DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by ailon

FireFox 3 and Static File Caching Problems

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:51:20 GMT

FireFox 3.0 apparently is much more aggressive in caching content than previous versions of FireFox. While this is good for performance in many situations I've noticed that this is seriously becoming a problem in some of my applications where support files like scripts and CSS files get updated in applications and FireFox doesn't recognize those changes. Looks like last-modified headers are not respected by FF3.

Interactive Flash Charts in ASP.NET: Column Chart from Code-behind

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:32:48 GMT

This tutorial shows how to add amCharts column chart bound to the SQL Server database completely from code-behind.

VS2008 Web Server Here Shell Extension

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:31:02 GMT

This shell extension adds a right click menu on any folder that will start WebDev.WebServer.exe (aka Cassini) pointing to that directory.

Speed up Firefox when using Development Server

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:31:02 GMT

Using Firefox on Vista to view websites hosted by the Visual Studio Development Server can be unbearably slow. Pages take aeons (i.e. several seconds) to load while viewing the same site under IE does not suffer from this issue. Here's how to solve the problem.

Using C# 3.0 (.Net 3.5) syntax in a .Net 2.0 application

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:16:02 GMT

An overview of using C# 3.0 syntax in a .Net 2.0 application.

Keep your .config clean with external config files

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:01:19 GMT

The web.config (or app.config for non-web applications) file is the central place to configure your web application, starting from connection strings, over application settings to ASP.NET specific topics like caching, authentication & authorization, sessions as well as HTTP handlers and modules. Normally the web.config starts as a neat little pet you can easily manage. But as soon as your project grows mature, web.config turns out to be a huge beast. This article shows you a way to tame the beast.

Sending SMTP Email Asynchronously

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:16:09 GMT

Sending email using the Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) can be a slow process, particularly when sending large numbers of messages using, for example, a bulk email tool. This process can be accelerated with considered use of asynchronous sending.

Scrum Explained in 5 Minutes

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:01:02 GMT

PDF entitled "Scrum in Five Minutes" from http://www.softhouse.se/

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 - The Full List of Changes

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:28:34 GMT

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 includes a number of incremental improvements based on customer feedback. Changes include improvements to controls, templating, Deep Zoom, performance, further compatibility with WPF, and much more. For a full list of changes, see below:

Empty EventArgs (EventArgs.Empty)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:01:03 GMT

How many times have you written an event whose event handler just takes in a generic EventArgs object and when you raise that event you pass in new EventArgs()? Turns out the EventArgs class has a static read-only instance field EventArgs.Empty.

Windows SideShow for Windows Mobile Beta: Screenshot Tour

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:13:37 GMT

I've put together a screenshot tour of Windows SideShow for Windows Mobile Beta. 20 screenshots to help you decide if WSWMB is right for you, and for you to be able to see what WSWMB can do for you. It covers the following gadgets in detail: Office PowerPoint Remote (Rocks!) Windows Media Player Inbox - Windows Mail and more!

What user groups are for?

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:26:16 GMT

What do people get from attending various technology user groups? This post tries to outline how it looks from the outside.

Do Language Specific Libraries Belong in .NET?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:53:46 GMT

Should we really have libraries in .NET that are language specific? Why do only VB programmers get a Copy Directory function? Why do J# programmers (all 3 of them) get ZIP and UNZIP for free?

Exception handling best practices in ASP.NET web applications

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:31:08 GMT

Exception handling plays an important part of application management and user experience. If implemented correctly it can make maintenance easier and bring the user experience to a higher level. If not, it can be a disaster. The goal of this article is to provide an overview of what exception handling is from the user perspective and the perspective of people who maintain the application, and to show the best practices of how to implement useful error handling in ASP.NET web applications.

Visual Studio Trial Upgrade: 24 days later

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:59:44 GMT

I wanted to wait a month before checking back on this issue but recent post by ScottGu (more on this later in this post) changed my plans. Thanks to DotNetKicks, Dzone and, obviously, Google that post was viewed more than 1100 times directly. I'm pretty confident that someone from Microsoft directly responsible for these things or at least someone who knows someone who is in some way related to this has seen it.

ASP.NET: Web Site versus Web Application Project

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:08:45 GMT

The differences between the two models have been pretty well covered, or at least so I thought...

Silverlight Tips, Tricks, Tutorials and Links Page

Sat, 31 May 2008 15:31:02 GMT

Silverlight Tips, Tricks, Tutorials and Links Page Hope these Tips, Tricks, Tutorials and Links will help your SILVERLIGHT development. - Iftekhar Ahmed Amit

How to add a Last-Modify HTTP header on ASP.NET page

Fri, 30 May 2008 20:14:09 GMT

Explains how to add a Last-Modify HTTP header on ASP.NET page and when it makes sense.

No-CSS fallback for IE5.5 and earlier

Fri, 30 May 2008 07:46:59 GMT

I'm working on a project where I have to support modern versions of Firefox, Opera, Safari and IE6 and higher which is standard approach these days. Today I decided to look at how my project looks in IE5.5 out of curiosity. As expected it was a total mess. I decided to do one simple thing: just skip the CSS file in IE5.5 and earlier so the site looks like it's 1995 but consistent and it's usable.

Test with multiple IE Rendering Engines

Thu, 29 May 2008 20:01:03 GMT

IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8 beta 1, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.

WPF multipage reports - Part II - Data Grouping

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:01:03 GMT

In the second post about building WPF multipage reports I will describe the data layer that reads data from a data source and provides simple grouping calculations.

What's Wrong with this?

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:46:03 GMT

Every time I read a C# book or an article or just a code sample in MSDN I can't stop wondering why don't people use this qualifier unless it's absolutely required? What do we sacrifice code readability for?

The beauty of fluent interfaces

Thu, 29 May 2008 17:46:02 GMT

I notice that more and more frameworks, toolkits and libraries use fluent interfaces. This article gives examples on how FIs can improve usability of an API and show possible pitfalls.

Tips/Tools for Technical Presenters

Wed, 28 May 2008 15:21:50 GMT

A short list of battle-tested tips (for Visual Studio and in general) and tools (ZoomIt!) for anyone who finds themselves presenting technical content.

Convert Your Vector Graphics Image to WPF/Silverlight Code

Wed, 28 May 2008 13:16:05 GMT

Imagine you can draw some of your user interface elements in a vector drawing application like: Adobe, InkScape (free) or Skencil (free) and convert your work into WPF XAML or Silverlight XAML.