There's no way they'll be able to keep me or anyone else from writing software and distributing it.

I think software (like speech or text) qualifies under the 1st amendment. I can say or write what ever I want with out being punishable by law. Someone listening to my speech or reading my letter is no different than running my software.

Even if somehow this would get passed, there is no way they'd be able to enforce it. Even if they were able to legally get Microsoft and Apple to make their OS's only run “approved“ software, there is no way they'll be able to get Linux to do the same. But I suppose then they'd make Linux be “unapproved.“ The next logical alternative will be to make computer BIOS authors add this crappy logic to the BIOS so that only “approved“ OS's would be able to run. This would open up all sorts of software and hardware hacks that would re-enable free speech in the Information age.

We must stand up for our rights and make sure our voices are heard!

Source: http://beta.news.com.com/2061-10804_3-5884130.html?part=rss&tag=5884130&subj=news

I just got an email alert today, My favorite Microsoft related news site, http://bink.nu, will be launching a redesign of their site along with a new server to host it. This is one of the first large sites that I've heard of switching to ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005. I can't wait to see the new site.

Read the email alert below:

Hey everyone!  This is a short announcement about Bink.nu , the no.1 Microsoft news source on the net.

Bink.nu will soon run on a brand new 64-bit server!  The AMD64 Dual Core processor will run Windows 2003 Server x64 Edition, IIS6 x64, SQL Server 2005 x64 Edition, and ASP.NET 2.0 x64.  Thanks to the hard work of Ryan Hoffman, Bink.nu's .NET developer, I hope the new site goes live by the end of the week.

With the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 and SQL Sever 2005 the site will perform even better, allowing Bink.nu to have even more and more visitors each month. So check it out soon at http://bink.nu

My first link post on Digg.com to make it to the homepage and its at number 2! I know this isn't the greatest thing in the world but it's neat.

View the link here: http://digg.com/programming/PHP_MySQL_Tutorial

Now that's something I never imagined I would say.

I checked out a couple short tutorials on PHP today. I never looked into PHP before, and I never knew it's so easy to learn. The syntax is similar to C++ and Java, since I'm familiear with the syntax of those two PHP looks really simple. PHP looks like an easy language for someone know to web development to learn. I'm wont be abandoning .NET for PHP but I may spend some time in the future to build some projects in PHP.

Tutorial links:

PHP Tutorial - http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/php/1

PHP/MySQL Tutorial - http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/phpmysql/1

Official PHP site - http://php.net

By default ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts uses SQL Express. To use this stuff with SQL Server 2000 you must configure the aspnetdb database on your SQL Server 2000 database server. Fortunately for us, Microsoft has created a utility to automate the process.

Follow these steps to setup the aspnetdb database:

1) run the utility - C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50215\aspnet_regsql.exe (this was written with ASP.NET 2.0 Beta 2 (v2.0.50215) as a reference, so with the final release of .NET 2.0 the version number will be different.)

2) Select the “Configure SQL Server for application services” option and click “Next”

3) Enter your server name, login credentials and the name of the database to create/edit with the aspnetdb stuff.(The database will hold your login and personalization data, so if you don't have complete control over the database server (if you use a remote hosting service like I do) you will want to point this utility to the database you are going to use for your web site. You know, keep all your sites data in the same database. This is the same database that the Membership Provider uses to store user credentials.)

4) Add the following stuff to your web sites Web.config file (this stuff tells ASP.NET to use your SQL Server 2000 database instead of SQL Express):

<connectionStrings>
   <add name="SQLConnString"
      connectionString="Data Source=SQL_SERVER_NAME;Initial Catalog=aspnetdb;Integrated Security=True"
      providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

<system.web>
   <webParts>
      <personalization
         defaultProvider="SqlPersonalizationProvider">
         <providers>
            <add name="SqlPersonalizationProvider"
               type="System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.SqlPersonalizationProvider"
               connectionStringName="SQLConnString"
               applicationName="/" />
         </providers>
         <authorization>
            <deny users="*" verbs="enterSharedScope" />
            <allow users="*" verbs="modifyState" />
         </authorization>
      </personalization>
   </webParts>
</system.web>

And, that's it! Wasn't that simple to do. Even though it's so simple, for some reason I could could only find one article online (http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/06/06/webparts_2.html) that covers this topic. So I thought I would write a little blog post about it to increase the number of content online that covers using a SQL Server 2000 database with ASP.NET 2.0 WebParts.

I don't know about you, but I “digg“ the latest screenshots of Windows Vista.

Screenshots: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/windowsvista/default.mspx

The latest screenshots of Office 12 from PDC '05 are out. The new toolbar/menu system in Office is supposed to be easier to use than the existing toolbar/menu system. I'll have to wait and see after I use it. I do like the new look though.

http://pietschsoft.com/Blog/gallery/37.aspx

Some more screenshots are here: http://pdc.xbetas.com/?page=o12preview1