My .NET World

The Azure Services Training Kit

2009-04-27T01:35:00.000-07:00

The first Azure Services Training Kit was released during the week of PDC and it contained all of the PDC hands-on labs. Since then, the Azure Services team has been creating new content covering new features in the platform.

The Azure Services Training Kit April update now includes the following content covering Windows Azure, .NET Services, SQL Services, and Live Services:

11 hands-on labs – including new hands-on labs for PHP and Native Code on Windows Azure.
18 demo scripts – These demo scripts are designed to provide detailed walkthroughs of key features so that someone can easily give a demo of a service
9 presentations – the presentations used for our 3 day training workshops including speaker notes.

The training kit is available as an installable package on the Microsoft Download Center.

Namastee!

Book Review :97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know

2009-03-11T04:39:00.000-07:00

97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know by Richard Monson-Haefel, is a very nice book for aspiring architects. It covers the real time problems architects face while architecting any solution. You can get this book from Amazon .
Some of the unedited text of the book is also available in following site
http://97-things.near-time.net/wiki/97-things-every-software-architect-should-know-the-book

Namastee!

Code Contract in Visual studio 2010

2009-02-25T04:28:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has included the Code Contract feature in Visual Studio 2010 with .NET Framework 4.0 which was earlier published by Microsoft Research team.Code Contract is a language-agnostic way to express coding assumptions in .NET programs. The contracts take the form of pre-conditions, post-conditions, and object invariants. Contracts act as checked documentation of your external and internal APIs. The contracts are used to improve testing via runtime checking, enable static contract verification, and documentation generation. Code Contracts bring the advantages of design-by-contract programming to all .NET programming languages.

The VS.NET 2010 CTP includes a CodeContracts class in the System.Diagnostics.Contracts namespace that allows you to write contracts in your code. All contracts are static methods that return void. They take a Boolean expression which encodes the condition that must be true. They also have an overload that takes a string parameter as a message for when the contract is false. Contracts are declarative and come at the beginning of your method. You can think of them as part of the signature.

To know more details visit the Microsoft Research site

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/contracts/

Namastee!

Microsoft Social Desktop

2009-02-24T22:23:00.000-08:00

In the computer world there is clear difference between WEB platform and PC. It will be really good if we will have a technology which will allow every document in the PC to have the ability to have a backing social URL for sharing without having to upload or copy or move it from its natural location.

Microsoft Research team came up with a new technology named “Social Desktop” which will blends the Web and PC by embedding Web oriented sharing inside your desktop.
To know more about social desktop visit Microsoft research website
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/socialdesktop/

Namastee!

Unbinding the source code from VSS/TFS

2008-12-25T09:49:00.000-08:00

One of the problem most of the developer faces is to unbind the source code from Visual Source Safe or TFS before releasing it or transferring it.

Following steps can be followed to unbind the source code.

Go to the Root folder of the Source code
Remove the read only attribute of all the folders and files inside the folders by going to the property window
Search for *.scc ,*.vssscc,*.vspscc and delete those files
Open the solution file in your favorite text editor and remove the following section: GlobalSection(SourceCodeControl) = preSolution
...
EndGlobalSection
Open all the projects in your solution one by one in your text editor and remove the following lines:

SccProjectName
SccLocalPath
SccAuxPath
SccProvider

Namastee!

Visual LINQ Query Builder

2008-11-28T21:01:00.000-08:00

For the beginners writing LINQ queries is not so easy as it is a different way of writing .net code. It need lot of practice and developers need to remember the syntax of the query like which statement comes first and which one next also the operators that needs to be used. There is free tool available which will work as an add- in to visual studio 2008 IDE that will help you visually build LINQ to SQL queries.

Visit http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/vlinq to learn more about this tool.

Namastee !

LINQ : IEnumerable and IQueryable

2008-11-28T20:36:00.000-08:00

IEnumerable and IQueryable are the two most used interfaces in . What I am trying to do here is that I am trying to differentiate the two interfaces depending on their behavior. In LINQ we generally have few providers available within .NET Framework, like LINQ to Object, LINQ to SQL, LINQ to XML.

All the LINQ query statement returns an object of type IEnumerable.This holds good for LINQ to Object and LINQ to XML.But LINQ to SQL is something different as the query statement will be convered toa SQL statement internally while execution.So LINQ to SQL queries return object of type IQueryable which is again inherited from IEnumerable.

To check what are the different methods and properties this interface have, visit the following URL.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.linq.iqueryable_members.aspx

Namastee !

Pragmatic Programmer, The: From Journeyman to Master

2008-11-18T06:57:00.000-08:00

For all my developer friends I have book recommendation.

“Pragmatic Programmer, the: From Journeyman to Master” by Andrew Hunt David Thomas.

It’s a very nice book which covers everything that you need to know to become a good programmer. Authors explained each Tip extensively with short stories which really helps in understanding the importance of the Tip. It is not a technical book; it explains what a programmer should do besides talk in programming languages.

Namastee!

Framework Design Studio

2008-11-13T22:28:00.000-08:00

Framework Design Studio is a nice free tool that can be used by Architect/Designer/Developers to compare two versions of the .NET Assembly and check the differences.

It has following features.

Listing APIs exposed from a managed code assembly
Comparing APIs in two versions of an assembly
Reviewing APIs, commenting on API design, and filing review bugs to a defect database (through a configurable plug-in)
Exporting API review comments to a Microsoft Word document

You can download this tool from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/fds

Namastee!

Windows Azure: New Operating System for Cloud Computing

2008-10-29T21:46:00.001-07:00

The cloud computing space is now really heating up with competing platform plays from Google’s AppEngine and Amazon’s recent EC2 announcements.Microsoft has also joined the race.Ray Ozzie announced the New operating System for Cloude computing named WINDOWS AZURE in PDC 2008.

Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft data centers.The major features it provids are Automated Service Management, Powerful Service hosting environment, Scalable , avilable cloude storage and a Rich familier developer experience.

So visit http://www.microsoft.com/azure/windowsazure.mspx. Download the SDK, register yourslf to try it out today .

To watch the PDC2008 Keynotes on Windows Azure visit http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/KYN01/

Namastee!

Error in Application : ASP.NET application not able to access a file from a shared folder.

2008-10-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

Problem: I am running an ASP.NET 2.0 application in IIS 6.0 which is trying to access a file available in a shared folder. All though the fie is available in the folder file.IsExist () method returns false. But same method works fine when trying to access another file available in a shared folder in a different Machine. The major difference between these two machines that I found initially is, first machine is running in a VMware environment. When trying to access the same file from a client side code it works fine for both the servers.

Solution: This problem was due to date time difference between the file server where file exists and the web server where the web application is running. It is working fine when accessing the file from client side code because it uses NT LAN Manager (NTLM) where as when accessing the file from server side code it uses Kerberos. The Kerberos client on the local computer encrypts a timestamp inside the authenticator and then sends it to the Key Distribution Center (KDC). If the KDC verifies that the time it decrypts from the authenticator is within a specified amount of the local time on the KDC (the default is five minutes), the system can assume that the credentials presented are genuine. SO if you synchronize the clock between two servers it will work.

There is another solution to this problem. You can change the value of the Maximum tolerance for computer clock synchronization setting to a higher value. Use the steps mentioned in the following URL to configure this setting.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc780011.aspx

Namastee!

DevLabs: Microsofts new initiative to bring software innovations for the developer community

2008-10-27T22:59:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has release a new sites named DEVLab for reaching out to broad developer audiences with new, developer-focused technologies well before they are officially released. The labs are structured to help the developer community to evaluate these new technologies and discuss them through the microsoft forums with the developer community and Microsoft product groups. Currently there are only 4 projects added to this Lab, Microsoft Popfly,Small Basic,Pex – Automated White Box Testing for .NET and CHESS – Finding and Reproducing Heisenbugs in Concurrent Programs.

To participate in this initiative visit the following URL.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/devlabs

Namastee !

Microsoft Announces Visual Studio 2010

2008-09-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has announced Visual Studio 2010 with .NET framework 4.0 which is expected to release in 2010.To know more details about the new features visit following URL.
http://www.cio.com/article/451622/Microsoft_Announces_Visual_Studio_._Developers_Respond.

Namastee!

Microsoft's Sphere display in action

2008-09-04T06:05:00.000-07:00

After months of rumors, Microsoft researchers are taking the wraps off a prototype that uses an internal projection and vision system to bring a spherical computer display to life. People can touch the surface with multiple fingers and hands to manipulate photos, play games, spin a virtual globe, or watch 360-degree videos.

Check this Video

नमस्ते!

Google Chrome : A killer for Internet Explorer

2008-09-04T03:28:00.000-07:00

Today a new player enters the browser wars and it represents the biggest change to the field since the day that Microsoft decided to take on Netscape. With the surprise launch of the beta of Google Chrome, the Web and search giant has already changed the current browser landscape and is poised to potentially change the future of the Web.

Yesterday I downloaded Chrome Beta and spend some time to check different features.

When launching Google Chrome, which currently is only available for Windows systems, the browser walks users through some of the interface features, such as the integrated search and address bar (the default search engine is Google but users can change it to competing search sites) and the new tab features, which are pretty much lifted completely from Opera's speed dial feature.

As one surfs using Google Chrome, more of the features start to take shape. Clicking a new tab shows thumbnails of frequently visited sites and links to bookmarks. I liked this feature although I would have preferred if it let users customize the thumbnailed sites rather than only using the most visited sites.

Like Internet Explorer 8, Chrome has a private browsing mode, which is called incognito mode. A new window can be launched in this mode or you can choose to launch a window from a link directly into incognito mode. In this mode no traces of a Web surfing session (such as cookies) are saved, and users know when they are in incognito mode by the spy figure shown in the upper left-hand corner of the browser.

The address bar in Chrome combines both search and standard URL entry. This took a little getting used to but once I got the hang of it I liked this single-box method of using a browser address bar.

Another interesting feature of Google Chrome is its integrated use of Google Gears. Called application shortcuts in the browser, this feature lets users take any Web application and save it as a desktop-based Web application, with its own launch icons in the Start menu, Quick Launch and desktop.

Those wanting to try out the Google Chrome beta can find it at www.google.com/chrome.
A nice eBook also can be found at http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

Namastee!

HelloSecureWorld.com : A nice resource to learn Security

2008-08-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has developed a new site http://www.hellosecureworld.com/ which provides a powerful experience for promoting security awareness and education in the developer community by surfacing existing content as well as new.

If you like learning while having FUN then hellosecureworld.com is the resource for you. It brings non traditional ways to provide security awareness and education among the developer community - Virtual lab environment, hands on labs, tutorials, videos, play attack defender games and much more.

Happy Learning !!

Namastee !

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

2008-08-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has released the long waited Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1. This service pack includes lot of new features like Entity Framework,SQL Server 2008 support etc. and some major performance enhancements.

Visit the following URL to know more details and downlaod the VS.NET 2008 SP1.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/cc533447.aspx

Namastee !

StyleCop : A New Source Code Analysis Tool From Microsoft

2008-08-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

Recently Microsoft has released a Source code analysis tool.This tool is known internally within Microsoft as StyleCop, and has been used for many years now

StyleCop is similar in many ways to Microsoft Code Analysis (specifically FxCop), but there are some important distinctions. FxCop performs its analysis on compiled binaries, while StyleCop analyzes the source code directly. For this reason, FxCop focuses more on the design of the code, while StyleCop focuses on layout, readability and documentation. Most of that information is stripped away during the compilation process, and thus cannot be analyzed by FxCop.The ultimate goal of StyleCop is to allow you to produce elegant, consistent code that your team members and others who view your code will find highly readable. In order to accomplish this, StyleCop does not allow its rules to be very configurable. StyleCop takes a one-size-fits-all approach to code style, layout, and readability rules. It is highly likely that you will not agree with all of the rules and may even find some of the rules annoying at first! However, the majority of teams using this tool within Microsoft have found that after a short adjustment period, they came to appreciate the rules enforced by StyleCop, and even began to find it difficult to read code not written in this style.

