Rob Windsor's Weblog

Microsoft Support for Visual Basic 6.0

In case you're wondering about Microsoft's support policy for VB 6.0 (and it seems more and more of you are) you should check out Product Family Life-Cycle Guidelines for Visual Basic 6.0.

Product Life-Cycle Phases

Mainstream Phase

• Standard support offerings are available for Visual Basic 6.0, such as Premier Support, free professional telephone and online incident support per warranty, paid professional telephone and online incident support, free critical updates (also known as a "HotFix" or a "QFE"), and free online self-help tools. For details and pricing guidelines for paid professional support, please visit the Microsoft Product Support Services Web site.
• The Mainstream phase will be in effect for six years after the product's general availability date. Visual Basic 6.0 was generally available in January 1999. Mainstream support will end March 31, 2005.

Extended Phase

• Standard support offerings include Premier Support, paid telephone and online incident support, and free online self-help tools.
• Critical Updates will be available for a fee.
• Free telephone and online incident support will no longer be available.
• The Extended phase will be in effect from seven to nine years after the product's general availability date. Extended Phase support begins in April 2005 and ends March 2008.

Non-Supported Phase

• Support will no longer be offered for Visual Basic 6.0 after nine years of general product availability.
• Visual Basic 6.0 will no longer be supported starting March 2008.

Caesars 24/7 - Geeks do Vegas

We all know what developer conferences are about right? Going to the sessions, comparing hardware, discussing why Klingons didn’t have ridges on their heads during the first season of the original series. But what nobody talks about is the sexy, steamy side of developer conferences. What happens after the last discussion on exposing DataSets from web services is over.

Well just like Marlin and Jim in Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, A&E finally caught developer nightlife happening in the wild (OK Vegas – but it’s really the same thing). Check out Caesars 24/7 next Monday (January 31) and see the footage that no one has seen before (and no one will likely ever want to see again). Watch the .NET Rocks/Monday’s crew (Carl Franklin, Rory Blyth, Mark Miller and Nick Landry) as they attempt to do what no developer has ever done before…

[From the Caesars 24/7 web site]  “…In Vegas, it's said that for every man there's a woman and for every woman there's a man. But does that include geeks? Four big time nerds in town for a computer programmer's convention decide to take a break from boring seminars and try to pick-up a woman they meet at the bar. Are they up to the challenge?”

The .NET Celebrity Auction for Aceh Aid at IDEP

I'm sure you already know about this but just in case you've been playing Xbox instead of reading blogs for the last couple days, here it is. I have to point out that two of my homies from ObjectSharp (Barry Gervin and John Lam) made this international all-star team.

Thirty of the top consultants and trainers in the worldwide .NET community have come together to help raise money for an organization that is doing amazing and heroic disaster relief in Aceh Province, Sumatra, the hardest hit area of the Dec 26th Tsunamis.

The organization is Aceh Aid at IDEP, headquartered in Bali. Because the organization is located in Indonesia, ALL of the money is able to go to help the victims. For a closer look at what they are accomplishing, visit the weblog of Susi Johnston, who is the Acting Emergency Director of Operations and Communications for Aceh Aid at IDEP.

The consultants in this auction are Michelle Leroux Bustamante, Kimberly L. Tripp, Jonathan Goodyear, Andrew Brust, Richard Campbell, Adam Cogan, Malek Kemmou, Jackie Goldstein, Ted Neward, Kathleen Dollard, Hector M Obregon, Patrick Hynds, Fernando Guerrero, Kate Gregory, Joel Semeniuk, Scott Hanselman, Barry Gervin, Clemens Vasters, Jorge Oblitas, Stephen Forte, Jeffrey Richter, John Robbins, Jeff Prosise, Deborah Kurata, Goksin Bakir, Edgar Sánchez, Thomas Lee, J. Michael Palermo IV, Vishwas Lele, and John Lam.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5552696499

January TVBUG Meeting Canceled

Due to the dreaded "unforeseen circumstances” the January TVBUG meeting has been cancelled. We will return to our irregular schedule next month (on the 15th) when we host the third of four MSDN User Group Tour events, this time on Interoperability.

For those of you who are concerned you won’t get your recommended monthly requirement of geekyness I suggest you head downtown and catch fellow MVP John-Luc David talk about Developing For Longhorn With XAML and Avalon at the Metro Toronto .NET User Group.

I'm a Movie Star!

I'm not in a movie you'd go to see at a theatre but I am the star of the .NET Rocks movie. OK, star might not be 100% accurate but I am prominently featured for a frame or two around 1:07:32 into the movie, I’m looking over Julie Lerman’s shoulder while she finishes up talking about handwriting recognition on the Tablet PC. I can’t believe they didn’t ask me to do a photo shoot for the box cover….

Microsoft MVP - Year Two

I just received the email, I have been awarded MVP status for another year. It always great to be recognized for your efforts but it feels somewhat strange to be receive an award for something you love to do. Anyway, I'm proud to be included amongst the group of talented and community minded individuals that make up the MVP team.

Windows Forms FAQ

I referred two or three people to this site when answering questions on the newsgroups today so I thought I give some blog love to George Sheppard's Windows Forms FAQ. If you have a question related to Windows Forms (the DataGrid in particular) this site probably has the answer and a code sample to help you out.