So I've been using my work issued iPad for the past. A lot of friends have asked me about it so I thought I might add my two cents to the sea of reviews ...

1 it's a revolutionary device without a doubt. Even my wife wants to know when we can get our own

2 You can type on it fairly well with a little practice as long as you have some type of kick stand. And with Evernote and SharePlus, it's very useful for business.

3 It's heavy but nothing new there

4 3G is really a waste on how I use this.

5 It makes a great video streamer with Hulu Plus and Netflix as well as a great ebook reader

6 If somebody asked me if I would buy this right now, I would have to say no. It's still too expensive for me ($300 is the sweet spot for me ) and next year will see a ton of newer devices that can do this and more. 2011 is going to be an exciting year for tablets

I thought I would give an update on my progress with the web chat. If anyone remembers, I am using this to help teach myself programming again.  So far I have followed the model laid out in Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0 and especially its chapter 1 – Nerd Dinner. You can download this free chapter from http://www.nerddinner.com.

So where am I right now.  I’ve got a working site going, but its ugly and not very functional.  I’ll send the next few days working on making the code more functional but I’ll probably never make the site pretty. CSS will probably never be a strong suit of mine.

Completed so far:

·         Database Schema Layout

·         Create database and tables in SQL

·         Data Access Layer -LINQ-to-SQL and Repository classes

·         Security Access via ASP.NET Form based authentication

·         Chat room Controller/View – Create, Edit, and Delete

·         Logged in User Controller/View  - Join and Leave Chat room

·         Insert Message code Views

·         Refresh page code Views

Still to Do:

·         jQuery + JSON -  Refresh of chat room messages

·         jQuery + JSON -  Refresh of chat room user list

·         JSON API for Insert message

·         Setup Azure

·         Deploy to Azure

I thought I would get back into programming this new year after spending the last 2.5 years getting my MBA and focusing on the business end of IT.   As a web to get back into .NET, I was thinking of a good project to work on. Then my friend suggested yesterday that I do  a web chat program so we can chat during work since both of our companies block all IM.  I’m going to try to write this in ASP.NET MVC using some of the newest MS technologies – LINQ-To-SQL (maybe the Entities Framework), jQuery, ASP.NET MVC 2.0, Ajax, etc . . . Also, since Microsoft released a free version of Azure today then I might host it there once completed. If I really like the code then I might release it on codeplex so people can make fun of my coding skills.  I will try to post  my progress here as well.

Wish me luck .. . .