Scott Hanselman provides some good tips for presentations, the best being that you need to have a big font. Absolutely! Or maybe do your presentation in a movie theater - that screen would be big enough, I suppose.

Purely by coincidence, I use green on black for my VS.NET command line. Why do I use that? It's easier to see for me sitting in front of the computer. So I guess his statement that it's "...scientifically THE most visible...color...for prompts" holds true for me.

I have one more. If you have a presentation and some code samples, and have the ability to do it, get two machines and two projectors. Brian and I did a presentation on server controls a while back, and did just that. I think it worked out great - no switching between Powerpoint and Visual Studio. People can still see the points on the slides about the demo while they see the demo, and can see the last code sample as the presentation moves on.

Having two people makes things go smoother too. One can do most of the presentation while the other is the "code monkey" (that was me). So instead of worrying about the code, one guy talks about what is going to happen and why, while the other one, who no longer has to worry about explaining everything that he's doing, is free to just do it. Of course, this relies on two people who know each other's style as well as the material. But shouldn't that be a given anyway?

Wouldn't it be nice if I could post a code sample, like the one about the multi-sorting comparer, and instead of doing a copy and paste of the code into your own code file, you could have your aggregator (you're using an aggregator right?) pull the file down automatically?

Or what if you went to a user group meeting, and instead of the presenter telling you where you can download the sample code or presentation, you could pull it down from his or her blog when he or she posts it to their blog?

I think that's going to be the use for "podcasting" that'll make it mainstream.

Now, I just need to hack up b2evo so it'll support enclosures, then modify my blogging tool to support uploading of attachments and posting of enclosures. Then I can attach my code samples to my posts.

I need to go at least 8 - 6 to get back to .500, and I'm feeling pretty good here. Let's get to it then.

• St. Louis (-1.5) vs. Buffalo: It's getting to the point where the weather starts to be an issue. Not this weekend though - looks like game time should be around 55. St. Louis is only getting a point and a half? Not enough!
• Dallas vs. Baltimore (-8): I thik Baltimore will win, but Dallas will rebound from a poor few weeks to get within 8.
• New York Jets vs. Cleveland (PK): The Jets were right on track three or four weeks ago. Now they're a pick 'em against the Browns? That doesn't quite seem right.
• Pittsburgh (-4) vs. Cincinnati: Pittsburgh will continue to roll, despite their recent troubles against Cincy.
• Indianapolis (-7.5) vs. Chicago: Another city where weather becomes a factor. And again, not this weekend. Chicago's only hope for beating Indy is a sudden snow storm where Manning can't even see his receivers. And even then, it's iffy.
• Detroit vs. Minnesota (-7.5): Nothing like a game against the Lions to get a team going! Seven and a half? They'll lead by that at half time.
• Arizona vs. Carolina (-3): The Cardinals can see the .500 mark, and are hungry. Well, maybe not hungry, but they can feel a slight twinge in their stomachs. Carolina apparently forgot they are a Super Bowl team.
• Tennessee vs. Jacksonville (-3): The Titans, after a very disappointing loss to the Bears, should rebound nicely. Of course, this one's tough to put on the board (it wasn't yesterday) because both Leftwich and McNair are injured.
• San Francisco vs. Tampa Bay (-8): The Bucs should win, but not by 8. They play close games, and this one should be no different.
• Denver (-4) vs. New Orleans: Both of these teams are playing under the radar around here. No news on either team really. I'll take Denver though.
• Miami vs. Seattle (-10): The Ross Code of Betting kicks in here. When favored by 10, take the dog. But Seattle will win.
• San Diego (-4) vs. Oakland: All I've heard about this game is that Oakland has San Deigo's number, and has had it for the past three years. News flash: Everyone had San Diego's number over the past three years. This year is different. Why? The Chargers are good this year. They'll win by more than 4.
• Atlanta (-2.5) vs. New York Giants: It's the curse of the odd week for Atlanta, so the Giants should win.
• Washington vs. Philadelphia (-10.5): After just mentioning the RCoB, I'm going to ignore myself (something I recommend, actually), and pick Philly to win. T.O., despite his womanizing, racially stereotypical actions on Monday Night Footballs' intro, will probably opt to play football, rather than stay in the locker room with a towelless woman. That spells success for the Eagles. For those with no sense of sarcasm, that's a joke. I think the whole uproar has been blown way out of proportion, and honestly, will only serve to help MNF - the original plan behind the whole ad in the first place.
• Green Bay (-3) vs. Houston: Green Bay is making a solid run at the NFC North, and that will include rolling the Texans this weekend.
• New England (-3) vs. Kansas City: This should be a good match up. Hopefully it wil be high scoring, as neither team has a great defense, and both have pretty good offenses. New England should come out on top though.

For those looking for a lock solid pick this week (given my solid history of picking one of those), I'm going to go with Minnesota beating Detroit. Detroit has a lot of work to do - first and foremost is doing something with Harrington. Maybe Detroit should deep snap to their punt returner, and just treat every offensive play as a punt return. They'd probably be better that way. Since that won't happen, Minnesota will beat them. Gauranteed!

