Introduction to Layout Controls in Silverlight 2
Arranging controls on a user interface in a flexible manner is key to building successful applications. Silverlight 2 provides three main controls that can be used for layout management: · Canvas Control · StackPanel Control · Grid Control In this post I'll provide an introductory look at......
My Latest Silverlight Articles
Over the past few months I've been writing articles for the .NET Insight insight newsletter covering various ASP.NET AJAX concepts. You can read those article here. I've wrapped up that series and have started writing about Silverlight 1.0. Each week (or so) a new article will be ......
ASP.NET - Render Hidden Fields at the Top of a Form with .NET 3.5 SP1
I just came across a nice feature in ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 (currently in Beta) that I didn’t realize was included. It’s always nice to discover hidden gems from time to time. With ASP.NET 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 and 3.5 applications if a user or JavaScript function tried to do a postback before all o......
Instinct Experiment Over…Back to Windows Mobile
Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying out the Sprint Instinct touch screen phone to see how I liked it. I wrote my initial review here and posted some tips and tricks on using the device here. The poor browsing experience on the Instinct finally led me to take it back to the store ye......
My Latest Silverlight Articles
Over the past few months I've been writing articles for the .NET Insight insight newsletter covering various ASP.NET AJAX concepts. You can read those article here. I've wrapped up that series and have started writing about Silverlight 1.0. Each week (or so) a new article will be ......
Sprint Instinct Tips and Tricks
In a previous post I discussed some of the pros and cons of the new Sprint Instinct phone that I recently purchased. I’ve had the phone for a few weeks now and still like it a lot overall. It’s not nearly as flexible as the PPC-6700 phone I had previously when it comes to installing so......
Pros and Cons of the Sprint Instinct Phone
There’s been a lot of hype over Apple’s new iPhone 3G coming out on July 11th as well as Sprint’s recently released Instinct phone. I was originally going to switch over to AT&T and get the iPhone but it meant switching my wife over as well since we need to be able to call each other wit......
Pushing Data to a Silverlight Client with a WCF Duplex Service – Part II
In Part 1 of this series on pushing data to a Silverlight client with a WCF polling duplex service I demonstrated how service contracts and operations can be defined on the server. WCF has built-in support for duplex communication (two-way communication between a service and a client) but d......
Pushing Data to a Silverlight Client with a WCF Duplex Service - Part I
Silverlight provides several different ways to access data stored in remote locations. Data can be pulled from Web Services and RESTful services and even pushed from servers down to clients using sockets (see my previous articles on sockets here, here and here). Silverlight 2 Beta 2 int......
Creating a Silverlight 2 Client Access Policy Socket Server
Silverlight 2 provides built-in support for sockets which allows servers to push data to Silverlight clients. By using this feature clients can avoid polling the server on a timed basis to ensure that clients are kept up-to-date. If you're new to the socket features built-into Silverlig......
New Features in Silverlight 2 Beta 2
Bill Gates and S. Somasegar announced several new features at TechEd for Silverlight Beta 2 that are great additions to the existing functionality. Here's a list of the highlights in Beta 2: UI Framework: Beta 2 includes improvements in animation support, error handling and reporting, aut......
Free eBook - Best of Simple Talk ASP.NET
I wrote a few articles for the Simple Talk Website (run by RedGate Software) over the past year and was honored to be included in the "Best of Simple Talk ASP.NET" eBook they just released. The book is a free PDF that covers a lot of different topics including: ASP.NET Master......
SQL Server 2005 Configuration Manager - Cannot Connect to WMI Provider Error
I was trying to use the SQL Server 2005 Configuration Manager tool tonight and kept getting a "Cannot connect to WMI provider" error. Very frustrating because the error message didn't give the slightest clue how to fix the problem. After doing a few searches, I came across the......
Working with the GridView and the System.Data.Linq.Binary Type
I'm working with a database table that has a RowVersion field defined as a TimeStamp data type. The TimeStamp field is there to add concurrency into the application to ensure a row hasn't changed while a user is trying to update or delete it. When the TimeStamp field value is queried an......
My Latest Silverlight Articles
Over the past few months I've been writing articles for the .NET Insight insight newsletter covering various ASP.NET AJAX concepts. You can read those article here. I've wrapped up that series and have started writing about Silverlight 1.0. Each week (or so) a new article will be ......
Service Pack 1 Beta Released for Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5
Microsoft just released the SP1 beta for Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 and it includes a huge number of new features and enhancements. Check out Scott Guthrie's blog for details but here's a quick list of what's included: ASP.NET Data Scaffolding Support (ASP.NET Dynamic D......
Using LINQ to Perform "WHERE IN (Value1,Value2)" Queries
I recently needed to select a few products from a database where the product ID matched up with a list of IDs. That's easy to do with a normal SQL statement since you can use the "WHERE IN (Value1,Value2)" clause to find what you need. However, I wanted to do it with LINQ in t......
