Back when I wrote Visual Studio Hacks the book I also started the companion site, I kept up for awhile and then it gradually got swept to the sideline. When I was getting ready to work on the second edition of the book (which O'reilly decided not to do) I revived the site and started posting to it again, I also got Jim Holmes and Mike Wood to write some articles. Then it went back into hibernation. The other day I was thinking about the site and figured I either need to kill it off, or try and revive it.

Well, I decided to revive it. I threw out all the old custom code (I love deleting code!) and converted the site to Graffiti, tweaked the design a little bit, and re-launched it. Now comes the difficult part, actually getting some fresh content on it. Another thing I decided is to make the focus of the site more of a blog. It will still feature articles, and I am working on a couple of screencasts, but the blog will be the most active part of the site.

Because I know that I don't have a ton of time, between consulting and other projects, I decided to look for someone to help out with the site. The other day I ran across Darren Stokes who was writing some excellent Visual Studio posts over on his blog and have convinced him to join forces and write for Visual Studio Hacks instead. I am thrilled to have him on board and I think between the two of us we will be able to turn Visual Studio Hacks into the premier Visual Studio focused site. His first Visual Studio Links post is already up.

From a business perspective my main goal with the site is to help increase the visibility of The Lounge, and in particular the .NET Small Publishers Room of The Lounge. You will notice I nixed all the google ads and am only running The Lounge ad.

Third time is a charm they say, let's hope that turns out to be true for this site. Check it out, subscribe to the feed, let me know what you think.

-James