because I think it's funny that we could sort all this out over a weekend. None of us have normal office hours, and none of us mind making firm commitments using email and IM.

Early on in the webcast, a build failed, something about couldn't write to C:. It might have been full, but I decided I wasn't about to settle down to clear off my hard drive in front of attendees, so I carried on without demos. Luckily these slides feature all my code and screen shots of the important bits of the demos (property pages, ildasm output etc) so it worked out ok. (I think; I haven't seen the evals yet .)

I'll be doing it again May 26th, which is actually during TechEd, and perhaps this time it will go a little more smoothly. My head was spinning by the time I finished this one!

On Friday the 16th, I'll be doing a webcast of my TechEd 2003 talk, Head-Spinning Interoperability in Visual C++. This was a very popular talk at Tech Ed USA in Dallas and I repeated it at Tech Ed Europe in Barcelona, a little the worse for jetlag. To register, visit http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032247638&Culture=en-US. If you live in the US, you could even win a pass to Tech Ed!

I've been working for a while on setting up a .NET user group for people who live east of Toronto. I'm not sure what it will be called: Eastern GTA, Oshawa/Whitby, Durham, I really don't know. The first meeting will be in Oshawa at the EDS offices on April 20th from 6-9pm. I'll present “What is .NET?“ and introduce the people who are helping to organize the group. We plan to meet the third Tuesday of every month and to run very much like the Toronto .NET UG, which I helped to found.

For more details including a map and directions, please visit http://gtaeast.torontoug.net and register. (We have to order the right amount of pizza.) Attendance is free, membership is free, even the food and drinks are free. Meet other people who live east of Toronto and are working on .NET. See semi-famous people like DataGridGirl and me. Learn more about a specific .NET topic. How can you go wrong?

See you there!

This is the "big deal" day for me, a day spent with the C++ team immersed in "what's new in Whidbey" and beyond. I've just about completed my mapping of faces to email addresses and delivered some copies of my book to a few people who really helped me while I was writing it. I am taking notes like a maniac, on new IDE features for C++ specifically, on new ways of managing property settings for C++ projects, on converting from old Managed C++ syntax to the new syntax, and so on.

The Developer Tools Roadmap has been updated. It shows some of what's new in Whidbey and looking forward into Orcas. Embedded C++ moving into Visual Studio, the new C++ syntax, templates and generics together, the true return of deterministic destruction with reference types allocated on the managed heap or the stack as you prefer, major optimization improvements for both native and managed code (especially PGO), and more. Of course whatever you see listed under other languages may well apply to C++ too, things like improvments in the Base Class Libraries, ADO.NET, and the rest.

On a "no laptop" day at the conference centre, the executives came to talk to us. It's always nice to be told "we like you, we really really like you" and that's what we (the MVPs) heard. I was also pleased with the questions that came from the audience. There's a lot of awareness about deeply technical matters but also business matters such as licensing.

Lunch was with the product groups and I had a fun time listening to other people's questions and asking a few of my own. Our table was supposedly about the new C++ syntax, but I also learned about interop performance improvements (significant) in Whidbey and some nice IDE changes that I hadn't noticed yet.

I missed quite a bit of the sessions Monday because I had some urgent fires to put out and some other Microsoft-related business to take care of. I did enjoy hearing Don Box again, and seeing some things I just hadn't found time to notice yet. It was a beautiful day here, sunny and bright, and I actually saw the mountains for a few minutes. I was sure that was just something locals tell visitors, the whole seeing the mountains thing. Then we had a C++-specific dinner. What other group would gleefully accept a 64 page paper as they get on the bus to go to dinner, and then immediately start to read it? I know I read mine too.

I arrived in Seattle Sunday afternoon and went to two receptions that evening. I met people, took pictures (not enough) and picked up some to-do items. I had a huge fight with my own power supply and then the hotel high speed. I think I hate technology. I love what it gets me though, so I'll put up with it. There are a number of RDs here, and my badge reads MVP/RD which is a really nice touch.

I flew to Minnesota and back, and then after 36 hours home I flew to Seattle, changing planes in Chicago. That's 4 legs in 3 days and 2 of those legs were significantly delayed by mechanical problems. Yikes! I hope I've used them up for a while. The delay leaving Chicago was caused because the guy driving the baggage ramp bumped into the plane and dented it. They had to get a structural engineer to pronounce judgement on whether the size of the dent meant the plane was out of service.

And the lining up and identifying yourself is reaching epic proportions. Here's how it went for Minnesota: drive to Park N Fly. Walk in, put down suitcase and carry-on, tell someone who I am, get piece of paper, pick everything up. Walk 20 feet to Air Canada desk, put everything down. Tell someone who I am and prove it with passport, also show air miles card in case the travel agent didn't pass it along. Receive piece of paper. Walk outside and wait for bus. Put everything down. Bus comes. Pick everything up, go on bus, tell driver which terminal I want, put everything down.

Reach my terminal, pick everything up, go inside, wait in line to recieve baggage tag. Prove who I am by showing passport and boarding pass. Answer questions about my packing and my luggage. Pick everything up (including bag which will be with me through several more lines yet.) Show boarding pass to prove I am allowed into immigration area. Line up for US Immigration. This line is about 45 minutes long so I am pulled out after ten minutes into much shorter line. Reach immigration guy. Show passport, boarding pass, customs form which I had filled out while waiting in some line or another. Answer questions. Admitted. Pick everything up, walk 20 feet, hand customs form to some other guy. Walk 50 feet, join lineup to have checked baggage x-rayed. Wait while bag comes out. Wait. In there a long time. Eventually it's rejected so I have to carry it over to some other table and wait patiently and non-threateningly while someone hand-searches it. Then she escorts me (I feel so trusted) to the conveyor belt. At least that's gone. Now me and my carry on are headed for the next security checkpoint. Take out laptop and cell phone. Take off coat. Show boarding pass again. Take off shoes because they always set off the metal detectors. Get told off by security people for putting shoes in tray, they must go directly on belt. Whatever. Wait for my stuff. Wait some more while they swab the laptop and hand search my bag to find a suspicious looking pen. Once it was out in the open air it was pronounced safe and returned to me. Put everything back in the bag. Head for gate.

