vbCity/devCity

What happened during June 2005 at vbCity

Shandy — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 18:52:00 GMT

Each month I try to post a personal review of what happened at vbCity during the previous month and this month is no exception :)

Helper Of The Month (HOTM)

Congratulations to David Jeavons aka djjeavons for winning the June 2005 HOTM. David won fairly easily this month as his nearest rival for the HOTM title had around 1000 points less then David.

.NET Fella

Congratulations to Vikram Warrier aka vikramjb for winning the June 2005 .NET Fella Award. Vikram has been there or thereabouts for the award for a few months now and it was great to see him finally get it.

Newsletters

Just one devCity Newsletters was sent out in June, on May 25th (It went out a little late on June 1st). We are always on the lookout for people to write articles for our newsletter so if you would like to get involved please contact Ged Mead, aka xTab

vbCity sends out a community newsletter email once a month, usually around the last week. All registered vbCity members can choose to receive it by going to their profile, selecting preferences and then ticking the Yes, send me monthly Community Update mailing checkbox. You might notice some items from this post appear in the newsletter!

Site News

The leaders continued with their updating of members from Hyperactive to Guru status. We are working along the lines of nominating Hyperactive members who catch our eye with the quality of their technical posts. All the leaders then have a chance to vote whether the member gets upgraded to Guru status. We anticipate this will be done each month, although there is no requirement for the number (or indeed any) of members that get upgraded each month. Our thanks go to Chris for creating the web site we have been using to perform this process. The hyperactive members who were awarded guru status are list as June2005 gurus!

A new feature has been added to the advanced search at vbCity. You can now search for words contained in attachments too.

Another new feature is the adding of a reply number to each reply in a thread. It appears to the left of the subject line and is marked #1, #2 etc. Clicking on these links places a URL in your browser address box that can be used to directly link to an individual reply.

Leader News

Each month our resident genealogist, Wonkotsane digs up some fascinating and little known facts about our new leaders and this month it was the turn of djjeavons, aka the Marquess Of Walthamshire.

We have missed Gilles this month as he has been spending time looking for a new house. We hope he finds the perfect home soon and gets back to vbCity :)

Congratulations are due to Breakfast3001 who passed his exams with flying colours and also to betrl8thanever who has taken up a new job :)

Other News

One of most popular posts in the vbcity Lounge Forum was It's a Girl. Good luck to johnminkjan and his wife and I hope the adoption goes through quickly.

At the end of May there were around 431,000 posts and 145,750 members at vbCity

Lastest devCity .NET Newsletter Is Now Available

Shandy — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 09:45:00 GMT

The latest edition of the devCity .NET newsletter (News You Can Compile) was published last week. This newsletter is published at least once a month and contains articles on .NET, links to the latest .NET FAQs at vbCity, links to the latest vbCity blogs. You can subscribe to the newsletter and get it delivered to your email inbox or view the newsletters online.

The Hive : Beta Web Site For Community Leaders

Shandy — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 11:02:00 GMT

Microsoft have recently announced a new web site, The Hive . It claims to allow community leaders to connect with one another. If I get chance I'll look at joining on behalf of vbCity unless one of the other leaders fancies giving it a go?

What happened during May 2005 at vbCity

Shandy — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 21:35:00 GMT

Each month I try to post a personal review of what happened at vbCity during the previous month and this month is no exception :)

Helper Of The Month (HOTM)

Congratulations to Stephen Kendall aka R.Sole for winning the May 2005 HOTM. It was another closely fought contest this month with Stephen just pulling ahead mid month and managing to keep just ahead of djjeavons for the rest of the month.

.NET Fella

Congratulations to Dmytro Lapshyn aka DmytroL for winning the May 2005 .NET Fella Award. Dmytro is no a prolific poster but has consistently posted for almost a year now and on 3 occasions was nominated for the .NET Fella award in the past.

