EGroupware is a free enterprise ready groupware software for your network. It enables you to manage contacts, appointments, todos and many more for your whole business.

EGroupware is a groupware server. It comes with a native web-interface which allowes to access your data from any platform all over the planet. Moreover you also have the choice to access the EGroupware server with your favorite groupware client (Kontact, Evolution, Outlook) and also with your mobile or PDA via SyncML.

EGroupware is international. At the time, it supports more than 25 languages including rtl support.

EGroupware is platform independent. The server runs on Linux, Mac, Windows and many more other operating systems. On the client side, all you need is a internetbrowser such as Firefox, Konqueror, Internet Explorer and many more.

As MS discovers its once huge following of web code writers leaving for easier free open source approaches. They have of course tried to recapture some of its base by offering things in the past like Iron Python and now they are doing the same with Iron Ruby.

While at Redmond few can actually point out the benefits of running these things the framework verses just simply tossing a Linux box up with a free CentOS distro, and just running it native with the only real cost being the hardware investment.

The approach always seems to be at MS we can fit a round peg in a square hole just as long as the radius is small enough.

This is not to say that the .net platform is by itself somehow flawed. But rather that MS has focused on the enterprise at a time when many small web business applications simply do not have the budgets that MS seeks. This really reminds me of a replay that IBM once saw as a solution to their loss of market share. Lets not forget the PC was invented by IBM and the open hardware standards of almost every PC was created by them.

It really seems MS has forgot how to compete. Perhaps a replay of the late 1990s and the fight with Netscape in both the browser wars, and web servers, was waged and MS won hands down. How did they do it? Simple they gave away a browser Netscape tried to sell, and gave away a web server, that then Netscape tried to sell.

Enough of this and on to the great news of MS and Iron Ruby. While it might be a bit late at least they are trying, and we have to give them points for that.

Recently there has been a rash of SQL injection due to the approach of the thugs who honestly have nothing better to do with their time. In the first code writer wanted the attempt to appear as if it really just worked and moved on. In the second the writers actually used a Response.Write warning. Though the code writers in the second clearly have more targeted regular expression, and is more focused to current attacks. We offer these code snippets which work, and have offered to others to save time.

'Function IllegalChars to guard against SQL injection
Function IllegalChars(sInput)
'Declare variables
Dim sBadChars, iCounter
'Set IllegalChars to False
IllegalChars=False
'Create an array of illegal characters and words
sBadChars=array("select", "drop", ";", "--", "insert", "delete", "xp_", _
"#", "%", "&", "'", "(", ")", "/", "\", ":", ";", "<", ">", "=", "[", "]", "?", "`", "|")
'Loop through array sBadChars using our counter & UBound function
For iCounter = 0 to uBound(sBadChars)
'Use Function Instr to check presence of illegal character in our variable
If Instr(sInput,sBadChars(iCounter))>0 Then
IllegalChars=True
End If
Next
End function

(Author: Aalia Wayfare)

In example 2:

I put this function in place on every public page...

array_split_item = Array("-", ";", "/*", "*/", "@@", "@", "char", "nchar", "varchar", "nvarchar", "alter", "begin", "cast", "create", "cursor", "declare", "delete", "drop", "end", "exec", "execute", "fetch", "insert", "kill", "open", "select", "sys", "sysobjects", "syscolumns", "table", "update", "<script", "/script>", "'")

for each item in Request.QueryString
   for array_counter = lbound(array_split_item) to ubound(array_split_item)
      item_postion1 = InStr(lcase(Request(item)),array_split_item(array_counter))
         if item_postion1 > 0  then
           Response.Write("Command cannot be executed.")
           Response.End()
         end if
    next
next

(Authors: Nick Jensen & Steve Kluskens)

Problem

You know, if you make just one change and don't transfer it on the other instanses it can cause big errors and stop your scripts from working. But (as in our case) opening 50 control panels and going to the MySQL administration and running manually these ALTER TABLE or CREATE TABLE statements was a cumbersome task, taking all of our time.

