It's amazing how you can use a piece of software every day and still not be aware of fundamental yet extremely cool features it has. I just noticed that Torsten added code to RSS Bandit a while ago that highlights in red any blog post that references your homepage link. Here's a screenshot of it in action. More comments below on related RSS Bandit features.

So I'm back. I've posted in general about travelling and even put up some pics. This post contains all the pent up XML geekery that I haven't been able to post over the past few weeks. Thoughts on passing XML around in the .NET Framework applications, links to the slides and code for my TechEd 2003 talk, opinions on Don Box's TechEd 2003 keynote, a note to reporters who are considering asking me about "Microsoft's official position on RSS", RSS Bandit updates and beating the W3C at its own game.

Most of my travelling is done. In the past 3 weeks I've been in Los Angeles, Vancouver, Lagos, London, Dallas, Abuja, as well as brief lay overs in Chicago and Houston. I have a bunch of stuff to blog about from the Nigeria presidential inauguration and the international first class travel to the poor reception of my TechEd 2003 talk (entirely my fault) and RSS Bandit goings on.

I'll probably post a few entries tomorrow to cover everything. For now I have a poll which I'd appreciate if folks answered.

Poll: Most Effective Weight Loss Mechanism You've Tried?

The importance of contingency plans cannot be overestimated. I thought I could drive to Canada, take care of some paper work at the US consulate, drive back to work, do a test run of my TechEd talk before handing in the final version, drop off my car and make it to the airport in time for an evening flight. This plan was derailed half way through the morning when I found out that I had to hang around Vancouver until 3:00PM before I could get my paperwork finished. So I missed my flight...

Click below for my impressions of Vancouver, my thoughts on the mini-blogger meetup at CrossRoads, responses to various blog posts about XML, an RSS Bandit update and Jayson Blair (how low can he go?)

Poll: Have You Ever Missed A Flight?

So it turns out that I still have stuff to blog about before I leave. The first inspired a KeanuReevesVoice("Whoa") from me. There's now a blog from a Senior VP at Microsoft, Eric Rudder now has his own blog.

The list of B0rg Bloggers is getting long indeed.

I'm unplugging for a while. Before going I decided to release version 1.1 of RSS Bandit. The release notes are contained in the post below and they outline all the new features since version 1.0d. Also some random comments about RSS, OPML, the Blogger API and other XML geekery to do with weblog interaction.

It seems quite afew people liked yesterday's RSS Bandit release. The release is now available on GotDotNet with one, two or is that three bugs fixed. I've been having problems accessing the GotDotnet server I'm supposed to be using for testing autoupdate so it is likely I'll have to do a v1.1 release without the feature or else wait until I get back from Nigeria and TechEd before I bang out a final v1.1 release.

More below on feuding pop stars, <blink>XML XML XML</blink>, Google removing weblogs from their index and how I spent my birthday.

A number of people have asked for various UI features for RSS Bandit. Don asked for a UI widget to help him search Google while Dave wanted notifications when new feeds show up.

ScreenShots

• Integrated Search Bar
  
  
• Notifications on New Messages (old feature, new UI)
  
  
• Themeable Feed Display (Default theme) ( Slashdot theme)
  
  

Happy 25^th to me.

I hate when stupid people decide that because I work at Microsoft it gives them the license to twist my words into "EVIL PRONOUNCEMENT BY THE CORPORATE MURDERING SCUM. Since I'd rather nip this in the bud before Dave Winer uses an out of context quote as part of his paranoid vendetta against Microsoft I'd better explain my thoughts below.