StyleCop comes with a set of default rules analyzers covering approximately 200 best practice rules. These rules are full compatible with the default layout settings in Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008.

Specifically, these rules cover the following, in no particular order:

Layout of elements, statements, expressions, and query clauses

Placement of curly brackets, parenthesis, square brackets, etc

Spacing around keywords and operator symbols Line spacing

Placement of method parameters within method declarations or method calls

Standard ordering of elements within a class

Formatting of documentation within element headers and file headers

Naming of elements, fields and variables

Use of the built-in types

Use of access modifiers

Allowed contents of files

Debugging text

After installation, StyleCop can be run from within the Visual Studio IDE, and can also be integrated into MSBuild-based command line builds.
StyleCop can be downloaded here:
https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ProjectName=sourceanalysis
Namastee!

Installing shared assembly in GAC using deployment project

2008-08-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

If You are using any shared assembly in you project and using deployment project to deploy it, by defult the assembly will be deployed in BIN folder although it is a shared assembly.To deploy it in GAC you need to follow following steps.

Open the Setup Project.
Open File System Editor From View->Editor->File System
File System will have various folders like Application folder, User desktop etc. Right click on the file system you will find Add Special folder context menu and different special folder will be displayed.
Select Global Assmbly Cache folder, which will add this folder to the File System .
Now add the shared assemblies to this and build it.

Namastee !

Creating a C# library and use it as custom function in Crystal Report

2008-08-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

You can write your own functions in any .NET language like C# , vb.net and use it in crystal report as user defined fuction.
Here are the steps you need to follow:-

Create a User Function Library .TheUser Function Libraries must be prefixed with CRUFL to be recognized by the embedded Crystal Reports Designer
In the project property Build/Compile window select Register for COM Interop.Register for COM Interop" causes the assembly to be automatically registered by the regasm.exe utility, when the project is compiled. So, you do not need to run regasm.exe manually from the command prompt.
Create an interface class with COM attributes.Above the interface declaration, create an attribute with three values: ComVisible, InterfaceType, and Guid (in C#).Create all the method signature.This method signature will become the name of the function that is exposed in the embedded Crystal Reports Designer.
Create a Class and implement this interface.Above the class declaration, create an attribute with three values: ComVisible, ClassInterface and Guid (in C#).
Create a strong name and attach it to the class library projcet to make this assembly as shared assembly.
Install this assembly in GAC
Now you can go to the Formula Workshop window and in side function -> Additional Functions ->Visual Basic UFLs (u2lcomm.dll) , you will find the functions defined in the assmbly.

Namastee !

World Wide Web got bigger

2008-06-27T07:18:00.000-07:00

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) unanimously approved the new guidelines to permit the introduction of thousands of new Internet domain names to join ".com," ,on the final day of weeklong meetings in Paris.Presently, users have a limited range of 21 top level domains to choose from — names that we are all familiar with like .com, .org, .info.ICANN is working towards accepting the first applications in the second quarter of 2009.

For details visit ICANN site.

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-4-26jun08-en.htm

Namaste!

Unity Dependency Injection Container in Enterprise Library 4.0

2008-03-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has added the Dependency Injection Application Block as the part of Enterprise Application Block 4.0 which will be released on mid April.The CTP version will be released on March 15.The name of this application block is Unity.Unity will be released in two forms - 1) a standalone container, and 2) an application block in Enterprise Library 4.0 with the existing application blocks refactored to take advantage of Unity

A short description of Unity is a lightweight, extensible dependency injection container.

To know more about Dependency Injection please visit following URL.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/09/DesignPatterns/
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa973811.aspx

Namastee

Microsoft Live Labs Volta

2007-12-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Live Labs has released a CTP version of new web development tool named "Volta" which uses existing tools available in .NET framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008.

Volta’s declarative tier-splitting enables developers to postpone architectural decisions about distribution until the last possible responsible moment. Also, thanks to a shared programming model across multiple-tiers, Volta enables new end-to-end profiling and testing for higher levels of application performance, robustness, and reliability. Using the declarative tier-splitting, developers can refine architectural decisions based on this profiling data. This saves time and costs associated with manual refactoring. In effect, Volta extends the .NET platform to further enable the development of software+services applications, using existing and familiar tools and techniques.

To Know more about Volta please visit the following URL.

http://labs.live.com/volta/

Are you Excited ? I am . Visual Studio 2008 RTM Released !

2007-11-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

On November 19th Microsoft has released VS 2008 RTM which is available for download by MSDN subscribers.

To know more about the release visit Soma's Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2007/11/19/visual-studio-2008-and-net-framework-3-5-shipped.aspx

You can download a free copy of Visual Web Developer 2008 from following site and try it out yourself.

http://www.microsoft.com/express/vwd/

To know more about what are the features VWD 2008 does not supports you can visit Mikhail's Blog.

http://blogs.msdn.com/mikhailarkhipov/archive/2006/06/26/647516.aspx

Also available is the Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training kit. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7602397 (120MB). This includes presentations, hands-on labs and demos -- and is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2008 features and a variety of framework technologies including LINQ, C# 3.0, Visual Basic 9, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, VSTO, CardSpace, SilverLight, Mobile and Application Lifecycle Management.

There are lots of training materials on all the new features like Multi-targeting Support, LINQ, JavaScript Debugging and Intellisense, new CSS editor, WCF Support for RSS, JSON, POX and Partial Trust etc. are available in following path.

http://www.asp.net/downloads/vs2008/

Happy Learning.

F# : New generation Functional Programming Language from Microsoft

2007-11-18T06:52:00.000-08:00

Functional programming is the best approach to solving many thorny computing problems,but pure FP isn’t suitable for general-purpose programming. So, FP languages have gradually embraced aspects of the imperative and OO paradigms, remaining true to the FP paradigm but incorporating features needed to easily write any kind of program. Some of the most popular functional languages, including OCaml, Haskell, Lisp, and Scheme, have traditionally been implemented using custom runtimes, which leads to problems such as lack of interoperability.

F# is a general-purpose programming language for .NET, a general-purpose runtime. F# smoothly integrates all three major programming paradigms.With F#, you can choose which ever paradigm works best to solve problems in the most effective way. You can do pure FP, if you’re a purist, but you can easily combine functional, imperative, and object-oriented styles in the same program and exploit the strengths of each paradigm. Like other typed functional languages, F# is strongly typed but also uses inferred typing, so programmers don’t need to spend time explicitly specifying types unless an ambiguity exists. Further, F# seamlessly integrates with the .NET Framework base class library (BCL).Using the BCL in F# is as simple as using it in C# or Visual Basic (and maybe even simpler).F# was modeled on Objective Caml (OCaml), a successful object-oriented FP language, and then tweaked and extended to mesh well technically and philosophically with .NET. It fully embraces .NET and enables users to do everything that .NET allows. The F# compiler can compile for all implementations of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), it supports .NET generics without changing any code, and it even provides for inline Intermediate Language(IL) code. The F# compiler not only produces executables for any CLI but can also runon any environment that has a CLI, which means F# is not limited to Windows but can run on Linux, Apple Mac OS X, and OpenBSD. The F# compiler can be integrated into Visual Studio, supporting IntelliSense expression completion and automatic expression checking. It also gives tooltips to show what types have been inferred for expressions. Programmers often comment that this really helps bring the language to life.

F# was invented by Dr. Don Syme and is now the product of a small but highly dedicatedteam he heads at Microsoft Research (MSR) in Cambridge, England. However, F# is not just aresearch or academic language. It is used for a wide variety of real-world applications, whosenumber is growing rapidly.Although other FP languages run on .NET, F# has established itself as the de facto .NET functional programming language because of the quality of its implementation and its superb integration with .NET and Visual Studio.

To know more details on F# and to download visit the following site.

http://research.microsoft.com/fsharp/fsharp.aspx

Microsoft Releasing .NET as Shared Source

2007-10-21T00:33:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has decided to open up the code for its .NET Framework, though not as an open source project. Microsoft is releasing it under a Shared Source license, specifically the Microsoft Reference License, that allows developers access to all the source code, but only to look, not to change it. Microsoft wants to be more open, but it wants control of its own specs, so this license allows it to be a little more open with the community, while retaining control.

This will definitely help developers in debugging their application.

ScotGu announced this in his blog

Read some thoughts on the change at Mary Jo Foley’s blog.

Software As Services Vs Software Plus Services

2007-07-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

For decades companies develop there own software or purchase form vendors and run the applications in their own infrastructure. But things are changed now. Availability of high bandwidth network, powerful processors and inexpensive storage and increase in cost of maintenance changed the complete delivery model. Software as a Service is a new delivery model where companies pay not for owning the software itself but for using it. In the SaaS scenario, a software provider is responsible for its availability (maintenance, scalability, disaster recovery, etc.). That’s what the companies pay for.

Last few months Microsoft has being talking a lot about a new buzz "Software Plus services" in all of the major conferences like Microsoft partner's conference , MIX, TechEd .Actually it is not a new methodology. It has been used by many companies like Apple and Google for years. Microsoft is going to use the same strategy for the new lines of products like Microsoft Live, Microsoft Live CRM etc.So what software plus services is the delivery model where enterprises will have choice of including on-premises solutions and hosted solutions.

Jon DeVadoss, Director of Architecture Strategy Microsoft Corporation mentioned in one of the his keynote address that the notion of Software Plus Services is a convergence of software as a service (SaaS), service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Web 2.0 technologies.

But if we change the software plus services to services plus software it changes the complete delivery model. Services plus software approach would put the software on the server, rather than the desktop, and much of the complexity with it.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Vs ASP.NET Web services

2007-03-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

When we discuss about WCF several question always comes to our mind that what is the difference betweens WCF and web services? What is the advantage of using WCF? Should I use WCF or web services?

It is not possible to compare WCF and web services as both are different ways of communication between client and server. Here are few major features provided by WCF.

WCF is a new generation distributed technology which integrates all the other middle tier technologies like web services, COM +, Remoting, MSMQ and provides a unique development environment. It supports all the features supported by these technologies.
WCF is a services which can be hosted in IIS Servers, Windows services, as well as stand alone applications like windows form application, console application and WPF application
Using Datacontractserializer provided by WCF complex data types and private attributes can be serialized and pass across the boundary.
Using WCF messages can be transmitted using various channels like HTTP, TCP, MSMQ, Named pipe etc.
WCF application are easily configurable using configuration files and utilities
WCF can be integrated with other technologies and has great interoperability.

Here are few links to learn WCF.

https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/courseDetail.aspx?courseId=68396
http://wcf.netfx3.com/content/resources.aspx

ASP.NET Community Recognition Program

2007-02-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has started ASP.NET Community Recognition Program to recognize people who are helping the asp.net community by answering questions,posting blog,writing articles etc.It is a pont based system.Each activity have a specific point.Based on point earned you will be part of Microsoft Hall of Fame.

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Released

2006-12-24T09:20:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has finally released Visual Studio 2005 SP1.Microsoft has provided around 70 improvemt in this release.

You can download it from following path

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/vs2005sp1/default.aspx

First CTP of "WPF/E" Released

2006-12-10T06:03:00.000-08:00

WPF/E is a code name for a new Web presentation technology that is created to run on a variety of platforms. It enables the creation of rich, visually stunning and interactive experiences that can run everywhere: within browsers and on multiple devices and desktop operating systems (such as the Apple Macintosh). In consistency with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), the presentation technology in Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (the Windows programming infrastructure), XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language) is the foundation of the "WPF/E" presentation capability.

