Last year when I built a new machine I purposefully built the machine with lots of power so that I could have multiple different environments and insulate myself from the loads of crap-ware that inevitably ends up on my machine.

Virtual machines allow me to download and try some utility in a sandbox where I know I can return to a previous state.

I opened one of my virtual machines and saw the screen posted on the right.  If this were on my host machine I think I'd need a new pair of underwear.  I don't have the time to rebuild a machine and so screens like the one of the right scare me.  However that is a virtual machine that had the ASP.NET MVC Framework Preview 2 on it.  So, am I going to try and diagnose?  Nope.  Just create another...it's beautiful.

Yesterday I attended the first ever Iowa Code Camp in Iowa City, Iowa.  This was the first code camp I had ever attended and that fact withstanding, I don't know how the event could have gone any better, it was absolutely flawless.  There were well over 125 attendees and waiting list to boot.

I attended sessions on Java/Hibernate, Inversion of Control, Mocking and .NET Performance Tuning. I enjoyed Derik Whittaker's talk on mocking as it's something I've been into for the last few months.

Talking to other attendees it was very obvious that others enjoyed themselves as well.  The feeling was that the materials presented were things we can take into work tomorrow.  And that is what a code camp is all about.

Thanks to Chris, Javier, Greg S. Greg W and the many others who helped make yesterday a success, you guys set up a wonderful event!