DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by tiernano

How we built TwitterMatic.net - Part 1: Introduction

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:00:05 GMT

"Once upon a time, Microsoft started a Windows Azure developing contest named new CloudApp();. While it first was only available for US candidates, the contest was opened for international submissions too. Knight Maarten The Brave Coffeedrinker and his fellow knightsmen at RealDolmen decided to submit a small sample application that could be hosted in an unknown environment, known by the digital villagers as "the cloud". The application was called TwitterMatic, named after the great god of social networking, Twitter. It would allow digital villagers to tell the latest stories, even when they were asleep or busy working."

OpenForum - A Free Forum for ASP.NET MVC Applications

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:15:01 GMT

One of the things that I really like about the MVC framework is that it offers some unique possibilities when it comes to third parties developing entire sub-systems that can easily be plugged into existing applications. Recently, I had some "down time" at my work and decided to take the opportunity to experiment with doing just that. Here are the results of that experiment. OpenForum is a forum that can easily be plugged into any MVC application with very little effort. In fact, there are only three steps to get OpenForum working with most MVC applications.

Request UAC Elevation for .net Application (Managed Code)

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:40:09 GMT

This Article explains, how to request the operating system for UAC elevation for an application that requires administrator priviilege in windows VISTA, or windows 7

A Better SMTP Development Server

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:45:00 GMT

Looking for a way to test the email sending functionality of your application? There's no need to install a full-blown SMTP server - not as long as you have Antix SMTP Server for Developers in your bag of tricks.

If At First You Don't Succeed - Retrying Mail Operations in .NET

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:45:01 GMT

Mail sent from your application didn't go through? Don't give up so easily! The majority of mail server interruptions are very temporary in nature, lasting only a few seconds. Instead of failing right away, why not give your SMTP client another shot?

Asp.Net vs php : Speed Comparison

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Why is the myth that php is faster than Asp.Net so prevalent? Asp.Net is faster than php, here are the facts. So many times I have heard php pushers claim that php is so much faster than Asp.Net and that Asp.Net is clunky and slow. The most annoying part is that everything I have read (that is not factless opinion), and I mean everything, says that this is wrong; but for some reason, this myth is widely accepted. It has become a religious argument that ignores the facts...

Overview of .NET 4.0 features - C# 4.0 Named and Optional Parameters

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:45:05 GMT

The concept of Optional parameters is not new and exists in other languages such as C++. Infact, the functionality is a part of the .NET framework and exists is in VB.NET. Optional parameters will be introduced in C# 4.0 and can be used to call a method without having to specify all the arguments. The intent of this feature is to assist in writing concise code and in COM interoperability.

5 Quick Steps to Get Introduced with VSTS and TFS 2010 Beta 1

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:15:00 GMT

As the Beta 1 releases is pretty infant, there are very limited resources available in the web and community, so I just wanted to gather all of the useful resources with respect to these two tool in one places, so that anyone can move forward from installation to first "Hello VSTS/TFS" excitement smoothly.

LINQ to SQL changes in .NET 4.0

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:15:00 GMT

What's fixed and breaking changes for LINQ to SQL in .NET 4.0

Free ASP.NET 4.0 beta hosting available

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:03:35 GMT

Guys from ORCS Web are offering free ASP.NET 4.0 beta hosting until the end of October. Hosting plan is called "VS2010 and Web Deployment Tool Beta Program". If you are interested in it then please feel free to sign up.

Performance testing of Dictionary, List and HashSet

Fri, 29 May 2009 20:30:00 GMT

A quick little test of how the .net 3.5 Dictionary, List and HashSet compare adding and finding items.

Live Twitter stream of notable people in the .NET community

Tue, 26 May 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Built with ASP.NET MVC, jQuery and TweetSharp

My Dot Net Developer's tools list, and more.

Wed, 27 May 2009 04:00:01 GMT

I gave a brownbag presentation at my current client recently about the common tools (in addition to Visual Studio), that I use on a regular basis for working with .NET or web development in general. I also threw in some non-development tools that are a part of my day to day life and make things easier. Here's the complete list:

The Dynamic Programmer - Tuple, a new type on .Net 4.0

Mon, 25 May 2009 19:00:06 GMT

If you ever played with some language that have the Tuple type I bet you miss it in .Net. Well 4.0 adds it. Let's take a look at the implementation and how to use it.

