uTorrent, a new and cool BitTorrent client

the uTorrent client was recently updated (or "µTorrent", as it's really called).

uTorrent is like many other BitTorrent clients, except for a few notable things. while trying to copy the features and look of Azureus (the most popular BitTorrent client) its is able to use significantly less resources.

while Azureus requires that the Java runtime environment and itself both be installed, uTorrent is a native Windows application, and doesn't require anything else installed. as of version 1.2, uTorrent is just 105K total in size. typical ram usage is around 6 megs or less. Azureus would sometimes take up 64-80 megs of ram, even when on no torrents!

you can get uTorrent here: http://www.utorrent.com/

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So I went to a Microsoft event...

I went to a big Microsoft event (St. Louis) yesterday with my girlfriend (how many girlfriends are willing to go to such nerd events?) - it was to celebrate the launch of Visual Studio 2005.

The guy talked for 4 hours, with two breaks in the middle. We were there 2 hours in advance to register and stand in line. I had pre-registered and had a ticket already, but my girlfriend didn't (due to some mix up, she had a ticket for the SQL Server even). They had a raffle for a DVD player w/ built in screen, an iPod, some MSDN books, and a $50 gift certificate to an online Ticket retailer. We didn't win any of that. We did, however, get free copies of some software.

They gave us each a free copy of the full version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Standard ($299 retail), SQL Server 2005, and BizTalk Server 2006. I also got a bonus DVD with some extra software (like IE 7 Beta 1) and sample code for pre-registering.

I already have a little experience with Visual Basic 2005 Express, but now I can play around with the more "full" version of the product. I already have legit copies of Visual Basic 5, 6, and .NET 2003.

During the event, a presentation was given showing some of the new features of Visual Studio 2005, including some great advances in the ASP.NET web developer program, and some insight into their "no-code" ideas of programming (supposedly, you can reduce your code by up to 70% when you write programs with VS2005 and the .NET 2.0 Framwork).

The event was rather boring - a lot of people fell asleep during it (including me and my girlfriend!), and some people even left before it was over. They obviously didn't care enough about the subject material or the fact they were going to get free software to stay the entire time!

Even though there were a lot of parts that really dragged on, it still had sparked enough interest in my girlfriend that she decided to keep her copy of the software to "try it out."

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Microsoft releases Visual Studio 2005 Express, free!

Microsoft has just released Visual Studio 2005 Express for free (free to download for the next year).

Visual Studio includes applications such as Visual Basic and Visual C# (C "Sharp"), which are used to create Windows applications.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

A Microsoft program manager put things a bit more clear than what the VS Express site states:
"Until November 7, 2006, we are promotionally discounting the downloadable versions of Express to free. This doesn't mean that the product turns off after a year, but rather that as long as you download the product before November 7, 2006, you can get it for free and you can use it forever."

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an anti-Flock site is out already

someone recently pointed out an anti-Flock web site to me.

Flock is a new browser based on Firefox. it has things built in though like support for posting to various blog sites.

while it may make it easier for anyone to become part of the world of blogging, some people don't really think its that great of a program.

first off, the browser itself is a fork of Firefox. instead of building extensions to improve Firefox, they are instead trying to make their work totally separate. the functionality of their browser only exists in their browser, and it cant be used as a replacement to Firefox because it will be based on older code along with not being compatible with all Firefox extensions or most Themes.

the second issue with Flock that some people have is that it would make things too easy for anyone to start posting stuff. i guess some feel that would cheapen the internet in some way.

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