Solution

All the instances of our app were running on one physical server, not always the possible. But you can implement similar solution even if your ap is running on different servers - you just need to allow connection to the master host - the one which will run the Synhronizer - the script i will describe below. Our Synchronizer is actually a simple PHP script which is started manually and have one only purpose - to synchronize all 50 databases with one "master" database. In our case we needed that script to synchronize only the DB structure, but not the content. But if you understand the simple logic of the script, you can easy extend it to copy/synchronize your content if this is you case.

Implementation

First, you need to select all the tables and their fields from the master database:

//select tables from the master
$q="SHOW TABLES FROM master_database";
$tabs=$DB->aq($q); //$DB is a database fetching object, you can use the
built PHP functions to select from mysql if you prefer

$tables=array();

foreach($tabs as $tab)
{
       //select fields
       $q="SHOW FIELDS FROM $tab[0]";
       $fields=$DB->aq($q);

       array_push($tables,array("name"=>$tab[0],"fields"=>$fields));
}

You see how our script fills an array $tables with all the table names and itself containing another array - with the table fields.

Secondly, you need a list with the databases or domains where the instances of the synchronized application are running. Once having that list, you can browse thru it with "foreach" or another cycle.

Now we are going to select all the tables in the database on each target domain. (Of course you need to connect to its database, and disconnect from master one! We already did our job in selecting the tables from the master database :)

In the same way as above, you need to select the tables from the target domain.

Then below, just compare the tables:

foreach($tables as $table) //browse thru master tables
{
       $found=false;

       foreach($dtables as $dtable)
       {
          if($dtable[name]==$table[name]) $found=$dtable;
       }

       if(is_array($found))
       {
          //table exists, check fields
          foreach($table[fields] as $field)
          {
             $ffound=false;
             foreach($found[fields] as $dfield)
             {
                if($field[Field]==$dfield[Field]) $ffound=true;
             }

             if(!$ffound)
             {
                //alter table add field
                if($field[Key]=='PRI') $primary=" PRIMARY KEY ";
                else $primary='';

                     $q="ALTER TABLE `$table[name]` ADD `$field[Field]` $field[Type] NOT NULL
                     $field[Extra] $primary";
                     $DB->q($q);
          }
          }
          else
          {
             //table does not exists, create
             $q="CREATE TABLE `$table[name]`(";

             foreach($table[fields] as $cnt=>$field)
             {
                if($field[Key]=='PRI') $primary=" PRIMARY KEY ";
                else $primary='';

                $q.="`$field[Field]` $field[Type] NOT NULL $field[Extra] $primary ";
                if($cnt<(sizeof($table[fields])-1)) $q.=", ";
             }

             $q.=")";
             $DB->q($q);
             }
       }
}

And that's all! You may need to work a little on this code, but the logic is here provided for your needs. Feel free to use the ideas for your own applications.

The Author:
Bobby Handzhiev senior developer in PIM Team Bulgaria

The IE team has been very hard at work on IE 8 for the past several months and they hit a huge milestone last Friday evening. The IE dev team checked in a bunch of code that included several new features implemented in the core rendering engine that enable IE to pass the ACID 2 test! This is great news for web developers: IE 8 is going to be our most standards compliant browser to date. Passing ACID 2 is really a combined side effect of all the new features that have been developed for IE 8.

In this interview, I sit down with IE GM Dean Hachamovitch and Architect Chris Wilson to discuss this milestone and dig into compliance in general, lessons learned from IE 7 and discuss the IE team's ultimate goal of de facto interoperability. Of course, no Channel 9 interview is complete without meeting some of the devs who actually write technology so we take a walk from Dean's office to super developer Alex Mogilevsky's office to discuss what's been done to provide IE with the core rendering features that enable IE 8 to pass the ACID 2 test. We also chat with CSS guru Markus Mielke who was instrumental in identifying and planning the feature set required to pass ACID 2. Learn More at channel9

Some developers write SQL amazingly fast. Do you want to know their secret? It's SQL Prompt. This is a must-have tool for all T-SQL developers.

