Disappointed, yet optimistic

I was hoping to be sitting in a crowded hall in Amsterdam this week, but unfortunately I was unable to attend Tech-Ed Europe as I’d planned. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to go, but with a bit of forward planning I may get to go the US one (the “proper” one) next year. There’s always PDC’05 as well if I’m lucky…

I’ve got mail!

Thanks to Microsoft, the postman delivered lots of goodies for me :

I didn’t ask for the last two, but they were nice enough to send them to me. In fact I now have four 60 day trials of VS.NET 2003 as they include one in each of the other packs (except of course VS 2005). Shame I’ve already got a licensed copy really…

Now why did I get all this? I signed up for MSDN Connection – a free service from Microsoft. As well as the free stuff, I also get discounts on various things including 50% off selected books. Not bad at all.

One interesting nugget which I’ve not yet looked into is in the Web Developer Kit : ASP.NET for PHP programmers. If it’s any good I’ll show to some of my PHP orientated associates.

Off I go to install Visual Studio 2005…

¹ Listed as ASP.NET Resource Kit, but contains far more stuff than the one I downloaded ages ago.