It's time for the annual .NET Developer’s Journal Reader’s Choice awards. Even better, this year Windows Forms Programming in C# has been nominated (yea!). And while it's an honor to be nominated, it'd be an even bigger honor to actually win (my birthday's coming up : ). Voting for MSDN and Visual Studio 2003 would be cool, too. Don't be shy! Vote!

I just noticed these two posts from Steve Makofsky formatting web content for compact devices:

• Pocket IE
• dasBlog and .Text on Pocket IE

Mostly, I’d listing these links for myself, as I’ve a hankering for some Smart Phone programming…

If you’re not sure what the heck a Smart Client is, Tim Huckaby explains it like no other:

″This webcast defines the ‘smart client’ and explores the implications and opportunities for smart client application development. The session will focus heavily on high level demos of technologies like Windows Forms, Compact Framework, and Office System 2003 technologies. It will delve into the tips and tricks, positives and negatives when designing, developing and deploying .NET Smart Client applications. .NET Smart Client Applications can run on many different types of devices and in many different scenarios. Join this webcast to learn when it’s smartest to create rich or thin client applications and about how each type handles data and connectivity.”

I just noticed this on the MSDN Webcast list. I’m hoping to attend myself!

“The upcoming 2.0 release of .NET offers many new features and enhancements for the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework and also for the standard Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft Visual Studio IDE. In this presentation, Derek Ferguson, Editor-in-Chief of the .NET Developer’s Journal, will provide a complete introduction to writing device-based applications using Compact Framework 2.0. Full coding demonstrations will be presented, so you are ready to catch the next wave in mobile .NET technology! Previous experience writing managed applications is assumed, but no specific experience with the Compact Framework is required.”

Samuel Wan has posted an excellent explanation of the various terms involved in the public pre-release of the Nov. 2004 Avalon CTP as well as a step-by-step install overview. Nicely done, Sam!

I like exercising my democratic rights. : )

Do you have a series of simple yet compelling ClickOnce applications in you that you can build and deliver to show off the benefits of Windows Forms 2.0 smart clients? Do you have a track record of delivering top-quality code on time and on budget?

If so, send me a proposal, listing a series of ClickOnce applications, your schedule and your price. You don’t have to be a 3Leaf, a PluralSight, a Relevance LLC, a Wintellect or a DevelopMentor (although I’d be happy to hear from those guys, too!). You just have to have a song in your heart, a snap in your step and a story to tell.

By popular demand, the Avalon team has provided the November 2004 Avalon Community Technology Preview for the general public. In addition, the team has provided a batch file to enable the Avalon project item templates for use in the beta of Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition, which is also freely available to the general public.

This combination enables folks without an MSDN Subscription to try out Avalon with Visual Studio 2005 without an MSDN Subscription.

Don’t be shy about giving feedback on these bits now that you’ve got ’em. The Avalon team is standing by in the Avalon newsgroup to answer your questions and take your suggestions.