SQL Prompt automates the retrieval of database object names, syntax and snippets as you write, intelligently offering only appropriate code choices. In addition to displaying the object creation-SQL script, SQL Prompt is highly customizable so you can make it perform exactly the way you want.

Using SQL Prompt will improve your productivity and dramatically reduce your time at the keyboard. See the animation below displaying a typical scripting event and how much effort and time SQL Prompt can save you.  Download and Learn More!

Using 'Normal' or active mode FTP, a client begins a session by sending a request to communicate through TCP port 21, the port that is conventionally assigned for this use at the FTP server. This communication is known as the Control Channel connection.

Using "normal" FTP communication, the client requestor also includes in the same PORT command packet on the Control Channel a second port number that is to be used when data is to be exchanged; the port-to-port exchange for data is known as the Data Channel. The FTP server then initiates the exchange from its own port 20 to whatever port was designated by the client. However, because the server-initiated communication is no longer controlled by the client and can't be correlated by a firewall to the initial request, the potential exists for uninvited data to arrive from anywhere posing as a normal FTP transfer.

Using passive FTP, a PASV command is sent instead of a PORT command. Instead of specifying a port that the server can send to, the PASV command asks the server to specify a port it wishes to use for the Data Channel connection. The server replies on the Control Channel with the port number which the client then uses to initiate an exchange on the Data Channel. The server will thus always be responding to client-initiated requests on the Data Channel and the firewall can coorelate these.

Defined:

Active FTP :
     command : client >1023 -> server 21
     data    : client >1023 <- server 20

Passive FTP :
     command : client >1023 -> server 21
     data    : client >1023 -> server >1023

We received many questions about SQL 2005 Express though number 1 is always DTSwizard is gone! Well no not really it is harder to understand than in SQL 2000 as the gui is simply not as straight forward.

If you look at your files this path C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS should be present.

If you do not have this path you may need SQLServer2005_DTS.msi If you try this as I did it appeared to do nothing at all. I checked to make sure that I had IIS running on the desktop and installed that. Still no luck, so some searching offered another link which did the trick. SQLEXPR_TOOLKIT.EXE After you install this then run the DTS.MSI again. Just go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\DTSWizard.exe

You should then see a very friendly wizard that really is not that different from SQL 2000.

Place the following code into the header of any php document and it will redirect the page access to the correct site name. while preserving the script name and the query arguments.

// If the server name is not www.sitename.com we can do the redirect to www.sitename.com. 
// The only time we can is if the method is a GET
// (no way to pass along the POST arguments) and its on port 80 (don't want to redirect the SSL).
if ( strcmp( strtolower( $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] ) , "www.sitename.com" ) != 0 &&
	strcmp( strtolower( $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] ) , "get" ) == 0 &&
	$_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'] == 80 )
{
	header("Location: http://www.sitename.com" . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] );
	header("HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently");
	exit ;
}

Place the following code into the header of any asp document and it will redirect the page access to the correct site name while preserving the script name and the query arguments.

<%
  ' If the server name is not www.sitename.com we can do the redirect to www.sitename.com. 
  ' The only time we can is if the method is a GET
  ' (no way to pass along the POST arguments) and its on port 80 (don't want to redirect the SSL).
if ( strcomp( lcase( Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME") ) , "www.sitename.com", 1 ) <> 0 _
    AND Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_PORT") = 80 _
    AND strcomp( lcase( Request.ServerVariables("REQUEST_METHOD") ) , "get" , 1 ) = 0 _
) then
    URL = "http://www.sitename.com" & Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME")
    if len ( request.servervariables("QUERY_STRING" ) ) > 0 then
        URL = URL + "?" + request.servervariables("QUERY_STRING" )
    end if
    Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
    Response.AddHeader "Location", URL
    Response.End
end if
%>

The Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar provides several features for exploring and understanding Web pages. These features enable you to:

The Developer Toolbar can be pinned to the Internet Explorer browser window or floated separately. Get it here!

