I have been using the Microsoft Development Tools since 2002, working with every iteration including the beta versions. However the 2010 edition of Visual Studio 2010, Team Foundation Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010 makes huge improvements to developer productivity and functionality, allowing developers to focus on their core competancy. Writing Code!

In early December I had an idea about running a developer event which will run across 3 cities and be available online to bridge the gap between developer communities and speakers. With a little help this event has become a reality and will be called DevRally.

I have published my first ever project to CodePlex. Media Mogul is a media manager which will be written in WPF using the Prism methodologies, and will have pluggable video and music modules. The core features of the application are written as command line applications to allow power users access to the feature sets without needing the front-end.

Diago.co.za recieved a face-lift after realizing some key components where missing from the stylesheet. The end result is a slighlty nicer and softer interface along with a more streamlined navigation system. jQuery has also been integrated into the site.

I have had the honour of working with the Microsoft MVPs for some time now, and have to admit that they continue to amaze me. The South African MVPs are making waves locally and the international MVPs are just as passionate and driven.

The Visual Studio Ranger team has started the year of extermely busy by publishing quite a few projects to CodePlex. Among them is the Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 VM Factory which I was a proud contributor off.

I have moved hosting a few times in the last 2 years, however the lastest move is possibly the most exiciting since Diago.co.za and all my other sites, including the Eskhaleni corporate sites and my wifes blog HoneyB.co.za is now hosted on a VPS supplied by UltimateHosts.

Microsoft has officially announced the launch date for Visual Studio 2010 and also released the Beta 2 version to MSDN subscribers with Go Live licenses in place. There has been quite a few changes we will look at over the next few days.

Eskhaleni Technologies is a company owned by wife and I recently re-desinged the official website. The new website being planned is being developed in ASP.Net MVC 2 and the new logo is finally been revealed on the website, after being used internally for some time.

There seems to be a big twitter frenzy around desktop configurations lately, and I have spent some time getting mine tweaked to exactly what I need everyday. Doing some small changes and using the right software, you can get a complete minimalistic desktop quickly and easily.