To know more about WPF/E visit follwing site.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/bb188568.aspx

Microsoft AJAX Library : New Name for ASP 2.0 ATLAS

2006-09-12T02:10:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has renamed the Asp.net 2.0 Atlas library as Microsoft AJAX Library and planning to release by end of this year. To read more about this exciting news visit the following blog by ScottGu.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/09/11/_2200_Atlas_2200_-1.0-Naming-and-Roadmap.aspx

Microsoft filled case in Seattle court against "TestKing"

2006-08-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

Microsoft filled case in Seattle court against "TestKing" , the most famous vendor who provides braindumps to candidates to pass Microsoft exam's.This is really an good news. No more cheat sheet's all pure knowledge will be tested during MCP exam's. Microsoft exam's will become more hard than Cisco exam's. I am personally thankful to Microsoft for taking this action. IT certifications are in demand, and ban to such illegal vendor will eliminate fake candidates who suppose themselves as MCP's . For complete story watch out http://www.tcpmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=1085

SQL Server 2005 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide

2006-07-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

Are you planning to migrate your database to SQL Server 2005? This 350-page document contains guidance for SQL Server administrators, developers, and IT decision makers who would like to move their SQL Server 2000 or 7.0 databases to SQL Server 2005. Get the fabulous whitepaper from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3d5e96d9-0074-46c4-bd4f-c3eb2abf4b66&DisplayLang=en

Learn A-Z of Microsoft Active Directory (ADSI)

2006-07-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

Do you want to learn Active directory ? Microsoft Active Directory experts are providing an oppertunity to learn A-Z of Active directory through the webcasts.Visit the following link to learn more about this .

http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/adaug.mspx

What is Project Glidepath ?

2006-06-18T20:37:00.000-07:00

Project Glidepath is an Evangelism program to help the ISVs to develop application using .NET Framework 3.0.

To know more about Project Glidepath visit
http://projectglidepath.net/glidepath/default.aspx

Asp.Net 2.0 Data Access Articles

2006-06-18T20:13:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for a good article to learn about data access in Asp.net 2.0?
There is a place to get it.First 10 of 50 articles are now available in
http://www.asp.net/learn/dataaccess

It covers following topics:

Creating a Data Access Layer
Creating a Business Logic Layer
Master Pages and Site Navigation
Displaying Data With the ObjectDataSource
Declarative Parameters Programmatically
Setting the ObjectDataSource's Parameter Values
Master/Detail Filtering With a DropDownList
Master/Detail Filtering With Two DropDownLists
Master/Detail Filtering Across Two Pages
Master/Detail Using a Selectable Master GridView with a Details DetailView

.NET Framework 3.0 and WinFx

2006-06-14T19:27:00.000-07:00

In TechEd 2006 Microsoft officially announced the new name for WinFx platform as .Net Framwork 3.0 which includes Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and the newly christened Windows CardSpace (WCS) formerly known under the codename “InfoCard.” The .NET Framework 3.0 will still ship with Windows Vista, and will be available down-level for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 as planned. This change doesn’t affect in any way the ship schedules of either Windows Vista or the .NET Framework 3.0 itself.

To know more visit 1 Stop WebSite for .NET 3.0

http://www.netfx3.com/default.aspx

Code Snippets : A new feature in Visual studio 2005

2006-06-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

Code Snippets are reusable, task-oriented blocks of code.Code Snippets provide simple code generation for repetitive tasks within the Visual Studio 2005 IDE. For example, rather than typing a complete property declaration or case statement, just type a brief shortcut, TAB, and fill in a couple of values. The construct is built for you. Visual Studio 2005 includes code snippets covering tasks ranging from creating a custom exception, to sending an e-mail message, to drawing a circle. A set of Visual Basic and Visual C# Code Snippets are included in the Visual Studio 2005 box.

Where to get the Code snippets?

A set of code snippets for VB.Net is available in Visual Studio 2005 box. The C# version of the code snippet can be downloaded from following URL.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/codesnippets/default.aspx

You can get code snippet from various thirdparty vendors also.Here is a website where you can get free code Snippets.

http://gotcodesnippets.com/

How to create your own code snippet?

It is very easy to create your own code snippet using VS.NET Editor.To learn more about creating a code snippet visit following URL.
http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/122105-1.aspx

A code snippet editor also available for free download using which code snippet can be created easily.You can download it from following URL
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/downloads/tools/snippeteditor/

JSON : JavaScript Object Notation

2006-05-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language. JSON is a text format that is completely language independent but uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and many others. These properties make JSON an ideal data-interchange language.
JSON is built on two structures:
1.A collection of name/value pairs. In various languages, this is realized as an object, record, struct, dictionary, hash table, keyed list, or associative array.
2.An ordered list of values. In most languages, this is realized as an array, vector, list, or sequence.These are universal data structures. Virtually all modern programming languages support them in one form or another. It makes sense that a data format that is interchangable with programming languages also be based on these structures.

JSON's simplicity has resulted in its widespread use, especially as an alternative to XML in Ajax. One of the claimed advantages of JSON over XML as a data interchange format in this context is that it is much easier to write a JSON parser. In JavaScript itself, JSON can be parsed trivially using the eval() procedure. This was important for the acceptance of JSON within the Ajax programming community because of JavaScript's ubiquity among web browsers.

DotNet Ajax Frameworks

2006-05-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

AJAX Asynchronous JavaScript And XML is a widely used buzz word now in web development world.There are some many libraries available to develop ajax enabled web application in asp.net with less effort and less code. i am listing few of them here.

ASP.NET 2.0 Atlas

Atlas is Microsoft's in-progress AJAX project.ASP.NET Atlas is a package of new Web development technologies that integrates an extensive set of client script libraries with the rich, server-based development platform of ASP.NET 2.0.With Atlas, you can take advantage of the best of ASP.NET and server-side code while doing much of the work in the browser, enabling a richer user experience.It provides rich set of client side and server side controls.It is still in Beta.

Ajax.NET for ASP.NET 1.x/2.0

It is a basic AJAX library for ASP.NET which provides the very basic AJAX capability to make xmlhttp callbacks. Does not have any 'Ajax-enabled' controls or support for Viewstate, etc.

Anthem.Net for ASP.NET 1.x/2.0

Anthem.NET provides a set of ajax-enabled controls inherited from ASP.NET server controls, with most AJAX behaviours pre-built, avoiding lots of client Javascript. It supports Viewstate so that you can actually modify server controls (either Anthem controls, or ASP.NET controls inside an Anthem control, e.g. panel) in your serverside code, in C# or VB without having to mess about in JavaScript. Unlike some other Ajax implementations the system supports callbacks for Anthem controls that are inside user controls, and even for wizards and master pages.

AjaxAspects

AjaxAspects is an engine that uses JavaScript proxies to call server-side WebService methods. It is built upon JavaScript client proxy methods for standard web services. (Just call a regular JavaScript method to call a method on the server). it uses standard SOAP and WSDL for the communication between client and server. it supports Multiple types, Arrays and XML objects as parameters and return values.It has soem other features like Caching on the client and server ,Queuing actions,Delaying actions.Many AJAX Controls also available that integrate in standard ASP.NET Web Forms.

Bitkraft for ASP.NET

Bitkraft Bitkraft is a CLR based (.NET) web framework that allows distributed web content to be created and served in a unique fashion. It is written in C# and compiles for operation under the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1+ or the .Mono Framework, making it portable to almost any platform.At it's core, the Bitkraft framework extends the ASP .NET Architecture to fully support Javascript-based Server callbacks using the XmlHttpRequest object as a transport layer in a fashion referred commonly today as AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript Over XmlHttpRequest). It uses Uses JSON instead of XML .

Visual WebGUI: WinForms over Web creating rich AJAX applications

With Visual WebGUI you program outlook web access like applications by programming with WinForms like server side objects.It works both ASP.NET 2.0 & 1.1 .It provides all most all of WinForms controls and can be extendable.It doesnot require any usage of JavaScripts,HTML or any other web language (Full WinForms abstraction).

What is new in IIS 7.0 for Web Developers

2006-05-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

Flexible Extensibility Model for Powerful Customization:
IIS 7 enables developers to extend IIS to provide custom functionality in new, more powerful ways. IIS7 extensibility begins with an all-new core server API-set, which supports both native (C/C++) and managed (C#, VB.NET) feature module development. IIS7 also enables extensibility of configuration, scripting, event logging, and administration tool feature-sets, providing software developers a complete server platform on which to build Web server extensions.

Rich Troubleshooting Tools and Diagnostic Information:
IIS 7 enables developers and IT Professionals to more easily troubleshoot errand Web sites and applications. IIS7 provides a clear view of internal diagnostic information about IIS, and collects and surfaces detailed diagnostic events to aid troubleshooting problematic servers.

All New Delegated Administration:
IIS7 enables Web Hosters and IT Professionals to safely and securely delegate fine-grained administrative control to developers and content owners, reducing cost of ownership and administrative burden for the Administrator. IIS7 enables Administrators to delegated configuration tasks to developers, and supports delegated administration of sites and applications through an all-new administration tool.

Enhanced Security through Workload Customization:
IIS 7 is designed to enable the Developer to customize in a fine-grained manner exactly which features should be installed and running on their Web server. IIS is now factored into 40+ feature modules that can be independently installed on the server, dramatically reducing the security attack surface of the server, and providing Developers and Administrators more confidence and control over their servers.

Improved Support for Server Farms:
IIS 7 makes deployment and management of content and configuration data in server farm scenarios easier than ever before. IIS 7 provides an easy way for Web site and application configuration to be copied between servers. Configuration information can now be shared across multiple front-end servers, avoiding costly and error-prone replication and manual synchronization issues that plague today’s Administrators.

Application and Health Management for Web Services:
IIS 7 enables development and hosting of Web services, over any protocol, in a secure and robust environment. The Windows Activation Service (WAS) is a Windows Vista / Longhorn Server system service that provides process activation and health management services for all types of message-activated applications. WAS is an evolution of the robust and secure IIS 6.0 request processing model, which was extended in this release to support pluggable activation for arbitrary protocol listeners. WAS provides applications with intelligent resource management, on-demand activation, health-monitoring, and automatic failure detection and recycling.WAS includes a worker process environment that hosts applications independent from message protocol. For example: an application hosted by WAS may live in a single application domain within a given process and still communicate over multiple protocols.

Microsoft Office Open XML Format

2006-04-30T05:52:00.000-07:00

Microsoft “Office 12” the new version office will introduce new default XML file formats for Microsoft Office Word word processing, Excel spreadsheet, and PowerPoint presentation graphics programs, and will change the way developers can approach solutions based on Office documents.The new Microsoft Office Open XML Formats introduce a number of benefits like interoperable , robust , efficient ,secured that will accrue not only to developers and the solutions they build, but also to individual users and organizations of all sizes.

Here is a nice place to find resources about open xml format document
http://openxmldeveloper.org/

Asp.Net 2.0 Tips&Tricks

2006-04-29T15:23:00.000-07:00

1. App_offline.htm

It Enables you to gracefully take a server application “offline” for maintenance.It is very much useful when making big changes/upgrades.This feature can be enabled by adding a “app_offline.htm” file at the root of an applicationwhich causes ASP.NET app to shutdown and causes all dynamic requests to return app_offline.htm file contents

Tip: Make sure the app_offline.htm file is large enough (512 bytes) to disable the IE “friendly http errors” feature

2.Cross Page Post-backs

In asp.net 2.0 you can directly postback to another page from a server contro.You can do it by using “PostBackUrl” property .It can be declaratively or programmatically set.Another advantage is that Postback “target page” has full access to server controls for “originating page”.You can access controls via “Page.PreviousPage” property

3.Validation Groups

It Enable validation controls to only apply in response to a specific button/action by the use of “ValidationGroup” property

4.MaintainScrollBackPosition

It enable pages to automatically maintain the current scroll position across postbacks by using the following page directive attribute

5.Default Button

It Enable developers to identify default button behavior when the “enter” key is hit .It Can be set on control to identify default for the form.it Can also be set on control to override form behavior when an input control has focus in the browser

6.Default Focus.