Consider the following scenario. You install Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 (SP2). You create an ASP Web application that uses the Session_OnEnd() event. You host the ASP Web application in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0. You run an ASP Web application that uses the Session_OnEnd() event. In this scenario, the Session_OnEnd() event is not raised in ASP Web applications as expected. Therefore, you may experience slow computer performance or memory leaks.

HotFix Here

Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 (formerly known as, Microsoft® Visual Studio® code name “Orcas”) delivers on Microsoft’s vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality rich user experiences. With Visual Studio 2008, organizations will find it easier than ever before to capture and analyze information so that they can make effective business decisions. Visual Studio 2008 enables any size organization to rapidly create more secure, manageable & reliable applications that take advantage of Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system.

"It is Microsoft's desire to ship Visual Studio 2008 by the end of this calendar year (although, as always, customer feedback ultimately determines when a product is ready to ship)," the representative said in an e-mail. "The February launch event is more of an opportunity to show customers, partners, and the community the wave of innovation Microsoft is delivering with all three products represented (i.e. Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008)." 

When making a website today, there are many of pieces that need to work together. You need to create the WebForm in HTML, the codebehind in C# or VB, the stylesheets in CSS, the scripts in Javascript and the animations in Flash / ActionScript. Just making the form look just right by switching back and forth between the code editor and browser, determining which shows up in Internet Explorer but not Firefox. Internet Explorer handles bugs in Javascript by saying "Object expected" on the wrong line in the wrong file. Even the codebehind is messy because it's very difficult to separate the view from the application logic.

Silverlight will make the web application look better, and will be easier to create. WPF applications are the next evolution in user interfaces; Expression Blend is a powerful way to create beautiful applications. You don't have to worry about time-consuming cross-browser CSS issues because the Silverlight plugin will ensure that things are consistent across browsers and operating systems. This makes it easy to separate the code affecting the view into the XAML file and the application logic on the server. Consider Silverlight's ability to stream audio and video and you can get an idea of what's possible. While it is still in beta some people are already showing us how powerful Silverlight really is.

"LearnMore" "Getting Started"

We have had several requests for a simple contact form sample that one can place on their website. The requirment was to have different departments in a drop down. The second requirment was to use .Net 2.0 and the most important was to be able to use something simple like Expression Web to edit and deploy it. 

A text editor will work as their are only a couple of fields to edit. Add and edit the mail destinations, and department names, in the default.aspx. Name the mail server in the web.config that is all there is to it.

Smart Code is an Open Source template-driven code generator that lets software developers automatically produce programs and components that interact with database systems. Smar Code' templates are programs that access the Smar Code Object Model to produce tailored programs and components. Templates may be written in C# or VB.NET (or theoretically in any language that supports the creation of dynamic-link libraries). This is a very powerful paradigm.

Smart Code is the right tool for you if:

• You want to automatically generate n-tier .NET web applications, all the way from the user interface to the SQL Server stored procedures.
• You have designed the user interface for your (windows or web) application, automatically generate the code to access and update the database.
• You have developed the business tier for your application and want to automatically generate the data access layers based on the database schema.
• You want to automatically generate stored procedures for creating, deleting, updating, and searching for records in the database.
• You want to quickly build fully-functional prototypes of web-based applications that interact with database systems.
• You want to standardize the architecture of the applications that are developed in your organization.
• You want to learn by example how to architect enterprise-level web applications.
• You want to develop templates of the code you write so that in the future you can generate code automatically.
• You want to deliver applications with consistent quality.
• You are tired of writing the same repetitive code over and over again.
• You want an powerful and Open Source tool.

