Did you hear about the MSDN Magazine for Microsoft Developers and TechNet Magazine for IT Professionals?   Both of these resources and their respective blogs (included in the BlogMS team blogs directory) are essential reading to keep you up to date with a wide range of technical topics.   Here is an example of what you are missing:

MSDN Magazine - September 2008 - featured articles...

• Hierarchy ID: Model Your Data Hierarchies With SQL Server 2008 Here we explain how the new hierarchyID data type in SQL Server 2008 helps solve some of the problems in modeling and querying hierarchical information. Kent Tegels
  
• Prism: Patterns For Building Composite Applications With WPF We introduce you to the benefits of building composite applications with the Composite Application Guidance for WPF from Microsoft patterns & practices. Glenn Block
  
• Data Services: Create Data-Centric Web Applications With Silverlight 2 ADO.NET Data Services provide Web-accessible endpoints that allow you to filter, sort, shape, and page data without having to build that functionality yourself. Shawn Wildermuth
  
• Advanced WPF: Understanding Routed Events And Commands In WPF See how routed events and routed commands in Windows Presentation Foundation form the basis for communication between the parts of your UI. Brian Noyes

 TechNet Magazine - October 2008 - featured articles...

• Virtualization: An Introduction to Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 The introduction of Hyper-V makes virtualization an even more compelling solution for IT environments. Get an overview of today’s virtualization market and see how Hyper-V improves the manageability, reliability, and security of virtualization Rajiv Arunkundram
  
• Virtualization: Manage Your Virtual Environments with VMM 2008 System Center Virtual Machine Manager provides a consolidated interface for managing your virtual infrastructure. The latest version adds support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, as well as for VMware virtual machines. Explore the new features and get an overview of using VMM to centralize your management tasks. Edwin Yuen
  
• Virtualization: Getting Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) allows you to deliver virtualized desktops to client systems throughout your organization. This simplifies system management and liberates employees from their desktops. Take a close look at how App-V works and discover how you can deploy it in your organization. Anthony Kinney
  
• Virtualization: Achieving High Availability for Hyper-V Consolidating servers onto fewer physical machines has many advantages, but it is extremely important that you plan for your systems to be highly available. Here’s a guide to using Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering to bring high availability to your Hyper-V virtual machines. Steven Ekren
  
• Virtualization: Backup and Disaster Recovery for Server Virtualization Virtualization brings significant changes to disaster recovery. Here’s an introduction to how the Microsoft virtualization platform factors into your disaster recovery plan, as well as a deeper look into backup and restore options and considerations for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Adam Fazio
  
• Virtualization: Essential Tools for Planning Your Virtual Infrastructure Is your infrastructure ready for virtualization? The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, a network-wide infrastructure assessment tool, can help you better understand your IT infrastructure and determine whether your systems are ready for upgrade or migration to a variety of technologies, including virtualization. Jay Sauls and Baldwin Ng

Related Resources:

• MSDN Magazine Blog
• TechNet Magazine Blog