In an announcement that I just received from INETA, PluralSight On Demand training is now free to INETA user group leaders, $500 less for all INETA user group members, and a one month free pass to User Group members that are currently unemployed.

Are you active in your local INETA user group community? If you’re not – you should be.

I have subscribed to the PluralSight.com On Demand Training for almost 5 months now, and I love it, here’s why. There is simply too many technologies to be good at all of them. With PluralSight On Demand, you can spend a few hours in front of a really nice Silverlight player, and get your foot in the door to most of the Microsoft Technologies. Since my membership started, they have updated several courses, as well as added courses around VSTS and ASP.net MVC. I love love love love this online training – I really can’t say enough great things about it.

Lastly is a free 1 month offer to anyone that is an INETA user group member, and is currently unemployed. WOW – talk about giving back to the community – and at the right time. You’re out of a job, and want to sharpen you MS Stack Skills. This is the plan for you.

Here is a copy/paste of the INETA announcement. Check with your local user group leader to see if you qualify.

• Tier 1: Group Leaders receive a free 1-year subscription to Pluralsight On-Demand!. On-Demand! is a great resource for Group Leaders to improve their .NET skills and enhance their presentations. Group leaders can offer the group member subscription discount and the unemployed member free pass, outlined further below. Our purpose is to empower the group leaders and provide them with a resource to not only improve individual .NET skills, but help build the relationship among the user group and create a common synergy. To get started, they simply send an email from the web page listed and they will be provided an INETA Group Leader “kit” with the scoop – details at: http://www.pluralsight.com/main/partnerPrograms/ineta.aspx
• Tier 2: User Group Members receive a $500 discount off of the 1-year Pluralsight On-Demand! subscription. This is a grass roots effort to contribute to the success of the .NET User Group community by providing high quality Pluralsight On-Demand! training opportunities. Group members can access the discount by reaching out to Pluralsight directly, existing relationships with Pluralsight and their instructors, contacting their Group Leaders, seeing the promotions in the INETA newsletters, blogs, tweets, and other viral channels.
• Tier 3: Unemployed Group Members receive a free 1-month pass to Pluralsight On-Demand!. This tier, as mentioned above, gives the Group Leader an opportunity to provide an unemployed group member with an opportunity to sharpen their skills and ramp up Microsoft technologies. In the past month, we’ve already heard about (2) instances where developers became employed after using Pluralsight On-Demand! training. We require the Group Leader to introduce Pluralsight to the unemployed member for validation and to endorse the core mission of INETA and .NET user groups – to provide structured, educational support to the growing worldwide community of Microsoft .NET developers. After the 1-month pass, unemployed Group Members can purchase the Pluralsight On-Demand! subscription with the $500 discount.

(Copy of Press Release: August 4th, 2009)

ASP.NET hosting and SQL hosting leader, DiscountASP.NET, announces expanding their Open Control Panel API with the addition of APIs for SQL 2008 Database backup. The new SQL Backup API is part of DiscountASP.NET’s Open Control Panel Initiative, whose goal is to offer an open hosting system framework which provides customers with maximum control over their hosting presence management.

In 2006, to support this initiative, DiscountASP.NET introduced an ASP.NET web service API library which customers can use to develop their own web, desktop, or mobile applications that interface directly with their web hosting account. In the first phase, DiscountASP.NET exposed methods to retrieve resource usage information, and manage some IIS functions, such as recycling their application pool. Today, DiscountASP.NET expose methods for customers to backup their SQL 2008 databases.

DiscountASP.NET customers can activate access to the API library through their control panel and are assigned a unique Authentication Key. In addition, a Sandbox Key is provided so that customers can test their applications without the risk of making changes to their hosting account.

About DiscountASP.NET:

DiscountASP.NET is an innovative global leader in Microsoft Windows hosting, focused on providing the best value in .NET hosting and SQL database hosting. A Microsoft Gold Certified partner, DiscountASP.NET was one of the first hosts to launch SQL 2008 hosting and Windows 2008 hosting. Through strong word-of-mouth and their commitment to Microsoft technology, DiscountASP.NET has become the choice for affordable enterprise-class ASP.NET web hosting.

More information:

http://discountasp.net/

http://discountasp.net/sp_opencontrolpanelinitiative.aspx

When I type in a phone number, I like to know a little bit of info around that number. Might be an extension, a cell number, a spouse number, notes to call within time zones, etc.

Google mail has contacts, and each contact can have as many numbers as you like. Each number also has a Type list, but their fixed. Even if this was limited to 15-20 chars, it would be enough space for my notes.

As it is now, these notes get appended to the phone number. When syncing across devices, the phone number gets garbled, and is no longer recognized as a phone number.

It’s really not to much to ask, and I think every Google Mail / Contacts user on the planet could benefit from this.

Here is a mock – red square == what I’ve added.

Tonight I found a minor bug that could potentially not allow the ScottCate.Graffiti.404 Widget to update, if the "Clear 404 Stats" Checkbox was not checked.

So, I fixed it, and update the version to 1.0.0.3.

This is a minor minor update, and doesn’t change the collection of 404’s, just the ability to clear them, and change the minimum number of hits counter.

Here is a direct download link.

If you are new to the 404Manager, read about it here and here.

After a bunch of requests, this morning I upgraded my Graffiti 404 Widget, to offer the ability to clear your 404 statistics. After all, if you found a 404 with this utility, then fixed it, it sucks to see it staring back at you forever.

Now the widget (as pictured below) has a "Clear on Update" check box. Simple open the 404 widget, check this box, hit save, and your 404’s are cleared.

Here is a direct download link (Assemblies are version 1.0.0.1)

If you’re running GrafittiCMS and this is new to you, make sure you read my original post on the Graffiti 404 Widget.

Enjoy!

[UPDATE] June 10th, 9:20pm

Version 1.0.0.2 is now released, which has a working remove 404 version, that also clears the 404 cache.

As a side effect, I had to write a cache viewer, so I could inspect the cache keys. So if you install this, you’ll see a new widget named "ScottCate Graffiti Cache Viewer". I’m not sure if this will be helpful to anyone, but … it was helpful for me, so instead of deleting it, I just left it in.

Enjoy!