I saw this posted to an MSDN blog today:

http://blogs.msdn.com/chkoenig/archive/2008/10/24/new-net-logos-announced-today.aspx 

Not seen a press pass announcement yet, but it looks legit. Good stuff, now all they need to do is find a way to drop the name .NET ;-)

And as quickly as it opened, it filled! Normally it gets filled inside of something like 2 days, but within literally hours of me signing up and twittering/blogging about the registration opening - it was closed again.

There is a waiting list, so if you've not signed up yet, it's still worth seeing if you can get on the waiting list, like I said, it's a great event! 

The premier community conference DDD is back again in it's 7th iteration and registration is open.

From their web site http://www.developerday.co.uk/ddd/default.asp:

The day is put together by the community for the community, in other words you. With Microsoft UK very kindly providing the venue, logistic support and a free lunch. 

This is a great event, I've both presented at (with Rob Ashton), and attended this event in the past and it's always a blast - it's held at the Microsoft Campus in Reading so there truly is no excuse for going.

I live near Manchester and I'm coming so you should too ;-)

So this one isn't 100% specific to .NET, but it's interesting anyway for those of you that are interested in what's coming up from the Redmonians.

In August Microsoft started a new blog entitled Engineering Windows 7 which you can find over at http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/

At the moment it's pretty light on specifics, something that will hopefully change after the PDC next week, but it still makes for interesting reading as it talks a bit about the history of Windows, future directions, their engineering process, design philosophy and so on.

It can be, wordy, but it is interesting nonethless!

Philip 

After rather a long leave of absence I have returned. I apologize that for my part this community has been neglected but I shall do my best with the aid of other community members to make it a useful place to come for help, support, and information on and about the latest .NET technologies coming from both inside Redmond and elsewhere - such as the Mono effort.

To start with, I'd like to bring the Microsoft PDC to your attention, if you've never heard of it before it is the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, this year being held in Los Angeles where developers from across the globe come to hear about the latest Redmonian technologies and network with each other (the real kind not the digital one).

Now, I'm guessing that most of you, like myself, are unable to attend, but fear not, it has been announced that videos of the keynotes and sessions will be made available online - keynotes some hours after they occur, and sessions will be 24hours afterwards.

Sessions cover themes like Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010 to name two of the most exciting themes for me personally.

Check it out at http://www.microsoftpdc.com/

The event starts on October 27th.

Philip

The code compiles and runs, but crashes when i call a class.The thing is there is no problem with the class code as it ran fine yeasterday. I have already deleted the ncb file so VC++ has to rebuild the program. I have also tired to rebuild the solution. Uninstall/re-install VC++. Tried to restore my system. I have moved my code over to a new project but that carried the problem over. Nothing has worked. without reinstalling windows i can't fix this problem.

Does any one have a  solution to  this problem

 ps i am using VC++ express 2005

Lewis

We are trialing Facebook as a way of furthering some of the aims of Redgloo so I have created a facebook group called ".NET Programmin'", if you are on Facebook please join up to see what is going on in the community, if you aren't and feel like giving it a go, please do :-).

Imagine Cup Event 

The dead-line for Imagine Cup entries is fast approaching so we are looking to get together as many teams as possible to participate in this fun-filled action-packed competition.

For those who don't know much about Imagine Cup, it is a competition organised by Microsoft which aims to get students thinking about technology in the wider world, there are different sub-competitions labelled invitations which cover a diverse range of interests from software development to graphics design.

For more information, come along to the Gordon Lecture Theatre (in the link corridor between Computer Science and Engineering) at 3.00 pm on Wednesday 17th January.

Everyone is welcome, if you don't have a team, don't worry, we will be trying to put some together over the coming weeks.

Oh yeah, and did I mention freebies? we've got a limited number of CDs of Visual Web Developer and some trials of Expression Web Designer knocking about which we will hand out.

So, if you know about Imagine Cup and want to get started, or know nothing about it and want to, come along and we'll tell you all about it and how to get on the road to the biggest student programming competition in the world!

Somebody asked me about creating irregular windows in .NET today, this is actually quite an easy task as the following VB code shows:

Imports System.Drawing.Drawing2D

Public Class Form1
 Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

  ' Create A Graphics Path Defining The Outline Of The Window
  Dim path As GraphicsPath = New GraphicsPath
  path.AddPie(0, 0, 200, 200, 10, 300)

  ' Create A New Region Based On The Graphics Path

  Me.Region = New Region(path)
 End Sub
End Class

Basically, all you have to do is define a path that is the outline of your window, then assign it to the region property of your form and voila! you have a non rectangular window. Whether or not you should do this is another matter, and it is worth noting, the edges of a non rectangular window are not anti-aliased in any way so your results might vary.

Phil