Overview of .NET 4.0 features - ASP.NET 4.0 ClientIDMode

Mon, 25 May 2009 19:45:03 GMT

In pre 4.0 days, when a server control is rendered, the framework would assign an ID to the control based on the control hierarchy. For example, a textbox of id "txtTest" in a user control that is used on a page would be rendered with the ID "WebUserControl11_txtTest". Developers could use the ClientID property (ex: txtTest.ClientID) in the code behind to retrieve the ID assigned to the control by the framework. It was essential for the framework to assign the IDs this way to maintain uniqueness of the IDs on a page. In the prior example, the User Control that inherits from the System.Web.UI.UserControl implements the INamingContainer interface. Any control (either custom or a .NET control) that implements this interface would ensure unique naming scope for the child controls.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 for MSDN Subscribers

Tue, 19 May 2009 07:46:09 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 is now on MSDN along with .Net 4 Beta 1. Some highlights from the information: .Net 4.0 Cloud Development - Windows Azure which is basically utility computing where you pay by the hour for your usage. Parallel Development - Not sure if this only means PLINQ for .Net developers or if they are only talking about C++ devs. TDD Improvements - Editor changes for building test cases first, and then writing the code. ASP.NET - CSS grids and design surfaces changes, more Javascript debugging improvements. C++ Compiler - Lots of changes for C++ development, including MFC. Sharepoint templates New Project Templates Windows 7 - MFC updates for Ribbon UI, and WPF changes. Application Model Changes - Reverse existing codebases, and lots of changes in Architect Edition to support more model types (including Class Libraries finally). Test Runner - This is potentially huge as it allows testers to submit bug reports complete with callstacks and traces that you can actually use to resume an app at the error point to avoid the dreaded No Repro on bug reports. I have seen this demo and it is quite impressive. We will see how it actually works though.

UppercuT - The Insanely Easy to Use Automated Build Framework

Tue, 19 May 2009 07:02:36 GMT

Automated Builds as easy as (1) solution name, (2) source control path, (3) company name for most projects!!! UppercuT is for developers who want a powerful build framework without a lot of set up work. UppercuT is for anyone who needs a standard way of building applications across an entire organization. UppercuT is for anyone who wants to concentrate on just writing code. What can UppercuT do for you? -Compiles your application -Versions the local code build -Runs your unit tests -Runs NCover -Runs NDepend (you will need a license - does not come with UppercuT) -Creates environment configuration files (using ENV.settings files and config.template files) - more on this later -Packages your application for deployment -Along the way, it can run custom tasks for you.

YUI Compressor for Visual Studio

Wed, 13 May 2009 04:01:14 GMT

Add a custom tool in visual studio for YUI Compressor.

Open Source or Die - The Real Future of Graffiti?

Tue, 12 May 2009 12:16:02 GMT

Telligent's Graffiti hasn't quite flatlined yet, but the signs aren't looking too good. Could OSS be the way to breathe life back into this once-promising CMS platform?

Future of Business Intelligence and Databases

Mon, 11 May 2009 05:31:02 GMT

The term business intelligence (BI) was coined by Howard Dresner in the early 1990s. He defined Business Intelligence as "a set of concepts and methodologies to improve decision making in business through use of facts and fact-based systems." In a time when data warehousing was considered leading-edge he created the vision that led to the development of business intelligence, as it is known today. The once visionary BI is now commonplace and in near future a momentous transformation is about to take place. BI is all set to bring information democracy where end users across an organization will be able to view information related to their segment. Further, with the rising consumer expectations there will be demand for capability requirements of BI as well.

Creating a MVVM "Hello World" application in 30 seconds

Fri, 08 May 2009 17:31:02 GMT

A example of how to create a hello world MVVM application using the MVVM toolkit!

Using jQuery Validation in ASP.NET Master Pages

Mon, 11 May 2009 13:01:03 GMT

jQuery has a Validation plug-in which is full of features and is quite flexible. However the name mangling in ASP.NET Master Pages presents interesting challenges in using this plug-in and I could not find a working solution on the net. In this article, I will demonstrate how to use the jQuery Validation plug-in with Master Pages

Top 5 SQL System stored procedures every developer should know

Wed, 13 May 2009 17:31:02 GMT

There are a number of documented and undocumented system stored procedures in MS SQL Server that are helpful for every web developer working with databases. From the developer's perspective, here's a list of 5 System stored procedures that are my favorite.

Free Chapter of Beginning ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Published

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:46:05 GMT

Simone Chiaretta announces the availability of chapter 9 of Wrox Beginning ASP.NET MVC 1.0 book about Testing ASP.NET MVC Applications and shares some good news about the release date of the book.

Monitoring SQL Server Performance: Quickie Edition

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:27:47 GMT

There are various mechanisms to measure the performance of your SQL Server. An efficient way to do it is through digging in with Performance Monitor. But how about if you only need a quick and dirty way of monitoring your SQL Server right now? There are built-in functions for that one.