www.johntimney.com

Not often you get something for free, so I was suprised to find a couple of useful Visual Basic.NET books at Microsofts web site

The first is "Introducing Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 for Developers" and is a focused, first look at the features and capabilities in Microsoft Visual Basic 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and the .NET Framework 2.0. If you currently work with Visual Basic 6 it documents the adoption and code migration issues you'll encounter.

The second is "Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET" and is is a fairly complete technical guide on upgrading Visual Basic 6 applications to Visual Basic .NET, including how to upgrade applications with XML Web services, ADO.NET, and .NET remoting. It also provides big-picture architectural advice, a reference of function and object model changes, and hundreds of before-and-after code samples.

Download both as e-books here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vbrun/ms788234.aspx

Also worth noting that some of Microsoft's partners also offer some good freebies, like courses on migration and you can read about those offers here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vbrun/ms788231.aspx

A lawsuit against IBM is apparently reviving debate over whether Web overuse may be classified as an addiction. I dont know about you, but as an MVP and through my work I spend a lot of time on the internet, a lot longer than I spend drinking, socialising or watching TV. 

Am I addicted - are you?

The article below which is from Business Week .COM looks at the problems companies could face in the future if they fire someone for bad internet practices at work, when they could be addicted to the Internet, and thus fall under one or another countries Disability Discrimination Acts should internet addiction be recognised as a problem.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2006/tc20061214_422859.htm