Hello and welcome to those who read this Blog. My name is Ben Santiago and I am a Computer Programmer now for roughly 9 years. I started working as one of the first Computer Programmers for Texaco at Corporate Headquarters straight out of High School, programming in Visual Basic 4.0 at the time. Since then I've worked in several different companies and have learned a great deal of languages, so many I can't even remember all of them. For a time I even ran my own company, called Dynamic Computing Concepts, which dealt primarily in computer hardware sales. My true passion has always been programming and as such, when technology began to evolve to a point where I could not financial keep up, I decided to close up shop and turn back to my programming. Currently I work for the local Government of Suffolk County as primarily a VB.Net Programmer, although I do take advantage of other languages. My main responsibility is an application that is responsible for scoring and reporting to the State Education Department the results of mandated state exams taken by students within the entire county. Roughly four months ago, I began to undertake the massive project of completely rewriting the existing system of six years (which is now antiquated) and updating it using newer technology, programming methodologies and ultimately make the application more responsive to constant changes by State requirements.

So enough about my history, this Blog will become a collection of posts that talk about programming, mainly in VB.Net. Mostly I will be posting about problems I encounter and solutions I find, as well as some rants on things that I might find lacking in the language. You might on occasion find comments about articles or information on new technologies that I have found, encountered or read up on. Enjoy...

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