Well, after taking the red-eye from Seattle last night I made it to TechEd in time to get some really good feedback. I feel lucky to get to drill into two different areas of feedback... the web space with ASP.NET, AJAX and Silverlight and the client space with WPF, Cider and Acropolis. In the web space... I had on my conspicuous Ajax Experience shirt partially to see if it would server as fodder for an interesting conversation. It did! On the ride from Dallas to Orlando I talked with the owner of a set of careerHR web sites... many of them are in ColdFusion and he is looking for how to revitalize them... I gave him a private showing of the demos of my talk at TechEd and the Ajax stuff really resonated with him. He was exited about how he could...(read more)

Microsoft earlier today announced a new product called "Microsoft Surface". If you haven't checked out the online videos of it yet, I highly recommend watching them here . It is one of those products that looks and feels like it comes from a science fiction movie - but it is actually real. Popular Mechanics also has a good article (including their own video) of how it works that you can read and watch online here . One of the really cool things about Microsoft Surface is that the table UI experience is built entirely using WPF and the .NET Framework - which is a great statement about the power of what WPF provides. If you are interested in learning more about programming WPF, there are two great books out there that I've been recommending to...(read more)

Life From Redmond Webcast TOMORROW ! Join me with Todd Anglin from Telerik as Todd demonstrates building your own custom Forums application from scratch using Telerik RAD Controls. He says he’ll do it in 60 Minutes !!! [Click HERE to register for the webcast.] Read More......(read more)

I am pretty excited about Teched '07 June 4-8th in Orlando (if you are not already attending, you can still register). Here are a few of the sessions that I think will be very cool. WEB319 - A Lap around Silverlight - Scott Guthrie If you are making it to TechEd, you have got to come see Scott give an overview of Silverlight... Even if you have been closely following Silverlight.net, you will get a ton out of this.. Scott does an excellent job of explaining the platform in a fun and excited way! WEB318 - Creating and Delivering Rich Media and Video on the Web with Silverlight, Expression Studio, and Windows Server 2008 - Brad Abrams (and co) I am going to give an evolution of the session I gave a Mix on how to take advantage of Silverlight from...(read more)

Glenn posted about two new projects on CodePlex : WCSFContrib SCSFContrib These two projects are there to allow the community to post contributions, extensions, modules, etc that others can use. They compliment Enterprise Library Contrib , which Tom has already posted about . Enjoy. Read More......(read more)

In Part 1 of my LINQ to SQL blog post series I discussed "What is LINQ to SQL" and provided a basic overview of some of the data scenarios it enables. In my first post I provided code samples that demonstrated how to perform common data scenarios using LINQ to SQL including: How to query a database How to update rows in a database How to insert and relate multiple rows in a database How to delete rows in a database How to call a stored procedure How to retrieve data with server-side paging I performed all of these data scenarios using a LINQ to SQL class model that looked like the one below: In this second blog post in the series I'm going to go into more detail on how to create the above LINQ to SQL data model. LINQ to SQL, the LINQ to SQL...(read more)

I customer email me asking how to iterate the values of items in the AJAX Control Toolkit ReorderList Sample. Thanks to Shawn Burke for the hints. Here is how you get to them. Assuming an Item template that includes 2 label controls….. 1 Protected Sub Button2_Click( ByVal sender As Object , ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click 2 Dim l1, l2 As Label 3 Dim i, max As Integer 4 5 Label3.Text = "" 6 max = ReorderList1.Items.Count - 2 7 For i = 0 To max 8 l1 = CType (ReorderList1.Items(i).FindControl( "Label1" ), Label) 09 l2 = CType (ReorderList1.Items(i).FindControl( "Label2" ), Label) 10 Label3.Text = Label3.Text + " " + l1.Text + " " + l2.Text + "
" 11 Next i 12 End Sub Read More......(read more)

Glenn is opening up some discussion about what we should build in the next release of WCSF . We have some ideas, but we want to hear from you. Please post your ideas, requests, and replies to Glenn's blog . Read More......(read more)

June is going to be a really busy travel month for me. I'll be presenting at the following events if you are interested in attending and stopping by to say hi: TechEd 2007 in Orlando on June 4th and 5th : I'll be doing a Silverlight talk and two ASP.NET and VS "Orcas" talks. Click here for more details about the conference. ReMIX 07 in Budapest, Hungary on June 11tht : I'll be doing the keynote at the ReMIX conference as well as presenting Silverlight breakout talks. Click here for more details about the conference. ReMIX 07 and DevDays 07 in Amsterdam, Netherlands on June 13th and 14th : I'll be doing the keynote at the ReMIX and DevDays conferences as well as presenting ASP.NET "Orcas" and Silverlight breakout talks. Click here and here for...(read more)

Check out your referral logs.. notice a pattern? If your logs are like mine, a HUGE percentage of your hits are coming through a search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN)... Here is 3 minutes worth of referral logs from my blog... In a world where a good percentage of your content is dynamically created and displayed in Ajax or Silverlight, how can you enable search engines to find your data? Well, a bunch of folks across the web have been doing some thinking on this. Jonathan Hawkins recently did a session at mix on the topic and posted some thoughts. Nikhil also discussed the issue in his talk at mix and posted some interesting techniques as well. ASP.NET Futures CTP has features to enable you to have multiple code driven dynamic sitemaps. This can...(read more)