Oh dear. Gate is downstairs. That means, yes indeed, join line up to wait for shuttle bus. Get on bus. Ride to other side of airport. Find subgate. Wait. We are moved to another subgate; pick everything up to walk 100 feet to new subgate. Wait some more.  Ah, finally, we're boarding. Show boarding pass and passport. Onto plane. Don't forget to turn off cellphone! Put everything away and out of reach. I'm a nervous wreck!

Coming to Seattle I had an extra step in all of that -- though I didn't get my luggage hand searched this time -- because I was flying business class (using up my points in case Air Canada really goes bust this time) so I had to prove my identity at two business-class lounges, though I can't really complain about that. I was traveling on one hour sleep (I would have had two if not for the time change) so I kind of zoned through the whole thing and don't really remember much of it.

And airlines wonder why plane travel hasn't picked back up?

I really enjoyed speaking at the Twin Cities .NET User Group April 1st (no fooling!) and just haven't had a minute since then to stop and write about it. I repeated the Remoting talk I did in Montreal and it went nicely. I got to meet another RD (Farhan Muhammad) and an MVP from South Africa on his way to Seattle, Simon Stewart. He did another full talk after mine, on GDI+. Some interesting material on speeding drawing -- I liked it.

I read this morning that XP is gaining a free language pack for Inuktitut, one of the official languages in Nunavut. If you've never seen Windows and Office with the menus and toolbars in another language, you'd be surprised how much you notice all that text when it's not in a language you know. (My brother uses Windows in Japanese as often as he does in English.) Inuktitut is the first Canadian aboriginal language to gain a language pack and Nunavut officials say it will help them run their offices and also encourage young people to retain their language skills in both English and Inuktitut rather than drifting to English only as they enter working life. No dates announced, but expect the language pack in about a year.

The first instance of the MSDN column for Regional Directors, .NET in the Real World, is up! Billy Hollis writes persuasively about smart clients. He also reminds us all that everything old is new again. Like Billy, I have some grey in my hair, and I enjoy those times when having a long memory gives you an advantage over those who only remember one or two waves of technology.

The RD column is to be an ongoing experience. We'll be writing about why certain technologies matter, and what they mean to developers and to businesses. It's a great opportunity to hear some wisdom from some very experienced people. Check it out!

We're a small consulting firm and we take on a variety of projects. Some are just a few days, others last months and months. We live with a spectrum of decision-making styles from our clients as well. Sometimes a prospect (or returning customer) will go from “can you do this? how much will it be? when can it be done?” to “ok, make it so” in a matter of days or even hours. Other times we wait through weeks of “getting things approved” in order to do a week of work. This means that when we agree to do something, we're not always sure when we're actually going to be doing it.

This month the stars have aligned to push me up against a fence of hard deadlines all coming at once. I have a lab to complete for TechEd (you're coming to TechEd, aren't you?) and the first draft of my slides are due. I'm writing some samples and documentation (more on that later,) that are due March 31st. My slides are due for VSLive (you're coming to VSLive, aren't you? Early bird ends the 31st and you can get 10% off by dropping my name -- literally, the discount code is KATE.) The conferences aren't until May but prep time is now. My website accessibility project is being reviewed by the committee this week. And our major intranet project keeps growing and growing as the end users like what we've done so far and keep asking for more. The client where I delivered 49 days of .NET training over the winter is kicking off ASP.NET and Sharepoint projects like there's no tomorrow, and they need days of mentoring.

In this business, you're either insanely busy trying to meet the deadlines others impose, or you have nothing to do and you're scrambling for work. I think I prefer it this way, though I am looking forward to some time off. Last night in a Messenger conversation one of my deadline owners told me “enjoy your weekend” -- my reply? “Luckily I enjoy working!” And I do.

My trip to  Montreal was tremendous fun. The venue was beautiful - Microsoft is moving offices so we were in a museum - and the people were interested and asked great questions. Remoting may be replaced with Indigo some day but it's a real technique and people are using it now. I enjoyed explaining it.

I took the train to Montreal because it's quicker than flying. It's about a four hour train ride, and a one hour flight, but there's so much other lining up and waiting involved with flying. For the train, I drive into the parking lot, park for free within sight of the tracks, walk a hundred yards or so to the platform, and get on the train. Not a single instance of lining up, ticket showing, name saying, bag unpacking and repacking, form filling or question answering. Then I go sit in first class with laptop power, free food and drink, and now free wireless internet access the whole way. (After a few minutes a person comes by to give me a menu, and later when he collects it back and asks what I want, he asks for my ticket.) I arrived downtown and walked to my hotel without going outside, and was only ten minutes from the venue. And to top it off, first class train travel is cheaper than economy flying. Cheaper, faster, and nicer. Can't go wrong, really.

My favourite sysadmin downloaded dasBlog for me (thanks to Clemens for writing it) and installed it, leaving me with only the task of filling it up with stuff. I can't write much today because I'm getting ready to go to Montreal tomorrow for the Montreal Microsoft .NET Architecture User Group where I'm going to talk about Remoting. Looking forward to the train ride already.