Lavasa city (near pune) is like Salzberg (Austria)

Just been to Lavasa city (http://www.lavasa.com/) recently. Its around 64 kms. from Pune. City is well planned by HCC group. Its going to spread over 25,000 acres (one fourth of size of Mumbai) comprising 4 towns. Currently their first town Dasve is under development. Whole town is getting built surrounding backwaters of near by lake. Its very well planned & reminds mediterranean architecture... When I saw the town first time, its surrounding natural beauty of mountain ranges on both side of backwater stream reminded me about my trip to Salzberg in Austria, Europe... Lavasa has water sports, rapelling (downward tracking), natural trails for hiking etc. already in place. We stayed in Waterfront Shaw hotel's service apartments which offers good breakfast. Hotel has some DJ activities in evenings & some complimentary free services like getting your name written on rice bran by artist. Location of hotel is very prime just oppostite to lake & information center of city is 2 minutes walk from there... Unlike Amby valley, entry to Lavasa city is free. Information center is on 4th floor of that building where they give free demo of half an hour about city in their mini theatre & 10 minutes 3D animation show. Same building has few free services of children games, tattoos, face sketches etc. on first floor. We stayed for 2 nights, 3 days... I guess by 2012, many new things will start there & that should be the time to travel there... Right now its too early as many things are not operational there... For couple of days trip, it should be fine but for longer stay its not a happening place right now....

Dot Net 3.5, 4.0 & SQL Server 2008

Download free ASP.Net 3.5 Tutorials & eBooks (You need to wait for 1 minute for ad to get disappeared before "Download File" link appears.. So be patient when you hit individual book link.) http://www.free-ebooks-download.org/free-ebook/dotnet/ASP.NET/Download-Free-ASP.NET-3-5-Tutorials.php

MS SQL Server Training Portal http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/sql-server.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlserverue/archive/2009/02/02/sql-server-2008-books-online-january-2009-update-now-released.aspx

SQL Server 2008 Books Online (around 144MB) can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=765433f7-0983-4d7a-b628-0a98145bcb97&DisplayLang=en

Exam CRAM 2 Series books in older versions of .Net can be downloaded from http://www.free-ebooks-download.org/free-ebook/dotnet/MCSD.NET/

.Net Development Solution Starter Kits (productivity enhancers) can be downloaded from http://www.asp.net/community/projects/ (Older famous iBuySpy Portal starter kit is now extended as DotNetNuke & its site address is http://www.dotnetnuke.com/ )

MSDN Online help for VS2008 (.net 3.5) is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa187919.aspx & for VS2010 Beta 2 (.net 4.0) is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd831853(VS.100).aspx

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 Downloads -> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx

VB Future (VB.Net 2010) http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/vbfuture/

Dot Net Tips & Tricks

These are some cool sites for programming tips in .Net
http://dotnetdud.blogspot.com/
http://www.vbrad.com/article.aspx?id=66
http://www11.brinkster.com/notbono/vbnet.asp [Visual Basic.Net Tips & Tricks]
http://www.vb-helper.com/index_tips_and_tricks.html

Sports: 100+ Web Sites

http://www.alphasim.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/
http://www.sportsline.com/
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/
http://www.e-sports.com/
http://espn.go.com/
http://www.fifa.com/
http://msn.foxsports.com/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032113/
http://www.sportsnetwork.com/
http://www.sportingnews.com/
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/
http://www.nba.com/
http://www.nfl.com/
http://www.soccerstats.com/
http://www.nhl.com/
http://www.onhoops.com/
http://www.aero.com/
http://mlb.mlb.com/
http://www.onlinesports.com/
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/
http://www.bicycling.com/
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/
http://www.golf.com/
http://www.sportsline.com/golf/
http://www.olympic.org/
http://www.greatoutdoors.com/topstories/
http://www.usfigureskating.org/
http://skicentral.com/
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/
http://www.serioussports.com/
http://www.ipsm.org/
http://tennisserver.com/
http://www.tsnhorse.com/
http://www.umbro.com/
http://fiat.gslis.utexas.edu/~lewisa/womsprt.html
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/
http://sports.latimes.com/
http://www.outdoornewswire.com/v/current/htdocs/themes/default/
http://www.allsports.com/
http://sports.excite.com/
http://www.motorsport.com/
http://www.autoweek.com/
http://www.draglist.com/
http://www.caranddriver.com/
http://www.racingwest.com/
http://www.sportswire.com/
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/scoreboard/
http://news.yahoo.com/i/755
http://www.sportsline.com/u/radio/live/
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/video/live/
http://espnradio.espn.go.com/espnradio/index
http://www.msasportsnetwork.com/
http://www.scorespro.com/
http://music.yahoo.com/launchcast/stations/default.asp
http://www.draglist.com/links/links.html
http://www.refdesk.com/sports.html
http://sportsvl.com/
http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Sports/
http://www.worldstadiums.com/
http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/ferguson/schedules/
http://www.sportsid.com/
http://sunsite.unc.edu/usenet-i/hier-s/alt.sports.html
http://www.adventuresports.com/
http://www.alloutdoors.com/
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=sports
http://www.deadseamarathon.com/
http://www.aqha.com/
http://www.awgnet.com/
http://www.bottomtimes.com/
http://cdesports.com/
http://www.cfl.ca/Gridiron/home.html
http://www.canoe.ca/
http://www.lacancha.com/
http://www.cardshows.com/
http://www.carlingnet.com/
http://www.raceshop.com/
http://www.juggling.org/
http://www.e-sports.com/
http://www.icesk8.com/clipart.htm
http://www.artsports.com/
http://www.runnersworld.com/
http://frog.simplenet.com/skateweb
http://www.fencing.com/ssc/
http://www.diversguide.com/
http://www.wallstreetsports.com/
http://walking.miningco.com/
http://www.volleyball.org/
http://www.ava.org/
http://www.rugby.org/
http://www.usta.com/
http://www.toprank.com/
http://www.tennis.com/
http://www.sabr.org/
http://www.ballparks.com/
http://www.alleyoop.com/
http://www.trekbikes.com/
http://www.mountainzone.com/
http://www.iski.com/
http://www.skicentral.com/
http://www.snoweb.com/
http://www.soccer.com/
http://www.soccersite.com/
http://espn.sportszone.com/soccer/index.html
http://www.golflink.net/

Microsoft Watch

This one is good to keep an eye on latest news on MS products...
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/

Linux Watch

This blog is good one to keep an eye on Linux...
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/index.html

Emerging Technologies

This blog is good one to keep watch on emerging technologies related news.... Check it out... http://etech.eweek.com/