DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by diamondz

An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:46:50 GMT

A nice essay from 37signals on designing UIs.

Use jQuery and ASP.NET AJAX to build a client side Repeater

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:16:04 GMT

An example of one way of using ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery to implement client-side Repeater functionality. Using this technique on one of my own sites, I realized an over 400% performance gain.

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.

DnSmtp - A .NET SMTP Client Library in C#

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:29:36 GMT

DnSmtp is a fully management SMTP client library written in C#. It provides two delivery methods - Relay and Direct. In relay delivery mode, it will relay messages through your local SMTP server. In direct delivery mode or it will resolve the MX record of the recipient's email address and connect to the recipients server directly and drop the mail message.

How to get Cross Browser Compatibility Every Time

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:31:10 GMT

Cross-browser compatibility is one of the most time consuming tasks for any web designer. We've seen many different articles over the net describing common problems and fixes. I've collated all the information I could find to create some coding conventions for ensuring that your site will work first time in every browser. There are some things you should consider for Safari and Firefox also, and IE isn't always the culprit for your CSS woes.

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.

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.

3 mistakes to avoid when using jQuery with ASP.NET AJAX

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:31:14 GMT

Three common problems that I've seen when using jQuery with ASP.NET AJAX, their underlying causes, and simple solutions to them.

Setting Up Velocity (Distributed Cache)

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:26:03 GMT

Velocity is Microsoft's entry into Distributed Caching. It is currently in its first public CTP, so there are certainly going to be some rough spots. The documentation is pretty good, but setting it up and using it the first time required some trial and error. Here is a quick overview on getting it Velocity setup and and using the API.

Microsoft takes on 404 pages with Live Search

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:48:06 GMT

Microsoft has released a toolkit for webmasters who also want to transform their 404 pages to search-enabled pages. The 1.13MB Web Page Error Toolkit, a customizable ASP.net application that replaces the default error page on one's IIS server, is not limited to Live Search; web admins can choose whichever search engine they prefer.

Sysinternals, now easier to get than ever

Sat, 31 May 2008 14:01:07 GMT

The sysinternals team has placed all their tools on a network share... on the internet. Now you can copy and run any of their tools from the command line. Anywhere. With no installs, website googling, unzipping or anything. \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\

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.

Using jQuery to directly call ASP.NET AJAX page methods

Thu, 29 May 2008 17:01:02 GMT

An example of how to use jQuery to call an ASP.NET AJAX page method, without using a ScriptManager.

Speed up your Ajax apps with Google's infrastructure

Wed, 28 May 2008 16:16:03 GMT

Use Google's CDN to improve performance in serving up Prototype, Script.aculo.us, jQuery, Dojo, and MooTools on public facing sites.

jQuery Books Review

Fri, 30 May 2008 21:31:08 GMT

Here's a review of three jQuery books I've read over the last few months as well as links to a couple of cheat sheets.

Subversion Check-in Comment - Great Practices

Wed, 21 May 2008 12:23:43 GMT

A description of the SubSonic team's method for adding comments to code check-ins. It's a great practice that helps the team understand the changes.

How to wrap the ASP.NET session state

Mon, 19 May 2008 13:16:16 GMT

A handy C# code snippet for accessing ASP.net session state data. Exceptions are handled, usage is intuitive.

7 tricks to simplify your programs with LINQ

Mon, 19 May 2008 09:31:03 GMT

Ever since I learned about LINQ, I keep discovering new ways to use it to improve my code. Every trick makes my code a little bit faster to write, and a little bit easier to read. This posting summarizes some of the tricks that I came across. I will show you how to use LINQ to: initialize an array, iterate over multiple arrays in a single loop, generate a random sequence, ...

dashCommerce 3.0 Release

Sun, 18 May 2008 20:46:41 GMT

The dashCommerce 3.0 Release is here!

How to manage ASP.NET validation from Javascript with jQuery

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:01:02 GMT

This article outlines how to enable and disable ASP.NET client side validation from Javascript using jQuery

Display nicely formatted .NET source code on your blog

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:31:03 GMT

How to quickly display nicely formatted and colored source code on your blog using the CopySourceAsHtml VS plugin.

Introducing Waegis

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:46:04 GMT

A new spam blocking service just hit the .NET space: Waegis. It's a service similar to Akismet, but written entirely in .NET

Use ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem With Anonymous Types

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:01:02 GMT

Use the power of anonymous types, anonymous delegates and type inference to make ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem type-safe and easier to read.

Using iTextSharp To Watermark/Write Text to Existing PDF's

Mon, 12 May 2008 18:31:02 GMT

This tutorial shows you how to write text to an existing PDF by using iTextSharp. Learn how to write text on top of the document, below the document and at various locations through the code and full solution provided.

Creating great thumbnails in ASP.NET

Sat, 10 May 2008 02:01:03 GMT

The built in function for creating thumbnails in ASP.NET is extremely convenient and very simple to implement. The trouble is that it produces relatively poor quality results and excessively large file sizes. The thumbnails tend to look very muddy when using this route, but many times it's good enough for whatever your needs may be.