Here. I'm heading up to Redmond to do a taping of the .NET Show on Monday on the topic of managed code. Robert's idea is to show folks that still think of .NET as managed only just what they're missing. I've got 15 minutes for a code demo. Suggestions?

Here. Rory Blyth put the Amazon.com web service to work building RSS feeds to search for new products in your favorite categories, further pushing the "RSS as intelligent search agent" idea [1]. And, if anyone buys from links on his feeds, he promises to give the money to charity (until such time as it provides enough income for him to sip umbrella drinks on the beach, I presume : ). [1] http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/showTopic.aspx?ixTopic=703

Here. He's right and he's wrong. He's right because "sealed" let the WinForms team build something more efficient w/o rebuilding all of the Win32 controls in managed code. He's wrong because the use of it stops me from deriving from ImageList (which I've wanted to do). So, while sealed is useful, it still sucks. : )

Here. Maybe he's not a official legend, but he's done what I've never been able to do: build a successful software business. Eric, you're a legend in my mind! Plus, his site lampoons the "official" software legend site [1] nicely. : ) http://www.softwarelegends.com

Here. The one where Windows makes my life better.

Here. Remember when we were going to have intelligent search agents that would search the web for us and find things that matched our interests? Well, Wired does it today with search results returned in RSS format. Clicking on the link for this item gives me an RSS feed for "longhorn" related items from Wired News, making sure I see what's up on that topic (as far as Wired News is concerned, anyway). To compose a new RSS feed tailored to your tastes, surf to wired.com and enter your search term. When it returns, clicking on the (rss) link will give you an RSS feed to drop into your aggregrator (my favorite is SharpReader). Then, whenever your aggregator updates, it'll check for new search results and bam! intelligent search agents acting in the background on your behalf. Very, very cool. [scriptingnews.com]

Here. With the support for scripting built into .NET [1], I'm surprised it took this long for someone to rebuild the COM-based Active Scripting for .NET (although I wish it'd been us and that it was free : ). [1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/08/VisualStudioforApplications/default.asp

I just had a “Windows Moment.” I was on the phone with my Dad who has Windows XP and was having trouble. Since he paid for my computer science degree, he assumes that I’ll be his tech support. In fact, everyone in my family assumes I’ll be their tech support; it’s annoying as hell! I don’t know how support folks diagnose and fix problems over the phone all day long. More than 5 minutes and I’m ready to say, “How much was that computer science degree, Dad? I’ll write you a check.”

Anyway, after trying it for about 20 minutes (and failing), I asked him if he had the Remote Desktop settings on his My Computer->Remote tab, thinking that I could use terminal services to solve his problem. Of course, since he was running XP Home, he didn’t, but he did have Remote Assistance. So we tried it. And even though he’s in the back woods outside of Fargo, ND and on dial-up (isn’t this a commercial for Windows XP?), he was able to email me a request for remote assistance (Start->Help->Ask for assistance->Invite a friend to connect to your computer with Remote Assistance) and I was able to connect to his computer (through my firewall!) and solve his problem (half of Office ’97 was installed on C: and half on D: and wasn’t happy about it at all).

Wow. That’s a feature that made my life better.