This is a great Expression web 2 part tutorial on creating an ASP.NET contact form that sends e-mail.

In the first part of this tutorial, you'll learn how to create the user-interface portion of the form and add ASP.NET validation so that the fields are required and valid.

The second part of the tutorial covers the server-side C# code that sends the e-mail. Downloadable examples in both VB and C# also area available.

See the tutorials here.

This is a very basic contact form which can be used for any kind of website. Web form contains name, email, subject and message inputs. Change only mail server and default email within the script.   Code: ASP.NET v2.0 & VB

<%@ Page Language="VB" Debug="true" %>
<% @Import Namespace="System.Web.Mail" %>
<script language="vb" runat="server">

Sub Send2Mail (sender as Object, e as EventArgs)

Dim objMail as New MailMessage()

  objMail.To = "Whoever@DomainName.com"
  objMail.From = strEmail.Text

  objMail.BodyFormat = MailFormat.Text
  objMail.Priority = MailPriority.Normal
  objMail.Subject = strSubject.Text

  objMail.Body = "Name : " + strName.Text + vbNewLine + "Email : " + strEmail.text + vbnewLine + "Message : " + strYourMsg.text
  
  SmtpMail.SmtpServer = "mail.Domainname.com"
  SmtpMail.Send(objMail)

  strMessage.Visible = true

End Sub

</script>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>How to send email</title>
</head>
<body>

  <asp:panel id="strMessage" runat="server" Visible="False">
      Thanks for your kind message ...  </asp:panel>

    <form runat="server">
      <b>First Name:</b> <br/>
      <asp:textbox id="strName" runat="server" />
      <br><br>

      <b>Email Address:</b><br/>
      <asp:textbox id="strEmail" runat="server" />
       <br><br>

      <b>Subject:</b><br/>
      <asp:textbox id="strSubject" runat="server" />
       <br><br>

       <b>Your Message</b><br/>
      <asp:textbox id="strYourMsg" runat="server" Columns="45" Rows="10" TextMode="MultiLine" />
        <br />
      <asp:button runat="server" id="func" Text="Send Message"
                  OnClick="Send2Mail" />
    </form>
</body>
</html>

This is a simple application to deter spammers. ASP.NET Version Features: Put an end to those exposed mailto links to robots. C#/Access2003 driven. Easy set-up, the database holds the true email addresses. It is next to impossible for a bot to expose these links.

Authors Website  safermail-ASPNET.zip (17.2 KB)

All web applications make extensive use of the HTTP protocol (or HTTPS for secure sites). Even simple web pages require the use of multiple HTTP requests to download HTML, graphics and javascript. The ability to view the HTTP interaction between the browser and web site is crucial to these areas of web development:

• Trouble shooting
• Performance tuning
• Verifying that a site is secure and does not expose sensitive information

Seven reasons to use HttpWatch rather than other HTTP monitoring tools:

1. Easy to Use - start logging after just a couple of mouse clicks in Internet Explorer. No other proxies, debuggers or network sniffers have to be configured
2. Productive - quickly see cookies, headers, POST data and query strings without having to manually decode raw HTTP packets
3. Robust - reliably log thousands of HTTP transactions for hours or days while tracking down intermittent problems
4. Accurate - HttpWatch has minimal impact on the normal interaction of Internet Explorer with a web site. No extra network hops are added, allowing you to measure real world HTTP performance
5. Flexible - HttpWatch only requires client-side installation and will work with any server side technology that renders HTTP pages in Internet Explorer. No special server-side permissions or configurations are required - ideal for use against production servers on the Internet or Intranet
6. Comprehensive - works with HTTP compression, redirection, SSL encryption & NTLM authentication. A complete automation interface provides access to recorded data and allows HttpWatch to be controlled from most popular programming languages.
7. Professional Support -  updates and bug fixes are provided free of charge on our website and technical support is available by email, phone or fax.

