Over at Web 2.0 Central, Reg has an interesting post on the Top 13 reasons to CONSIDER the Microsoft platform for Web 2.0 development. I especially liked the disclaimer. Not that I question Reg’s objectivity, but it sounds like Microsoft showed him a pretty good time. Maybe I’m just jealous 🙂

This seemed like a good topic to get me back into the blogging spirit. Since I’m working on a Web 2.0 app (NetworthIQ) using the Microsoft platform, I’ve got some thoughts on the subject.

I really enjoyed last year’s Webvisions with some interesting talks by Stewart Butterfield, BJ Fogg, Molly, Thomas Vander Wal and more. It looks like this year’s is rounding into form as well with Dan Cederholm, one of my favorite designers, coming to town.

In the local reviews race, it looks like Zipingo is trailing badly. Yelp, Insider Pages, and Judy’s book look to be going strong except for a recent drop-off for Judy’s book.

I’m not exactly sure how I missed Trixie Tracker‘s launch last month, but the great thing about this blog and PDX Web Innovators is that I’m making some great connections with people here in Portland and this new network is a great place to learn about new things.

Anyway, I mention Trixie Tracker, because I’ve been following Family 2.0 applications like Trixie Tracker, Minti, Amiglia, and Families.com. I’ve had similar ideas in these areas, so it’s been interesting seeing them pop up.

With the Apple Boot Camp announcement today, I think there are no longer any doubts about what my next laptop will be. Not that I have any idea when that will be. I’ve been wanting to switch to a Mac, but now that I’ll (easily) be able to run Windows for ASP.net development, the decision is made easier. Time to start saving for a PowerBook.

Last night, I wrapped up a series of blog updates that have been a long time coming. As always, things are never as easy as they appear to be, but everything appears to be working fine now. Here’s a rundown:

• Moved web hosting to Dreamhost. I got a screaming deal, like $20 for 12 months of hosting. I’ve got a number of domain names I can play around with, so the unlimited domain capability is great. There was a bit of trouble with the permalinks, but managed to get it fixed pretty quickly. I had been running on a Windows/IIS host. But running PHP apps on a Windows host always seems to be a pain. For my ASP.net experiments, I’ll just use our Fourio account.
• Upgraded to WordPress 2.0.2. After Josh mentioned how easy it was, I figured I shouldn’t wait any longer. I had to wait until after moving hosts, as trying to move hosts and upgrade all in one would have been a recipe for frustration. One great thing now is that apparently WordPress 2 now handles /index.php/ style permalinks and the non /index.php/ style at the same time. This is great since I can use the latter going forward, but still have my old links work (and I don’t have to fight with mod_rewrite).
• Redirected local feed to FeedBurner. For some reason, Bloglines is convinced my feed lives on the site, even though the alternate url and feed links both point to the feedburner feed. Plus, even if you manually enter the feedburner feed in bloglines, it changes it to the local feed here, which just seemed downright odd. I submitted a ticket, but they never fixed this. So, it was time to force the issue by just re-directing the feed. I used Steve Smith’s WordPress plugin, and eventually got it working. There was confusion around how to get WordPress to automatically update the .htaccess file, and it took an hour or so of messing around with it to get it working.  Chris Pederick’s User Agent Switcher firefox extension was a big help in testing this, since the rewrite rule serves the feed to FeedBurner and re-directs everyone else to the FeedFurner feed.  (this is why I’m a big FireFox fan, there are so many useful extensions)
• Added the recent entries listing in the sidebar. Fortunately, this one was easy. I think it’s nice when you can get a quick look at what an author writes about. I’m surprised this isn’t included by default in most wordpress themes/templates.

Hopefully, that’s enough blog work for now. Time to get back to work on more important things.

The next PDX Web Innovators is tomorrow night, April 5. It will be great to catch up with everybody and meet the new faces. See ya then…

Over at MOMB, Saurier has released a couple of new features. The Hot 100 and Top 100:

The Top 100 – a list of the 100 most popular betas (and alphas, and pre-betas, …) based on the number of how many bookmarks there are in del.icio.us; this list will be updated biweekly, and

The Hot 100 – which is a kind of mini-zeitgeist and displays the most popular betas (and alphas, and pre-betas, …) based on how many bookmarks there have been added within the last 7 days; this list will be updated every Sunday.

I was reading an interview at SitePoint with Dino Esposito, an “ASP.NET Expert.” I know he has written several books (apparently well rated and sold), and I’ve read several articles by him before. But this comment scares me a bit:

“I don’t write much real-world code. But automated testing is key. Period.”

So, he’s an “Expert,” but doesn’t write much real-world code? Should we be looking elsewhere for ASP.NET 2.0 books? I generally like to learn from someone who has been there, done that. Since I don’t like Wrox books much (too big and disjointed usually), I’ve avoided their book. Hopefully, Fritz Onion’s book will be out sooner rather than later.

I’ve talked before about tracking Web 2.0 and mentioned the following:

But, say I want to find the best calendar app with reviews, ratings, a screenshot, in a easy to navigate list. Where do I go to get that info?

I’d say the Web 2.0 Awards is pretty close to the answer to that question. The Web 2.0 awards is a beautiful list that has rated, ranked, and awarded the best of Web 2.0 sites across many categories.