Beginning programming

At work I've been trying to make a simple script to pull information from various servers. The problem I'm encountering is the limited ability to run the script, you have to run this from a command prompt and most users are not familar with this.

Instead of buying another tool, I got the idea about building a application from the bare bones. A few months ago I attended a Microsoft show that handed out Microsoft Visual Studio, a software application for programming Windows applications. Now I always thought that building applications of something useful was really hard. I've written programs at school that did things like play a game or added students to a simple database. Here I wanted to do a bit more.

So now I'm trying to learn what I can and re-learn what I forgot (it's been a few years since my last class).

Here's a few useful links for those who are intersted in prgramming as well.

Microsoft's Coding 4 Fun web site, lots of interesting projects.
Microsoft's C# Learning Resources videos, a bunch of free beginner videos on C#.
Learn Visual Studio web site, lots of videos but you need to subscribe.

Writing a letter

Today I sent out a package to my friend in Chicago. I included a hand written letter since she sent me one with a lanyard the previous week. While I was writing the letter I really noticed just how long it's been since I've actually wrote someone. It's interesting to read someone's letter. At times you can almost feel what they are feeling from the way they write and it has some much more meaning than a e-mail or phone call.

Rob