Download it here

This is a very simple method to redirect a single IIS entry to multiple FQDN's. You can add as many as you wish just repeat Elseif code. Place this as the default document and you are set.

<%
Dim srvrname
srvrname= lcase(Request.servervariables("SERVER_NAME"))
if srvrname="www.domainname.com" or srvrname="domainname.com" then
 Response.Redirect "default.htm"%>
<%Elseif srvrname="www.domain2.com" or srvrname="domain2.com" then
  Response.Redirect "/domain2/default.asp"%>
<%end if%>

IIS Redirect
In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
Enter the redirection page
Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
Click on 'Apply'

ColdFusion Redirect
<.cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently">
<.cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com">

PHP Redirect
<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>

ASP Redirect
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com/");
%>

ASP .NET Redirect
<script runat="server">
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com");
}
</script>

JSP (Java) Redirect
<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.new-url.com/" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>

CGI PERL Redirect
$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect("http://www.new-url.com/");

Ruby on Rails Redirect
def old_action
headers["Status"] = "301 Moved Permanently"
redirect_to "http://www.new-url.com/"
end

Google Inc. and MySQL AB are close to finalizing a deal that could find the open-source database vendor incorporating powerful features created by the search giant into future versions of the popular database.

On Monday, Google publicly released the source code for several custom features it had built in-house to enhance the performance and reliability of its search engine. The add-ons were released via the General Public License (GPL).

Google’s announcement, done without MySQL and on the eve of MySQL’s annual worldwide conference in Santa Clara, Calif., appeared to be a subtle attempt to put pressure on MySQL to add the features to the official version of the software, something the company has until recently been loath to do.

Since then, sources say Google has signed a Contributor License Agreement (CLA), a key legal document required by MySQL to accept source code from outside companies or developers and port it to its popular database, reportedly used in 11 million servers worldwide.

Google is widely believed to be the largest MySQL user in the world, with hundreds or even thousands of MySQL servers running in data centers around the world.

What remains to be worked out are the exact features that Google will transfer to MySQL and the compensation MySQL will offer in return, which could range from symbolic gifts such as T-shirts to monies up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, said Steve Curry, a MySQL spokesman. Curry declined to confirm the status of the deal.

Read More

Vertical Computer Systems Inc. is suing Microsoft Corp. for patent infringement related to Microsoft's .Net framework for building Windows-based software.

Vertical filed suit April 18 in a U.S. District Court in Texas alleging that Microsoft has infringed on its Patent No. 6,826,744, for a "system and method for generating web sites in an arbitrary object framework."

The patent is for Vertical's SiteFlash technology, which utilizes XML (Extensible Markup Language) to create a component-based structure to build and efficiently operate Web sites, according to the company's Web site. A Vertical spokesman could not be reached for comment.

The complaint says Microsoft is still infringing on the patent despite Vertical having put Microsoft on notice about it on Feb. 7. Vertical is asking for a jury trial.

Vertical, based in Fort Worth, Texas, describes itself as a global Web services provider. It went public in 2000 but is not listed on a major stock exchange.

The Database Publishing Wizard enables the deployment of SQL Server 2005 databases (both schema and data) into a shared hosting environment on either a SQL Server 2000 or 2005 server.

The tool supports two modes of deployment:

1. It generates a single SQL script file which can be used to recreate a database when the only connectivity to a server is through a web-based control panel with a script execution window.
2. It connects to a web service provided by your hoster and directly creates objects on a specified hosted database

The Database Publishing Wizard provide both a graphical and a command-line interface. In addition, it can integrate directly into Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Web Developer 2005.   "Get it here"

Coghead empowers tech-savvy business people to develop applications for common business problems. By combining the benefits of zero infrastructure, drag and drop tools, powerful development features and more, Coghead is changing the app development game, in your favor.

