This is interesting. Today I noticed a referral from Stephen O’Grady (must be Irish?). He listed this blog as one of “Five Developer Blogs You Should Read”. Very flattering.

Upon searching in Bloglines it looks like there’s 11 subscribers to this feed. That’s cool. Thanks for the mention Stephen, I’ll definitely be blog-rolling the other developers on the list.

In other news: Yesterday my download of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 finished, all 2.7GB of it.

After a quick update to Service Pack 2 on my machine, Studio installed with only 1 error. The error I got was that SQL Server 2005 could not be installed. I think this was due to the fact that I have SQL Server 2000 on this machine. I was able to install SQL Server Express edition side-by-side with SQL Server 2000 but it looks like the 2005 Bits are not as easy-going.

Some preliminary testing last night indicates that the Beta 2 will work with SQL Server 2000 so I think I’ll leave well enough alone. I’ve already played with SQL 2005 (on a machine I no longer have access to) so I know what to expect there.

The next few days I’ll be playing with the drag&drop databinding, enhanced visual styles support and a few of the new controls.

Today, M/Soft launched a free learning site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/elearning/. By taking a course you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a 50″ Sony Vega tv along with other home-audio goodies.

Last item for today: Last week I was interviewed by Carol Tice, a reporter for the Seattle Puget Sound Business Journal. She’s planning on running a piece on Amazon Zollage. Pretty cool. Should hit the streets soon.