Weekly Link Post 39

This is is my weekly link post.  It is here that I note the web sites that I have run across that interest me - whether it be related to work or play.

Application Development/Design

• Scott Hanselman provides us with a list of his best blog posts in the article Greatest Hits.
• Shahar Abramovich demonstrates how to perform LINQ to XML in 3 Easy Steps.
• Kevin Ragsdale shows us how to access Google Docs with Visual FoxPro.
• Chris Spagnuolo has posted a great video that shows the difference between the Waterfall and Agile methodologies. A Tale of Two Teams
• Scott Hanselman talks about and gives some great information on ALT.NET in the post ALT.NET Geek Code: Should you care about these ALT.NET guys?.
• Claudio Lassala looks at LINQ in the post Putting LINQ queries together, one piece at a time. He provides some great code samples.
• Mohammad Azam has posted a great article titled Creating Better FindControl Method.
• Adrian Aisemberg explores the Global Assembly Cache in the post Enumerating the GAC using ‘foreach’. 
• Tutorial Video(s): CSS Support in Visual Studio 2008 
• Article(s) from Code project: —
• Snippet(s): —
• Tip(s): Run external tools within Visual Studio ~ Redirect debug messages to the output window

SQL Server & PowerShell

• Snippet(s): Disable and renable all database constraints (SQL)
• Pinal Dave compares the performance of Left Join and Not in. SQL Server - Better Performance - LEFT JOIN or NOT IN? 
• Joe Webb provides information on A Great New SQL Server Resource.
• Adam Machanic provides a great SQL brain teaser in the post SQL Server Query Processing Puzzle: LIKE vs ?.
• Article(s) from Code project: A SQL Management Console for MSSQL

 Houston Area & Regional Technology Events

• User Group Meetings - This is my monthly listing of user group meetings.
• State of .NET - Attend this free event on the state of .NET today. Find out which of the many .NET technologies have gained traction, which ones you can ignore for now, what is new in .NET 3.0 and 3.5, as well as in Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. Speaker:  Marcus Egger.
• ArcReady Event - Architecting for Scalable and Usable Web Applications - Austin, TX 05/06/08, Houston, TX 05/15/08, Dallas, TX 05/20/08
• Austin Code Camp - 05/17/08 8:30AM - 5:00PM — I will be heading to this one EARLY Saturday morning.
• Houston Mobility Metro - 05/20/08
• DevCare Events -  San Antonio, TX 05/21/08, Dallas, TX 05/21/08, Austin, TX 05/23/08

Internet, Software and General Technology

• Misty Khan has posted a great article on Outlook Plugins.
• A new version of the great Twitter client Twhirl has just been released.
• Slandr is a great mobile Twitter interface.
• Digsby is a great IM Aggregation client. It works for IM as well as Social Networks such as Twitter.
• Nikhil Kothari talks about the announcement of Live Mesh and provides several resource links.

Blogging and Social Networking

• Now I can follow two of my favorite TV Show Podcasts on Twitter. The SkyNext Podcast (Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles) and The Heroes Podcast.
• Travis Illig provides some great pointers for making Twhirl a more productive interface in the post Getting The Most From Twhirl.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• LifeDev has created a Links area on their blog.
• Here is an article that asks the question Are You Spending Your Time the Right Way?.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• I love Robby Russell’s blog because he posts some really funny and interesting videos and pictures. This one of a Korean Baby singing Hey Jude had me in stitches.
• The Yellow Dog Blog posted a hilarious video titled An Engineer’s Guide to Cats.
• During our Quarterly Department meeting this week, the Network Engineering team showed this Stephen Colbert explains AT&T video. I found it funny enough to pass on.
• Mike McGuff posted a link to a video of a Cat Playing a Theremin. I found it rather amusing.
• The Daily WTF posted a funny “Tales from the Interview” titled How can you expect this. 
• Movie Trailers: Iron Man ~ The Fall ~ Quarantine
• Funny Dilberts this week: —

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Great Link Blog Sources

• Jason Haley - Interesting Finds
• Steve Pietrek - Links
• Arjan Zuidhof - LinkBlog
• Christopher Steen - Link Listing
• Matt Hinze - Links Today
• David Vidmar - Links of the week
• Matt Goyer - Links
• Sam Gentile - New and Notable
• Chihn Do - Finds of the Week
• Craig Bailey - On Microsoft
• Alvin Ashcraft - Daily Links
• Chris Alcock - Morning Brew
• Matthew Griffin - 5 for Friday
• Darren Stokes - Visual Studio Links
• Chris Love - Links of the Week
• Scott Koon - Links

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Happy Surfing.