Now you can develop custom apps quickly, and share them with your co-workers in real time. The revolutionary Coghead application delivery service provides an intuitive drag and drop development environment so you can build, and maintain, your custom applications yourself... no coding required!

Win32++ provides a framework for developing applications, using the Win32 API directly. It supports all MS operating systems which run the Win32 API, from Windows 95 through to Windows XP and Vista. This framework is designed to produce programs with a similar look and feel to those created using MFC. It can develop applications based on simple windows, dialogs, frames and MDI frames. The frames produced by Win32++ have the following features:

• Rebar Control (to contain the Menubar and Toolbar)
• Menubar
• Toolbar
• Status bar
• Tool tips

Win32++ also brings an object oriented approach to programming directly with the Win32 API. Each window created is a C++ class object capable of having its own window procedure for routing messages.

Hopefully, beginners will find this framework simpler and easier to use than MFC. There are no confusing macros in the message maps for example, just straightforward C++. Most importantly, for beginners perhaps, this framework runs on free compilers readily available for download from the internet. You don't need to buy a compiler to use it.

Even if I logon as Administrator and try to backup any of my databases to local partitions, I get this error below.

Cannot open backup device 'F:\foldername'. Operating system error 5(Access is denied.).

It doesn't matter who *you* are logged in as, it is the service account for SQL Server service that
matters. Learn More

Why do I always have problems with IIS 6.0 and upload sizes?

There is one tweak that must happen for the upload large files to work properly in IIS6. By default it won't allow a POST larger than 200KB
(Not sure of the Reasoning).

To fix it:

- Open IIS Manager
- Right-click on the server name at the top of the tree and choose "Properties"
- Check the first box for "Enable Direct Metabase Edit" and click the "OK" button
- Open C:\Windows\System32\Inetsrv\metabase.xml with Notepad (NOT Wordpad)
- Find AspMaxRequestEntityAllowed and change it to 1073741824

Microsoft® Expression® Web Free Trial

We recommend the trial version of Expression Web, everyone should become comfortable with the product before laying down your $269.00. The trial is a fully functioning version of the product that will expire 60 days from installation.

Expression Web is a professional design tool that helps you create and work with:

• Standards-based Web sites
• Sophisticated CSS-based layouts
• Extensive CSS formatting and management
• Rich data presentation
• Powerful ASP.NET 2.0-based technology

A few learning videos:

Connection string for web.config. Attaching your uploaded database to a 2005 SQLExpress server without administrator needing to help. Make sure to insert the name of your database in the areas marked in bold.

<connectionStrings>
    <add name="DBNAMEConnStr" connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLExpress;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=True;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|DBNAME.mdf"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>
        </connectionStrings>

I have been asked to provide some MIME for 2003 servers so we thought it was best to provide a fairly complete list.
The following MIME extensions can be added to IIS on Windows 2003

MIME Maps Extension Type

Internet search rivals Google, Yahoo and Microsoft formed an unusual alliance to support a shared standard regarding how websites are pinpointed for their indexes.

The "joint initiative" was intended to make it easier for webmasters, or website creators, to let Internet search engines know what their online pages contained, according to Google was.

Search engines could use the information gathered in the "web crawl" process to better tailor results for their users.

Yahoo and Microsoft announced they would each support Google's "Sitemaps 0.90" protocol instead of using different standards for submissions by webmasters. Sitemaps help webmasters surface content that is typically difficult for crawlers to discover, leading to a more comprehensive search experience for users."

"The launch of Sitemaps is significant because it allows for a single, easy way for websites to provide content and metadata to search engines," said Yahoo Search director of product management Tim Mayer.

A Sitemap is a website file that acts as a marker for search engines to "crawl" certain pages. It allows webmasters to list their online addresses, called "URLs," along with data such as the last time the page was updated. The Sitemaps protocol used by Google has been widely adopted by many Web properties, including sites from the Wikimedia Foundation.

