In the future the phrase “Where are you?” may be a thing of the past.  Google’s new application called Latitude allows users to update their locations from mobile phones as well as their computers.  Yesterday I took my first road trip with Google Latitude enabled and had a friend track my location while I was out.  Instead of me explaining the ins and outs of Latitude.  Watch this short video on how the service works. There are several mobile phones supported currently although the iPhone is listed as “coming soon”. ...

We came, we voted, we agreed.  The official twitter hash tag for the MVP Summit 2009 is #mvp09. It is short, sweet, and to the point, leaving you with 134 characters left to break the NDA agreement. :)  Kidding!  Don’t do that.  If you want to keep track of what’s happening at the MVP Summit next week, give  http://twitterfall.com/#mvp09 a try. 

I had the pleasure last week of sitting down to record an episode of DNRTV with Carl Franklin.  I decided to do a strip down version of a talk I give on WCF called Demystyfying Windows Communication Foundation.  The purpose of the talk is to get developers interested in WCF by taking out some of the mystery of the new technology.   I know a lot of developers out there are still using ASMX to build services and have hesitations of moving to WCF because of the learning curve.  I tried to break down WCF and remove the mystery behind it...

Listen To This Episode  http://deepfriedbytes.com/podcast/episode-27-present-and-future-of-the-csharp-language/   In this episode we sat down with Mads Torgersen, Language PM for C# at Microsoft, at the Codemash 2009 conference.  We discussed a variety of languages including Beta, Self, IronPython, IronRuby, F# and of course C#.  Listen in as we discuss the ins and out of C# and why C# and VB are on the same feature path.

This past weekend I posted an article entitled “Pre-Depression”.  Within that blog post was a picture that inspired me to write the article.  Since the article was published the picture within the article has gone global.  Who knew a picture taken with a Blackjack II Windows Mobile phone would be seen by thousands of people across the Internet.  If you haven’t read the blog article the picture was originally in, I do encourage you to read the back story about the picture.   The picture first got picked up on Digg.Com.  Throughout the day it started to climb and then made...

It’s a Major Conference!  That’s right, DevLink is just right around the corner and call for speakers is out.  The devLink Technical Conference is now soliciting speaking proposals for devLink 2009. The event will take place August 13 - 15, 2009 in Nashville, TN. If you are interested in presenting at devLink 2009, please download the abstract submission form below. We are a platform independent event and welcome a variety of opinions.  All submissions must be received no later than March 13, 2009. Submissions should be sent to conference@devlink.net.  Any submission received...

If you are looking to get up to speed on Windows Azure here are five short and to the point “How Do I” videos on MSDN.  How Do I: Get Started Developing on Windows Azure? How Do I: Deploy a Windows Azure Application? How Do I: Leverage Queues in Windows Azure? How Do I: Store Blobs in Windows Azure Storage? How Do I: Debug Windows Azure Applications?

Listen To This Episode  http://deepfriedbytes.com/podcast/episode-26-discovering-azure-sql-services/   In this episode we sat down with Nigel Ellis and Niraj Nagrani to discuss Azure SQL Services.  They gave us the scoop on what’s going on behind the scenes of Azure data as well as how developers will interact with the services.  Knowing this was the first release of SQL Services, we threw in a Rusty Washers segment to find out what’s missing in Azure SQL Services. 

This past week I was in Little Rock, AR for a speaking engagement.  It was an interesting trip to Little Rock because I had never driven through this part of America.  I started out in Hattiesburg, MS headed for Jackson and then drove across the Mississippi River on Interstate 20 crossing into Louisiana.  I’ve driven this road numerous times but I had never veered off of Interstate 20 except to stop for an occasional tank of gas.  After about fourteen miles into Louisiana I took HWY 65 north into the heart of America where WIFI and coffee shops are replaced...

One of my co-workers found the code snippet below in some code he was working in today.  It is one of those hidden gems you run across in source code from time to time.  This one is probably at least 3-4 years old.  I’ll sleep better tonight knowing Brad felt compelled to include me in his source code. 

Get the latest version here: http://keithelder.net/software/witty/witty.application   New Features Copy Tweets – This patch submitted by http://twitter.com/chrisroland allows you to highlight text within a Tweet.  The result is the tweet gets copied into your buffer automatically.  The solution isn’t perfect as noted by Jon if you follow the link, but it works.  Reply Links in @ Replies – Now when you reply to a tweet, it now shows the status you replied to if you visit the web site.  This patch was also submitted by http://twitter.com/chrisroland. He’s on fire!  Here is a screen...

Next week I’ll be speaking at the Little Rock .Net User Group on February 12th, 2009.  It is my first time speaking in Arkansas and I’m looking forward to connecting with a lot of the people in that area.  Topic Structure and Guidance for Organizing Applications within Visual Studio Visual Studio is an outstanding tool when it comes to building applications on the .Net Framework. It can be confusing for users when trying to initialize a new software deliverable though. For example, how do you name your projects? Where do you put third party assemblies so they...

A minor update to Witty Twitter was just published, version 2.1.1.  You can install the latest version here: http://keithelder.net/software/witty/witty.application   This release fixes a bug whereby users with a large number of followers and friends would see old replies and updates.  Here are the official features and fixes in this release: Feature: Compact URLs on the fly – when you paste a URL into the update window it will automatically shrink the URL if it exceeds the 140 character limit  http://bit.ly/xzfSG Feature: Tweets over 140 chars are now automatically...