Claiming my Technorati Profile...

I quite literally just finished implementing some new blog software. I tinkered around with templates, CSS settings, and loads of other minor aspects of the software I chose to use. At the same time I made loads of changes to my web site, moved content to a new hosting service, edited DNS records with my registrar, and moved email servers. Whew!

So, now that I have just uploaded the content, it's time to work on getting Technorati, Feedburner and other services wired up. I also need to move content from my old "blog" to this new blog. And the old one was not so much a blog as a pile of code I cobbled together to list announcements and stuff, so there's a few dozen posts I need to move.

I thought about writing code and all that to push content into the new software... But honestly brute force will probably take less time. (Trust me, there's not that much content that would make an automated solution worthwhile.) The only downside I've seen is that while I can set the date for a post I can't set the time. So moving the old stuff over won't match the old date-time stamps. I'm on the fence on that. Maybe it will annoy me enough that I'll go ahead and write code to force everything to match up.

Anyway, after that, it'll be time to retire the old code and database and write some new code into my main site to pull in the latest five or so posts from the new blog. Not bad for an evangelism manager.

So I finally got past my lazy self and added dozens of events to my events database. I've listed all the Launch Events in the Central US region, as well as our local DevCares and ArcReady events. Check them out and sign up to attend one or more of those events.

I've also listed in Tech•Ed Developers and IT Professionals as well as PDC08.

I haven't been out to check the new Visual Studio 2008 sites since Launch and thought that was poor form on my part.

So I hopped out there earlier today and was pleasantly surprised with some of the improvements. Even more impressive was the Silverlight-based UI I discovered for the Visual Studio Express site: nifty UI elements and navigation by area of interest, all with a spiffy Silverlight-based sheen. It's a really sharp site and you should check it out.

While you're there, if you haven't already downloaded one of the VS2008 Express editions, you should. There are loads of new capabilities in VS2008.

If you were one of the few thousand folks in the US to have had the opportunity to join us at one of the many Visual Studio 2008 Install Fest or DevCares events in December, read on for some important news.

First and foremost, if you installed VS2008 at the events, you are probably running close to the limit on the 90-day trial copies we handed out at the events. The good news is that the full fledged versions of VS2008 Professional Editions started shipping a week or so ago, so if you registered your code shortly after getting your trial disc, you should have your free copy of VS2008 in your hands right now.

Rest assured — you don't need to reinstall the product. In fact, all you need to do is go to the Visual Studio 2008 entry in Add/Remove Programs (Windows XP) or Programs and Features (Windows Vista) and select Modify/Change. You'll have an opportunity to enter a license key from the media we shipped.

Here's the important news: if you haven't registered for your free copy yet, you have until March 1, 2008. After that time, we won't be taking any more registrations. And if you didn't have a chance to join us for one of our exclusive Install Fest events, no worries: Launch Events are (literally) right around the corner! February 27th is the BIG launch, with numerous local launch events following that through about May 2008. Find a launch near you and have a chance at another free copy of Visual Studio 2008, plus a chance at several other prizes.

See you at Launch!