As a current subscriber, I can assure you that the $99 would be
well spent but Mike has decided to spread the word by giving free memberships to
.NET bloggers. The subscription includes monthly free components and deals
that are going to be hard to pass up if you are a working developer who would
rather spend a little money than a lot of time rewriting the wheel.
FREE XDN
Professional for .NET Bloggers during May 2004
Mike Schinkel, president of Xtras.Net, made an
offer on his personal blog of
a free XDN
Professional membership (http://www.xtras.net/xdn)
during the month of May 2004 for anyone that blogs about .NET frequently. If
you are a .NET blogger, see Mike's
post for how to get your free XDN
membership.
April's Subscriber freebies for members include SwiftReports
Standard Edition (From UNiSwift), IP*Works! HTMLMailer
Component (A Component from IP*Works! .NET Edition From /n software
inc.), Smtp.NET Single Developer License (From ExclamationSoft
Corporation), Sharp Reports Standard Edition (From QBS
Software), MSDE Manager for .NET Single Server License (From
White Bear Consulting), IP*Works! Zip .NET Edition (From /n
software inc.), Codebox for .Net (From VB2TheMax),
and Aurora Validation .Net (From Dawning
Technologies).
Of course, you're not going to use every one of these, but you will have a
new toy to play with every month. And if you're in the market for
components, you'll more than make up the $99 subscription price if you take
advantage of the 50% off offerings that are included with your monthly free
component(s). A great deal at $99, so $0 is a no-brainer if ever there was
one.
This seems like it is going to benefit everyone involved. The companies
get publicity and, if their wares are good, they'll get more free publicity from
satisfied users. Subscribers will get new toys tools to
play work with and those who do not subscribe will get the
benefit of having all these people review the products. And this will
force the component makers to step up or step aside because I don't think you
can try to pass off a shoddy product more than once with this
crowd.