Are you interested in C++ in the .NET world, but don't want to run out and buy Visual Studio just to try the compiler? Have you heard that the Microsoft compiler is actually a powerful, fast compiler for native applications as well as those targeting the runtime? Have you even wondered about using the Visual C++ compiler to build code that you'll actually deploy onto other operating systems?

Well, how about a free copy of the Visual C++ compiler? And linker of course, exactly the same tools that ship with Visual Studio. And libraries: the C Runtime Library and the Standard Template Library. Of course you can produce either native code or code that targets the Common Language Runtime. And to round out the toolkit there are four samples that show off some specific features of the tools, with accompanying whitepapers that explain those features and the samples.

Get yours today at http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/, where you'll also find links to the whitepapers.

Absolutely Seen and Recommended, with the disclaimer that some of the work in there is my own

Whenever you hold a free event, whether it's a user group meeting, a Microsoft-sponsored event, or a free seminar, you can expect about 50% of those who register to show up. We had 30 people registered for last night's first meeting of my new user group. A lot of people told me “I would love to be there, but I already know “What is .NET?” and I am NOT missing this hockey game.” So we expected about 10.

Instead we got 33, it was standing room only and I didn't even care that my aging laptop, no doubt sensing the imminent arrival of its replacement, currently on a truck headed to me from the States, blue screened on about slide 5! I just talked while it rebooted.

Next month we will be in a bigger room! Go Oshawa! (And thanks Leafs after all: without the game more people would have come than we could have fit in the room.)

And don't the stupid Maple Leafs, who clearly did not check with me before the game, go and lose last night, forcing a Game 7 which will be Tuesday -- my UG meeting!

Come on, east-of-Toronto people, you don't need to watch the game, we'll give you updates at the break or something. Or maybe it will go double-overtime again meaning you can watch the end when you get home.

My new user group (that doesn't really have a name yet) is meeting on Tuesday the 20th. That would be tomorrow. Over the weekend I realized it would be good, at this first meeting, to list the next few meetings and their topics. So I emailed three people who had said they would speak. By this morning I have five speakers booked and confirmed. What a great gang! So if you come to Oshawa on the third Tuesday of the month, you're going to see one of these terrific speakers: Ed Musters, Scott Bellware, Adam Gallant, Marcie Robillard, and Jason Beres. I'm still looking for more, and I'm also looking for sponsors, so if you're in the Oshawa / Durham / east-of-Toronto-but-not-exactly-Ottawa-yet zone, let's talk!

Why did I put this under consulting life? Because I think it's funny that we could sort all this out over a weekend. None of us have normal office hours, and none of us mind making firm commitments using email and IM.

Early on in the webcast, a build failed, something about couldn't write to C:. It might have been full, but I decided I wasn't about to settle down to clear off my hard drive in front of attendees, so I carried on without demos. Luckily these slides feature all my code and screen shots of the important bits of the demos (property pages, ildasm output etc) so it worked out ok. (I think; I haven't seen the evals yet .)

I'll be doing it again May 26th, which is actually during TechEd, and perhaps this time it will go a little more smoothly. My head was spinning by the time I finished this one!

On Friday the 16th, I'll be doing a webcast of my TechEd 2003 talk, Head-Spinning Interoperability in Visual C++. This was a very popular talk at Tech Ed USA in Dallas and I repeated it at Tech Ed Europe in Barcelona, a little the worse for jetlag. To register, visit http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032247638&Culture=en-US. If you live in the US, you could even win a pass to Tech Ed!

I've been working for a while on setting up a .NET user group for people who live east of Toronto. I'm not sure what it will be called: Eastern GTA, Oshawa/Whitby, Durham, I really don't know. The first meeting will be in Oshawa at the EDS offices on April 20th from 6-9pm. I'll present “What is .NET?“ and introduce the people who are helping to organize the group. We plan to meet the third Tuesday of every month and to run very much like the Toronto .NET UG, which I helped to found.

For more details including a map and directions, please visit http://gtaeast.torontoug.net and register. (We have to order the right amount of pizza.) Attendance is free, membership is free, even the food and drinks are free. Meet other people who live east of Toronto and are working on .NET. See semi-famous people like DataGridGirl and me. Learn more about a specific .NET topic. How can you go wrong?

See you there!

This is the "big deal" day for me, a day spent with the C++ team immersed in "what's new in Whidbey" and beyond. I've just about completed my mapping of faces to email addresses and delivered some copies of my book to a few people who really helped me while I was writing it. I am taking notes like a maniac, on new IDE features for C++ specifically, on new ways of managing property settings for C++ projects, on converting from old Managed C++ syntax to the new syntax, and so on.

The Developer Tools Roadmap has been updated. It shows some of what's new in Whidbey and looking forward into Orcas. Embedded C++ moving into Visual Studio, the new C++ syntax, templates and generics together, the true return of deterministic destruction with reference types allocated on the managed heap or the stack as you prefer, major optimization improvements for both native and managed code (especially PGO), and more. Of course whatever you see listed under other languages may well apply to C++ too, things like improvments in the Base Class Libraries, ADO.NET, and the rest.

On a "no laptop" day at the conference centre, the executives came to talk to us. It's always nice to be told "we like you, we really really like you" and that's what we (the MVPs) heard. I was also pleased with the questions that came from the audience. There's a lot of awareness about deeply technical matters but also business matters such as licensing.

