I'll be increasing a few PageRanks by doing this, but here's how I started.

First, go here:
Building a WPF Workstation

It's actually a little dated, but still works if you want to go the VS C# express route. The November CTP of WPF seems to be the very last that isn't integrated into "Orcas". And going "Orcas" means getting Virtual Server and billions of bits. I don't know I want that.

Then, go here:
Five Day Course For Hitting the WPF Curve/Cliff

I'm stuck on Day 2 only because I decided to buy/read and study Charles Petzold's book. I have learned most of my Windows programming basics from Mr. Petzold, including programming for Win16, Win32, Winforms, and now WPF.

I will warn you... EVERYONE else in the world will teach you WPF by throwing you at XAML. Petzold has decided to go the other way. Like me, I think he hates things that work by magic. So he shows you in part 1 of the book that nothing is magic... underneath it's all code.

That's what I liked about WinForms. The magic of resource files was replaced by 100% code. You made a label in the designer? There it is in the code. While .NET 2.0 changed this slightly in ASPX, it still made sense. I could go find code that matched my designing.

Anyways, after you read through part 1 of the book, you understand WPF is a nice framework with a nice shortcut declarative programming method using XAML.

Trust me, get the book. Then you won't be confused by Routed Events, Dependency Properties, and the other ideas that are a departure from traditional windows programming.

Now that turns Day 2 into month 2... so I'll let you know when I get some real apps up for demonstration.

I'm always hearing from my buddy Intern Joe about UrlRewriting. Someday I better read this post by ScottGu so I can discuss the technology from an ASP.NET point of view.

ScottGu's Blog : Tip/Trick: Url Rewriting with ASP.NET

Thanks to ScottGu for pointing out these free training videos.

Free SQL Server Training Videos (and other good data tutorial pointers)

Free ASP.NET AJAX "How Do I?" Videos

keywords: SQL Server SQLServer AJAX Atlas asp.net

We use VPCs all the time around the company to experiment with beta bits. Today I'm running into a problem trying to install the Orcas CTP on a VPC (running in virtual server) that has a dynamic disk.

How can a dynamic disk run out of space? -- isn't it supposed to grow as needed? (I converted this one to dynamic from fixed, not sure yet if that has something to do with it.)

Anyway - when poking around, found the article below, mostly about using differencing disks. We just saw this techinque used recently for some BizTalk work. The idea is cool - create a single VHD with the base OS and core software for all VPCs, then use differencing disks for everything you ADD after that.

(Article also has some links to other good VPC tips sites)

HOWTO: Use Virtual PC's Differencing Disks to your Advantage