Newsletters

Just one devCity Newsletters was sent out in May, on May 15th. We are always on the lookout for people to write articles for our newsletter so if you would like to get involved please contact Ged Mead, aka xTab

Site News

This month we changed member names Guru to Hyperactive member, see Gurus Go HyperActive. This was to reflect that Guru members are not always experts but can simply be members who have asked a lot of questions. The Guru status will now be awarded periodically to any members the leaders think deserve that status for their technical know how. Also to win HOTM you will have to be a Guru.

The leaders are also in the process of putting together a better system for handling FAQs as recently we have struggled to approve submitted FAQs in a timely manner. CanOz has volunteered to do some chasing up to help clear up the FAQ pending queue.

Metallisoft also performed some long overdue housekeeping by sorting the FAQs into more obvious categories.

We had a glut of new forums at vbCity this month. Reporting .NET, VB & Reporting, and Code Bank - .NET were all introduced.

Leader News

Each month our resident genealogist, Wonkotsane digs up some fascinating and little known facts about our new leaders and this month it was the turn of R.Sole, aka Lord Kendal

The eagle eyed amongst you might have noticed that there have been a few changes in the forum moderators. To see a list of forum moderators view the forum list and look at the right hand column. Sandtree has stepped down as the moderator of the .NET Newbies forum and has been replaced by CanOz and betrl8thanever, who has also taken up the challenge of moderating the VB.NET forum

Other News

One of most popular posts in the vbcity Lounge Forum was Thansk to vbcity brothers and sisters. I think this demonstrates the sense of community at vbCity pretty well.

From The Archives

Each month I'm going to try and bring up an interesting thread from the vbCity archives. This month I thought I'd mention first public post at vbCity, Ummm, Hello. The post was made by ex-leader Gwgross aka Gilbert Wayne Gross made a welcome return to vbCity after an extended absence. See Gilbert's comeback post.

At the end of May there were around 418,000 posts and 142,000 members at vbCity

What happened during April 2005 at vbCity

Shandy — Sun, 22 May 2005 13:50:00 GMT

Each month I try to post a personal review of what happened at vbCity during the previous month and this month is no exception although it is somewhat late.

Helper Of The Month (HOTM)

Congratulations to Ben Spencer aka Spebby for winning the April 2005 HOTM. After the last few months providing a close competition for the winner Ben was an easy winner this month.

.NET Fella

Congratulations to Martin de Klerk aka Emdek for winning the April 2005 .NET Fella Award.

Newsletters

Just one devCity Newsletters was sent out in April, on April 15th. We are always on the lookout for people to write articles for our newsletter so if you would like to get involved please contact Ged Mead, aka xTab

Site News

There has been a lot of debate between the leaders about some changes to the HOTM award. May will see somes changes to the way in which it is awarded which we hope will get the support of the members. The concern has mainly been about a number of posts that are non-VB related that are allowing some members to gain a huge amount of points. We will be annoucning the changes in May.

We also had a little April Fools fun, Changes to forums

Leader News

Each month our resident genealogist, Wonkotsane digs up some fascinating and little known facts about our new leaders and this month it was the turn of Spebby, aka Spencer Of Tryall

MVP Awards. A number of vbCity members were awarded MS MVP status in April. As it happens they were all leaders but this award can be awarded to any vbCity member who MS believes meets their criteria for the award. To see who is an MS MVP at vbCity checkout the Awards column from the Users Rating Chart. The next round of MVPs is due for July and MS are looking for candidates now so if you think a vbCity member deserves MS MVP status why not email MS?

Other News

One of most popular post in the vbcity Lounge Forum was What's your favourite one liner from a film?. I find It's always interesting to get an insight into other vbCity members and see what films they like watching.

The vbCity Introduce Yourself forum continued to be popular and has provided an excellent insight into some of the vbCity member's other interests. I found TAILOR's entry particularly interesting. TAILOR is a new member who has instantly fitted into the vbCity community.

From The Archives

Each month I'm going to try and bring up an interesting thread from the vbCity archives. This month I thought I'd mention, How long have you been programming?!. This is a thread that still gets replies to it to this day, 12 months on from its conception. I find it an interesting read.

