At conferences I’m always giving out my blog URL. With this image I can simply display my blog, and anyone with Microsoft Tag installed on a smart client, can point and browse 🙂

Now that my blog is mobile enabled, this will be much more common.

What is Microsoft Tag? (Direct Mobile Download Link: Click Here)

I just saw it today from a twitter post by @CalebKenkins. The short version is … what you see is a bar code. Instead of nice tidy black and white lines, or a burst of dots (like the shipper barcodes) these are colors. The big difference is distance and focus.

Let me backup. The idea is … you point your phone camera (or any Tag enabled camera) at this image. Because it’s big, and easy to read, the image could be on anything. Like a billboard, or a sign at the mall, or next to artwork at a museum (all examples on the site).

I thought it would be a nice way to let audience members navigate to my blog. I’m sure there are millions of uses for this, and I hope it catches on.

After all – it’s much easier to point-and-browse, than it is to open up a mobile device and key in a web address.

You can read more information on the Microsoft Tag website.

UPDATE: Microsoft Tag comes with reporting

After using this for a few minutes, the story improves. When a tag is scanned, it has to be looked up in a database. This gives the opportunity to log a “hit count”. I think this changes the print media game, where historically it has been close to impossible to know if people have any interest in your print ad. Click this thumbnail for a quick sample report.

I started VSTricks.com as a community new years resolution last week. To get started, I wanted something that was easy and fast to setup on my own servers, and I decided to check out all the hype around GraffitiCMS.

After a week of using the software, I’m extremely happy with it, and I’ve decided to transform the VSTricks.com project into a blog upgrade for ScottCate.com

Both URL’s still point to the same place, and the FeedBurner feeds still bring the same content. In fact a nice benefit of FeedBurner is that the original content feed can change, and the consumer doesn’t have to know about it (unless you read it in a post like this). FeedBurner is cool like that.

You may have been following my original blog feed at http://Weblogs.ASP.net/ScottCate and I will maintain that blog for technical posts. On the left of this site, you’ll see three FeedBurner feeds.

I think it’s the best way to split content to what you may be interested in.

The /VSTricks Feed will only contain Visual Studio Tips and Tricks.

The /ScottCate Feed will have all content. Including the VSTricks, goofy family stories, technical, non-technical, whatever I’m thinking (like this post) content.

The /ScottCate ASP.NET Feed will have only content that is related to ASP.NET, Silverlight, or other interesting content concerning Microsoft, and my community (user group) related activities to Microsoft.

Minor [Very Minor] Cross Posting

Occasionally the ScottCate and ASP.NET feeds will be cross posted, but not frequently. Usually this happens when I’m planning an event ( like the annual Scott Guthrie event in PHX ) and I’ll post to both the .Net and ScottCate feeds.

VSTricks is Never Cross Posted

The VSTricks is exclusive tricks. The only exception to this was the first introduction post.