Wotta Deal! Free Visual Studio 2008 Professional

It almost (but not quite) makes me want to be a student again!

Want a *free* copy of Visual Studio 2008 Professional? (The "Professional" Edition is a step up from the version that you get at the Launch Event. I drove 600 miles to Los Angeles mainly to get a free copy of 'standard' Visual Studio 2008!!)

There's just one catch: You have to be a student at one of the schools that is working with Microsoft on this deal. And it's an international program. According to the Microsoft FAQ:

We are initially launching in 11 countries, targeting millions of students in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium. If your country isn’t listed, don’t worry, just stay tuned as we continue to add more locations. By 2009, we expect to have DreamSpark available to virtually ALL students around the world.

But your school MUST be working with Microsoft on this. You select your school from a list before they let you download and then be verified that you're a student. Oh man! Why didn't they have deals like this when I was a struggling student!!

Go to the DreamSpark page to get started:

https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Default.aspx

(Oh ... And they let you download other stuff too. Like Expression Studio, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition, and Windows Server 2003.)