It enable developers to identify default focus behavior when page is loaded .It can an be set on control to identify default for the form .it an also be programmatically set:
Page.SetFocus(control)TextBox.Focus()

7.SetFocusOnError

It enable developers to force focus on a control when a validation error occurs by setting as a property on the validation control

8.Client Script Handlers

In Asp.net 2.0 new features called client side script handler is introduce to wtite events on both clien and server site.

9.Web.Config Registration of Controls

Server controls can now be registered within web.config files instead of on every page

10.CSS Control Adapters

ASP.NET 2.0 supports a “control adapter” architecture that allows developers to customize and override rendering semanticsEg: use CSS instead of tables/inline-styles.It can be enabled by adding a .browser file within /app_browsers directory that maps a control to a control-adapter class

Analyze your .NET code using NDepend

2006-04-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

NDepend is a free tool taht analyses .NET assemblies of an application and generates reports containing design quality metrics, warnings and diagrams.This tool also provides a graphical view of the analysis report.It supports code query language(CQL) to write the code quality constraint,code naming constraint,design constraint etc.It provides Application Metric,Assembly Metric,Assembly Abstracness vs. Instability,Assembly Dependency Diagram,Assembly build order and much more informations about the assembly.

You can download it from following URL.

http://www.ndepend.com

Threat Analysis & Modeling

2006-04-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

Application Security is very important for all the Applications .So it is a good idea to analyze the threats to the application at the design phase of the application.Recently Microsft has released a Threat Analysis & Modeling tool which can be used to analyze and model the threats in various phase of your software development life cycle.

Creating a threat model using the Microsoft Application Security Threat Analysis & Modeling tool is a three-phase process. First, you define your application context. Second, you model your threats on top of your application context. Third, you measure the risk that is associated with each threat. Once you have completed these phases, you can assimilate your threat models through analytics, visualizations, and reports.

The Threat Analysis & Modeling tool automatically generates potential threats to your software application, based solely on known information that you provide. The Threat Analysis & Modeling tool also has the capability to assimilate the information you provide to build security artifacts such as access control matrices, data flow and trust flow diagrams, and focused, customizable reports.

You can download it from Microsoft MSDN security center and try it .

Highway Code: The drive for safer coding!

2006-04-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

Do you want to write safer code ? Do you want to build a secured Application using .NET platform ? Here is the book that gives you the checklists to check while developing a secured Application and also lot more about security.

Download it from following URL.
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/security/dev_highway.mspx

What is the difference between Asp.Net 1.1 and 2.0 Paging Model ?

2006-04-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

There is a mojor difference between asp.net 2.0 and 1.1 paging model. In 2.0 the aspx markup file and code beside class compiles at same time due to the nice feature partial class.The compilation model produces a comfortable coupling between the declarative markup and the class in the code-beside file. This is ‘vertical coupling’.

In 1.1 there is unwanted coupling between types in the code-behind files. This is ‘horizontal coupling’. Instead of using a layer of indirection, like an interface, base class, delegate, or event, types in the code-behind files can reference each other directly and produce brittle code.

So definitely 2.0 compilation model is better thean 1.1 compilation model.

Microsoft has released Web application project Add-ons same like that in ASp.NET 1.1.Please check y previous post.

HTML spell checker add-on to Visual Studio

2006-04-18T16:18:00.000-07:00

Do you want to check spell in your Asp.Net HTML editor .Visit following url and and download the Add on.Spell checker works in Source view.It is able to extract text from markup elements and use Office 2003 spell checker to check the text.You can also configure it check for specific elements .

http://blogs.msdn.com/mikhailarkhipov/archive/2006/04/17/577471.aspx

Are you missing Asp.Net Web Application in 2.0 ?

2006-04-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

In Asp.Net 2.0 the ASP.Net web application has been replaced by asp.net website.But still we are missing the web project that was available in VS.Net 1.1 .But good news is that microsoft has released the Web Application project add-in for 2.0 with new features.

Download it from following URL and try it today.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/WAP.asp

Membership Provider source code released

2006-04-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

The source code for the built-in providers for ASP.NET 2.0 has now been released. Learn how they were built, and how to create your own providers

Please visit following link to see more details.
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/04/13/442772.aspx

why we need to switch into VS.NET 2005?

2006-04-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

Have a look at 400 difference..A nice animated site...

http://www.400plusdifferences.com/

Microsoft Application Verifier

2006-04-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

The Microsoft® Application Verifier (AppVerifier) is a runtime verification tool for unmanaged code that assists in finding subtle programming errors, security issues and limited user account privilege problems that can be difficult to identify with normal application testing techniques.

To Know more about Microsoft Application verifier visit following URL..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/security/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnsecure/html/appverifier_sdl.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows/appcompatibility/appverifier.mspx

You can download this tool from following URL.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bd02c19c-1250-433c-8c1b-2619bd93b3a2&DisplayLang=en

Cross Site Scripting

2006-04-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

Cross-site scripting is a potentially dangerous security exposure that should be considered when designing a secure Web-based application

Coss-site scripting poses server application risks that include, but are not limited to, the following:

Users can unknowingly execute malicious scripts when viewing dynamically generated pages based on content provided by an attacker.
An attacker can take over the user session before the user's session cookie expires.
An attacker can connect users to a malicious server of the attacker's choice.
An attacker who can convince a user to access a URL supplied by the attacker could cause script or HTML of the attacker's choice to be executed in the user's browser.
Using this technique, an attacker can take actions with the privileges of the user who accessed the URL, such as issuing queries on the underlying SQL databases and viewing the results and to exploit the known faulty implementations on the target system.

To know more about Cross site scripting visit following URL

http://www.cgisecurity.com/articles/xss-faq.shtml

Microsoft has realeased a anti-cross site scripting Library which can be used to provide comprehensive protection to Web-based applications against Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks.

It can be downloaded from following link

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9A2B9C92-7AD9-496C-9A89-AF08DE2E5982&displaylang=en

New Events in ASP.NET 2.0

2006-03-18T08:02:00.000-08:00

ASP.NET 2.0 adds quite a few new events to allow you to follow the request-processing more closely and precisely. These new events are discussed below

PreInit :This occurs before the page begins initialization. This is the first event in the life of an ASP.NET 2.0 page.
InitComplete :This occurs when the page initialization is completed.
PreLoad:This occurs immediately after initialization and before the page begins loading the state information.
LoadComplete:This occurs at the end of the load stage of the page's life cycle.
PreRenderComplete:This occurs when the pre-rendering phase is complete and all child controls have been created. After this event, the personalization data and the view state are saved and the page HTML is rendered

C# Code Snippets in Visual studio 2005

2006-03-02T19:25:00.000-08:00

Code Snippets are reusable, task-oriented blocks of code. Visual Studio 2005 includes code snippets covering tasks ranging from creating a custom exception, to sending an e-mail message, to drawing a circle. A set of Visual Basic and Visual C# Code Snippets are included in the Visual Studio 2005 box. Microsoft released a new set of Code snippets for Visual C# .VB.NET version of these snippets is already available in Visual Studio 2005 box.

You can download these snippet from following Location..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/codesnippets/default.aspx

WSCF - Schema-Based Contract-First Web Services

2006-02-27T17:26:00.000-08:00

It is a free Visual Studio Add-In and Command Line Tool for ImprovedSchema-Based Contract-First Web Services Design and Programming .It offers a simple yet powerful WSDL Wizard that abstracts away all the nitty-gritty details of WSDL and therefore does not give room for making errors and wrong assumptions just by trying to use and applying everything that can be done stated by the original WSDL specification. Plus there are number of new items that primarily made it into the tool based on customer feedback.

For more details visit following URL.
http://www.thinktecture.com/WSCF

My Namespace:New feature in VB.NET 2005

2006-02-04T11:01:00.000-08:00

The My namespace in Visual Basic 2005 provides a quick and easy method for accessing some of the deeper areas of functionality in the .NET Framework without preventing you from using the Framework directly in any way you choose.My exposes several distinct classes which organize a variety of functions into one of seven general areas: My.Application, My.Computer, My.Forms, My.Resources, My.Settings, My.User, and My.WebServices.In general, the classes within My provide easy access to information in one of two categories, either the underlying .NET Framework or elements of the current project. My.Application, My.Computer, and My.User are all focused on Framework functionality, while My.Forms, My.Resources, My.Settings, and My.WebServices all deal with the contents of your current project. As I walk through each of these classes, starting with those that are focused on the underlying Framework.

Example :

The My.Computer.FileSystem classes provide a very simple API for working with and inquiring about files; this should banish any lingering yearning for the FileSystemObject library. The following code uses the FileSystem class to copy all of the pictures from the current user's My Pictures folder to a new folder (C:\Desktop Wallpaper), displaying a progress bar if the file copy takes more than a few moments to complete:

Dim myPics As String = My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.MyPictures
My.Computer.FileSystem .CopyDirectory( _
myPics, "C:\Desktop Wallpaper", _
FileIO.UIOption.AllDialogs, _
FileIO.UICancelOption.DoNothing)

Windows OneCare

2006-02-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

This is a PC health service software released by Microsoft. It helps give you round-the-clock protection and maintenance—virus scanning, firewalls, tune ups, file backups, the whole nine yards. Delivered to you in a smooth, hassle-free package

Windows OneCare is being designed to address core safety concerns such as worms, viruses and spyware, but also to span broader PC health issues: helping protect electronic assets such as digital photos, music, financial data and software; and guarding against performance degradation and system clutter that can result from heavy use. Key capabilities and features of Windows OneCare will include the following:

• Defense against evolving threats. Windows OneCare will provide automatically updated anti-virus, anti-spyware and two-way firewall protection.

• Performance and reliability tools. PC owners will be able to choose to have Windows OneCare automatically carry out periodic maintenance tasks such as disk cleanup, hard-drive defragmentation and file repair. The service also will offer boot-time information and proactive support tools to help improve the customer experience.

• Backup and restore capabilities. Windows OneCare will enable automated backup of files by category on CD and DVD, along with the option to back up all files on the system or only those that have changed since the last time the action was performed. If files are accidentally deleted or corrupted on the PC hard drive, the service is designed to restore saved versions or map them on a new PC.

• Simple, integrated service experience. PC users will have one simple point of reference for checking the overall health of their system. Windows OneCare will automatically notify users of available updates or other recommended actions and enable users to easily act as needed. Otherwise, the service stays quiet and in the background.

Microsoft released Windows OneCare Beta which can be download from following URL
http://www.windowsonecare.com/Default.aspx

ASP.NET 2.0 New Feature: Use app_offline.htm file to make your ASP.NET Application offline

2006-02-02T18:55:00.000-08:00

If you place a file with the name app_offline.htm in the root of a web application directory, ASP.NET 2.0 will shut-down the application, unload the application domain from the server, and stop processing any new incoming requests for that application. ASP.NET will also then respond to all requests for dynamic pages in the application by sending back the content of the app_offline.htm file (for example: you might want to have a “site under construction” or “down for maintenance” message).This provides a convenient way to take down your application while you are making big changes or copying in lots of new page functionality (and you want to avoid the annoying problem of people hitting and activating your site in the middle of a content update). It can also be a useful way to immediately unlock and unload a SQL Express or Access database whose .mdf or .mdb data files are residing in the /app_data directory. Once you remove the app_offline.htm file, the next request into the application will cause ASP.NET to load the application and app-domain again, and life will continue along as normal. Also

There are also some other ways to make you Application offline like setting httpruntime to false in web.config

ASP.NET Atlas: An Alternative to AJAX

2006-02-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

ASP.NET “Atlas” is a package of new Web development technologies that integrates an extensive set of client script libraries with the rich, server-based development platform of ASP.NET 2.0. “Atlas” enables you to develop Web applications that can update data on a Web page by making direct calls to a Web server — without needing to round trip the page. With “Atlas”, you can take advantage of the best of ASP.NET and server-side code while doing much of the work in the browser, enabling a richer user experience. These "Atlas" applications are written in JavaScript "Atlas" adds a number of type system extensions to JavaScript to enable the usage of namespaces, inheritance, interfaces, enums and helpers for Strings and Arrays amongst others. These extensions enable "Atlas" applications to be written in a structured way that improve maintainability, easier to add features and layering of functionality.

