Lots and lots of SharePoint Portal Server related live webcasts coming up - here's a list of all the sessions (many are repeated):

Fri, 06 May 2005	TechNet Webcast: Getting Back to Normal: SharePoint Backup and Disaster Recovery (Level 300)	Live Webcast
Thu, 12 May 2005	See how the Microsoft Office System can dramatically impact work productivity through collaboration	Live Webcast
Mon, 16 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : SharePoint Services and Sites Architecture	Live Webcast
Mon, 16 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Behind the Scenes – Site and List Definitions	Live Webcast
Tue, 17 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Working With Web Parts	Live Webcast
Tue, 17 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Programming with the SharePoint Object Model	Live Webcast
Tue, 17 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : SharePoint Services and Sites Architecture	Live Webcast
Wed, 18 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Behind the Scenes – Site and List Definitions	Live Webcast
Wed, 18 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Working With Web Parts	Live Webcast
Wed, 18 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Programming with the SharePoint Object Model	Live Webcast
Thu, 19 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : SharePoint Services and Sites Architecture	Live Webcast
Thu, 19 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Behind the Scenes – Site and List Definitions	Live Webcast
Thu, 19 May 2005	Microsoft Business Solutions Webcast: SharePoint Portal Server 101 (Level 100)	Live Webcast
Thu, 19 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Working With Web Parts	Live Webcast
Fri, 20 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Programming with the SharePoint Object Model	Live Webcast
Mon, 23 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : SharePoint Services and Sites Architecture	Live Webcast
Mon, 23 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Behind the Scenes – Site and List Definitions	Live Webcast
Tue, 24 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Working With Web Parts	Live Webcast
Tue, 24 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Behind the Scenes – Site and List Definitions	Live Webcast
Tue, 24 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Programming with the SharePoint Object Model	Live Webcast
Tue, 24 May 2005	TechNet Webcast: How Microsoft IT Does SharePoint Portal Server Hosting (Level 300)	Live Webcast
Tue, 24 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : SharePoint Services and Sites Architecture	Live Webcast
Wed, 25 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Working With Web Parts	Live Webcast
Wed, 25 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Programming with the SharePoint Object Model	Live Webcast
Wed, 25 May 2005	TechNet Webcast: SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Best Practices and Lessons Learned (Level 300)	Live Webcast
Thu, 26 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : SharePoint Services and Sites Architecture	Live Webcast
Thu, 26 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Behind the Scenes – Site and List Definitions	Live Webcast
Thu, 26 May 2005	See how the Microsoft Office System can dramatically impact work productivity through collaboration	Live Webcast
Thu, 26 May 2005	Microsoft Executive Circle Webcast: Portals in an Adaptive Enterprise	Live Webcast
Thu, 26 May 2005	SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Site Development and Customization Workshop : Working With Web Parts	Live Webcast
Fri, 27 May 2005	TechNet Webcast: SharePoint Portal Server 2003: Best Practices for an Implementation (Level 300)	Live Webcast
Tue, 31 May 2005	Microsoft Business Solutions Webcast: Boosting Corporate Productivity Through Portals and Collaboration (Level 100)	Live Webcast
Wed, 01 Jun 2005	Improving Case Management	Live Webcast
Tue, 21 Jun 2005	Microsoft Executive Circle Webcast: SharePoint Deployment from Test to Production	Live Webcast

Microsoft has a couple of online webcast workshops on secure coding coming up:

• Writing Secure Code (Part 1 of 3): Threat Defense - May 6 at 9:00 A.M. PDT
• Writing Secure Code (Part 2 of 3): Threat Defense - May 13 at 9:00 A.M. PDT
• Writing Secure Code (Part 3 of 3): Threat Defense - May 20 at 9:00 A.M. PDT

Sounds interesting. Secure coding is critical - much more so now than ever. Every developer of any web app should be required to become and stay proficient in secure coding.

Not exactly a predictable couple of cities for me to be traveling to, but I am off on a whirl-wind trip to Toledo, Ohio and Omaha, Nebraska. Lots of IT and security kinds of things to think about, check out and make decisions around on this trip, which makes it fun in a way. I'll be back home on Wednesday night.

I'm not sure the fun actually compensates for a bad back and hours upon hours of airplane time (getting to Toledo is going to be rough), but at least I will have the good fortune to fly on a CRJ aircraft all the way back to Portland. They are smaller than your average airliner (it's a regional jet), yet they tend to be more comfortable, quieter and faster.

And thanks to Mike for feeding my dogs and cat while I am away.

A little something for my developer friends...

Not that I'd recommend doing this in a production development environment or anything (there, that's my IT guy disclaimer), but this is great for goofing around on a play box:

• Jomo Fisher - Hack the Build: Use Whidbey Beta2 to target .NET Runtime 1.1

Of course, you won't get any of those cool generics or partial classes that go along with the v2.0 framework, but you can at least target v1.1 and still use the new VS IDE.

NEC's IT Guy Games: 2005 is underway - so go check it out and play.

You can play as often as you like, and keep working to earn better scores (some of them are freaky amazing high scores). And the end of each competition period, one winner takes home a 61-inch NEC plasma display. The games run April 1 through September 30, 2005 and will be played on the following schedule:

• Hardware Hurl April 1 – May 13
• Projector Protector May 16 – July 1
• Office Obstacles July 5 – August 12
• Cube Luge August 15 – September 30

The IT guy games test the following skills:

• keypad dexterity
• keypad speed
• mouse dexterity
• mouse speed
• visual speed/patterns
• hand/eye coordination

Go play now - play often and play hard - Geeks go wild...

People think it rains all the time in western Oregon, but in reality that's not true. Just don't tell anyone, it's our little secret - We just tell people it always rains so they'll leave us alone. While it can rain quite a bit in the winter months at times, we tend to get long, sunny and relatively dry summers here.

Add to that the fact that a lot of the soil in the area is clay (mine is a reddish clay), and plants have a hard time getting water in the summertime. It's a soil that's got lots of nutrients, but the plants tend to have difficulty absorbing the nutrients and the clay tends to keep the water from effectively reaching the plants. A plant that is set directly in clay is likely to have a hard time without some help at planting time. I've found from my own experience that a little extra work when the hole is dug makes for a much healthier plant. 

So, proper soil prep is important, and when it's done well, you can't hardly keep plants from growing in the Pacific Northwest.

Amending clay soil:

• Dig your hole, make it generous in size
• Put a liberal amount of Doctor Earth organic starter fertilizer in the hole first (organic fertilizer is great because it can go next to the roots and it's almost impossible to burn a plant with a good organic starter fertilizer)
• Mix the native clay soil 50-50 with a quality amendment bagged soil before putting it into the hole
• Place the plant and back-fill with your local/amended soil

Just a few plants that can work very well in dry and clay soil (and there are hundreds of others):

• Phormium
• California Lilac (shiny, evergreen, nice and tight, blooms, 4-5')
• Rugosa (wild) or Juniper Roses (low-lying)
• Pampas Grass (grows big)