With all of the new things we are bombarded with and must learn, do you ever get the
felling your brain would love to pop this error message?

Actually, kidding aside, I love the excitement from the level of change in technology
today. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about developing software or buying a cell
phone, things are changing fast. While it’s a battle at time to keep up, it’s a reality
of today. As DonXML recently stated in his Developer
Career Tips -2006 post, “Complacency is a career killer”. He’s absolutely right.
A job requirement of today is simply keeping up with the pace of change, and understanding
the impacts of where things are going. As developers, it’s a fine line between trying
to implement everything new vs. understanding how changes effect our future directions
and design decisions today.

Ok .Net developers, just to make sure nobody falls behind, here are the new releases
I downloaded today and need to take a look at:

Windows Mobile 5.0 Developer Resource Kit (1.5) http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/windowsmobile/howto/resourcekit/default.aspx

WinFX January CTP (Includes WCF and WWF GoLive License) http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2006/01/18/514356.aspx

Enterprise Library for .Net Framework 2.0 (Release) http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/EntLib2.asp

Today before spending some quality time at the local cafe, I spotted [and purchased] Robert
Scoble and Shel Israel’s new book Naked
Conversations on the shelf at the local Barnes and Noble. With North Carolina
being such a blogger hot spot, I would have assumed these would be displayed more
prominently than on the bottom shelf. I thought about setting some out on the
“New Items” table myself, but wasn’t sure how that would go over. If they haven’t
moved by my next visit I will relocate a few of them.

If you haven’t tried this yet, add encarta@conversagent.com as
a contact in MSN Messenger. It allows you to ask it questions and provides answers.
Very sci-fi like… Anyways, ask it “Where is Pluto?”, read the stats it returns and
then check out the map it displays.

(No, I can’t jsut post it here, you have to go look!)

Wednesday the 11th… Thursday the 12th…..   yup Friday the 13th. Now,
I’m not superstitious, but it’s a proven fact that technology does not like Friday
the 13th and the days leading up to it. If you’re planning a major software update
or little change on the server, wait. Please wait! On my way to the TRINUG meeting
my power steering started sounding really strange and not working as it shoud. Today
I find out that along with a couple of other minor, but can’t ignore problems it’s
gonna be more expensive than a new MacBook Pro to fix. This morning I sit at the local
over priced coffee shop watching their computer freak out not accepting any form of
plastic payment including their handy new gift cards they’ve been forced to promote
so heavily recently. Any to think, it’s only the 12th. Be very careful tomorrow dear
friends, very very careful!

2006 has started off with a bang! It’s definately going to be an exciting year for
us in the technology field. So many things that have been building momentum seem to
be reaching a critical mass all at once. Pretty soon anything with a battery will
be able to be used as a phone, take pictures, connect to the internet, sync with Outlook,
record and paly back your favorite TV show, and tell you your exact position on the
planet, as well as hopefully some unique feature to diferentiate it from the other
products. For those that hate change it’s going to be a very unpleasant year. This
fact becomes crystal clear when I look at my list of “Things to Look Into”. It’s going
to be a busy year.

One example of change was also shown at the PodCasterCon2006 conference hosted this
weekend in Chapel Hill. The event was organized by local podcaster/blogger Brian Russel,
and he put together an amazing event. With attendees from all over the map, and i
mean the big map, not the little state map, the event provided a great forum for folks
to get together and talk about technology. Listening to why people attended was half
as much fun as any of the actual content. It’s great to hear everybody’s idea of what
they want to say to the world, or just simply say for their own benefit, and
how they feel they can make a difference. There is something great about gathing a
bunch of people with common interests.

On the local blogging front, ASP.NET Super Star Chris Love has started blogging on
a new site at www.ProfessionalAspNet.com with
his usual practical approach to web technology. Worth a read if you do anything ASP.NET
related.