I've just received an email detailing a number of technical events from the MSDN DPE Team (Mike Taulty, Mike Ormond, Daniel Moth & Martin Parry) at Microsoft.  They are to be held at various locations and times in September and October.  Subjects to be covered include Silverlight, Visual Studio 2008, .Net Framework 3.5, Web & Smart Client Development.

• MSDN: Building Dynamic Web Applications with Microsoft Silverlight - 25th September - Reading
• MSDN: Overview of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 - 26th September - Birmingham
• MSDN: Overview of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 - 27th September - Bristol
• MSDN: What's New in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 for the Web Developer - 2nd October - Reading
• MSDN: Overview of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 - 4th October - London
• MSDN: What's New in Smart Client Development - 8th October - Manchester
• MSDN: What's New in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 for the Web Developer - 16th October - Edinburgh
• MSDN: What's New in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 for the Web Developer - 18th October - Bradford

To find out more about these and all future MSDN events go to http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7341022

Did you know that the .Net framework is free?  This is something which is less well known I guess as many assume there is a cost involved.  I've been reading this great post from Ian Moulster on this very subject and he highlights a site within MSDN that Microsoft have developed to highlight how non .Net Programmers can get into .Net Programming, download the framework and free tools for developing with .Net such as Visual Web Developer, Visual C# Express and Visual Basic Express and even SQL Server Express.

The new site can be found at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/netframework/bb470019.aspx and gives some steps into learning .Net whichever background you come from i.e. Java and JSP, PHP or ColdFusion. 

This site might event be of use to current .Net Developers who are still getting to grips with the .Net Framework.

Phew, what a busy week on Monday we had the announcement that Visual Studio Orcas Beta 1 had shipped. The ISO images of this are available to MSDN Subscribers currently but they will be made available soon. There are also VS Orcas Team Suite Edition and there is a VS Orcas Team Suite Edition with Team Server (Which I'm downloading now - boy it's huge!). To get these downloads and to keep an eye out for the release of ISO images got to this link - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspx

If that wasn't enough, I arrive at work at 6:30 this morning to find an email telling me Longhorn Server Beta 3 had shipped! I'm currently downloading this too! Can't wait to take a look at it! To download it go to http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/bb383572.aspx also why not take a look at the coverage on Channel 9.