Orlando 2008 DevConnections Talks
I'm in Orlando this week speaking at the DevConnections conference on 3 different topics. It's my personal favorite as far as conferences go and features a lot of cool technologies, people and events. This week I'm covering custom ASP.NET AJAX controls, building N-Layer applications ......
Pushing Data to a Silverlight Client with Sockets: Part II
In Part 1 of this two part series on socket support in Silverlight 2 I discussed how a server could be created to listen for clients using classes in the System.Net.Sockets namespace. In that post the TcpListener class was used to listen for client connections and the client stream was access......
Pushing Data to a Silverlight Client with Sockets: Part I
Silverlight 2 has built-in support for sockets which creates some interesting possibilities. If you've ever worked on a client-side application that needed to receive up-to-date data then you're probably used to solving the problem by polling. With polling the client contacts the server......
Silverlight 2 Networking Options
I've been spending my nights working on a new book covering Silverlight 2 and have been focusing on the new networking features that are available in the System.Net and related namespaces. Silverlight's great at animating objects, performing transformations and collecting data with all of th......
My Latest Silverlight Articles
Over the past few months I've been writing articles for the .NET Insight insight newsletter covering various ASP.NET AJAX concepts. You can read those article here. I've wrapped up that series and have started writing about Silverlight 1.0. Each week a new article will be publishe......
Using Silverlight 2 ItemsControl Templates
Building Silverlight 2 applications reminds me of the first time I built an ASP.NET application. There are so many new features and controls that it takes a little time to get up-to-speed with what's available and how it can be used. It's definitely fun but at times you just want to thr......
Interesting 3rd Party Controls and Demo Applications for ASP.NET and Silverlight
I'm one of those developers that likes to build things myself mainly because the challenge is fun. However, lately I've been taking time to look at some of the 3rd party controls out there mainly because some of the things I've needed to do are already done (and done well) and I'd save time a......
Want to Learn How to Use LINQ? Check out LINQPad!
I was catching up with some of the people I follow on Twitter tonight (as a side note, I used to think Twitter was a waste of time but I'm actually finding it useful now days) and noticed that Scott Cate listed a link to a free tool called LINQPad. Wow...I wish I would've known about this too......
My Latest Silverlight Articles
Over the past few months I've been writing articles for the .NET Insight insight newsletter covering various ASP.NET AJAX concepts. You can read those article here. I've wrapped up that series and have started writing about Silverlight 1.0. Each week a new article will be publishe......
Scott Guthrie Speaking at the Scottsdale, AZ Center for the Arts on March 11th
If you're looking to get up-to-speed on the latest and greatest technologies being released by Microsoft look no further than the AZGroups.com event (a FREE event...you simply need to register) on March 11th featuring Microsoft's Scott Guthrie. If you've never heard Scott speak before then yo......
Silverlight 2.0 Video Tutorials (Updated)
Silverlight 2.0 provides a new and exciting framework for building rich applications using C#, VB.NET or other languages that are capable of running on multiple operating systems and in multiple browsers. Scott Guthrie recently posted a great set of tutorials on Silverlight 2.0 that are an ex......
Silverlight 2.0 Video Tutorials
Silverlight 2.0 provides a new and exciting framework for building rich applications using C#, VB.NET or other languages that are capable of running on multiple operating systems and in multiple browsers. Scott Guthrie recently posted a great set of tutorials on Silverlight 2.0 that are an ex......
ASP.NET Data Validation and Data Entry Controls
If there's one thing I hate about building Web Forms it's data validation and custom data entry controls (think date pickers, etc.). ASP.NET provides some nice controls to perform validation, and has controls in the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit that also help, but in many cases you end up writing cus......
Building an N-Layer ASP.NET Application with LINQ, Lambdas and Stored Procedures (Updated)
Update: I refactored some of the code and also did a better job ensuring Dispose() is called everywhere so that the DataContext object gets cleaned up properly.
Download the Application Here
.NET 3.5 has a lot of great new features that can significantly enhance developer productivity. ......
SmartWebControls.com Released
Last night we released a new version of the OrgChart.NET ASP.NET server control under a new name of "SmartChartPro". We decided to give the control a new name since it's capable of doing more than just OrgCharts (although that's what most companies use it for). We also release......
My Latest Silverlight Articles
Over the past few months I've been writing articles for the .NET Insight insight newsletter covering various ASP.NET AJAX concepts. You can read those article here. I've wrapped up that series and have started writing about Silverlight 1.0. Each week a new article will be publishe......
LINQ to XSD
One of the cool features in VB 9.0 is the ability to work directly with XML in code without having to wrap quotes around everything. If you're a C# developer, that's a feature that we don't have although you can do similar things with LINQ to XML (quotes required though). Microsoft just rel......