ASP.NET 'Atlas' is Microsoft's answer for how you can harness the power of AJAX applications. ASP.NET 'Atlas' provides all the capabilities of AJAX, but extends the concept and significantly reduces the complexity of AJAX development.

To know about more details about Atlas please visit following URL

http://www.asp.net/default.aspx?tabindex=7&tabid=47

Internet Explorer 7: What is new?

2006-01-31T21:01:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has recently released Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 7 for public which has a number of new features.

· Improved Navigation and cleaner Toolbar
· Tabbed Browsing
· RSS Support
· Enhanced Printing
· Built-In Search
· Enhanced Security like anti-phishing technology
· Support for transparent PNG files
· CSS consistency,
· CSS 2 fixed positioning
· International domain name (IDN) support and more

It can be downloaded from following URL

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/ie7betaredirect.mspx

HelpStudio Lite: A Tool to develop Help Files

2006-01-31T10:15:00.000-08:00

HelpStudio Lite is a tool to develop Help files using Visual Studio.Net. HelpStudio Lite includes a template based authoring concept that makes it easy for developers to customize and change over time the look and feel of a help system without requiring rework to existing content. HelpStudio Lite ships with two default templates; one that reflects the look and feel of Visual Studio .NET 2003 technical documentation and another implementing the new style introduced with Visual Studio 2005 technical documentation.

Microsoft is distributing HelpStudio Lite with the Visual Studio 2005 SDK. HelpStudio Lite is included free and automatically installed along with the SDK. The full version of HelpStudio has pricing starting at $425.

To view details browse following URL

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/extend/helplite/

Comparing XML Performance Java,.Net and Mono

2006-01-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

XML Mark is an XML parsing benchmark originally created by Sun Microsystems to test the performance of Java against .Net Framework 1.1.

Sun's source code for the original benchmark can be downloaded from http://java.sun.com/developer/codesamples/webservices.html#Performance and the white paper which discusses this performance can be found at http://java.sun.com/performance/reference/whitepapers/XML_Test-1_0.pdf.

Using XML Mark XML performance is tested for different technologies like java, .Net and Mono.The result is as follows.

The .Net Framework 2.0 beats every other platform in Xml performance by a huge margin. Such a huge difference cannot be due to better Xml libraries alone, it should also be the result of improvements in the execution efficiency of the Common Language Runtime (CLR), sitting at the core of the .Net Framework. The 32-bit .Net 2.0 scores were nearly double that of the highest Java scores. Microsoft has also done a good job with the 64-bit CLR, which consistently outperformed the Java results by about 60%. The performance gains are even greater, when comparing with .Net Framework 1.1. So from a performance perspective, it does make sense to move to v2.0.

The Java 64-bit runtime is an interesting contender, even though there is still scope of improvement. The Java 32-bit runtime posted really disappointing results; at least running with default settings.

To Visit the result details visit the following url
http://www.process64.com/articles/xmlmark1/

Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer(Sparkle)

2006-01-29T10:52:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has relased first CTP of Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer code name Sparkle which runs with WinFx January CPT Release.

Expression Interactive Designer is a design tool used to create user interfaces for desktop, Mobile and web applications using Windows Presentation Foundation and XAML.You can try out its innovative features such as rich 2D & 3D graphics, animation, dynamic layout, data binding, style & template editing, and resource management by downloading it from following URL.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ed9f5fb2-4cfc-4d2c-9af8-580d644e3d1d&displaylang=en&hash=M8J5SPD

The New Generation of Microsoft Certifications

2006-01-15T19:16:00.000-08:00

The new generation of Microsoft certifications is more specific and targeted to reflect the detail of what you do and to prove your expertise to those who need to know.

Consisting of three series and four credentials, the new generation of Microsoft certifications provides a simpler and more targeted framework for IT managers to validate core technical skills, professional skills, and architectural skills. It also provides professionals in the IT industry with a more relevant, flexible, and cost-effective way to showcase their skills.

For more details please visit the following URL

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/newgen/

Microsoft Customer Care Framework (CCF)

2006-01-15T19:10:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's Customer Care Framework (CCF) is a modular XML Web Services architecture for rapid development and deployment of contact center solutions. Service Providers can transform and expand their call center operations to reduce costs while improving the quality of their customer service, CCF increases call center agent productivity by prefetching customer information and sharing it in smart ways between different applications, dramatically cutting the time agents must spend searching for and entering data to complete a call.

To know more details please visit following URL.

http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/solutions/ccf.mspx

Visual studio 2005 Starter kits

2006-01-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

Visual studio 2005 Starter kits a new features available for creating projects template for all type of applications in different .net languages. . Project templates provide all the files necessary to create a new project and can include references, classes, forms, and project settings. So using this lot of rework and defects can be avoided.

Visit the linkbelow to know how to create project templates.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/CreatStrtKt.asp

TryParse

2006-01-01T21:52:00.000-08:00

For parsing base type the .NET Framework 2.0 introduces a pattern across all the relevant base types called TryParse, which mimics Parse. The difference in behavior is that Parse will throw an exception when the data check fails, while TryParse simply goes to an else statement

Example:

Dim iVal As Integer
If Int32.TryParse(someString, iVal) Then
' code which deals with the valid integer
Else
' code which deals with an invalid input
End If

ILMerge

2005-11-08T22:33:00.000-08:00

ILMerge is a utility that can be used to merge multiple .NET assemblies into a single assembly. ILMerge takes a set of input assemblies and merges them into one target assembly. This can be used to merge .NET assemblies—even those written in different .NET languages—into a single assembly for easier distribution, something that's not possible using Visual Studio alone.

Microsoft Calculator Plus

2005-11-07T21:36:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Calculator Plus offers conversions between different measurement units for length,area, temperature, volume ,energy ,Power,pressure Velocity,Volume,Weight and lots more . It also includes all the mathematical functions offered in Microsoft Calculator.

It can be downloaded for following URL
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=32b0d059-b53a-4dc9-8265-da47f157c091&displaylang=en

Free Lowend version of oracle released

2005-11-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Oracle is getting ready to ship a free, lowend version of their database. That is according to this story at infoworld .
(http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/10/31/HNoraclefree_1.html)

Here is the link to download it: http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html
Forum: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/forum.html
Site: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/index.html

Application Blocks for .NET

2005-02-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

Designing distributed applications is no simple task. Before finalizing architecture many decisions need to be taken keeping in view about applications abilities in terms of the security, scalability, availability, and maintainability, to name a few. Application blocks do play a vital role and will have an impact on the architecture, design and implementation of the target infrastructure.
There are various application blocks discussed in Microsoft patterns & practices site that would help you design & build your system. I tried to consolidate so as to help to understand choices set of layers of components that would be used to model your application.

Major application blocks are

· User Interface Process Application Block
· Aggregation Application Block
· Data Access Application Block
· Exception Management Application Block
· Asynchronous Invocation Application Block
· Caching Application Block
· Configuration Management Application Block
· Updater Application Block

User Interface Process Application Block

A base class (ControllerBase) and User Interface Process Manager component that allows to separate logic & state of a user process from the UI needed to collect data and navigate. It includes a set of persistence managers that allows saving the state of the process in database viz., SQL Server, an ASP.NET session, or a custom store.

Where to use
Use it when you need to implement the same process in different types of applications (Windows Forms, Web forms) or want to allow users to resume a session at a later time. Also good for wizard-based applications.

Aggregation Application Block

A component that dispatches Service Agents to collect information from various sources for the application. The application then makes requests to the aggregate component and it returns a single XML document of the collected data. It uses the Exception Management Block and can be used with both the Asynchronous Block and the Caching Block.

Where to use
Use it when your application needs to bring together data from various sources and those sources may change over time. The Aggregation Block serves to abstract the underlying data sources.

Data Access Application Block

Implements a data access helper component, SqlHelper, which helps execute statements against SQL Server 7.0 and higher by exposing a set of static methods and reduces the amount of data access code you have to write. V2.0 supports the .NET Framework v1.1.

Where to use
Use it if you are using SQL Server as the database and wish to reduce the amount of data access code you write. Can use it internally in your own data access classes. Versions of SqlHelper for OleDb and Oracle written in C# are included in the Nile 3.0 sample application.

Exception Management Application Block

Provides a simple and flexible mechanism for publishing exception information through an ExceptionManager class. Also supports filtering and creating your own exception publishers to publish data to sources other than files and event logs using text and XML. Also provides a BaseApplicationException class from which to derive, that collects additional environmental information.

Where to use
Use it as the basis for your exception-handling framework. Ideal for applications that use exception chaining or wrapping and pass exceptions up the call stack. Custom publishers can be used to log exception information to shared databases.

Asynchronous Invocation Application Block

A component that dispatches requests on background threads and then notifies the application when complete. It uses the Exception Management and Data blocks. This block is meant to be used with the Aggregate Block and can work with the Caching block.

Where to use
Use it when the data sources your application communicates with may require a lengthy call. Using the Async Block makes it appear as if the application is more responsive by allowing Web pages to be built incrementally.

Caching Application Block

Allows applications to make requests of a CacheManager object that either returns the data or invokes a Service Agent to retrieve it. Allows items to be expired from cache and cached data to be stored in a variety of format including SQL Server, memory mapped files, or a Singleton object. It uses both the Exception Management and Data Blocks. Can also be used with the Async and Aggregation blocks.

Where to use
Use it when you need to cache data in Windows Forms or other non-Web based applications. ASP.NET provides its own cache and so would not typically be required for Web applications. Important to use for improving performance.

Configuration Management Application Block

A component that abstracts the location of configuration information used in an application and adds features including encryption, caching, and extensibility. It also adds the ability to both read and write the configuration data.

Where to use
Use it when your application might require its configuration data to be stored in different locations at different times. Also take advantage of it for encrypting sensitive information.

Updater Application Block

A component that can be used to download new versions of applications to client machines (using BITS for example). Includes a manifest to specify all the related files and ensure the entire application is downloaded. Provides optional file verification and support for custom downloading and verification components. It uses the Exception Management Block.

Where to use
Use it when your application needs to auto-update with new assemblies or when you are writing a service to provide client machines with updates to a variety of applications.

Next step
I hope these would help while designing & building applications to architect or developer lead. Hell lot of information with code sample are given at Microsoft patterns & practice website which would help you for in-depth understanding of each blocks.

