Just before I headed up to Web Directions North, I wrote a little chunk of code to help me do a system back up. Enough people at work have been losing data on their hard disks, so I decided I wasn't going to have that happen to me. I picked up a NAS storage device, 2 500gig hard drives, and got it all set up at home. It works quite nicely. I set up SyncToy to back up all the data that I find important, and run daily or weekly. But one thing was not getting back up that I was a bit worried about. My RSS feed list. I couldn't find where the RSS platform stores the OPML list, or even if it does, so I figured, since it's an open platform, I'd just write a method that would create the OPML list for me! Once I got the initial work done, it was really...(read more)

Ryan Olshan and StrongCoders have helped put together a great ASP.NET live web chat for later tonight. It includes an all-star cast of MVP experts to field questions (I'll be there too to help answer questions). You can join us from 8-9pm EST (5-6 PM US West Coast Time) tonight to participate. Details can be found on Ryan's post here , and on the MSDN Chat Center . Hope to see you there, Scott P.S. Apologies for the 150+ unanswered comments on my blog this week. I was taken out by the flu the last few days and haven't been online. I will post the comments and respond this weekend. Read More......(read more)

Today Matt , Bertrand and I are going to film a .NET Show episode focusing on ASP.NET AJAX . These are really fun because it gives us a chance to talk informally about the technology we have been working on for a while and then walk through some fun demos. I think of it like having a beer with some fellow developers --- just recorded for millions to see ;-) What topics would you like to see us address? Even more fun, I thought it would be cool for you folks to suggest some out-of-context words such as "waterfall", "diaper", or "SUV" for us to try to work into the conversation... You can then tune into the show next month to see how we did... Any suggestions? We need to get them by noon PST, so bring on the suggestions! Read More......(read more)

A reader just sent me these two .NET love stores... They are great! .NET - A Love Story .NET Love Story Continues... My wife asked me to write her poetry, but I suspect that is not what she hand in mind... How about you, did you get or give any great .NET valentines yesterday? Read More......(read more)

Join HERE http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032325009&culture=-US&Action=Preview Read More......(read more)

First there was print "here" . Then we moved to the web, and there was alert('here'); . Now we've moved to ASP.NET AJAX, and it's <%= DateTime.Now %>. It's a poor substitute for installing Fiddler or Nikhil's Web Development Helper , but putting <%= DateTime.Now %> inside an UpdatePanel is an easy way to see if that particular panel is getting updated during an async postback. I've seen a bunch of people on the forum using this technique, and I even suggested it just tonight. I think it's cool (in a sad way :-P) that even as the tools get better and better, we keep resorting to the equivalent of print "here" . Read More......(read more)

Due to high demand, we have released code for Web Application Project support on our CodePlex community site . This can be registered side-by-side with the released guidnace package. The same code generation options that you are used to from the released version will be available. Installation instructions are on the wiki page. Enjoy Read More......(read more)

Thanks to a forum post , I just learned that Chris Riccio has a blog ! Chris is a test manager on the ASP.NET AJAX team. I've never actually met him, but he and his team have answered a number of questions for me in email. Anyway, the main thing I wanted to point here is that Chris has a post called Demystifying 'Sys is undefined' . That error message comes from the JavaScript code in the browser, and it basically means that the Microsoft AJAX Library hasn't been loaded. That could be for a number of different reasons, and the browser can't really tell you what went wrong. That's where Chris' post comes in. He describes a number of the common causes of this error and how to resolve them. Here's a sneak peak at his list: The browser fails to...(read more)

The latest release of Script# enables authoring Windows Vista Sidebar gadgets using C#. It also comes along with a sample gadget that enables searching MSDN content and a project template to get you up and running quickly. Read More......(read more)

Alessandro "Garbin" Gallo, David Barkol, and Rama Krishna Vavilala have been working on a great ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 book for Manning called " ASP.NET AJAX in Action ": Early chapters are now available online via their early access program. Click here to learn more and start reading it today. Read More......(read more)