Testing Email Messages Sent using System.Net.Mail on Windows Vista
I've been developing for months on Windows Vista and had everything I needed at my disposal. Last night, however, I needed to test whether or not email messages were being successfully sent from an ASP.NET application and see what they looked like. I went to look for an SMTP server in V......
Building an N-Layer ASP.NET Application with LINQ, Lambdas and Stored Procedures
.NET 3.5 has a lot of great new features that can significantly enhance developer productivity. I've been spending some time lately working on a little sample application that demonstrates how an N-Layer ASP.NET 3.5 application can be built using LINQ, lambdas and LINQ with stored procedures.......
LINQ and Lambdas and Sprocs....Oh My!
There's a lot of great stuff in .NET 3.5 and several different ways to work with LINQ technologies such as LINQ to SQL. I'm currently putting together some demonstration code for a talk I'll be giving at DevConnections in Orlando and showing how LINQ, Lambdas and LINQ with stored procedures c......
Simplifying ASP.NET ListView Control Templates
I've been working with the new ListView control in ASP.NET 3.5 combining it with LINQ and Lambda expressions and was finding myself duplicating a lot of code between ItemTemplate and AlternatingItemTemplate templates (I'll be posting the sample application that demonstrates using LINQ, Lambdas and ......
My Latest Silverlight Articles
Over the past few months I've been writing articles for the .NET Insight insight newsletter covering various ASP.NET AJAX concepts. You can read those article here. I've wrapped up that series and have started writing about Silverlight 1.0. Each week a new article will be publishe......
My Latest Silverlight Articles
Over the past few months I've been writing articles for the .NET Insight insight newsletter covering various ASP.NET AJAX concepts. You can read those article here. I've wrapped up that series and have started writing about Silverlight 1.0. Each week a new article will be publishe......
New Video: Integrating Silverlight and ASP.NET AJAX
I gave a talk at Desert Code Camp toward the end of 2007 that discussed how Microsoft's Silverlight product could be integrated with ASP.NET AJAX to dynamically display albums obtained from an Amazon.com Web Service. It's taken awhile to get the video posted, but it's now available. The......
Upcoming .NET Courses in 2008
I've had several people here in the Phoenix area and others I've met at ASP.NET Connections conferences ask when I'll be teaching specific .NET classes in 2008 and my standard reply has been "I'm not sure at this point". We have things scheduled out past June now so here's the information for......
Great Gift Idea: Etch-A-Sketch USB 2.0 Adapter
Tired of losing your Etch-A-Sketch work? Wish you could reload existing drawings onto your Etch-A-Sketch with little to no effort just like in Toy Story? Get the high speed Etch-A-Sketch USB 2.0 adapter created by Dan Dominguez from eBay (I had the privilege of meeting Dan in my ASP.NET......
ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview Released
For those of you that like to stay on top of the latest technologies, Microsoft just released the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview today which provides the following new functionality (quoted from the http://www.asp.net Website):
ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET MVC provides model-view-controller (MVC) support......
Visual Studio 2008 Released for MSDN Subscribers
It's here! Visual Studio 2008 is now available to download for MSDN subscribers. Lots of great stuff is available in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 such as:
Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
LINQ to SQL Designer
New ASP.NET 3.5 controls such as the ListView and DataPager
......
Scott Guthrie Speaking in Phoenix on Silverlight
If you're available Wednesday, June 27th I highly recommend taking the time to attend Scott Guthrie's presentation. If you've never heard Scott speak before he's extremely knowledgable and fun to listen to so I can gaurantee you'll enjoy it. Here's more information about the event ......
New Column on ASP.NET AJAX, Web Services/WCF and Silverlight
Over the past month I've been writing articles for a new column in the .NET Insight and Web Design and Development Insight newsletters published by 1105 Media (a parent company for several media groups) that covers ASP.NET AJAX, XML Web Services/WCF, and Silverlight. The articles are des......
Book: Professional ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Released
Matt Gibbs and I recently released a new book for WROX titled Professional ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX that covers all the topics you need to know to build robust ASP.NET AJAX applications. Matt is a development manager for ASP.NET (and led the ASP.NET AJAX team) and I've had the opportunity t......
DinnerNow.net Sample Application Available
Microsoft's .NET & Connected Systems Evangelism team recently released all of the source code for their DinnerNow.net application. If you're interested in learning .NET 3.0 technologies as well as the new 3.5 stuff coming out, this is a great application to run and explore. J......
Video: Working with ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel Properties
This video tutorial demonstrates the affect the UpdatePanel's UpdateMode and ChildrenAsTriggers properties have on updating a panel's content. The video starts out by discussing the UpdateMode property and shows why you may want to know about it when using multiple UpdatePanel control......