References

Microsoft released Latest Enterprise Library in January 2005 which included all these Application Blocks.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/entlib.asp

User Interface Process Application Block can be downloaded from
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/uipab.asp

Code Names of various Microsoft Product

2005-02-18T20:12:00.000-08:00

Most of the Microsoft products are internally code named. Often these code names are very interesting but do not really indicate the nature of the product. In general Microsoft code names fall in to categories like name of the cities, ski resorts, species of trees, famous poets, celestial bodies etc.Some of the code names are:

Interface Manager :GUI for MS-DOSGraphical and multitasking user interface for MS-DOS, released as "Windows 1.0"
Chicago: Windows 95
Daytona: Windows NT 3.5
Impala:Windows NT Embedded 4.0
Memphis:Windows 98Designed as Windows 97, but finally made available as Windows 98
Neptune:Windows Millenium sucessor, cancelled to merge with NT into Whistler
Cairo :Windows 2000Also included document centric shell based on OLE3, but that part have been dropped, and Windows NT unified distributed file system, which didn't make it for this release
Odyssey:Windows 2000 sucessor, cancelled to merge with 9X into Whistler
Mantis: Windows XP Embedded 5.1
Whistler: Windows XP / Server 2003Finally join Windows NT and Windows 9X into a single operating system.New user interface, skins support, everything available from the Start menu.
Longhorn : Windows XP successor
Cedar:Windows CE 3.0
Blackcomb:Upcoming Windows Server(Windows Longhorn server counterpart)
Avalanche:Microsoft IIS 5.0
Hydra:Microsoft SQL Server 6.5
Sphinx:Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
Shiloh: Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Liberty:Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (64 bit Version)
Yukon:Microsoft SQL Server 2000 successor(supposed to include unified storage engine)
Platinum: Microsoft Exchange 2002
Titanium: Microsoft Exchange Server 2003Outlook Web Access 2003, Outlook Mobile Access (WAP, iMode, light HTML), Server ActiveSync
Kodiak: Exchange 2003 Server successor(supposed to include unified storage engine)
Denali: Active Server Pages
Falcon:Microsoft Messaging Queue
Office 10:Microsoft Office XP
Tahoe:Microsoft Share Point Portal
Greenwich :Microsoft Instance Messenger
Everett:Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003
Whidbey:Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2004.This release of Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework will offer innovations and enhancements to the class libraries, common language runtime (CLR), programming languages, and the integrated development environment (IDE). In addition, this product will provide deep support for SQL Server code name “Yukon” by enabling developers to write stored procedures using managed code.
Orcas:Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2005.This version of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework will provide tools support for the Windows operating system, code name “Longhorn.”
Agro:Microsoft English Query
Babylon:Microsoft Search Service (Full-Text Search)
Coyote:The Distributed Partitioned Views Feature of SQL Server 2000
DART:Setup for Oracle, SQL Server, ODBC Driver
kagera:OLEDB Provider for ODBC Data source
Luxor:Microsoft SQL Server OLEDB Provider
Plato:Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services
Slate:Microsoft Management Console(MMC)
Davinci:Database Design and Query Tools
Starfighter:Enterprise Manager of SQL Server 6.0
Starfighter I:SQL Server Agent
Stinger :Microsoft data engine(MSDE)
Stingary:Microsoft Internet Security And Acceleration(ISA)Server 2004
Jupitor:Microsoft e-Business server
Tripoli:icrosoft Search Server
Voyager:Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
Catapult:MS Windows NT Based Proxy Server
Bobcat:Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003
Trinity:Visual Studio Tools For Office
Tungsten:Microsoft Right Management Services(RMS)
Hydra:Terminal technology for Windows (RDP) / Remote Desktop ServiceAvailable as "Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition" and integrated in next versions.
Nashville:"True Web Integration" technologyWeb based shell for Windows.Designed as Windows 96 but finally available as Internet Explorer 4 "Active Desktop Update" for Windows 95 and NT and integrated in next versions.
Detroit:USB services for Windows 95Made available as an USB upgrade for Windows 95 OSR
Corona:Windows Media 9 Series (3rd generation)Including Fast Stream and Dynamic Content Delivery
Lonestar:Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2004 (Ink services)Update of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
Ozone:Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC & Smart phoneUpdated Pocket PC and Smart phone platforms based on Windows CE 4.2
HailStorm:.NET My Services.NET Personal information services from Microsoft.
Wolfpack:Load balancing service for Windows (Microsoft Cluster Server)
Snowball:Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Janus:Windows for Workgroups 3.1
Mira:Microsoft Smart Display
Slalom:Windows Longhorn - Media Center (eHome shell and services)Media Center components for Windows Longhorn
Palladium:Windows Longhorn - Digital Rights ManagementAllows documents and software digital rights management and copyright protection
WinFS:Windows Longhorn - Windows Future StorageFile system based on SQL Server Yukon (allow for complex file searches and cross-referenced files)
Avalon:Windows Longhorn - DirectX-based graphics subsystem
Indigo:Windows Longhorn - Communications Technologies(Unified WebServices-like interface for local and remote services)
Aero:Windows Longhorn - New visual style (3D)(I think this is the 3D GUI provided by Avalon)
Slate:Windows Longhorn - New visual style (gray)(default visual style of the PDC build of Longhorn)
Plex:Windows Longhorn - New visual style (blue)(More uniform than Windows XP Theme, all blue, no more green and red items, removed from PDC build and might be dropped for RTM build)

The ASP.NET Page Life Cycle

2004-12-02T20:24:00.001-08:00

When a page request is sent to the Web server, whether through a submission or location change, the page is run through a series of events during its creation and disposal. So let's examine in detail the eight events of an ASP.NET page, from creation to disposal. So these are the eight events that will be executed sequentially.

page_init
Loadviewstate
page_load
LoadPostData
RaisePostBackEvent
prerender
saveviewstate
Unload/Dispose

PAGE_INIT

The Page_Init event is the first to occur when an ASP.NET page is executed. This is where you should perform any initialization steps that you need to set up or create instances of server controls. You don't want to try to access controls in this event because there is no guarantee that they have been created yet. It is during this event that they are created, and you can control whether your attempt to use these objects will be thwarted by the server processing your request before the object has been created.Note that the Page_Init event fires only the first time the page is loaded. When you use a web form and post back to this page again, the Page_Init event doesn't fire. But the Page_Load event fires each time the page loads.

Load View state

After the Init event, controls can be referenced using their IDs only (no DOM is established yet for relative references). At LoadViewState event, the initialized controls receive their first properties: view state information that was persisted back to the server on the last submission. The page view state is managed by ASP.NET and is used to persist information over a page roundtrip to the server. View state information is saved as a string of name/value pairs and contains information such as control text or value. The view state is held in the value property of a hidden control that is passed from page request to page request. This event can be overridden using the LoadViewState method and is commonly used to customize the data received by the control at the time it is populated

PAGE_LOAD

This is the page event where you will be doing most of your work. This event occurs only when all the objects on the page have been created and are available for use.

Load Postback data

During this phase of the page creation, form data that was posted to the server (termed postback data in ASP.NET) is processed against each control that requires it. When a page submits a form, the framework will implement the IPostBackDataHandler interface on each control that submitted data. The page then fires the LoadPostData event and parses through the page to find each control that implements this interface and updates the control state with the correct postback data. ASP.NET updates the correct control by matching the control's unique ID with the name/value pair in the NameValueCollection. This is one reason that ASP.NET requires unique IDs for each control on any given page. Extra steps are taken by the framework to ensure each ID is unique in situations, such as several custom user controls existing on a single page. After the LoadPostData event triggers, the RaisePostDataChanged event is free to execute (see below).

Raise PostBack Change Events

As stated earlier, this occurs after all controls that implement the IPostBackDataHandler interface have been updated with the correct postback data. During this operation, each control is flagged with a Boolean on whether its data was actually changed or remains the same since the previous submit. ASP.NET then sweeps through the page looking for flags indicating that any object's data has been updated and fires RaisePostDataChanged. The RaisePostDataChanged event does not fire until all controls are updated and after the Load event has occurred. This ensures data in another control is not manually altered during the RaisePostDataChanged event before it is updated with postback data.

Prerender

The point at which the objects are prerendered is the last time changes to the objects can be saved or persisted to view state. This makes the PreRender step a good place to make final modifications, such as changing properties of controls or changing Control Tree structure, without having to worry about ASP.NET making changes to objects based off of database calls or view state updates. After the PreRender phase those changes to objects are locked in and can no longer be saved to the page view state. The PreRender step can be overridden using OnPreRender

ViewState Saved

The Viewstate is saved after all changes to the page objects have occurred. Object state data is persisted in the hidden object and this is also where object state data is prepared to be rendered to HTML. At the SaveViewState event, values can be saved to the ViewState object, but changes to page controls are not. You can override this step by using SaveViewState.

Page_Unload

Page_Unload is the counterpart to Page_Init. Just as Page_Init is an event that happens before anything else happens, Page_Unload happens after everything else happens. It is available for you to perform any operation you need to after you are completely finished with the page. For instance, imagine that you temporarily needed to create a file on the server during the page's processing. You wouldn't want to leave it there for eternity, especially if the file was unique to each visitor of the web site. You could have loads and loads of files building on your server without any way to get rid of them. But if you were a good boy or girl, you could destroy the file during the page's Page_Unload event and make the server administrator a happy camper.

How to improve garbage collection performance

2004-10-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

DotNet developers can free themselves from tedious memory management for their application as Microsoft Framework and CLR do it automatically.CLR provides a mechanism called as Garbage Collection which manages your applications memory. In this session we will discuss how garbage collector works and how it affects the performance of your Applications.

When you create an object using new () operator, the object’s memory is obtained from the managed heap. When the garbage collector decides that sufficient garbage has accumulated, it performs a collection to free some memory. This process is fully automatic, but there are a number of factors that you need to be aware of that can make the process more or less efficient.
Garbage Collection Algorithm
Each application has a set of roots. Roots identify storage location which refers to object on the managed heap or the objects that are set to be null. For example all the global and static object pointers are considered as application roots. In addition any local variable/parameter object pointers on a thread stack are considered as a part of application roots. The list of application roots are maintained by JIT and CLR, and are made available at the time of garbage collection. When Garbage collector starts running it assumes all the objects in the heap as garbage. Now the garbage collector starts walking the roots and building a graph of all objects reachable from the roots. If the GC attempts to add an object already present in the graph, then it stops walking down that path. This serves two purposes. First, it helps performance significantly since it doesn't walk through a set of objects more than once. Second, it prevents infinite loops should you have any circular linked lists of objects. Thus cycles are handles properly. Once All the roots have been checked the garbage collector’s graph contains the set of all objects that are some how reachable form application root. Any objects that are not in the graph are not accessible by the application and considered as garbage. The garbage collector now walks through the heap linearly, looking for contiguous blocks of garbage objects (now considered free space). The garbage collector then shifts the non-garbage objects down in memory, removing all of the gaps in the heap. Moving the objects in memory invalidates all pointers to the objects. So the garbage collector modifies the application's roots so that the pointers point to the objects' new locations. In addition, if any object contains a pointer to another object, the garbage collector is responsible for correcting these pointers as well.
Generations
One feature of the garbage collector that exists purely to improve performance is called generations. A generational garbage collector takes into account two facts that have been empirically observed in most programs in a variety of languages. One newly created objects tend to have short lives and second one the older an object is, the longer it will survive.
Generational collectors group objects by age and collect younger objects more often than older objects. When initialized, the managed heap contains no objects. All new objects added to the heap can be said to be in generation 0, until the heap gets filled up which invokes garbage collection. As most objects are short-lived, only a small percentage of young objects are likely to survive their first collection. Once an object survives the first garbage collection, it gets promoted to generation 1.Newer objects after GC can then be said to be in generation 0.The garbage collector gets invoked next only when the sub-heap of generation 0 gets filled up. All objects in generation 1 that survive get compacted and promoted to generation 2. All survivors in generation 0 also get compacted and promoted to generation 1. Generation 0 then contains no objects, but all newer objects after GC go into generation 0.Thus, dividing the heap into generations of objects and collecting and compacting younger generation objects improves the efficiency of the basic underlying garbage collection algorithm by reclaiming a significant amount of space from the heap and also being faster than if the collector had examined the objects in all generations.
Garbage Collection Class (System.GC)
As the garbage collection by the CLR is Nondeterministic and developer has no control on it Microsoft provided System.GC object class using which you can force a garbage collection in your application. Different methods of System.GC class are as follows.
System.GC.Collect: This method forces a garbage collection. You should generally avoid this and let the runtime determine the appropriate time to perform a collection. The main reason that you might be tempted to call this method is that you cannot see memory being freed that you expect to see freed. However, the main reason that this occurs is because you are inadvertently holding on to one or more objects that are no longer needed. In this case, forcing a collection does not help.
System.GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers: This suspends the current thread until the finalization thread has emptied the finalization queue. Generally, this method is called immediately after System.GC.Collect to ensure that the current thread waits until finalizers for all objects are called. However, because you should not call GC.Collect, you should not need to call GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers.
System.GC.KeepAlive: This is used to prevent an object from being prematurely collected by holding a reference to the object. A common scenario is when there are no references to an object in managed code but the object is still in use in unmanaged code.
System.GC.SuppressFinalize This prevents the finalizer being called for a specified
object. Use this method when you implement the dispose pattern. If you have explicitly released resources because the client has called your objects Dispose method.Dispose should call SuppressFinalize because finalization is no longer required.
Finalization
The garbage collector offers an additional, optional service called finalization. Use
Finalization for objects that need to perform cleanup processing during the collection
Process and just before the object’s memory is reclaimed. Finalization is most often
Used to release unmanaged resources maintained by an object; any other use should
Be closely examined. Examples of unmanaged resources include file handles, Database connections and COM object references an object’s Finalize method is called before the objects managed memory is reclaimed. This allows you to release any unmanaged resources that are maintained by the object. If you implement Finalize, you cannot control when this method should be called because this is left to the garbage collector. The finalization process requires a minimum of two collection cycles to fully release the object’s memory. The potential existence of finalizers complicates the job of garbage collection in .NET by adding some extra steps before freeing an object.
Whenever a new object, having a Finalize method, is allocated on the heap a pointer to the object is placed in an internal data structure called Finalization queue. When an object is not reachable, the garbage collector considers the object garbage. The garbage collector scans the finalization queue looking for pointers to these objects. When a pointer is found, the pointer is removed from the finalization queue and appended to another internal data structure called Freachable queue, making the object no longer a part of the garbage. At this point, the garbage collector has finished identifying garbage. The garbage collector compacts the reclaimable memory and the special runtime thread empties the freachable queue, executing each object's Finalize method. The next time the garbage collector is invoked, it sees that the finalized objects are truly garbage and the memory for those objects is then, simply freed. It is recommended to avoid using Finalize method, unless required. Finalize methods increase memory pressure by not letting the memory and the resources used by that object to be released, until two garbage collections. Since you do not have control on the order in which the finalize methods are executed, it may lead to unpredictable results.
Dispose
CLR provided a method named Dispose for types that contain references to external resources that need to be explicitly freed by the calling code. You can avoid finalization by implementing the IDisposable interface and by allowing your class’s consumers to call Dispose. The reason you want to avoid finalization is because it is performed asynchronously and unmanaged resources might not be freed in a timely fashion. This is especially important for large and expensive unmanaged resources such as bitmaps or database connections. In these cases, the classic style of explicitly releasing your resources is preferred (using the IDisposable interface and providing a Dispose method). With this approach, resources are reclaimed as soon as the consumer calls dispose and the object need not be queued for finalization. Statistically, what you want to see is that
almost all of your finalizable objects are being disposed and not finalized. The finalizer should only be your backup. With this approach, you release unmanaged resources in the IDisposable.Dispose method. This method can be called explicitly by your class’s consumers or implicitly by using the C# using statement. To prevent the garbage collector from requesting finalization, your Dispose implementation should call GC.SuppressFinalization. Common disposable resources include the following:
Database-related classes: SqlConnection, SqlDataReader, and SqlTransaction.
File-based classes: FileStream and BinaryWriter.
Stream-based classes: StreamReader, TextReader, TextWriter, BinaryReader and TextWriter.
Network-based classes: Socket, UdpClient, and TcpClient

