Wow - I'm really impressed how sweet Windows 7 is compared to WIndows XP or even Vista! I consider Windows XP and Windows Vista crap since I've spent a good amount of time learning about and becoming more efficient with Windows 7 - especially when using multiple applications. I believe most users will be quite impressed with Windows 7 if they make the official move on October 22nd, 2009. As you probably know, TechNet and MSDN subscribers were given access to Windows 7 two months sooner than the general public - nice!

The big bummer I discovered was that I couldn't upgrade from the Release Candidate (RC) version of Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 7 Release to Manufacturing (RTM). Well - that was until I found this link: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3075/how-to-upgrade-the-windows-7-rc-to-rtm/

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

There may be a few things that aren't upgraded properly but I don't know of anything yet.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) - I pronounce the word, URL, like the name, "Earl", and it drives my brother nuts!

One of the things that I learned to appreciate while digging through MVC is the power of "clean", easy-to-find URLs. I consider a clean URL to be a Web address that is both easy to type in and yet also easy to guess.

For example, if I want to navigate my Web browser to Microsoft's Sql Server site, I can pretty much guess that it is http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver or even http://www.microsoft.com/sql I don't have to worry about specifying the name of the Web page in the browser's address bar.

A lot of users skip adding the "www" at the beginning of the URL as well. For example, this site, http://mndeveloper.com works with or without the "www" prefix. However, this site doesn't work without the prefix: http://metricsthatmatter.com

Bottom Line: Clean, guessable URLs equate to more business!

Users give up easy if they can't find something. The last thing you want is a site user struggling to find something on your Web site. Test by guessing the links on your site and ensure that the primary business domains have guessable URLs that work.

One great way to do this is to ask an experienced Web user who does not work at your company to guess what the URLs may be for the company's primary domains. Test their answers against your current site. You may be surprised with the results.

Good day!

It was announced last Fall but I'm finding out now. There's so much to stay abreast of with Microsoft developer technologies!

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 will ship with support for ASP.NET MVC and, of course, AJAX which was released with .NET 3.5.

However, AJAX and MVC will also have the popular JavaScript library, JQuery, included with it. VS 2010 will even offer IntelliSense for the scripting library. Cool.

Note that this is the first time Microsoft has ever released with plans to support an open source product. This could be the beginning of the Microsoft recognizing and embracing open source (outside of www.codeplex.com, of course).

Let's call it by its real name: "nHibernate by Microsoft."

It's an object relational model (ORM) that automatically manages object persistance without necessitating the need for storage details.

Model-View-Controller has gotten a heck of a lot of attention lately. It's an entirely new way to develop Web pages using .NET and VS 2008. It's not a replacement for good old fashion Web pages, mind you, but it's a neat alternative way to develop Web solutions.

If you're interested in attending a free two hour seminar where I'll be explaining ASP.NET MVC from the ground up, sign up here: www.intertech.com/resource/Briefing.aspx

Hey - if you're an ASP.NET Web developer, you're going to have to learn this stuff eventually!

It's going to be included with .NET 4.0 and VS 2010 and (I promise you!) you don't want to be the last gal or guy on your team who doesn't yet understand this stuff.

This is an "intro" presentation to ASP.NET MVC and I'm a full time instructor. No questions will seem stupid.

I hope to see you there. This will be a great way to start our three-day "4th of July" weekend - understanding the basics of ASP.NET MVC.

Cheers!