In job hunting, I've been told that the first person to mention a number loses. A good generic response to such a question could be, "I've agreed to keep my salary confidential. I'm sure we can come up with a number that is fair to both of us."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_(Saturday_Night_Live)[^]

Christian Graus wrote:

asp and aspx are two totally different things.

Too true! I've developed similar applications in ASP and .Net, and I find .Net to be much quicker. Plus, you can pre-compile all of the code so that it runs even faster. ASP didn't offer that. I can't offer up anything solid when it comes to PHP vs. ASP and .Net, but I think it might be true that the PHP sites are sometimes lower traffic sites. I wonder if there's any true analysis of such things... As an aside/related item, last night I moved all of my databases on my production server to a different disk drive than the web services uses. I'm thinking that this will make things faster since each request of the server will have some activity from one drive and some from the other instead of everything having to come from one drive.

Thank you. My question now is, "Why was this newsletter worthy?"

Check out partners.microsoft.com. They have an Action Pack that costs only $300.00 USD per year. If you complete the developer assessment (very easy), you get VS2008 Standard Edition. The Action Pack comes with a whole bunch of other tools like 10 licenses for Office 2007 Professional, various server solutions, and more. I get it every year. I never have to buy an OS, Office Solution, and now Visual Studio.

I've never used OneNote 2003, but I am using 2007. I absolutely fell in love with it. I keep a number of notebooks that I share between my desktop and laptop so that I can access it all while in my office or at client sites. OneNote is the first note organizer that I've used without fail. All others faded off over time.

Chris Maunder wrote:

but only if I could fine the interviewee on every false claim they made to get their foot in the door.

Not a bad idea, but then you run into arbitration based on if the claim was really false. An employer could just as easily get angry at someone who didn't accept and offer and file a false claim that they misrepresented themselves. Perhaps a eBay-like feedback system where after an accepted interview, the employer can rate the person based on various factors. You can still end up with unfair feedback, but if everyone has to rate you, that would be statistically low. But that also raises another issue. If I have a high feedback rating on interviews I've done for pay, that means I've done a lot of interviews - so I'm not likely to accept your job offer, just your money to talk to me. I find it amazing that some bizarre ideas take off while other good ideas falter. I wonder how they'll do.

They have a pretty simple assessment test. No course that you need to take. You get VS 2008 Standard.

If you're a consultant, reseller, VAR, etc., you can join the Microsoft Partner Program and get it with the Microsoft Action Pack[^]. It's amazing what you get for the $300.00 per year price. Joining the Parter program is pretty easy, but you do have to qualify as a partner. And to get Visual Studio, you have to pass a web development proficiency test. It's pretty easy if you know what you're doing.

I don't find the certifications useful in a competency sense. I work with a group of amazing developers (for the most part), and none of them carry a single certification. Yet I believe they create some excellent applications. I'm a Senior Applications Architect, and (with all due modesty), I think I create some great stuff too - for a "hired gun." I have no certifications, and it hasn't hurt me. Contrary, we interface with developers outside of our organization, many of whom sport several sets of initials after their signature line. They're certified, and they frequently write crap - crap that fails, and crap that gets hacked! Regardless, it has become a requirement of our arrangement to have a certain number of certifications among the members of our group. Yes, we will take them. Yes, we will grumble about it. And, yes, we will learn some things - perhaps only a tidbit here and there, but we will learn something. So, are they valuable? Well, those crappy developers have jobs, and I have to assume it was their certifications and not their skills that got them where they are today. My group will be getting certifications, possibly to secure their jobs. So, yes, they're valuable, but in general, I don't believe them to be a good measure of ability. --Barry