This looks interesting... if nothing else. A whitepaper on how to include SQL Server 2005 Express in your distribution.

From Microsoft

Pretty wise guy Evan Williams (ex-founder of blogger.com), gives 10 rules for web startups. I think many apply to startups in general. You can find them all here

http://evhead.com/2005/11/ten-rules-for-web-startups.asp

heres just 1 for yah... or you can read them all (if not from Evan's Blog) after the jump

#1: Be Narrow
Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do. Small things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you think when you zoom in. You can much more easily position and market yourself when more focused. And when it comes to partnering, or being acquired, there's less chance for conflict. This is all so logical and, yet, there's a resistance to focusing. I think it comes from a fear of being trivial. Just remember: If you get to be #1 in your category, but your category is too small, then you can broaden your scope—and you can do so with leverage.

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Lots of good things for SQL Server 2005 can be downloaded from here:

MS SQL Server 2005 Feature Pack

Microsoft ADOMD.NET
Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0
Microsoft OLEDB Provider for DB2
Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Management Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 PivotTable Services
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DTS Designer Components
Microsoft SQL Server Native Client
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services 9.0 OLE DB Provider
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility Components (DMO, DSO, DTS)
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Command Line Query Utility
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Datamining Viewer Controls
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Management Objects Collection
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Notification Services Client Components
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Upgrade Advisor
Microsoft .NET Data Provider for mySAP Business Suite
Reporting Add-In for Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express

Part of my dissertation topic is going to involve web services. I have been trying to find a good free .Net workflow engine. Of course I could not find any... until now:

Microsoft Windows Workflow engine for VS 2005

I found an interesting implementation of shelling commands from .Net. Check it out here:
http://www.developerdotstar.com/community/node/280

Once again I have had to try and get a version of PHP running with Cygwin. You cannot begin to understand the pain. For the details follow the jump: (more...)

With all the writing I have done in the last year, I cannot help but be interested in professional writing. Here is a good blog that offers good advice and tutorials:

http://copywriter.typepad.com/copywriter/

This page has consolidated over 30 cheat sheets for developers. Covers HTML, CSS, Google, PHP, SQL, htaccess, and lots of other codes. Check it out here:
http://www.petefreitag.com/item/455.cfm

With all the hype about Google these days, it is interesting to hear a conterpoint to thier ultimate dominance. Robert Cringley writes an facinating article about the fact that Google may be peaking. Here is a quote

What the heck Google is up to is a favorite topic of conversation this week in high tech circles. What's driving this is a combination of things including the new Google Toolbar, Gtalk, but most especially the company's announcement that it will shortly sell another $4 billion in shares. What does Google plan to do with all that money, people are wondering?

Nothing at all.

And he goes on:

What Google WILL do is roll-out incremental products at a blinding pace. Not long ago, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin explained to me that rapid development is an important key to market dominance.

"What you want to do," he said, "is listen to your customers and bring out every two weeks improved versions that would each take your competitor two months to complete. That's when you are on a rocket -- they can't keep up so they can't compete. They lose hope and pretty soon you have the market pretty much to yourself."

That pace of technical development, which probably isn't sustainable for long at any company, isn't POSSIBLE at all at more mature companies like AOL, Yahoo, and especially Microsoft. That adolescent energy is the mojo that makes a startup scarier to Bill Gates than a mature competitor. He knows that if Microsoft ever takes a big dive, it will be because of a Google, not a Yahoo, and certainly not an AOL.

You can read it HERE.

I recently was working on a project where I needed to upload a file to a webserver. I got it all working but did not know (at least not right away) that the webserver actually collects the file in memory before writing it to disk. So, when I uploaded a 1G file, guess how much memory I used? In any case MS talks about a way to deal with downloading a file to avoid this problem here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812406/EN-US/