VB.NET
Not sure how many of you out there use a URL redirection service such as tinyurl, is.gd or snurl. They come very handy when you’re trying to take a long url like: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=des+moines+iowa&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=44.879582,87.714844&ie=UTF8&z=12&iwloc=A Into something that's a bit more manageable: http://tinyurl.com/nzqn5f How can you do this within your ASP.NET application? Well, check out miniurl on CodePlex. :) What is miniurl? The miniurl MVC application is a very simple example on how to use MVC and URL Routing to create a URL Redirection service. That means you’re...
Can't make it to the Professional Developer's Conference (PDC) in LA? Well, we've started a new group called NotAtPDC! Chris Love is the genious behind this movement! Here's some info from him:
We are going to have live meeting sessions, links to Blogs, Podcasts and any other .NET related content featured this week. Right now we are trying to get things organized better. We will have a site live in the morning. If you want to schedule a session or something DM http://twitter.com/NotAtPDC.
Chris is in the process on getting a website up to aggregate some of the content that the...
So, here's a little shameless self plug for a book that Bryan Sampica and I are writing...also, I'm using this blog post as a warm up for my writing this evening! Yes, like I just mentioned, I'm co-authoring a book for Wrox with Bryan entitled, ASP.NET 3.5 Programmer's Reference. The purpose of the book is to get you the novice/beginner introduced to the features of ASP.NET 3.5, and hopefully teach you a few tricks things along the way. The book is due out in November, so that means that my summer (evenings) is pretty much booked up. I must...
That's right! We're having another ASP.NET Expert Live Chat on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 6 PM PST. Here's more info on the event: Get your tough development questions answered by Microsoft MVPs, Regional Directors, and other industry experts. Community experts will be on hand to answer your .NET- and Visual Studio-related questions. No off topic questions please. Please note that questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs might not be answered. Would you like to participate as an expert? Contact Ryan Olshan at Ryan[dot]Olshan[at]strongtypes[dot]com. MSDN Online Chats - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx Chat Room...
Thanks to Mitchel Sellers from IowaComputerGurus for presenting to our user group last night! We had a pretty great turn out and some really nice swag to give away! For those of you that were there, thanks for your support! As I mentioned during the meeting, we're going to try something a little different for distributing demo materials (code, ppts, etc.). I've setup a iadnug, a Google Code open source project, to host our code. (yeah, clever name I know...) So for those of you that have SVN or TortoiseSVN installed, you can check out the code. If you...
Well, we can finally get our hands on the ASP.NET MVC bits! They're being released as part of the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP. This release includes: ASP.NET AJAX Improvements: New ASP.NET AJAX features in the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions release include better browser history support (back/forward button integration, and server-side history management support), improved AJAX content linking support with permalinks, and additional JavaScript library improvements. ASP.NET MVC: This model view controller (MVC) framework for ASP.NET provides a structured model that enables a clear separation of concerns within web applications, and makes...
That's right, PDC has been rescheduled to Oct. 27-30 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Here's the info from their site: PDC 2008 October 27–30, 2008 Pre-conference October 26, 2008 Los Angeles, California OK, OK. We are delighted to announce the date and location of the next Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC): October 27–30, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. PDC is the definitive Microsoft event for software developers and architects focused on the future of the Microsoft platform. Mark your...
Well, as I previously blogged about it, the details are done for our demo contest during the VS2008 InstallFest in Des Moines are finalized. Here they are: Visual Studio 2008 Demo Contest! Want to show off your VS2008 or .NET 3.5 skills? If you answered, yes, this is your opportunity to strut your stuff! During the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest & Holiday Party on December 12, 2007 at the DMACC West Campus, we'll be having a demo contest in the auditorium. Here's the scoop ... What do I need to...
That's right, the InstallFest event in Des Moines has SOLD OUT! As of today, there are 13 people on the waiting list. For all of you that signed up, thanks! It is because of you that this event will be a success! Also, if you're interested, you should sign up to do a demo during the event! Those of you on the waiting list, you will be notified of an open spot if someone on the main list cancels. So if you're on the main list but can't make it, please cancel so somebody on the waiting list can...
Alright, earlier this evening I blogged about the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest that our Des Moines .NET UG is hosting on December 12th, 2007. If you're interested in coming, please sign up!! If you would like to ensure a copy of VS2008, it is REALLY IMPORTANT that you sign up at
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360733&Culture=en-US
Now the contest info! Have you been playing around with VS2008 beta1/beta2/RC1 or .NET 3.5 for a while? If you answered yes, then I recommend you strut your stuff by coming up with a 10-15 minute presentation you can share with the group during the InstallFest!
What do I need to...
That's right, you can now download the Silverlight 1.1 Tools Alpha for Visual Studio 2008 RTM. Get it while it's hot!! One thing to notice is that this release does not work with the Express Editions.
