The blog of dlaa.me

My new group at Microsoft has me learning ASP.NET. While I'm no stranger to .NET (having coded in C# for a few years now), ASP.NET hasn't been something I've used before now. Sure, I've had a few ideas about simple web pages that seem like they could be handy, but I've never had the time (or web server) to play around with ASP.NET. Well, it looks like my time has come...

The good news is that it's easier than ever to get started with ASP.NET. Start by downloading Visual Web Developer Express, a professional-grade development environment that's free for a year! (It even comes with a small, development-friendly web server that will save you from having to install IIS - nice touch!) Then surf on over to http://asp.net/ where you'll find a wealth of information about ASP.NET. Pay particular attention to the Tutorials which provide a great overview of ASP.NET. And while you're there, maybe you'll want to check out the technology preview of Atlas, an ASP.NET extension that's going to make AJAX applications simple to develop.

Lots of good stuff. No money down. What are you waiting for??

Truth be told, I'm still not sure how I feel about the use of blogs as a medium for technical discourse... But sometimes the best way to learn about something is to do it, so I'm starting my own blog and we'll see where it takes me. I'm going to try to stay focused on technology and coding and would like to post new content a few times each week. I'll definitely try to keep up with any comments that people are generous enough to post. Other than that, I have no particular agenda; topics will probably be drawn from my daily experiences and based on my areas of interest.

My work experience at Microsoft: maintenance and development of the Windows CE Pocket Internet Explorer application (including the addition of JScript support and a DOM), some work on the Windows CE Terminal Server Client, considerable work on the cellular infrastructure for the Windows Mobile Smartphone and Pocket PC devices (including radio interfaces, SMS, and WAP), and quite a bit of work on the MSN Instant Messenger servers (including application development and manageability improvements).

I've recently joined a new team here at Microsoft and am looking forward to playing with (and blogging about) many of the new technologies coming out of the Developer Division. I hope folks find this blog useful - I'll do what I can to keep it interesting!