This isn’t recently breaking news, but I hadn’t posted about it yet.

Microsoft is offering their “Express” version of Visual Studio for free, just go to the Visual Studio Express Home, and download it. You do have to register with them to get a product key, but that still seems pretty painless.

The fact that Microsoft is offering a development platform for free was surprising to me, but what was really shocking was that although this version is aimed at hobbyists and students, there is no licensing restrictions, so you can sell your code commercially without worrying about lawyers breathing down your neck.

There are a couple of different versions, depending on what you are interested it, there is a web developer suite, as well as C#, C++, VB, and J#.

Now that you have your Development platform, what next? Well they also have a “Beginner Developer Learning Center” to help get you coding, and a “Coding for Fun” website to give you something to play around with.

Originally the plan was to offer the express editions free for 1 year, but on April 19th, 2006, they decided to make them available permanently for free.

I had mentioned in an earlier post that Microsoft was offering the Robotics Studio for free as well, but you can’t use it for commercial products without buying a runtime license. But you can learn to program Lego MindStorms in your free time. There is no need to go out and buy a robot though, because you can even work with virtual robots.

References:

Visual Studio Express Home - Microsoft

Beginner Developer Learning Center - Microsoft

Coding for Fun - Microsoft

Robotics Development Studio - Microsoft

Introduction to Programming Lego Mindstorms - Coding4Fun (Microsoft)

Posted in Robots, Development, free stuff, Microsoft 2 Comments »

  Ok, maybe this is a cheesy way to get a post out, but I have a awful lot of links that I wanted to mention, and I spent much of the weekend hip deep in my Jeep, replacing a valve cover gasket. Doesn’t sound too hard, except that a small portion of the engine in under the firewall (not a computer security device). But enough of my woes… 

- Phil over at Thought Sparks, started posting a CSS tutorial. This week he posted Part 1 - The Body Tag and Part 2 - Horizontal Tabs. Really good stuff.

- I also joined Pownce this week, and I really like it. Combination mini-blog meets chat meets email. Really a cool idea. If you are on Pownce, let me know.

- Yesterday, I found Secure Cyber. What a great site! The author commented on my post about chasing Microsoft Certifications, it turns out he has been in the IT field just a wee bit longer than me, and he has really written some great stuff. Great resource for IT pros.

- I found out about Free Remote Access with Log Me In. They give away the free remote access so that you’ll want to buy their other products. Always a winning deal for me. I saw it in Redmond Mag.

- I spent a little bit of time looking for an online To Do list service, I settled on “Remember the Milk“, but don’t take my word for it, check out these “25 to do lists to stay productive“. Going through the list should prove an excellent way of dodging work.

- If you worked your way through that list of to do lists, here is another one over at Tech Crunch. Use it as an excuse to procrastinate some more.

- All right, this is the last “to do” list for this post. If you have your own server or hosting account, you can always install “Task Freak“. It’s open source. It’s GTD.

- Redmond Magazine released their 12th Annual IT Salary Survey (registration required for the full report), and it looks like the IT sector is still doing well. It got me a little curious about some Microsoft certifications though.

I run across a whole bunch of good stuff that I just don’t have to time to do full fledged posts about, but I still want to share it, so I think I’ll start making these roundups a regular feature.

Posted in How To, Certifications, free stuff, Tech-News, Microsoft, Web Tools 2 Comments »

The Stikkit web service has been around for quite awhile, and although I had used it when I first signed up, for some reason I stopped. Simply stated, Stikkit lets you create events, reminders, contacts and notes.

That last statement is sure to have you asking one of two questions.

“So what. Aren’t there about a million web sites and programs that you can use to do that?”

Or

“What makes Stikkit different?”

The answers are:

I don’t know, I haven’t counted them. I bet there are a lot though.

and

Stikkit is different because of the way that you enter this information.

You see, Stikkit uses some intelligence to interpret the emails that are sent to it. When you sign up for stikkit, you’re given an email address that you can send email to. The content of your email is used to create “stikkits” that represent your information, using various keywords.

Some of the Basics

Here is an example. If I sent this email to stikkit:

“Call Joe next Wednesday about his WebSite”

Then Stikkit would create an appointment next Wednesday, whatever the date may be.

Stikkit gets even better as you start learning the language that it uses, which is pretty straight forward. I could have sent this email:

(Subject:) Joe Joeseph

(Message Body)

Joe Joseph

Home Phone: 123-456-7891

- Call Joe next Wednesday about his web site

@WebGigs

Now Stikkit would create a contact (called a Peep) named Joe Joesph. It would list his home phone number as 123-456-7891. A to do item would be created, and they would all be tagged “WebGigs”.

I just started using Stikkit again recently because I wanted an easy way to keep my contacts up to date, and a easy way to remind myself about things that I have to do. I use Google calendar too, but it is just so much easier to add a Stikkit.

Email Addresses All over the place

Each Stikkit that you create is given its own email address. So you can reply to the email, and make changes.

This is also nice because if you share a Stikkit with someone, they can make comments and changes to the item without having a Stikkit account.

Added Bonus: Works with your favorite Calendaring App too.

If you create a Stikkit for an event, when you are emailed about it, the event is attached in ICS format, which Google Calendar, and most other Calendar applications, recognize. So you can quickly add the appointment to your calendar application.

One of my favorite words: Free

The founders of Stikkit are making this service free, and they intend to always have a free version of the service. The web site is nice and clean, ad free, and pretty easy to navigate.

Links:

Stikkit Web Site

Posted in Productivity, Organization, free stuff, Web Tools, WebSites 2 Comments »

Do you ever get nervous about using images on your blog or web site? I don’t think anyone is going to mind if I take a screen grab of their logo, but I really want to make sure that if I use a photograph, especially if I’m going to chop it up or do something else a little crazy to it, that I’m not doing anything wrong. I sure wouldn’t want someone taking my work against my wishes.

So one day, I was looking for free images that I could use, and I ran across Freerange Stock. This site is really too good to be true. They have some extremely good photos, and you can use them for just about anything you want to.

Many stock photo sites will let you use their images, as long as it isn’t for “commercial” use. I was always hesitant to use them on my blog, since I’m serving ads which bring in dozens of pennies.

To set your mind at ease, this is from Freerangs Stock’s FAQ:

    Can I use these images in my commercial projects?
    Yes! Our images may be used in commercial projects like websites, advertising, books, videos, and other commercial presentations. If you would like to give credit to the site and/or photographer, that would be great. If you don’t have a way to include the credit, that does NOT prohibit you from using the images. You may not, however, repackage, redistribute, or claim ownership of the images. Do not use the photos in products that rely on the photograph as the main selling point.

You really aren’t risking anything using the photos. You do have to register with them to create an account, but I haven’t received any email from them, and I have had the account for quite awhile.

I haven’t always been good about linking to the photographer, but you may have noticed that I started including a link to the image and to the photographer at the bottom of my articles, even though this isn’t a requirement.

I definitely recommend this site.

References:

Free Range Stock

Posted in images, free stuff, Recommendations, Blogging, WebSites 4 Comments »