Here. Rounding, I'm in the top 0% of the richest people in the world. Then how come I still work for a living?!?

Here. Steve Hoag gives a nice overview of various kinds of Windows Forms drag-n-drop, including text, pictures, files and between lists. The code is in VB.NET, but we're all one big happy family!

Here. George Bullock, a colleague at MS who's birthday happens to fall on 9/11, has had the "coolness" taken out of the day for him and sent around a mail that I share part of.

Here. It's great the a certain company in the Pacific Northwest has empowered technically savvy folks with the thousands of dollars needed to pursue these cases. Hopefully a few wins will cause ambulance chasers to smell blood in the water and start taking these cases in groups. Do spammers make enough money to activate lawyers against them?

Here. Not quite knowing where Josh was going, I really liked it when he said, "... with the advent of managed code, our devs are somewhere close to twice as productive as before..." However, with the end of that same sentence, he sent chills down my spine, "... this means that one dev can overwhelm a tester pretty quickly." He goes on to wonder whether, because managed code has fewer bugs, we'll be able to keep going or have to increase the number of testers. The thing that scares me is that testers are a rare breed, hard to find and hard to keep, especially as many of them want to cut their own code, not report bugs on someone else's. Is the next growth industry in the IT industry testers? Is the next DevelopMentor an out-sourced QA company?

Here. I always enjoy Rory's writings. This time, he tells the stories of some amazingly dedicated coders and then asks the question "Why do you code?" I think I started coding because I was such an anti-social geek that I needed something over which my actions had some reasonable, predictable outcome. Plus, I have that kind of a mind well-suited to programming. I continue to code as a way to a) learn how MS's latest technologies work and b) make my computer do what I want it to do. How about you?

Here. "Everyone collects utilities, and most folks have a list of a few that they feel are indispensable. Here's mine. Each has a distinct purpose, and I probably touch each at least a few times a week. For me, util means utilitarian and it means don't clutter my tray. If it saves me time, and seamlessly integrates with my life, it's the bomb."

My 8-year old was proud to remind me that today was the two-year anniversary of 9/11. I was surprised that he knew and grateful to his school for taking the time to discuss it. He then went on to tell me how cool he thought the explosions were, which left me less pleased with his school. When I told him about my own experiences that day and how many people died, it immediately took all of the “coolness” right out of the day for him.

George Bullock, a colleague at MS who’s birthday happens to fall on 9/11, has also had the “coolness” taken out of the day for him and sent around a mail that starts this way:

“Let us pause on 9/11 to remember and honor the thousands killed, maimed, put out of work, and traumatized two years ago; also to honor the heroic, living and dead, who rose to the occasion on that terrible day. May God rest their souls and keep and protect their loved ones. May God also keep and protect our men and women serving here and abroad. Yes, there is much difference of opinion about what’s happening in the world today; nevertheless, I think we all support the men and women of our armed forces and wish them a safe return home. They sacrifice a lot to serve their country.”

Personally, I try very hard not to let the terrorists get to me. Unfortunately, they have. Even time I get the anal probe treatment at the airport or a personal freedom is taken away by the Patriot Act or my sister-in-law is afraid to fly (and flat out refuses to fly on that day), they win. More subtly, ever time a US politician uses “terrorism” to push their own agenda, they also win. Please don’t let them win. Have courage. Try to understand what it was that drove them to terrorism to attract our attention. Compare their lives to ours. But don’t let them win. Don’t let them take the right to the pursuit of happiness out of our lives.