By now, everybody knows about Microsoft's big screw-up regarding the marketing of .NET.

Here are some of the more memorable mistakes:

• MS Windows Server .NET
• MS Passport .NET
• MS Dessert Topping .NET
• Approximately 3,219 others...

It really backfired in a satisfying way in a newsgroup today.

OK - First of all, let me just say that I am totally overreacting. What happened isn't that big of a deal. It's just that there are some seriously misguided users out there now because of this pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey naming scheme (just close your eyes, and name something) employed by MS during the Great .NET Naming Disaster of the early part of this century.

I found this in a .NET newsgroup for coders:

I have a valid .Net Passport account, But I am not able 
to sign on with that account from my desktop using 
windows messenger. Can anyone tell me what I am doing 
wrong. If I log onto MSN.com and sign in it works fine....
It must be a configuration problem in windows but I can't 
figure it out...    Any help would be great...

The guy wanted help with Passport, and he associated it with .NET, so wound up finding his way into a Usenet group for coding to ask a question about it.

Too good. Too wonderful.

I love MS, but they really goofed.