I think I agree with this. I've never used Pico, so I can't say. In college, I used vi for my first two years, and never totally got the hang of it. I could save and exit, and therefore, I could do what I needed to do. Eventually I switched to Emacs. I was so in love with Emacs at the time, that I even installed Emacs for windows so I could use it as my editor of choice. Eventually, the integration of Visual Studio won me over, and the fact that it also uses double key strokes (Ctrl-K, Ctrl-C is my favorite, with Ctrl-K, Ctrl-U a very close second) was a bonus!

Nothing like needing a double key stroke just to save a file!

Go read this, and see if he can reign in the power of google!

Dave Burke points out a tool called WebMon, which allows you to add web pages to it, and it alerts you when the page changes.

So now, finally, I can add a site that I make comments on and see when it's updated. I've added comments to sites before, then found them googling months later, only to realize a reply was added, and I never saw it! But now, no more!

We had an issue where a control posted back, and we wanted to scroll back down to where the user was. It wasn't working quite the way we had hoped. So it's a good thing that we came across this, a server control that accomplishes what we wanted to do.

And while I'm at it, MetaBuilders has a server control that allows you to set what button to click when you press enter in a field on a page. We implemented that, and it works like a champ. Thanks Mark!

Rob Howard has a good article published in the January 2005 issue of MSDN Magazine on High-Performance ASP.NET web applications. It has good reasoning and solid examples of how to do each of the 10 items he highlights. Then, he dispells some common performance myths.

And when you're done with that, read Scott Mitchell's analysis of Rob's article. He says viewstate should be the number one item on the performance list. I, by the way, agree with Scott!

So I had a decent week picking. Well, unless you ask one unlucky sole who asked me for a lock, and I said whoever plays Arizona. I think he has a different view!

• Baltimore 20 (-1), New York Jets 17: One of a handful of OT games, and Baltimore comes out on top.
• Pittsburgh 24 (-4), Cleveland 10: Pittsburgh is the real deal, and I think they're better than New England. I think they are the early pick in the AFC right now.
• Houston 14, Indianapolis 49 (-9.5): Manning is a machine. This offense is incredible. They (again) won't get to the big game because of defense. Wasn't Dungy supposed to be the answer to that problem? Oh wait - you mean a coach alone can't fix a defense? You need players too?
• Chicago 19, Tennessee 17 (-5.5): Seriously. Who saw this coming? Is Krenzel is the next Trent Dilfer? Not flashy, but does just enough to get the win? Actually, word out of Chicago is that Krenzel was awful, and has no hope of getting better. Then again, it's been 20 years since the Bears have been any good!
• Tampa Bay 14, Atlanta 24 (-4): Even week Atlanta. That's enough to warrant a win.
• Detroit 17, Jacksonville 23 (-3): Another disappointing week for Detroit. The call for Harrington's head is getting louder and louder. Can a McMahon siting be far behind?
• Seattle 12, St. Louis 23 (PK): At the start of the season, I don't think most would have been surprised that these two would be 1-2 in the NFC West at this point. Arizona and San Fran never were solid competitors. A few would have been surprised that St. Louis was in first, but not shocked. But both of them being 5-4? That's the major surprise. Seattle was supposed to be the favorite in the NFC. What happened?
• Kansas City 20 (-4), New Orleans 27: So is KC back on track or not? I'm not sure it matters. The best they can do now is 10-6. While that probably will be good enough to make the playoffs, that's asking a 3-6 team to win seven straight. Six of seven is more feasible, but will 9-7 be good enough?
• Cincinnati 17, Washington 10 (-3): No one listens to me. I saw this one coming. No wait. It was a lucky guess. I get those two things confused.
• Minnesota 31, Green Bay 34 (-4): I picked this one. Yeah, Minnesota lost, but they covered! And that's all that matters, right?
• New York Giants 14 (-2.5), Arizona 17: Every one looks at Arizona and assumes they suck. Suddenly though, they are 4-5, and just a couple of spots out of a playoff spot - right now, a 5-4 record is a playoff team in the NFC.
• Carolina 37, San Francisco 27 (PK): Look on the bright side. The 49ers now has the inside track to the first pick in the draft. Well, actually, Miami is giving them a run, but I'm confident San Francisco can pull this one out.
• Buffalo 6, New England 29 (-8): New England continues to roll. No letdown seen from the snapping of their long winning streak - a sign that they are on a collision course with Pittsburgh to meet again in the playoffs.
• Philadelphia 49 (-6), Dallas 21: Another Monday night blowout. So far, 6 of 10 have been won by more than 10 points. What's with the big uproar over the intro? No bad language, no nudity. And isn't the target for the NFL 18-49 year old males? A woman implied to be naked probably appeals to them. I wouldn't know. I'm married, but that's what I hear. ;-) And what's up with Tony Dungy? How was that intro racist? I saw it, and I never even thought race until he brought it up.

Not too bad for the week really. Here's my stats:

I think this is one of the first times that I finished against the spread better than picking winners. Minnesota covered, but didn't win, so that's where that came from. I'll post next week's picks soon.

The .NET To Go Mobility Roadshow is coming to the DeVos Center on December 2nd, from 6-9. You'll even have a chance to win a mobile device.

Let me know if you are planning to go. I'm hoping to, but that is the day before our beta is set to release, so we'll see how things are going.