Cool Tech Reviews

theTechSage explains two ways to get the Standard Edition of Microsoft’s premier development product, Visual Studio 2005, for free or very cheap. The “very cheap” is for students only, but the “free” is a great offer from Microsoft where you attend 3 Microsoft® ASP.NET 2.0 Webcasts (either live or on-demand) and get:

- Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Standard Edition (Not for Resale)
- Five chapters of Programming ASP.NET 2.0 Core Reference, by Dino Esposito
- A 30-day hosting account to try out your custom Web applications
- Microsoft Developer Security DVD with how-tos, white papers, tools, webcasts, and code samples that demonstrate how to write more secure code
- A 50% discount on a Microsoft Certified Professional Exam so you can add your new skills to your resume
- A voucher that allows you to buy Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition with an MSDN® Professional Subscription at renewal pricing (a $400 savings)

Altogether, this complimentary package has an estimated value of $400.

The choice of webcasts look both interesting and useful . If you have any interest in Microsoft development tools, it’s a dynamite offer.

Yesterday, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 and they are providing free Express Versions without all the bells and whistles, apparently as an attractant for the “hobbyist, novice, and student developer.”

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition replaces MSDE (Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine) as the free redistributable database which is often bundled in 3rd party and Microsoft products and it is a free download. There are Visual Studio Express versions for Visual Basic, C#, C++, J#, and Web Developers (ASP.NET 2.0) and they are also available as free downloads, but only for 1 year.

Download ‘em while they’re hot!