This post contains a writeup of an Ajax pattern I demonstrated at one of my MIX07 talks around improving the indexability of Ajax and Silverlight, and in general RIA applications as part of an SEO effort... Read More......(read more)

I’ve compiled a nearly complete list of Ajax Frameworks and Libraries. I intend to test as many as I can and post the results here. (I’ll test the commercial one I can get a license for.) If I missed any, if you have any suggestions, or you work on any of these projects – please feel free to email me via the contact form. Click here for the detailed list with links to each, license type, and basic technology !! AccessKey Active Widgets Aflax Ajax AC Ajax CFC AJAX Engine Ajax Tags AJAX.net AjaxAnywhere AjaxGear Toolkit AjaxRequest AJForm AJS ANAA Anthem.NET APHPLix Aspects aSSL Authentico Backbase Bajax Behaviour Bindows CakePHP Crossvision Dojo DOMApi DPSyntax Hilighter DWR Echo2 Engine Flash Object Flexible Ajax Fresh Logc Gaia Widgets Google...(read more)

One of my favorite features in Orcas is the ability to leverage the ASP.NET Application services from any client application (ASP.NET, Ajax, WinForms, WPF, or even Silverlight!).. This allows you to do things like share a common membership, role management and profiles across a number of presentation tears. It also enables very easy roaming user state... Check out how easy it is to use the profile store... here I am using Windows Authentication, but of course you can use forms or your own system just as well. In fact any system can be rolled into the ASP.NET Auth system (there is a whole book on the subject ). Part 1: Create the web site. 1. In Orcas Beta1, Create a new ASP.NET Web Application 2. Fill in the profile section of the web.config...(read more)

Nikhil Kothari, an architect on the ASP.NET team, has been working in his spare time on a project called Script#. Essentially this allows an Ajax programmer to code in a strongly typed language like C# and compile their code into JavaScript. His original article can be accessed here . Recently he added ASP.NET AJAX support to Script# - you can read about this here . Hope you have fun with Script#! Thanks, -- Bash Read More......(read more)

On May 31, 2007, pre-release versions of Windows Vista will expire. If you are running a pre-release version of Windows Vista (Beta 2, RC1, or RC2) you will begin to receive notifications about the upcoming expiration on May 18, 2007. To avoid work disruption and the loss of data, it is strongly recommended that PC users running any of these pre-release versions of Windows Vista migrate their PCs to the final version of Windows Vista prior to May 31. To install the final version of Windows Vista on any of these pre-release versions of Windows Vista, you may purchase the desired Windows Vista Upgrade. The Windows Vista Upgrade must be the same language version as the pre-release version you are replacing. If you participated in the Customer Preview...(read more)

A while back I talked about Bringing new life to your VB6 apps with the Interop Forms Toolkit and now they have shipped Version 2.0... If you have a VB6 app and you are looking to take incremental advantage of .NET, you should check this out. Here is a cool example project where they leverage the WinForms MenuStrip and ToolStrip in a VB6 application! Very cool.. I can't wait to see what you do with it! Read More......(read more)

I just watched a very cool demo of Refactor! for ASP.NET by Developer Express . This is a free code refactoring tool includes tons of refactorings that are truly timesavers... Here is a blog post with the details... Powerful/Free Download: Refactor! for ASP.NET 2.2 And here are a couple of my favorites... Move styles in CSS class... Surround with an UpdatePanel.. Check out the full video here: Read More... Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

A while back I posted about some great free refactoring tools for ASP.NET. The folks at Developer Express have just released an updated version (2.2.2), that includes some great new refactorings. Here's a sneak peek at just one of the new refactorings that's available: To check out all the new capabilities take a look at this blog post from Mark at Developer Express . --Omar Group Program Manger Visual Studio Web Tools Read More... Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

Last Monday I delivered one of the keynotes at the MIX conference in Las Vegas, and discussed a new project that I've been spending most of my time working on over the last year: Silverlight . Silverlight is a cross platform, cross browser .NET plug-in that enables designers and developers to build rich media experiences and RIAs for browsers. The preview builds we released this week currently support Firefox, Safari and IE browsers on both the Mac and Windows. To get a sense of the types of rich browser applications you will be able to build using Silverlight, please check out this 7 minute video of the Metaliq "Top Banana" video editor sample application: The "Top Banana" application was built with C# and runs cross platform on any system...(read more)

At Mix I ran into Jeff Atwood who reminded me about a my post on the "Be More Visible" Sham . He also told me I should take a look at Jon Udell's post Too busy to blog? Count your keystrokes [via Jeff's blog ] While I don't think every PM has to be a noteworthy blogger to have a successful career, I do think Jon's principle of conservation of keystrokes is an important one. By far the biggest problem I see on teams of > 1 is communication. Different people know different information, this leads to disconnects and often to product design, quality and schedule issues. Teams need better communication and PMs are primarily responsible for this. So think about the email you are getting ready to write... Should you add a tester or dev to that email?...(read more)