ScottGu posts good info on various ways to handle URL Rewriting in ASP.NET. Some nice techniques to make your URLs more user friendly.

If you haven't had a chance to see it, the Xceed DataGrid Control for WPF, it is way cool. The demo page really shows the power of WPF and its impact on making very usable UIs for business applications.

I will be lucky enough to be heading to the MIX Conference this year. I plan on trying to blog as much of the conference as I can while I am there. Maybe even shoot some video - it will be just like being there for all three of my readers. Here is the conference agenda - any suggestions on can't miss sessions?

Yep - the internal Microsoft managment buzz phrase for 2007 is "Having a conversation". Nobody has meetings at high levels any more, its all "having a conversation". Personally, I think it is a reflection that little gets done in the meetings, its just a bunch of people talking to or at each other.

A lot of that is driven by the fact that there are so many stakeholders invovled in even the simplest decisions now. Meetings are meetings of peers and very rarely of those that have the power to over rule or "lay down the law". As a result, very little ever actually gets done. Or sure, there is lots of action plans, areas to investigate further, or worse yet, special teams put together to come up with a poor compromise (errr, solution). So instead of you had a meeting and a resolution, you just say you had a conversation. Nothing good or bad comes from just talking, so you dont really have to set commitments or expectations with the peasents further down

Sharepoint 2007 makes a great platform for web app dev. ScottGu once again provides great info by sharing how to integrate ASP.NET AJAX and Sharepoint 2007.

ScottGu posts more ASP.NET Goodness, this time including things like ASP.NET Ajax hands-on tutorials, ASP.NET Disk Caching project, and RSS toolkits.

Interesting how perspective can lead to totally different conclusions. In Russel Carroll's article, he argues that the online gaming experience is not all what it is cracked up to be and that he would be just as happy without it (paraphrasing a bit). IMHO, he could not be more wrong.

If it were not for online gaming, I would not own an XBOX 360. Or at least, I would not play one. I play Call of Duty Online almost to the point of excluding the other titles I have (GoW, Rainbow Six:LV, and others). I love playing COD3 online. I have played about 30 minutes of the actual game. I don't know anyone else while I am online. I just like competing and racking up kills. COD is just hard enough that there is a difference between good and bad players, but not so much that I felt overwhelmed when I started playing. It has a few flaws, but without the oline experience, I would not play on the console much at all.

Interested in how hard it is to come up with custom controls in WPF? Take a look at this great Blend tutorial (video format) on creating Split Button for WPF. Slick, cool, and easy.

Not soon after getting my Zune (see my first impressions here) I come to find via good friend

Javier Lozano that it appears the arrival of a Zune phone is right around the corner. Amazing how soon after I am Zune-ified, plans for a Zune phone are revealed. A result of my favorable review or pure coincidence? Hmmmm, you be the judge.

Unfortunately, I do not know a ton about WiMax, 3G, 4G, Ali G, and the rest of the mobile phone marketplace, so some of the conjecture was lost on me, but the idea does sound very cool. All and all I am pleased with my Treo SmartPhone, but if you could give me this cool Zune experience and still keep some of the must have SmartPhone features (email, calendar are the biggies) then I am very interested.

My biggest concern is how you can make a phone that is simple to use as the Zune but still supports the above features and also provide a good text messaging experience - the lifeblood of the Zune demographic I would imagine. But the idea of a coast to coast network of little devices sharing data does sound very cool - certainly a Welcome to the Social moment.