Joe Stagner on the ASP.NET team has been busy the last few weeks, and has just finished updating all 23 of his ASP.NET AJAX "How Do I?" videos to go against the final ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 release . If you haven't watched Joe's videos before, I highly recommend checking them out. They are short, focused, videos that drill in on a specific topic and are designed to help master common scenarios when using the product. Both VB and C# sample code versions can be downloaded for each video topic. You can watch all of the videos online for free at: http://www.asp.net/learn/videos/ (also make sure to check out the more than 50+ other videos on that page as well). Now that Joe has finished covering a lot of the ASP.NET AJAX and ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit...(read more)

I'm spending the weekend reading a new book called ASP.NET AJAX In Action . You can get portions of it now as part of Manning Publications' early access program. I get my copy for free because I'm doing a manuscript review for them. I haven't started reading yet, but I'm excited about this book because of the authors: Alessandro Gallo (a.k.a. Garbin) , David Barkol , and Rama Krishna Vavilala . All three are notable contributors to the ASP.NET AJAX community through blogging and the forums . Alright, now that my expectations are high, time to crack open the manuscript and put a critical eye to it! Read More......(read more)

One of the things we did as we were working on the Web Client Software Factory was try to make things easier for users. I know there is still a lot for us to do in the area (like simplifying installation and the pre-requisites that are needed), but we did make some progress. One of the things we did was create a preview of the changes that recipes will make to your solution. This preview is shown before the recipe executes. Rather than explaining this myself, I'll let David Hayden, a user of the WCSF, do so in this blog post: Add Business Module Using Web Client Software Factory - Solution Preview Rocks! I hope everyone else finds this feature as useful as David does. Read More......(read more)

One of the highlights of my recent trip to Europe was getting the chance to publicly show off some of the new features in our next release of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework (codename: "Orcas") for the first time publicly. You can download the deck I presented here . You can also watch a version of the Belgium talk that Tom posted on the web here (note: another version taken from my WebDD talk in the UK will also be posted shortly). "Orcas" is going to be a pretty exciting release, and contains a ton of great functionality that I think you will really love. I'll be drilling down into more details of it over the next few months in many more blog posts. Below are a few screen-shots from demos I showed over the weekend in my talks in Europe....(read more)

The 3 rd installment of the “Live From Redmond” – AJAX Security Webcast Series is now available for on-demand viewing. On-Demand HERE Read More......(read more)

Test Read More......(read more)

Just a quick post to highlight a few cool ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 related downloads that have been posted over the last few days: ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Documentation Available for Download: The ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Documentation can now be easily downloaded for offline usage . You can download and install your own copy of the docs here . You can also browse all of the documentation and run all of the samples online at the http://ajax.asp.net web-site. Cool ASP.NET AJAX Control to easily enable Back / Forward Button Support with AJAX: Nikhil has updated his cool "UpdateHistory" control for the final ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 release (I first blogged about it in this old post ). This control enables developers to modify the browser's history stack - which enables AJAX...(read more)

I've finished my whirlwind speaking tour of Europe (Belgium, UK and Netherlands in less than one week), and was fortunate to have had the chance to present to several hundred people along the way. Many thanks to everyone who came out to attend my talks! Here are the first two slide decks + samples from the talks I gave: ASP.NET Tips and Tricks: This talk covered ASP.NET UI, AJAX, Caching and Deployment Tips and Tricks, and Visual Studio 2005 tips/tricks. The samples include updated versions of ASP.NET AJAX that all work with ASP.NET AJAX 1.0. You can download the slides+samples here . You can learn more about the Visual Studio build performance optimization suggestions by reading this past post of mine on improving build performance . You can...(read more)

Two controls that go along with the UpdatePanel and partial rendering features in ASP.NET Ajax: UpdateHistory and AnimatedUpdatePanel. Read More......(read more)

MS AJAX : Get thhe Off-Line Version of the Docs HERE . Read More......(read more)