Weekly Link Post 31

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 continues his great link series with The Weekly Source Code 17.
• Matt Berseth has posted some nice looking LinkedIn Style Themes.
• Dustin Campbell continues his great Why I Love F# series.
• Amirthalingam Prasanna has posted an article on Simple-Talk titled .NET Collection Management with C# 3.0.
• Jon Skeet tells us about Visual LINQ.
• Jeff Atwood has a great article titled UsWare vs. ThemWare.
• Bill Wagner has posted a couple of great articles for VSM on C#’s Query Syntax ~ Inside Functional Programming.
• Sam Gentile provides us with his Inessential List of Tools.
• BlackWasp has posted a good article on how to Convert String Arrays to Comma-Separated Strings.
• David Vidmar has posted some great tips in his article Interesting LINQ bits.
• Charlie Calvert provides us a helpful list of Links to LINQ.
• Scott Guthrie posted some helpful articles this week: First Look at Silverlight 2 ~ 1st Look at Expression Blend with Silverlight 2
• Nannette Thacker has started a multi part series on Importing an Excel Spreadsheet Using Typed DataSets and TableAdapters. Good example of a tiered architecture.
• Andrew MacNeill talks about the VFPX & FoxPro Community.
• Tutorial Videos:  DNRTV-PowerGUI
• Article(s) from Code project that Interest me: None
• Snippet(s) from CodeKeep that Interest me: Remove 1 or multiple items from a listbox gracefully (C#) ~ Read back a collection of objects from a XML string (C#) ~ Save a collection of objects to XML as a string (C#) ~ Using Reflection to loop thru properties of a given object (C#)
• Tip(s) from Sara Ford that Interest me:  Create temp or “throw away” projects ~ VS 2K8 Supports multi-targeting of the .NET Framework
• Tip(s) from DNTOD that Interest me: Correct event invocation

SQL Server Development

• Pinal Dave provides some interesting observations in his article SQL SERVER – SELECT 1 vs SELECT *.
• Dare Obasanjo tells us When Not to Normalize your SQL Database. Some great points here.
• Code for Eternity tells us how to Find the Second Highest Column Value in a Table.
• Joe Webb answers the question Does order matter in a JOIN clause?. I thought the order would matter, but this article shows differently.

Houston Area & Regional Technology Events

• User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of user group meetings.
• Heroes Happen Here – VS 2008/SQL 2008/Server 2008 Launch Event – 3/20

Internet, Software, Blogging and General Technology

• Greg Duncan tells us about a New SysInternals Utility.
• Web Worker Daily tells us about the new Google Sites in their article Google Sites Finally Launches.
• A co-worker brought the tool NanoScan to my attention this week. I like the idea of instant when it comes to virus scanning.
• Aneef Fashir has posted an article praising the new MSDN Reader. The reader looks pretty sweet.
• Web Worker Daily has posted a detailed article on Switching to Google Apps Without Tears.
• Greg Duncan informs us that PowerGUI is now officially RTM. I watched a DNRTV on this app and it looks like a great way to learn the Powershell scripting syntax.
• Misty Khan has posted several tips this week:  How to Create a .pst File ~ How to Track Your OutTwit in a Separate .pst File ~ How to Rename a .pst File (W/o Corrupting the File)

Blogging Tools and Advice

• Quick Online Tips gives us the 10 Best Twitter Tools for WordPress Blogs.
• Ben Cook tells us how to go about Using a WordPress Page as your home page.
• Lifehack has posted a detailed article on blogging titled The Newbie Guide to Blogging.
• Coding4Fun tells us about a Siverlight Twitter Client. 

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• Rocky VanBrimmer has an interesting guest post on Arrow-Tips that asks the question Do You Really Want to Connect on LinkedIn?. I never really thought about my invitations until I read this.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Funny video of Jonathan Coulton performing his song “Still Alive” in Rock Band with Veronica Belmont, Leo Laporte, and Merlin Mann. 
• For you readers out there, Freshome has posted 30 of the Most Creative Bookshelves Designs. Some of them are very creative.
• Ran across this great Astronomy article from Francis Reddy titled The Internet as a Telescope.
• Found an article in Wired Magazine with some interesting cubicle decorations. Some very creative ideas here — I really like the one with the bed under the desk.
• Good interview with the Terminator:SCC Producers.
• The Best Article Every Day give us 20 Beautiful HDR Pictures Will Blow Your Mind. Some of these make really nice wallpaper.
• Funny Dilberts this week: 2/29

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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 – Link Blog
• Alvin Ashcraft – Daily Links
• Scott Koon – Links
• Scott Kingery – Links
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Matthew Griffin – 5 for Friday
• Sam Buchanan – Links
• Tim Boland – Daily Finds
• Darren Stokes – Visual Studio Links

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Happy Surfing.