Zubair.NET!

Yesterday, I attended GITEX 2005 or Gulf Information Technology Exhibition, the biggest IT event in the Middleeast and organized each year in Dubai World Trade Centre before the Holy Month of Ramadan but this time, there is something different about it, GITEX has completed its 25 years showcasing latest IT-related products from different regional and international vendors under one roof.

The full day yesterday was dedicated to the event, I left the office at 10am, and parking near the venue was terrible. After this, a queue awaited me at the “Fast Track Registration” inside the hall and it took another 30 minutes to clear.

After getting the pass, I headed straight to the Microsoft pavilion, where Microsoft “unveiled” SQL Server 2005 and VS2005. But sadly, besides two presentations on each, there were no give-aways.

Besides new product info, GITEX also provides a solid opportunity to meet new people and build future contacts. Among many other people, I met two important personalities from Pakistan, Mr. Vaqar Khamisani and Madam Jehan Ara.

Mr. Vaqar Khamisani works for Microsoft and is also an MVP Lead. He is a very well known person in Pakistan. He was quick to recognize me after our recent meeting in PDC’05 in Karachi.

Madam Jehan Ara is the President of Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), she was kind to give me a few minutes and I quickly snapped a photo with her.



I returned back to the office at 8pm with loads of brochures, mags and business cards. So if you are around, you should definitely visit GITEX and don’t forget to carry a lot of business cards, you’re really going to need them.

Bill Evjen continues his series of articles examining ASP.NET 2.0 Starter Kits with the examination of the Time Tracker Starter Kit.

Check it out: Introduction to the Time Tracker Starter Kit
& Extending the Time Tracker Starter Kit

Check out the past articles:
Introduction to Personal Web Site Starter Kit
Extending the PWS Kit

Introduction to the Club Site Starter Kit
Extending the Club Site Starter Kit

Just one month and few days before the official release of ASP.NET 2.0 along with Visual Studio 2005, I have deployed my website TheZubair.NET running on top of ASP.NET 2.0 Beta 2 and SQL Express 2005.

check it out www.thezubair.net and give me your feedback here.

A while earlier, I plugged in the extra LCD monitor I had to split my screen horizontally between two monitors e.g. 21” + 17”. Thanks to Digital Video Interface (DVI), I can now avoid the pile up of different windows on each other, at least to some extent.

See also: True Wide Screen Monitors

I completed the hands-on lab of Atlas three days back and wanted to write about it, but I guess Steven Smith has already described them.

I have setup online demos of the Hands-on lab here: http://63456.hostmyapplications.com/default.aspx

The official ASP.NET "Atlas" website: atlas.asp.net

Download Hands-on labs documentations: http://atlas.asp.net/docs/default.aspx

Happy Atlas!

A while ago, I wrote about the development on Atlas Project. Scott Guthrie has just unleashed ATLAS at the PDC.

Here is the link to the Official Atlas Website

Happy Programming!

Nikhil has been busy preparing some great ATLAS demos to show off at this year's PDC in LA. It looks like there is alot of new AJAX stuff coming up.

For more info check out this post on Nikhil's blog.

Also, Nikhil has invited your questions/comments about Atlas, I had posted a question regarding SEO Issues and how Atlas deals with it.

I just wish I was there to attend the PDC. Well! may be someday..... for now I guess I have to wait till the end of the PDC for this stuff to become available online.