What happened during March 2005 at vbCity

Shandy — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 18:24:00 GMT

Each month I try to post a personal review of what happened at vbCity during the previous month and this month is no exception :)

Helper Of The Month (HOTM)

Congratulations to Arnaldo Sandoval aka rock for winning the March 2005 HOTM. This month was another really close contest between Arnaldo & Ben Spencer, aka Spebby. It was literally neck and neck untilthe last few hours when Arnaldo managed to win by only about 10 posts or so.

.NET Fella

Congratulations to David Wilburn aka doWhileSomething for winning the March 2005 .NET Fella Award. David is one of out more recent members , having joined within the last 6 months. David is already creeping up the HOTM list and I think it may not be too much longer before he is vying for HOTM!

Newsletters

Just one devCity Newsletters was sent out in March, on March 10th. We are always on the lookout for people to write articles for our newsletter so if you would like to get involved please contact Ged Mead, aka xTab

Site News

Serge added a few new facilities for the moderators this last month. These were mainly providing statistics about vbCity like top .NET posters etc. Serge opened up a real can of worms when he gave us these and asked us if we wanted any others. He now has a long list to check through :)

Serge also introduced a new forum, .NET 2005 Beta so that there is a specific place to post queries about .NET Framework v2 and VS 2005.

Leader News

Each month our resident genealogist, Wonkotsane digs up some fascinating and little known facts about our new leaders and this month it was the turn of rock, aka Viscount Arnaldo

Just to prove that occasionally the vbCity leaders do have a life outside of software & vbCity Chris Manning, aka betrl8thanever was away for a short while on a recent deep sea fishing trip.

We also lost Arno, aka breakfast3001 for a few weeks whilst he spent some time taking his exams. The good news is that Arno passed with 78.6%. Well done Arno.

Another of our younger moderators, Robert aka xterra made a welcome return to the moderator's lounge after a long absence. Robert promised to pop by a bit more regularly and we all hope he'll stick to his promise :)

I also hope Richard, aka rjhare enjoyed his holiday at Burnham-On-Sea. Just before Richie went on holiday he found time to meet up with fellow vbCity leader Stuart aka wonkotsane, and ex-vbCity leader Tim aka edward. Stuart posted on his blog about the Meeting Richie & Edward

For more info about the leaders have a look at the vbCity Blogs where some of us are blogging.

Other News

One of most popular post in the vbCity Lounge Forum was Things that have irritated you today!, a thread that simply allowed our members to vent out what sort of things had been irritating them during the day!

The vbCity Introduce Yourself forum continued to be popular and has provided an excellent insight into some of the vbCity member's other interests. I found David Jeavons entry particularly interesting. David is currently quite close to the top of our HOTM list but I knew relatively little about him until this post.

If you haven't already entered our Free Competition where 3 full developer licences for Dockplus are up for grabs. Full details of the competiion are available on the Olvio web site, DevCity.Net Competition for PlusDock 1.0. I've certainly entered and the deadline has been extended to April 10th!

From The Archives

Each month I'm going to try and bring up an interesting thread from the vbCity archives. This month I thought I'd mention, Do you have an inney or an outey?....Bevel border, that is!!. I would imagine this is a thread known to most of the regulars at vbCity who have been around a few years but may not be known to some of our neweer members. I never knew Amy Owen who started the thread as she left vbCity before I joined but I did know the other two main contributers, Jeff Lingis breifly and Edward Moth (aka Tim Dutton) fairly well. To me, this thread is all about what vbCity is all about. A good discussion on a topic with some friendly banter and amusing inuendo thrown in for good measure.

At the end of January we had a total of around 393000 posts and 139000 registered users at vbCity.

