Apress has a section titled Alpha and Beta Books. There you can read "first drafts" (alpha) as well as "shipping real soon now" (beta) chapters of upcoming book releases. You will find a wide range of book topics on the aforementioned page. Currently interesting to us in the .NET camp are the chapters for the Test Driven Development (TDD) book.

In case this weekend turns out to be too long for you (and you get bored without a real .NET challenge), check out the CodeDOM MSIL Code Provider and the CodeDOM Subset Code Provider. The more interesting bits from the download description:

The Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) code provider takes a CodeDom tree and generates MSIL syntax. MSIL code provider generates all the CodeDom elements that are part of the 1.1 conformance spec. MSIL code provider generates code for most of the CodeDom types that shipped in V1.1. Why emit C# when you can emit IL!

The CodeDom Subset Code provider consumes CodeDom trees in the way the C# code provider does, but whenever a node that does not fall into the subset is encountered, it emits a #error in the generated code. This will alert to the CodeDom tree builder of any place in their code where they don't meet subset conformance. Roll your own subset of the C# language - anyone interested?

I admit it: I'm too easily excited and tend to install about any kind of Beta that I get my hands on on my machines. That's how the WUS trial found its way on the domain controller, and aside from the disk space requirements that initially bit me, it is smooth sailing so far. Of course, I didn't put all machines "on the line":

Doing it via AD and a group policy also enables you to set the various options rather easily from one single central location:

What's that got to do with .NET development? Easy: I have tons of VPC images, and it is rather too easy (and dangerous) to forget to patch one of those. Now everything is taken care of automatically without wasting Internet bandwidth.

From the abstract: Seth Fogie presents the latest in our series of security audio sessions. Mr Fogie discusses all the major security issues that are affecting Windows Mobile Pocket PC devices. Some of the topics covered include:

• Worms, trojans and backdoors
• Insecurities in wireless connectivity
• Denial of Service attacks
• Specific problems (ActiveSync, autorun SD/CF cards, buffer overflows)
• PDA device as an attack platform
• Tips on securing your PDAs.

The audio session is 13:58 minutes long (Flash required).

Benjamin Armstrong (aka Virtual PC Guy) posted a computer migration strategy using Virtual PC. Now that is kinda cool to be able to migrate the entire old computer into a virtual machine.

Michael Howard did it again in his latest Writing Secure Code column: how you can run as an administrator and access Internet data safely by dropping unnecessary administrative privileges when using any tool to access the Internet (article on MSDN Security Developer Center). Started using the DropMyRights application immediately on my email applications (yes, I'm one of those devs who does run with administrative privileges by default). Really painless. And can save a headache or two.

Last week I did a three day course for Peter's Sql Server User Group Austria (SSUGA). The reason it is part of the Summer Academy is that it originally was scheduled for summer, but I got the slot which ended up colliding with about everybody's holiday plans - so we decided to reschedule, and last week it finally happened (right smack when the snowfalls started... so much for the title).

What did we cover? Well, obviously not everything of the advanced stuff I planned, however we did get the basics covered very well, so we could build on that for DAAB, CodeSmith and Olymars. For the German-speaking among my blog readers, a more detailed course outline follows (like I said earlier, we did cover almost everything):

"Dieser Kurs richtet sich an professionelle Entwickler die für das Design und die Entwicklung von Daten-zentrierten, verteilten Applikationen verantwortlich sind. Teilnehmer haben bereits Erfahrung mit Visual Studio .NET 2003, bevorzugt im Bereich der Webapplikationsentwicklung. Die Kursbeispiele werden in C# präsentiert, die verwendete Datenbank ist die MSDE.

In diesem Kurs werden disconnected (DataSet) als auch connected Szenarien des ADO.NET Datenbankzugriff-APIs behandelt. Ebenso kommt XML Integration nicht zu kurz, Data Binding, Transaktionen sowie architekturelle Themen.

Inhalte:

• ADO.NET Grundlagen / Architektur
• Connected Szenarien
• Disconnected Szenarien
• Data Binding in WebForms and WinForms
• DataSet/XML Integration, Typisierte DataSets
• Design von Data Tier Komponenten, durchreichen von Daten über Tiers
• Arbeiten mit dem SQL Server Centric .NET Code Generator
• Provider Model Design Pattern"

The Windows Mobile section on microsoft.com has smartphone demos live (currently for the Orange SPV C500 [the one I own], the Motorola MPx220, as well as the Audiovox SMT 5600). No longer there is the need to rely on reviews by others, you can actually try the features.

Brian has the details in his blog for the two changes:

• ASP.NET 2.0 Directory Naming Changes
• ASP.NET 2.0 Compilation Model Changes

You can download two PowerPoint slide decks from Visual Studio 2005 Team System presentations at DevConnections in Las Vegas (November 2004):

• VMS352 - Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Software Project Management
  In this session you will learn how to take advantage of the combined power of Visual Studio, the Microsoft Office System, and industry proven practices to successfully manage software projects—from conception to deployment.
• VMS355 - Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Enterprise Class Source Control & Work Item Tracking
  This session introduces the new Team Foundation Server in Visual Studio 2005, including the new Source Code Control, Work Item Tracking and Team Portal. See how an integrated and extensible server-based system will boost your team’s productivity by significantly streamlining your development processes.