Freemind Solutions is excited to announce the start of a Minneapolis ALT.NET User Group. It’s open to anyone in the industry, whether you’re in Minneapolis or not — even if you beckon from Woodbury or Shakopee. The informational Wiki is located at http://www.mplsalt.net/.

There is a Yahoo! Tech Group started here as well.

What exactly is ALT.NET?

So you’re a .NET developer or architect using the amazing tools that Microsoft has given us, but there are certain areas that you tell yourself, “there has to be a better way.” Maybe you’ve taken to using an ORM such as nHibernate or Castle. Perhaps your unit-testing process relies heavily on nUnit or you tore out the last bit of your hair over remotely using Visual Source Safe and finally signed up for that hosted Subversion repository. Maybe you’re just a huge fan of all of the open-source options available to you now as a Microsoft developer.

Whatever your reasons, you’re using alternatives to the standard Microsoft toolkit. You’re alternative and more interested in getting things done than prescribing to what “the man” pushes on you.

If you live within driving distance (and with gas prices being what they are, that range is surely shrinking) of the Twin Cities, check us out. We should have more information in the next week or two about a date and time for the first meeting.