What happened during February 2005 at vbCity

Shandy — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 14:00:00 GMT

Each month I try to post a personal review of what happened at vbCity during the previous month and this month is no exception :)

Helper Of The Month (HOTM)

Congratulations to Larry Blake Larry Blake for winning the February 2005 HOTM in another close contest, that ended up even closer than last month. At the beginning of the month at least 6 posters had a good chance of winning the award. And even on the last day of the month 3 posters could still conceivably have won. Larry hung on with just 9 posts separating the first 3, and Larry didn't even post in the last day! Nice one Larry :)

.NET Fella

Congratulations to Andy Bonner aka Skullcrusher for winning the February 2005 .NET Fella Award. Andy also has a number of excellent posts in the vbCity Humor Forum that are worth checking out :)

Newsletters

Two devCity Newsletters were sent out in February, on February 15th and February 25th. We are always on the lookout for contributers to the newsletter so if you are interested please contact XTab aka Ged Mead

Leader News

One piece of vbCity leader news that has not have gone unnoticed by many of the regulars at vbCity is that IDontKnow (Brent Culpepper) is no longer a leader at vbCity. I won't go into the ins and outs of why this is other than to say there were some strong differences of opinion between the various leaders and the result is that Brent is now an ordinary vbCity member. Hopefully everyone involved will put this episode behind them and move on :)

Last month's HOTM winner, Priore, has an interesting web site, Nino Priore .com which is worth checking out.

Each month our resident genealogist, Wonkotsane digs up some fascinating and little known facts about our new leaders and this month it was the turn of Nino Priore, Duke of Panama!

It has been great to see Deke (Don Hanfland) posting on a regular basis again. Don is our resident Data Report expert and his help in solving these problems is always very much appreciated. Many of you may not know that Don is a closet Delphi fan!

Carrying on from last month's post about CanOz's photography talents Neil has now setup his own web site, Neil's Photography Site, which is well worth checking out for some great pictures in and around Perth.

Other News

The most popular post in the vbcity Lounge Forum was Petals Around The Rose which seemed to be a big hit. I never got around to checking out the test it was all about but I know a lot of the other leaders did.

The vbCity Introduce Yourself forum continued to be popular and has provided an excellent insight into some of the vbCity member's other interests. I found Rock - Arnaldo's entry particularly interesting as a fellow ex-pat and hope Julian his cat is OK :)

At the end of January we had a total around 379,000 posts and 137,200 registered users at vbCity.

January 2005 Review Of vbCity Happenings

Shandy — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 19:27:00 GMT

Each month I try to post a personal review of what happened at vbCity during the previous month.

Helper Of The Month (HOTM)

Congratulations to Nino Priore, aka Priore for winning the January 2005 HOTM in one of the closest contests we have ever experienced at vbCity. At the beginning of the month at least 6 posters were with a good chance of winning the award. Nino came blazing through towards the last third of the month and proved uncatchable, winning by a big margin in the end.

.NET Fella

Congratulations to Ben Spencer aka Spebby for winning the January 2005 .NET Fella Award. Ben has maintained a prodigious post count over the last few months in the .NET forums and this was finally recognised officially by the vbCity leaders this month.

Newsletters

Two devCity Newsletters were sent out in January, on January 10th and January 25th.

New Features

Probably the biggest news of the month at vbCity was the long awaited release of the new devCity web site. Although this web site boasts many excellent features probably the most awaited feature that for article submission. Previously articles submitted for publishing had to be formatted and published by Serge, which with his ever increasing workload was proving to be problematic. The new site allows any registered author to publish their article online in the format that the article will be displayed in. All that is required by the vbCity management is to request any minor corrections and then press the publish article button :-D. We are always on the look out for new authors so if you would like to join our team of authors start with Author Registration.

Serge added a new forum, Introduce Yourself where vbCity members can post a small piece about who they are so we can get to know one another a little bit better. It seems to have proved quite popular and already has some excellent and interesting posts in it. :)

Leader News

It's great to see rjhare back at vbCity after many months absence. Richie is our resident VBA expert (who has now been made the VBA forum moderator) but more importantly his humour posts are the stuff of legend at vbCity ;-) Worth a mention to is Richie's part in one of the most memorably threads at vbCity in my time of membership, ARE YOU A GEEK?? WELCOME BACK RICHIE :-D

I noticed that Arno, aka breakfast3001 and Dries, aka dries_neyrinck, have both started blogging. Welcome aboard Arno & Dries!

I also noticed Bill, aka wsh2 has made a huge contribution this month. I always think Bill provides some of the best examples of how to layout your code and for this reason alone his posts are worth looking at but in addition to this his answers are, IMHO, some of the best you'll see in the VB.Classic forums.