Lunch was with the product groups and I had a fun time listening to other people's questions and asking a few of my own. Our table was supposedly about the new C++ syntax, but I also learned about interop performance improvements (significant) in Whidbey and some nice IDE changes that I hadn't noticed yet.

I missed quite a bit of the sessions Monday because I had some urgent fires to put out and some other Microsoft-related business to take care of. I did enjoy hearing Don Box again, and seeing some things I just hadn't found time to notice yet. It was a beautiful day here, sunny and bright, and I actually saw the mountains for a few minutes. I was sure that was just something locals tell visitors, the whole seeing the mountains thing. Then we had a C++-specific dinner. What other group would gleefully accept a 64 page paper as they get on the bus to go to dinner, and then immediately start to read it? I know I read mine too.

I arrived in Seattle Sunday afternoon and went to two receptions that evening. I met people, took pictures (not enough) and picked up some to-do items. I had a huge fight with my own power supply and then the hotel high speed. I think I hate technology. I love what it gets me though, so I'll put up with it. There are a number of RDs here, and my badge reads MVP/RD which is a really nice touch.

I flew to Minnesota and back, and then after 36 hours home I flew to Seattle, changing planes in Chicago. That's 4 legs in 3 days and 2 of those legs were significantly delayed by mechanical problems. Yikes! I hope I've used them up for a while. The delay leaving Chicago was caused because the guy driving the baggage ramp bumped into the plane and dented it. They had to get a structural engineer to pronounce judgement on whether the size of the dent meant the plane was out of service.

And the lining up and identifying yourself is reaching epic proportions. Here's how it went for Minnesota: drive to Park N Fly. Walk in, put down suitcase and carry-on, tell someone who I am, get piece of paper, pick everything up. Walk 20 feet to Air Canada desk, put everything down. Tell someone who I am and prove it with passport, also show air miles card in case the travel agent didn't pass it along. Receive piece of paper. Walk outside and wait for bus. Put everything down. Bus comes. Pick everything up, go on bus, tell driver which terminal I want, put everything down.

Reach my terminal, pick everything up, go inside, wait in line to recieve baggage tag. Prove who I am by showing passport and boarding pass. Answer questions about my packing and my luggage. Pick everything up (including bag which will be with me through several more lines yet.) Show boarding pass to prove I am allowed into immigration area. Line up for US Immigration. This line is about 45 minutes long so I am pulled out after ten minutes into much shorter line. Reach immigration guy. Show passport, boarding pass, customs form which I had filled out while waiting in some line or another. Answer questions. Admitted. Pick everything up, walk 20 feet, hand customs form to some other guy. Walk 50 feet, join lineup to have checked baggage x-rayed. Wait while bag comes out. Wait. In there a long time. Eventually it's rejected so I have to carry it over to some other table and wait patiently and non-threateningly while someone hand-searches it. Then she escorts me (I feel so trusted) to the conveyor belt. At least that's gone. Now me and my carry on are headed for the next security checkpoint. Take out laptop and cell phone. Take off coat. Show boarding pass again. Take off shoes because they always set off the metal detectors. Get told off by security people for putting shoes in tray, they must go directly on belt. Whatever. Wait for my stuff. Wait some more while they swab the laptop and hand search my bag to find a suspicious looking pen. Once it was out in the open air it was pronounced safe and returned to me. Put everything back in the bag. Head for gate.

Oh dear. Gate is downstairs. That means, yes indeed, join line up to wait for shuttle bus. Get on bus. Ride to other side of airport. Find subgate. Wait. We are moved to another subgate; pick everything up to walk 100 feet to new subgate. Wait some more.  Ah, finally, we're boarding. Show boarding pass and passport. Onto plane. Don't forget to turn off cellphone! Put everything away and out of reach. I'm a nervous wreck!

Coming to Seattle I had an extra step in all of that -- though I didn't get my luggage hand searched this time -- because I was flying business class (using up my points in case Air Canada really goes bust this time) so I had to prove my identity at two business-class lounges, though I can't really complain about that. I was traveling on one hour sleep (I would have had two if not for the time change) so I kind of zoned through the whole thing and don't really remember much of it.

And airlines wonder why plane travel hasn't picked back up?

I really enjoyed speaking at the Twin Cities .NET User Group April 1st (no fooling!) and just haven't had a minute since then to stop and write about it. I repeated the Remoting talk I did in Montreal and it went nicely. I got to meet another RD (Farhan Muhammad) and an MVP from South Africa on his way to Seattle, Simon Stewart. He did another full talk after mine, on GDI+. Some interesting material on speeding drawing -- I liked it.

I read this morning that XP is gaining a free language pack for Inuktitut, one of the official languages in Nunavut. If you've never seen Windows and Office with the menus and toolbars in another language, you'd be surprised how much you notice all that text when it's not in a language you know. (My brother uses Windows in Japanese as often as he does in English.) Inuktitut is the first Canadian aboriginal language to gain a language pack and Nunavut officials say it will help them run their offices and also encourage young people to retain their language skills in both English and Inuktitut rather than drifting to English only as they enter working life. No dates announced, but expect the language pack in about a year.

The first instance of the MSDN column for Regional Directors, .NET in the Real World, is up! Billy Hollis writes persuasively about smart clients. He also reminds us all that everything old is new again. Like Billy, I have some grey in my hair, and I enjoy those times when having a long memory gives you an advantage over those who only remember one or two waves of technology.

The RD column is to be an ongoing experience. We'll be writing about why certain technologies matter, and what they mean to developers and to businesses. It's a great opportunity to hear some wisdom from some very experienced people. Check it out!