Everything Changes

I dunno. You go away for a week or so and all kinds of new stuff happens while you are out. I love this business..

The XNA Creators Club has moved on to the next level, in that there is now a way you can start to get money for games that you have created. This is really exciting, in that it means that it is now properly possible to write games in your bedroom (or even downstairs) and then get them out in front of a mass audience. 

If you want to create 3D models for your games you can head over here and get a free copy of Caligari trueSpace 7.6, which is a proper 3D authoring package. It also has some really neat tie-ins with Virtual Earth, so you can create things and have them rove around anywhere in the world.

If you are new to programming and want something to help you learn the principles (and produce some neat flowcharts of your code) you can find the Visual Studio Middle School Power Toy here. I've not played with it yet (just got back from 7 hours driving) but it looks interesting.