Last night, I solved a problem over the phone in three minutes that had been plaguing a fellow developer for three days. Moments like that are what I live for as a developer. Boatloads of money are all fine and good, but the ego boost of defeating "The Machine" is what really does it for me. Well, it'll suffice until the boatloads of money arrive.

Speaking of which, I'm reading a fascinating book coauthored by Ben Stein, called You Can Time the Market. One of its key points is that there hasn't been a stock market worth investing in since 1985. If that's true, I won't hold my breath about boatloads of money coming my way in the near future.

Travelogue
As I write this I am on an Amtrak train heading back from another conference in Boston, where I just did an ultra-compact version of my Mobile .NET presentation. I went to Cheers after the show again, and walked through Faneuil Hall and past the Boston Tea Party ship on my way to the train station.

The people of Boston deserve special recognition for being so helpful. Every time I pulled out my map during my walk, whoever happened to be standing closest to me would ask if I needed help finding anything. Most pleasant!

When I return to Expand Beyond, I will have about a week left to put the finishing touches on our forthcoming PocketAdmin for Windows product before I take it to Tech-Ed 2003 for its public unveiling. No two ways about it ­ it's going to be a busy month!

Talk to Me!
So, my feedback question for you all this month is about becoming Microsoft Partners. Specifically, I'm curious to hear what your experiences have been ­ the good, the bad, and the ugly. Have any of you achieved Gold certification? If so, have you found it to have been worth the expense?

Those of you who responded to my question about Microsoft support indicated that you were overwhelmingly pleased with both the quality and pricing of the assistance you received. That's good to hear, and more or less matches my experience over the past few years. It seems that Microsoft's initiative to improve their support is really beginning to pay dividends.

As always, readers interested in private conversations with me on any topic ­ support, partnering, or otherwise ­ are encouraged to contact me at derek@sys-con.com. Those who would like a more public forum for conversation are encouraged to check out http://developer.sys-con.com.

Performance Focus
In this month's issue, we are turning our attention to performance ­ specifically, how you can improve the performance of your .NET code. One of the central articles in this focus is Larry Snow's piece on improving the performance of management queries. In addition, John Gomez' "Managed Space" column focuses again on improving the performance of managed code ­ this time at a much deeper level. Hugh Raiford examines high-performance options for mainframe integration within .NET, James Horan offers tips for improving the performance of .NET apps, and Dan Gladshtein discusses building high-performance and scalable .NET Internet applications.

By the time you read this, I will have returned from a whirlwind speaking tour of Europe, including the Mobile Workforce Solutions conference in London and the Bluetooth World Congress 2003 show in Amsterdam. You'll have to wait until the August issue to hear how those go!

About The Author
Derek Ferguson is editor-in-chief of .NET Developer's Journal and author of the book Mobile .NET (Apress). He is also chief technology evangelist for Expand Beyond Corporation (www.xb.com), a worldwide leader in mobile software for enterprise management. derek@sys-con.com