That's right, you heard it! Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman have both talked about it (Scott even has a podcast on it). Microsoft will release the source code & debug symbols for debugging purposes for the following .NET libraries under the Microsoft Reference License (MS-RL):
Base Class Libraries
ASP.NET
Windows Forms
ADO.NET
XML
WPF
They plan on adding more libraries in the months to come, such as WCF, Workflow, LINQ.
I'm not sure about you, but this IS HUGE! Way to go, MS! Taking...
That's right, if you have a question that needs answering come check out our "Ask An Expert" live chat on August 23rd, 2007 at 5 PM PDT. Please note that this chat is not being hosted by Microsoft and as such questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs may not be answered. To see the main announcement, check out Ryan's blog for the info. Also there seems to be a prize give away for this chat! How cool?! Here's the list of experts involved in the chat. It's quite the line up! Calendar: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx ICS: http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0823_msdn_aspnet.ics Hope to see...
Anybody? Let's start this conversation and see where it goes? David, I'm really interested on what you have to say about this!
Well, it looks like Nick and Jeff have beat me to the punch of announcing ReSharper 3.0. For you VB.NET-ers our there, GET THIS TOOL! OMG, it's the sweetest thing that ever happened to VB since .NET!!
That's right, I received word from Phil Wolfe earlier this week that I've been accepted to be a speaker (this is my third year!) for the Heartland Developer Conference in Omaha, NE on Oct. 18-19th. If you check out the speakers page, you won't see my info there but I'm sure it's coming. For those of you that like my presentations, here's a list of topics I've been kicking around: .NET Tooling for Oracle - There's some applications out there that need talk with Oracle. How do I make things as easily as possible to get my work done?...
I would like to thank Denny, our breadth AE, for doing a great job at our first ArcReady event last Friday in Des Moines. During the event, Denny mentioned that Des Moines will be a regular stop on the quaterly ArcReady visits. If you would like to attend, please post your email on this post (through comments) and I'll make sure that Denny gets you added to the list. Also, after the event, we held our first ArcCouncil event. ArcCouncil is an open forum were we discuss various topics dealing with software development. For example, the meeting started by...
Denny Boynton, our regional Architect Evangelist, has just blogged information on how you can get free MS eLearning passes valued at $159. If you have the time, and don't want to miss out on this opportunity, go check out his post.
That's right, we're at it again! We're signed up to answer your ASP.NET related questions for two hours on April 19th at 11:30 PST (1:30 CST).
The chat format is as follows: You post your questions and the panel of experts answers them. We're using the Microsoft Chat Software (MVP’s only, sorry!) to grab questions and answer them. The first chat did not have this software working well and was kind of chaotic (MSN Messenger & Conference Call). The software is now working, so it should be a very smooth flow of questions and answers. We're still doing the conference call so that when...
I would like to thank Paul Sheriff for taking the time to speak to our user group. He did an excellent job on presenting an intro to OOP. In case you were not there, he has offered a free eBook for our UG members. Go here, to get it. Once again, thanks Paul!
By the way, I posted about this chat a while back....
but if you don't recall and are free tonight from 7-8 PM CST (8-9 PM EST, 5-6 PM West Coast Time), come check out our ASP.NET MVP Public Chat! Check out the line-up of MVPs that are ready to answer your ASP.NET questions!
You can join the chat by going to the MSDN Chat Center.
PluralSight's own Fritz Onion will hosting 8 ASP.NET webcasts next week. If you're interested in checkin them out, you can register here.
That's right, it's out! Microsoft has released SP1 for Visual Studio 2005, Team Foundation Server, Express Editions and Vista Beta. Here's some info from Microsoft: Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 continues Microsoft’s investment in market leading development tools. Service Pack 1 addresses issues that were found through a combination of customers and partner feedback, as well as internal testing. The issues addressed range in severity from places where the syntax coloring was incorrect to customer reported crashes in various scenarios. In some areas, more than 50% of the bugs addressed were reported by customers through the MSDN Product...
I'm sure that I'm going to get a lot of crap from this, but here it goes... <RANT> While talking with a potential candidate today about what .NET language we were using on building our business layer & common library with, I mentioned that we will use C# for the common library and VB.NET for the business layer. He asked, "Why? You're current staff is mostly VB developers, wouldn't you just use VB.NET for all?". That's when I re-iterated that we're planning on using VB.NET for some of our business layer development. Since there's a small team (2 people) right now that...
Do you have legacy VB6 applications that need a little .NET in them? Don't want to mess around with the fun of COM interop? Now, you don't have to with the Interop Forms Toolkit! The toolkit allows you to have a phased upgrade of your VB6 applications to .NET by allowing your to have both VB6 and VB.NET forms running within the same VB6 process. I downloaded the toolkit earlier this week to check it out and I was pretty impressed in how it made the accessing of .NET objects within VB6 pretty easy. Go check it out!