#31 Changing the Visual Studio Background Color

Have you seen screen casts, or demos, or other folks using Visual Studio with a funky color scheme? Back backgrounds? Green backgrounds? Pink Backgrounds? Hey, whatever tickels your fancy, Visual Studio will come through for you.

Kidding aside, there are some pretty cool themes with dark background colors. Here is one and here is another one. This video will show you how to change your own color.

Cameron’s World: Made Up Characters

This week during fun and play time, Cameron and I made up characters. I said “My name is Billy, but my friends call me Bouncer” in a funny (probably not so good) Australian accent. Cameron fired back with a simple, “My name is Johnny, and my friends call my Johnny”.

Then we played under our made up names running around the house for about 10 minutes before daddy got too tired. 🙂

Cameron’s World: Funny Saying on January 20, 2009

Earlier this week Cameron (my 3 year old son) had a tiny pimple on his cheek. Jamie has (great looking might I add) tiny mole on her cheek, and Cameron thinks they now match.

To express his opinion, in a very excited voice he says “Look mommy, I have a nipple on my face”.

So cute!

Arizona Technology … Where are you?

As you probably know, I run the AZGroups.com. It’s a simple calendar page, that shows what’s happening with technology user groups around the valley. It should be a single place to see what technology events are happening. Support your local community and user group by participating.

This morning, I’m sitting here in Phoenix (the 6th largest city in the U.S.) and I can’t name more than thirty (maybe forty if I really tried) software companies here in the valley off the top of my head. I’m sure there are hundreds. Of those thirty or forty companies, I know of them because of their participation in the community. Obviously there are the big guys we all know, Microsoft and GoDaddy, who have both been great supporters of the User Group sponsorship for events. But there are a ton of smaller (and larger) shops that are just invisible, flying under the radar going unnoticed. In my mind this is because they lack community participation.

So I thought I would ask.

What software company do you work for here in town? Give me a short description, and a link in the comments about your job, what you do for the company, and what the company (or software) does. If you’re company is already listed from a co-worker, feel free to leave your comments as well. I’m sure there is a directory or something online, but I’m not looking for a phone book, I’m looking for members who support the community.

AZGroups.com Feb 10, 2008 Meeting : Microsoft Enterprise Library

From the February AZGroups Calendar

Enterprise Library is a framework and collection of reusable components that allows developers to focus on delivering applications and less on building the plumbing. Enterprise Library was initially developed by Avanade and licensed to Microsoft and while it has evolved over the years, the core components and blocks remain the same.

During this presentation Nathan Smith – Solution Architect and SOA Capability Lead and Scott Kraus – Principal Solution Developer, from Avanade will provide an overview, with demonstrations, of how to integrate key components of Enterprise Library into your applications. Time permitting, the following blocks will be discussed: Caching, Data Access, Exception Handling, Logging, Policy Injection and Validation.

Join us, it’s fun, it’s free, and you’ll learn something 🙂