Take a look at the ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 2.

Krakow has a review of what he calls "the world's first super smart phone".

Via Rob Relyea, two good nuggets of knowledge on how to get some cool graphics represented as XAML for use in your WPF or Silverlight applications.  Two great tools for non-designers to get some nice graphic images into their apps - Paste2XAML and Tim Heuer's PDF to XAML workflow (screencast).

then you are usually one of two camps - you either hate Notre Dame or you love 'em.  I'm in the smaller third camp that doesn't really care if they have a good or bad season, but I loathe the media hype they get year in and year out.  The over-hype of Charlie Weiss (aka Jabba) has made me want to puke on many occasions.  And if I hear the phrases "Return to Glory" or "Awaken the Echoes" one more time I could be driven over the edge.  How many times to you get to "Return to Glory"? 

ESPN, amazingly, has an article on under achieving football programs.  Unfortunately, my beloved Michigan State Spartans make the list (as well they should), but by miracle of miracles the writer (Pat Forde) had the hutzpa to but ND on the list with this summary...

Notre Dame -- The only school on the list to have won a national championship during the period in question. But that was 1988, and since '93 the Fighting Irish have been awfully ordinary. When it's been 14 years since your last bowl win, you're nothing special.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Nice little intro to the concept of the "UnDo" problem on the Universal Desktop by Ryan Stewart.  Certainly worth thinking about when you are trying to decide between web or desktop applications and the type of users and usage patterns you expect.

After Tim O’Reilly’s article “What is Web 2.0” in 2005, there has been considerable buzz around Web 2.0 technologies and the companies that use them.  From the open platform Facebook to the rich user interfaces of web mail clients like Microsoft Exchange, the architecture of web applications is changing rapidly.  Jon Rauschenberger, CTO for Clarity Consulting, together with the Central Region Architect Evangelists, will discuss lessons learned and best practices around collaboration, rich user experiences, and data syndication from existing Web 2.0 application architectures.  We’ll also provide guidance on how current Microsoft platform technologies like AJAX for ASP.NET, SharePoint Server 2007, and WCF can be used to turn those lessons into a practical corporate Web 2.0 architecture.  Finally, we’ll take a look at the next generation of Microsoft technologies like Silverlight and Visual Studio 2008 and discuss how architects can design and deploy applications beyond the current Web 2.0 experience.

Session 1: “What is Web 2.0: Beyond the Buzzword”

Session 2: “Architecting Web 2.0 Applications on the Microsoft Platform”

SPEAKER BIO

Jon Rauschenberger is the Chief Technical Officer  for Clarity Consulting, a software development consulting firm based in Chicago, Illinois.  He regularly presents at national technical conferences such as MEDC, TechED  and VSLive! and is a frequent author of technical articles  for publications such as Microsoft Developer Network, Visual Studio Magazine and .NET

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

Architects and Senior Developers who are interested in becoming an architect.

To register for this event, please visit www.arcready.com.

 That's right... free Windows-based web hosting is available from Verio.  Free Windows websites to Developers and Designers to promote Microsoft-based Hosting software and technologies such as MS Expression, MS Visual Studios, and MS Silverlight.  The Free hosting program – based on IIS 6 and Windows Server 2003 – will run through January 2010.  No credit card is required.  This offer is not available online – please call 800-932-7483 to receive your free website.  Please pass it along.