How to Implement Dispose method for a class

● Create a class that derives from IDisposable.
● Add a private member variable to track whether IDisposable.Dispose has already
been called. Clients should be allowed to call the method multiple times without generating an exception. If another method on the class is called after a call to Dispose, you should throw an ObjectDisposedException.
● Implement a protected virtual void override of the Dispose method that accepts a single bool parameter. This method contains common cleanup code that is called either when the client explicitly calls IDisposable.Dispose or when the finalizer runs. The bool parameter is used to indicate whether the cleanup is being performed as a result of a client call to IDisposable.Dispose or as a result of finalization.
● Implement the IDisposable.Dispose method that accepts no parameters. This method is called by clients to explicitly force the release of resources. Check whether Dispose has been called before; if it has not been called, call Dispose (true) and then prevent finalization by calling GC.SuppressFinalize (this).Finalization is no longer needed because the client has explicitly forced a release of resources.
● Create a finalizer, by using destructor syntax. In the finalizer, call Dispose (false).
Example (In VB.NET)
Public Class My Dispose Implements IDisposable

Public Overloads Sub Dispose () Implements IDisposable.Dispose
Dispose(True)
GC.SuppressFinalize (Me) ' No need call finalizer
End Sub

Protected Overridable Overloads Sub Dispose (ByVal disposing As Boolean)

If disposing then
‘Free managed resources
End If
‘Free unmanaged resources

End Sub

Protected Overrides Sub Finalize ()
Dispose (False)
End Sub

End Class
Garbage Collection Guidelines:
1. Avoid Calling GC.Collect: The default GC.Collect method causes a full collection of all generations. Full collections are expensive because literally every live object in the system must be visited to ensure complete collection. Needless to say, exhaustively visiting all live objects could, and usually does, take a significant amount of time. The garbage collector’s algorithm is tuned so that it does full collections only when it is likely to be worth the expense of doing so. As a result, do not call GC.Collect directly — let
the garbage collector determine when it needs to run. The garbage collector is designed to be self-tuning and it adjusts its operation to meet the needs of your application based on memory pressure. Programmatically forcing collection can hinder tuning and operation of the garbage collector. If you have a particular niche scenario where you have to call GC.Collect, consider the following:
● Call GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers after you call GC.Collect. This ensures that
the current thread waits until finalizers for all objects are called.
● After the finalizers run, there are more dead objects (those that were just finalized)
that needs to be collected. One more call to GC.Collect collects the remaining dead
2. Call Close or Dispose on Classes that Support It: If the managed class you use implements Close or Dispose, call one of these methods as soon as you are finished with the object. Do not simply let the resource fall out of scope. If an object implements Close or Dispose, it does so because it holds an expensive, shared, native resource that should be released as soon as possible.
3. Call System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.ReleaseComObject if you are using COM components: In server scenarios where you create and destroy COM objects on a per-request basis, you may need to call system.interopServices. Marshal. Release ComObject.The Runtime Callable Wrapper (RCW) has a reference count that is incremented every time a COM interface pointer is mapped to it. The ReleaseComObject method decrements the reference counts of the RCW. When the reference count reaches zero, the runtime releases all its references on the unmanaged COM object.
4. Set Unneeded Member Variables to Null before Making Long-Running Calls: Before you block on a long-running call, you should explicitly set any unneeded member variables to null before making the call so they can be collected. This advice applies to any objects which are still statically or lexically reachable but are actually not needed Do not set local variables to null (C#) or Nothing (Visual Basic .NET) because the JIT compiler can statically determine that the variable is no longer referenced and there is no need to explicitly set it to null.
5. Prevent the Promotion of Short-Lived Objects: Objects that are allocated and collected before leaving Gen 0 are referred as short-lived objects. The following principles help ensure that your short-lived objects are not promoted:
● Do not reference short-lived objects from long-lived objects. A common example where this occurs is when you assign a local object to a class level object reference.
● Avoid implementing a Finalize method. The garbage collector must promote finalizable objects to older generations to facilitate finalization, which makes them long-lived objects.
● Avoid having finalizable objects refer to anything. This can cause the referenced object(s) to become long-lived.
6. Minimize Hidden Allocations: Memory allocation is extremely quick because it involves only a pointer relocation to create space for the new object. However, the memory has to be garbage collected at some point and that can hurt performance, so be aware of apparently simple lines of code that actually result in many allocations. For example, String.Split uses a delimiter to create an array of strings from a source string. In doing so, String.Split allocates a new string object for each string that it has split out, plus one object for the array. As a result, using String.Split in a heavy duty context (such as a sorting routine) can be expensive.Use stringbuilder class in place of string class
7. Use the using Statement in C# and Try/Finally Blocks in Visual Basic .NET to Ensure Dispose Is Called: If you r using C# use using statement as it will automatically generates a try and finally block at compile time that calls Dispose on the object allocated inside the using block.
8. Do Not Implement Finalize Unless Required: Implementing a finalizer on classes that do not require it adds load to the finalizer thread and the garbage collector. Avoid implementing a finalizer or destructor unless finalization is required. Classes with finalizers require a minimum of two garbage collection cycles to be reclaimed. This prolongs the use of memory and can contribute to memory pressure. When the garbage collector encounters an unused object that requires finalization, it moves it to the “ready-to-be-finalized” list. Cleanup of the object’s memory is deferred until after the single specialized finalizer thread can execute the registered finalizer method on the object. After the finalizer runs, the object is removed from the queue and literally dies a second death. At that point, it is collected along with any other objects. If your class does not require finalization, do not implement a Finalize method. Use a finalizer only on objects that hold unmanaged resources across client calls. You should implement IDisposable if you implement a finalizer. In this way, the calling code has an explicit way to free resources by calling the Dispose method.
9. Call Dispose On Base Classes and On IDisposable Members: If your class inherits from a disposable class, then make sure that it calls the base class’s Dispose. Also, if you have any member variables that implement IDisposable, call Dispose on them, too.

Native Image Generator (Ngen.exe)

2004-10-07T22:13:00.000-07:00

Using the Native Image Generator (Ngen.exe) tool, an assembly can be converted into its Native Code or image. This means that calls to the Native Image will load faster since the nend for JIT compilation has been eliminated.When you run the NGen .NET Framework command line utility on an assembly, the Native Image will be generated and installed in the Native Image Cache and subsequent calls to methods of that assembly will be handled by the Native Image of the assembly. E.g. entering Ngen C:/post.dll at the command prompt where post.dll represents a managed assembly will create the Native Image of the assembly.A native image is a file containing compiled processor-specific machine code. Note that the native image that Ngen.exe generates cannot be shared across Application Domains. Therefore, you cannot use Ngen.exe in application scenarios, such as ASP.NET, that require assemblies to be shared across application domains.If Ngen.exe encounters any methods in an assembly that it cannot generate, it excludes them from the native image. When the runtime executes this assembly, it will revert to JIT compilation for the methods that were not included in the native image.

Examples:

The following command generates a native image for drnotes.exe, located in the current directory. If a configuration file exists for the application, Ngen.exe will use it. The tool will not generate native images for any DLLs that drnotes.exe references.

ngen drnotes.exe

If drnotes.exe directly references two DLLs, drnotes1.dll and drnotes2.dll, you must supply Ngen.exe with the fully specified assembly names for these DLLs to generate native images for them. Run Ildasm.exe over drnotes.exe to determine the fully specified assembly names of the referenced DLLs. For the purpose of this example, the fully specified assembly names of drnotes1.dll and drnotes2.dll are "drnotes1, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0038abc9deabfle5" and "drnotes2, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0038abc9deabfle5". Using this information, the following command generates native images for drnotes.exe, drnotes1.dll, and drnotes2.dll.

ngen drnotes.exe "drnotes1, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0038abc9deabfle5", "drnotes2, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0039def8abcbste7", "drnotes3, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0038abc9deabfle5"

The following command generates a native image for drnotes.exe with the specified path.

ngen c:\myfiles\myAssembly.exe

The following command generates a native image for myLibrary.dll, with the specified path.

ngen c:\myfiles\myLibrary.dll

Ngen.exe looks in the native image cache to delete an assembly specified with a partial assembly name. The following command deletes all native images with the name myAssembly.

ngen /delete myAssembly

The following command deletes the native image myAssembly with the fully specified assembly name.

ngen /delete "myAssembly, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0038abc9deabfle5"

The following command displays all native images in the native image cache.

ngen /show

The following command displays all native images in the native image cache with the name myAssembly.

ngen /show myAssembly

The following command displays all native images in the native image cache with the name myAssembly and the version 1.0.

ngen /show "myAssembly, version=1.0.0.0"

A Tool to Convert VS.NET 2003 Project Files

2004-09-12T23:51:00.000-07:00

A Tool to convert vs.net 2003 projects to vs.net 2002 and vice versa is available in the following path

http://www.codeproject.com/macro/vsconvert.asp

New Features in Visual Studio 2003

2004-08-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 (VS 2003, doesn't introduce as much new functionality as the original Visual Studio .NET, also known as VS 2002. Microsoft's latest integrated development environment (IDE) brings lots of cool new features to the developer's table

VS 2003 includes plenty of new features. The following sections describe what I think are the best ones.

