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

Application Development/Design

• Mohammad Azam has posted a great article on WPF titled Styling in Windows Presentation Foundation WPF. “Just like CSS for web applications WPF includes the Styling feature which can be used to give consistent look and feel for your controls.”
• Good article from BlackWasp explaining how to Map a Drive Letter Programmatically.
• Ryan Lancaux asks What is Your Strategy for Becoming a Better Developer?
• Interesting to see what technologies were used to build StackOverFlow.
• Max Pool has posted a great article titled Don’t Go For The Doughnut. “People allow themselves to only be rewarded with the occasional box of doughnuts and never with meaningful or sincere awards.”
• Scott Hanselman continues his great link series with The Weekly Source Code 34. Great F# resources.
• Chad Meyers has posted a great article titled Request for Help: Need better guidance for beginners. “I believe it is incumbent upon us to offer better guidance.”
• Scott Guthrie talks about jQuery and Microsoft. Great code samples and resources.
• Gerasimos Tsiamalos has posted a helpful jQuery Cheat sheet.
• JP Hamiltion talks about how to Instantly Become a Better Programmer (then worry about learning TDD).
• I ran across a great article from 4 Guys from Rolla by Scott Mitchell. In the article he talks about Programmatically Retrieving a Stored Procedure’s Parameters. “…possible to programmatically determine what stored procedures exist in a database, along with each stored procedure’s input and output parameters.”
• Pranab Paul provides some great sample code to Convert Office Documents (.docx, .pptx, .pub) into PDF Programmatically.
• Alvin Ashcraft shows us how to Extend a Generic List to Provide Dictionary-Like Lookups. “This is an abstracted example of what I did to simplify and centralize that code in a reusable manner.”
• Suprotim Agarwal lists the Top 10 Windows Forms Articles You Must Read.
• Nick Berardi has posted on How NOT To Optimize LINQ Statements. 
• Tutorial Video(s): Using Linq2Objects to perform list conversions | Send Email Asynchronously with ASP.NET 
• Forum Thread(s): LINQ to XML: Returning More Than One Result | How to convert .NET console app to Winforms/WPF app | C#: Interfaces – Implicit and Explicit implementation | Hidden Features of C#
• Snippet(s): Convert ArrayList to string[] | Remove an item from an ArrayList
• Tip(s): Use HTML Visualizer to view HTML | Use XML Visualizer to view XML | How to use the Text Visualizer | Add $exception to Watch window to see caught exception

SQL Server, Compliance & PowerShell

• Brent Ozar talks about HIPAA vs SOX for database administrators. I’m not a DBA, but have to deal with HIPPA every day.
• Jason Massie gives us the scoop in his article titled Introducing the SQL Server 2008 Experience. Looks like a great resource is coming.
• Stephen Hill has posted a nice list of SQL Server Tips and Tricks.
• Forum Thread(s): Hidden Features of SQL Server | SQL – fetch the row which has the Max value | SQL NOT IN constraint and NULL values | Difference between varchar & nvarchar
• Snippet(s): Date portion of DateTime 

 Community & Technology Events

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
• Rick Minerich had made the slide deck and code samples available from his F# presentation.

Internet, Software and General Technology

• Scott Hanselman gives some great information on working remotely in his post Working Remotely from Home, Telepresence and Video Conferencing: One Year Later.
• Matt Manela talks about his Snippet Designer.
• Quick-PDF has a great roundup of PDF conversion tools.
• Greg Duncan links to a post on the topic of Tweeting from SQL. Interesting.
• Tim Boland talks about Adding Google Chrome to Visual Studio, so it can be used as the default for debugging.
• Lifehacker has posted some good articles this week: Convert Word 2007 Files Online | Notepad 2008 Brings the Office Ribbon to Your Text Editor
• Web Worker Daily has posted an article about a tool that Keeps Tabs on Your Wi-Fi.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• Jarkko Laine posts a list of Insanely Interesting Links. I really like Jakko’s link listings.
• Cathy Stucker has posted some great Lessons From Hurricane Ike.
• Lifehacker gives us the Top 10 Ways to Stay Energized.
• Steve Smith shares with us his favorite developer books.
• Found an interesting thread on StackOverflow. What do you use to keep notes as a developer?
• Zen Habits has posted an interview with Blogging God Steve Pavlina. Very cool.
• Jamie Nischan tells us the benefits of Micro-Workouts For Macro Results.
• Found a good article on Diet Blog that asks the question Do You Eat Too Fast? Pretty good pointers.
• Mohammad Azam tells us how he Gets Things Done. Great advice for leading a sane life.
• Gretchen Rubin has posted a great list of 12 quick tips for boosting your happiness and productivity at work.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Wow. Cool picture of the waves crashing over the sea wall in Galveston.
• Good article on Veteran catcher Brad Ausmus’ last game with the Astros. 
• This Rubberband Gun inspired by Metal Gear would come in mighty handy in my office.
• Cool Wallpaper: Afternoon Shadows | Walenstadtberg
• Movie Trailers: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People | Quantum Of Solace
• Funny Dilberts this week: 9/22 | 9/23 | 9/28

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Great Link Blog Sources

• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Daily Links
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Christopher Steen – Link Listing
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Darren Stokes – Visual Studio Links
• Chris Love – Links of the Week

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Happy Surfing.