A number of vbCity leaders got re-elected as Microsoft MVPs this month. Amongst these were tom77757, jspano, Mike McIntyre, Metallisoft, IDontKnow and Deke. In addition xTab got elected as an MVP for the first time. Well done guys!

We also got to see Neil's Photographic Talents :)

Other News

One piece of sad news is that we have requested an end to Political & Religious Threads at vbCity. This has been a fairly contentious area for several months now and Serge has finally decided to act in light of a number of posts that went beyond what was considered acceptable social behaviour and contained personal insults. Hopefully the vbCity members will bear this in mind and understand why it has been done.

At the end of January we had a total around 367,000 posts and 135,600 registered users at vbCity.

December vbCity Review

Shandy — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:21:00 GMT

Due to other commitments the December review of vbCity is a bit late this month but better late than never :-)

Helper Of The Month (HOTM)

Congratulations to Martin, aka Emdek for winning the December 2004 HOTM. Martin narrowly lost out last month after leading the HOTM ratings until half way through November but stayed well ahead this month to win.

.NET Fella

Congratulations to Anurag aka anurag_n_g for winning the November 2004 .NET Fella Award. Anurag provided many good, solid answers and is a long standing vbCity member who has many VB.Classic posts to his name too.

Newsletters

Just the one devCity Newsletter went out in December, which is usual due to the demands of Xmas!

vbCity sends out a community newsletter email once a month. All registered vbCity members can choose to receive it by going to their profile, selecting preferences and then ticking the Yes, send me monthly Community Update mailing check box.

Other Site News

Many thanks go to Wonkotsane for organising a Christmas Competition

Serge announced the release of PrettyCode Print .NET. I was involved in the Beta testing and can heartily recommend this excellent piece of software. I intend to write a review of it in the next few weeks.

To help xTab out with his vbCity workload I agreed to take over the announcement of the .NET Fella Award each month. This basically entails posting a request in the moderator's lounge for nominees from the other vbCity Leaders, emailing any nominees who don't have a published FAQ, devCity Article or devCity Newsletter Article to advise them they need one to be considered for the award, counting up the votes at the end of the month and then announcing the winner.

vbCity November 2004 Review

Shandy — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 14:05:00 GMT

Helper Of The Month (HOTM)

Congratulations to Pyash, aka Pyash for winning the November 2004 HOTM. Pyash overhauled Emdek about half way through the month and never looked back.

.NET Fella

Congratulations to Iulian Ionescu aka iulianionescu for winning the November 2004 .NET Fella Award. Iulian's name has come up several times when the vbCity leaders have been discussing the .NET Fella award and it's great to see him finally get this award in recognition of Iulian's excellent contribution to vbCity.

New Features

We added a method of contacting the vbCity members by including a link on the member's profile, e.g. Send a message via email to Shandy. This can be used for contacting other vbCity members but at the same time does not reveal their email to the sender.

Serge has also been working hard on the new look devCity site and some of the moderators been busy testing it. It looks excellent, especially the article submission system. We are hopeful it should be live by the end of December.

Leader News

One piece of extremely sad news is that Edward, our 2nd longest serving vbCity leader has stepped down from being a vbCity Leader. vbCity will be losing a great servant and Edward will be sorely missed. Edward joined in April 2001 and had been a leader since May 2002.

Other News

Serge announced the Beta release of PrettyCode.Print for .NET. A few of the moderators (including myself) have been participating in the Beta test program.

Serge has also put out a request for vbCity members to send him a postcard from their home town. I sent mine at the beginning of the month.

vbCity also introduced a survey about community sites with a chance for 5 individuals to win $50 for taking part.

vbCity statisician Lazyjay made an interesting observation in the moderator's forum. For the last 3 months .NET posts have out numbered VB.Classic posts in the vbCity forums. So although rumours about VB.Classic's death are generally exagerated I think this is another indication that the writing is on the wall.

At the end of November we had a total around 344,300 posts and 133970 registered users at vbCity.