Code from My ASP.NET Connections Talks
I finished up my talks at ASP.NET Connections yesterday and wanted to get the code posted as well as links for the additional topics covered in the Silverlight animation session. Here they are: Building N-Tier ASP.NET Applications with LINQ Code Silverlight 2 Animations Code ......
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 and 2. Each week (or so) a new article wi......
Amazon.com AlbumViewer Application for Silverlight 2 Released
Back in the early days when Silverlight still had the WPF/e code name I put together a sample application that showed how to access album data from Amazon.com to display a 3D carousel. When Silverlight 1 was released I upgraded it which was straightforward since JavaScript was used for just a......
Silverlight Toolkit Overview and Samples
Controls are where it’s at these days in the programming world. By using them you maximize re-use, enhance productivity and avoid building custom functionality. Plus, when you need a control to do something different you can always extend it rather than writing everything from scratch. ......
Adding Style to Silverlight 2 Controls
Silverlight 2 provides a nice set of controls that can be used to capture and display data. While control properties can be set directly on the control in a XAML file using attributes, some properties will be duplicated between controls causing maintenance headaches. The following example demonstra......
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 and 2. Each week (or so) a new article wi......
jQuery to be Supported in Visual Studio and ASP.NET MVC
Microsoft just announced that jQuery will be supported in Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and shipped with ASP.NET MVC. Scott Guthrie mentions that an add-on for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 will be made available in a “few weeks” to provide intellisense for jQuery and that ASP.NET MVC will use it f......
Get It While It’s Hot! Silverlight 2 Release Candidate Now Available
If you’ve been working with Silverlight 2 Beta 2 you’ll be happy to know that the release candidate was just released. You can get it at: http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/sl2rc0.aspx Scott Guthrie has a detailed post on the new features but here’s a high-level synopsis of what’s new si......
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 and 2. Each week (or so) a new article wi......
Upcoming Silverlight 2 and ASP.NET AJAX Workshops
It’s amazing how much cool stuff is out there to learn! There’s never a dull day in the technology world if you enjoy learning and challenging yourself to grasp that next “big concept”. I’m excited to be involved with two workshops covering Silverlight 2 and AJAX in October and Novem......
Another New Player in the Browser Wars? Google’s Chrome Browser Released
If you’re a Web developer then you’re already familiar with how difficult it can be to get a page to look good and function properly across all of the browsers out there. While Internet Explorer still has the majority of users, Firefox has made significant inroads and Safari is continuall......
What If I Don’t Call Dispose() on my LINQ to SQL DataContext Object?
I’ve written a few posts about LINQ to SQL and am generally a big fan of the technology (even with its weaknesses) since it’s very productive. After creating a custom DataContext object using the LINQ to SQL designer (or one created by hand) I always ensure that the object is wrapped in a “us......
Using LINQ to SQL XML Mapping Files – Step by Step
.NET 3.5’s LINQ to SQL functionality provides a great way to write data access layer code that automatically handles mapping relational data to object properties. Although I generally prefer to use stored procedures when performing insert, update or delete operations against a database (see m......
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......