I'm not a Mac user, but I have to admit these commercials are hilarious.

Go download the Consolas font.  I've been using it for the past couple of days, and it is beautiful ;)  I'm now using it in all my editors, including TextPad and SQL Server Management Studio.

As Scott Hanselman says, make sure you have ClearType enabled and get the ClearType Tuner PowerToy.

I absolutely love Red Gate's SQL tools, and can't say enough good things about them.  I just found out from Steven Smith that Red Gate have purchased Prompt SQL (intellisense for SQL), and there's a beta to be downloaded that supports SQL 2005 Management Studio!  According to the beta support forums, the plan is to sell SQL Prompt for $50/user with multi-user discounts at 5- and 10-user levels.

By the way, Red Gate's Profiler and Load tools are incredible, too.

ArgoSoft have just announced a free e-mail validation Web service, based on their years of experience with their Mail Server product.  Plug it into your ASP.NET app for real-time e-mail address verfication!

I've used ArgoSoft's Mail Server for years and have found it to be a great product at an unbeatable price.  ArgoSoft support has always been top-notch, as well.  Highly recommended.

One of my hosting clients has signed up to beta test "Gmail for your domain" and will be moving their e-mail accounts to this service.  I think I read rumors about this service a while back, but didn't know it existed yet.

Pros:

• Google provides the same Gmail Web client for your domain -- for Free
  
• 2GB of space for every account you create for your domain
• Control panel to administer accounts, and even a bulk upload tool to add many accounts at once
  
• Free POP access, in case you want to download all your e-mail to Outlook or some other client so that you have your e-mail offline
• Use your domain accounts with Google Talk instant messaging service
• Customized logo for your domain
  
• Free.  Did I mention 2GB of storage for each account, free?
  

Cons:

• No tools (yet) to transfer your existing e-mail
• Does not work with the Gmail Notify service
• Not integrated with Google Calendar (yet)
  
• In Beta, so you have to apply and hope you're selected to use the service
  
• In Beta, 'nuff said
  

I'm tempted to apply for the beta, at least for one of my domains.  I love the Gmail interface.  If for nothing else, Gmail does a pretty good job of filtering spam.

What do you think?  Is this a great idea, or scary to think about Google having all the e-mail for your domain?

For anyone interested in learning Visual Basic 2005, you can now grab all the chapters from "Introduction to Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 for Developers" from MSDN.

Get a focused, first look at the features and capabilities in Microsoft Visual Basic 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and the .NET Framework 2.0. If you currently work with Visual Basic 6, these authors fully understand the adoption and code migration issues you'll encounter. They'll step you through a quick primer on .NET Framework programming, offering guidance for a productive transition. If you already work with .NET, you'll jump directly into what's new, learning how to extend your existing skills. From the innovations in rapid application development, debugging, and deployment, to new data access, desktop, and Web programming capabilities, you get the insights and code walkthroughs you need to be productive right away.

Download here.

Not very far from home, a tornado came through on Friday that devastated homes, businesses, and families.  Homes can be rebuilt, and "stuff" can be replaced, but loved ones cannot be replaced.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families that have been affected.

By very unfortunate coincidence, the mail server for ChristianASP.NET began having issues Friday evening.  Although we didn't have any damage, we have been without power since Friday afternoon.  So, I was not able to correct the issue until this morning.  I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

Found this list over at Boyink.  Looks like a great set of resources covering many aspects for web design.

As a follow-up to my previous post on creating a DataManager class for WilsonORMapper that uses the IsolatedContext, I'm posting a download that includes updates for Paul Welter's excellent CodeSmith templates for WilsonORMapper.  These templates are intended for use with Web projects.  The DataManager stores the IsolatedContext instance in the current HttpContext so that the same IsolatedContext is used throughout the current Request.

To use the new templates, just unzip the files in the /Internal folder where the existing DataManager templates are stored.

FYI, although I've confirmed that they compile, I have not tested the VB.NET and VB.NET 2.0 DataManager versions.  If you find any issues, I would appreciate your feedback.

Download the Templates