If you've been a subscriber of my blog for while, you probably know that I am a big fan of ComponentArt's Web.UI controls.  Their controls are absolutely outstanding, both from a user's and a developers perspective.

ComponentArt has announced a new suite of controls created specifically for Microsoft's ASP.NET AJAX framework (formerly known as Atlas).  With extensive client-side APIs, integration with the Atlas type system, and optimized to work with the UpdatePanel control, this suite should prove to be the premier components for building rich, interactive AJAX-enabled Web applications.

I've been trying out Google Reader for the last couple of weeks.  I opened my browser tonight and was pleasantly surprised by a new version.  It's not just an update, it's a whole new app. 

Instead of categories, feeds are now arranged in folders much like other RSS readers.  As you scroll down your list of unread items, they are automatically marked as read.  I think the keyboard shortcuts have been expanded, too.

Be sure to check out the "Goodies" under account settings.  You can add book marks that allow you to navigate subscriptions, and to subscribe to new feeds without leaving a site. 

The only bummer is that it reset the status on all my feeds, so I had to mark a lot of items as read that I had already seen.  Not a very big deal, since you can click on folder and mark all items as read.

A guest speaker at my church has given us a homework assignment: tell our story to at least one person before returning to church tonight.  I decided to write my story down.  There's a lot more I could say, but I wanted to keep it as short as possible.  If you would take the time, I would greatly appreciate you reading it. 

Here is My Story.

Speaking of great apps that keep getting better, there's an interesting mojoPortal vs. DotNetNuke post over at mojoPortal.  Also, take a look at the interesting comments from a DNN user (www.wwwcoder.com). 

Joe reports that a new release is just around the corner.

dasBlog continues to improve.  The list of new features is very impressive.  I was able to upgrade without much effort.  If you're looking for simple-to-use and yet very powerful blog application, dasBlog is worth a look.  Also, check out the dasBlog documentation.