I’ve been using a few ORMs with a few projects, including NHibernate, SubSonic, Linq-to-SQL (L2S) and Entity Framework (EF) and even Strongly-Typed DataSets. Each provides an abstraction from the database, a few have Visual Studio integration, and they all simplify data storage for you, but I’ve found some are definitely better than others.
I recently bought a new Sony Vaio Laptop. Typically I don’t like Sony for much, what with all their rootkits and such. There were a few reasons I decided to buy this laptop though: it had 4GB of RAM, it had a wide-screen (1600×900) and it had a BluRay drive and it was under $1200.
To put it short, this computer is excellent for development. It’s got all the RAM I need to run Visual Studio, and SQL Server and even some virtual machines. The screen is fantastic and a great resolution for developing on. I’m a big fan of wide screens because I can fit more code onto the screen.