Better Database Support
The .NET Framework Data Provider for ODBC is now available with the .NET Framework under the namespace System.Data.Odbc.The .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle now ships with the .NET Framework under the namespace System.Data.OracleClient. Developers using the .NET Framework version 1.0 can download the .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle from http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads.
In addition, ADO.NET now includes the following features:
• The DataReader object now exposes a HasRows property to determine if rows were returned without having to call Read.
• The Connection object now has an EnlistDistributedTransaction method to enable manual enlistment in distributed transactions.

Side-by-Side Execution:
The .NET Framework version 1.1 supports side-by-side execution. Side-by-side execution is the ability to store and execute multiple versions of an application or component on the same computer. This means that you can have multiple versions of the runtime, and multiple versions of applications and components that use a version of the runtime, on the same computer at the same time. In addition, subsequent installations of other versions of the .NET Framework or of a component will not affect the applications already installed. Side-by-side execution does not imply that a managed application is compatible with other versions of the runtime or of a component. Rather, it means that a managed application can choose the runtime and the components it executes with, and that multiple versions of the runtime, applications, and components can coexist on the same computer. It is up to you to decide which versions of the runtime and which components a particular application will use.

Java Support
VS 2003 brings first-time integration with Visual J#, a tool for Java developers who want to use Microsoft's .NET framework to build applications and XML Web services. Outside of Visual J#, VS 2003 also supports Visual Basic (VB), Visual C++, and Visual C# developers. The new IDE is available in Standard, Professional, Enterprise Developer, and Enterprise Architect editions.

Code Obfuscation
Also new in VS 2003 is a built-in utility for source code obfuscation. In addition, VS developers can now download Microsoft's Enterprise Implementation Framework (EIF), a tool that the company promises lets you quickly add runtime monitoring to your applications. The source code obfuscation tool, Preemptive Dotfuscator Community Edition, is the "little" version of a product from Preemptive Solutions, a Microsoft ISV partner based in Cleveland. Microsoft says it included the tool to protect the intellectual property of programmers who distribute VS 2003 code, as well as to help developers reduce the size and improve the performance of mobile and other .NET applications. The tool is designed to render Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL), which is said to be very difficult, if not impossible, to reverse-engineer into comprehensible source code.

ASP.NET Mobile Controls - (formerly the Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit)
ASP.NET Mobile Controls (formerly the Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit) extends the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET by providing support for mobile (wireless) devices such as cell phones and personal data assistants (PDAs). The .NET Framework version 1.1 release incorporates the mobile controls into the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET distributions. Because mobile controls are now a part of the .NET Framework, the terminology has changed to match the conventions used in .NET documentation, and the mobile controls documentation has merged into the larger .NET Framework documentation set. The name Mobile Internet Toolkit is replaced by ASP.NET Mobile Controls.ASP.NET Mobile Controls extend ASP.NET server controls such that they adapt to the mobile device on which the Web application is rendering. Through browser detection, the mobile controls conform to the capabilities of individual devices ranging from full-featured PDA browsers to small, 5-line × 20-character cell phone displays. This adaptive rendering feature handles many of the tedious device-specific rendering decisions and frees you to focus on your Web application logic.

Changes in .NET Framework Security:
In version 1.0 and 1.1, applications that receive less than full trust from the runtime code access security system cannot call shared managed libraries unless the library writer specifically allows them to through the use of the AllowPartiallyTrustedCallersAttribute attribute. If you plan on using libraries from partially trusted code, you need to be aware that some libraries will not be available to your code. In version 1.1, System.Web.dll, System.Web.Mobile.dll, and System.Web.RegularExpressions.dll are included in the list of assemblies that have the AllowPartiallyTrustedCallersAttribute and can be called from partially trusted code. Default security policy has been changed so that applications executing from the Internet zone and assigned to the Internet Zone code group now receive permissions associated with the Internet permission set. As a result, applications from the Internet now receive sufficient permission to execute. In the .NET Framework 1.0 Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2, such applications received the permissions associated with the Nothing permission set and could not execute.

ASP.NET Security:
ASP.NET now supports partial trust in Web-based applications, offering greater security for multiple applications that are hosted on a single Web server. Although the operating system account under which an application runs imposes security restrictions on the application, the code access security system of the common language runtime can enforce additional restrictions on selected application resources based on policy that you specify. You can use this feature in a shared server environment to isolate separate applications and with standalone servers where you want applications to run with the minimum necessary privileges.ASP.NET provides a configuration directive that enables you to configure code access security levels for your applications. If your partially trusted ASP.NET applications call shared managed libraries, those libraries must contain an AllowPartiallyTrustedCallersAttribute attribute that allows calls from partially trusted code. For more information, see Using Libraries from Partially Trusted Code.

IPv6 Support in the .NET Framework:
The .NET Framework version 1.1 supports the emerging update to the Internet Protocol, commonly referred to as IP version 6, or simply IPv6. This protocol is designed to significantly increase the address space used to identify communication endpoints in the Internet to accommodate its ongoing growth. IPv6 is supported in the System.Net namespace, ASP.NET, and XML Web services.

Solutions Explorer - Track Active Item:
A new option in visual studio 2003, Track Active Item in Solution Explorer, has been added to the Projects and Solutions, Environment, Options Dialog Box. When this option is selected, Solution Explorer automatically opens the folder for the active item, scrolls to its node, and selects its name. The selected item changes as you work with different files within a project or solution, or different components within an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) designer. When this option is cleared, the selection in Solution Explorer does not change automatically. This option is enabled by default, but it is cleared when you choose the "Visual C++ Developer" or "Visual C# Developer" profile on the My Profile tab of the Visual Studio Start Page.

New icons:
• checked out Exclusive - Item is checked out from a source control database to one developer only. Other developers cannot access this file.
• checked out Shared - Item is checked out from a source control database for shared use by a development team. Different versions of the item will be merged upon checkin.

Options and Settings: (Copy Options and Settings from Previous version)
You can copy certain Options dialog box settings from a previous version of Visual Studio .NET to a more recent version visual studio 2003. If you have two different versions of the program installed on the same machine, the first time you launch the newer version of the Visual Studio .NET, a dialog box appears giving you the choice to migrate your existing setting. If you dismiss this dialog, you can display it later by executing the following command from the Windows command line: devenv /migrate settings .After you migrate your previous Options settings into the new version of Visual Studio .NET, select Options from the Tools menu to display the Options dialog box and review your settings. Most option settings should appear as you last set them.

Build: (Only build startup projects and dependencies on Run)
A new option in visual studio 2003, Only build startup projects and dependencies on Run, has been added to the Projects and Solutions, Environment, Options Dialog Box, under Build and Run Options. When this option is selected, pressing F5 or choosing the Start or Build command from the Debug or Run menu only builds the startup project and its dependencies. When this option is cleared, pressing F5 builds all projects, dependencies, and solution files. This option is cleared by default, but it is enabled when you choose the "Visual C++ Developer" and the “Visual C# Developer" profile on the My Profile tab of the Visual Studio Start Page.For Visual C++ projects only, three new commands have been placed on a new Project Only submenu of the Build menu:
• Build Only
• Rebuild Only
• Clean Only
These commands build, rebuild, or clean only the C++ project currently selected in Solution Explorer, without building or cleaning any project dependencies or solution files.
Debug: (Debugger Enhancements)
The Visual Studio .NET 2003 debugger has been enhanced by the addition of several new features:
• Security enhancements, including a new restriction that limits Just-In-Time Debugging to the local machine.
• Remote debugging using pipes, a new, more secure alternative to TCP/IP debugging.
• SOS, a powerful tool for debugging from the Command window.• Support for automatically downloading of debug symbols from a symbol server.• Improved error messages, especially for errors that occur while debugging web applications.

Installation: Side-by-Side Installations of Visual Studio .NET
Visual Studio supports installation of versions 2002 and 2003 on the same machine; however you should be aware of certain issues.• Visual Studio .NET 2002 shipped with the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK version 1.0. Visual Studio .NET 2003 ships with .NET Framework SDK version 1.1. If you developed applications that reference .NET Framework version 1.0 and attempt to open the solution in Visual Studio .NET 2003, the references to .NET Framework are changed to reference .NET Framework 1.1. You should review the latest .NET Framework documentation for information on changes that might affect your application
• If you open and then save solutions created in Visual Studio .NET 2002 in Visual Studio .NET 2003, you can no longer open the solution created in version 2002 in Visual Studio .NET 2002.

How to get Connection String

2004-08-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

During Programming With ADO.NET we use to forget the connection string.
we can use following web site to find connection string for all types of datasource .

http://www.connectionstrings.com/

Things vb.net can do that C# can't

2004-08-02T21:28:00.000-07:00

Because of the past differences between Microsoft® Visual Basic, Microsoft Visual C, and Microsoft® Visual C++, many developers have the impression that Microsoft Visual C# .NET is a more powerful language than Microsoft Visual Basic .NET. Some developers assume that many things that are possible in Visual C# .NET are impossible in Visual Basic .NET. Visual Basic.NET can do some thing more that C# can do.
1. One key VB.NET feature is that it eliminates an entire class of runtime error you get in case sensitive languages - where a method parameter and property in the same class have the same name but for case. These problems can only be found through runtime testing, not by the compiler. This is a stupid thing that is solved in VB.NET by avoiding the archaic concept of case sensitivity.

2. Vb.NET supports some operators like \ (Integer Division) and ^ (Exponentiation)
Which C# doesn’t supports?

3. Handle multiple events in single method (superior separation of interface and implementation).

4. With Events is a huge difference in general, since it dramatically simplifies (or even enables) several code generation scenarios.

5. In VB you can actually tell the difference between inheriting from a base class and implementing an interface. In C# the syntax for both is identical, even though the semantic meaning is very different.

6. Implement multiple interface items in a single method (superior separation of interface and implementation).

7. Also, independent naming/scoping of methods that implement an interface method - C# interface implementation is comparable to the sucky way VB6 did it... (superior separation of interface and implementation).

8. Multiple indexed properties (C# only allows a single indexed property).

9. Optional parameters (important for Office integration, and general code cleanliness).

10. Late binding (C# requires manual use of reflection).

11. There are several COM interop features in VB that require much more work in C#. VB has the ComClass attribute and the CreateObject method for instance.

12. The Cxxx () methods (such as CDate, CInt, CStr, etc) offer some serious benefits over Convert.xxx. Sometimes performance, but more often increased functionality that takes several lines of C# to achieve.

13. The VB RTL also includes a bunch of complex financial functions for dealing with interest, etc. In C# you either write them by hand or buy a third-party library (because self-respecting C# devs won't use the VB RTL even if they have to pay for an alternative).

14. The InputBox method is a simple way to get a string from the user without having to build a custom form.

RSS : An Excellent Way to syndicate information

2004-08-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) provides a convienent way to syndicate information from a variety of sources, including news stories, updates to a web site or even source code check-ins for a development project. Regardless of the purpose for which the RSS file is being used, by watching this XML file, you can quickly and easily see whenever an update has occurred. Of course, viewing the RSS feed in Internet Explorer and hitting F5 every few minutes is not the most efficient use of your time, so most people take advantage of some form of client software to read and monitor RSS feeds.

There are many different RSS clients available, but here are a selected few that we tested our feeds with and that you may find useful:

Sharpreader
http://www.sharpreader.net/
FeedReader
http://feedreader.com/
RssBendit
http://www.rssbandit.org/

To know more about RSS visit

http://www.dotnetforce.com/(jwxkc0vcsowlfzri2kgn0i3w)/PrintPreview.aspx?n=204