I have been looking all around for different slide show apps. Primarily I have been focusing on Flash specifically Flash 8 but then we all chase the trends. I prefer things in .net and AJAX. So I did a bit of looking around and found this source. The writer has a decent demo of the project, also the source is free. Go here for the source.

Koders.com is the leading search engine for open source code. Our source code optimized search engine provides developers with an easy-to-use interface to search for source code examples and discover new open source projects which can be leveraged in their applications.

Koders Enterprise Edition enables organizations to recognize significant productivity gains by improving code reuse. Developers and managers can search, review and report on the enterprise code base in ways never before possible.

PHP:Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) is a scripting language that is suited for developing Web applications. A PHP script can be embedded in an HTML page and run as a .php script or as a Windows Script Host script (.wsf file). PHP 5.1.6 is the latest version of PHP and includes extensions for various databases including the SQL Server database. The SQL Server database extension in PHP 5 is installed by default when PHP is installed. With the SQL Server database extension, a connection can be established with the SQL Server 2005 database and SQL statements run on the database. The PHP extension supports databases created in different versions of SQL Server. This paper covers configuring the PHP extension with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition databases only. (18 printed pages) Details Here

Click here to download the Word document version of the article, AccessSQLwPHP.doc.

Oct 3, 2006 Google launched a new search engine geared towards the needs of programmers.

"Searchers can seek out specific programming terms or computer languages and dive deep into compressed code to locate specific features. Users also can narrow a search to find software code based on specific licensing requirements, which is a big deal in warding off future patent litigation." (Reuters)

A very useful tool for geeks. "Code search here" Though as with anything there is clearly a downside.

Several software programmers say Google Code Search appears to answer some of the basic nightmares of building software by creating a single place where one can trawl through all the publicly available computer code in the world. Though the downside is that it might be viewed by some as a hackers paradise as the focus is moving off server attacts and toward applications both desktop and web. Below is a couple quotes from the discussions link.

While AJAX is the current rage for building interactive browser-based client applications, the action on the server side has focused on Web services. In fact, Web services have become the de-facto standard for exposing business functions at the server level. Given these conditions, a central development question becomes: How do you enable your AJAX-based applications to communicate with Web services? This article explores how you can use Microsoft Atlas (recently renamed to ASP.NET AJAX) to achieve just that.

To follow along, you'll need Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft Atlas downloaded and installed. If you don't have Visual Studio 2005 installed, you can download a free Visual Studio Express version. This article explains how to interact with Web services through Atlas using an application I've called "ZipCodeRUs." The ZipCodeRUs application retrieves detailed ZIP code information such as the names of cities, counties, and their latitude, longitude, area code, etc. for up to three ZIP codes entered by the user. It relies on a free and publicly available Web service at tilisoft.com to retrieve the information. Full Article Here

Microsoft Visual Studio Code Name “Orcas” Community Technology Preview – Development Tools for .NET Framework 3.0.

Details.Net 3.0

Dino Esposito; summarizes the most common types of Web attacks and describes how Web developers can use built-in features of ASP.NET to increase security. (13 printed pages) While this article is dated now the information in it is very useful to anyone developing any .Net application.

If you're reading this article, you probably don't need to be lectured about the growing importance of security in Web applications. You're likely looking for some practical advice on how to implement security in ASP.NET applications. The bad news is that no development platform—including ASP.NET—can guarantee you'll be writing 100-percent secure code once you adopt it—who tells that, just lies. The good news, as far as ASP.NET is concerned, is that ASP.NET, especially version 1.1 and the coming version 2.0, integrates a number of built-in defensive barriers, ready to use.

Read Article Here

Microsoft has announced official names for its technology set for enabling AJAX development, previously known as Atlas, and has released a road map for delivery of the technology.

Microsoft had been calling all its AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)-enabling technology by the code name ASP.Net Atlas. However, from now on the technologies will have separate names that better describe the functionality they provide, the company said.

The server-side Atlas functionality, which tightly integrates with ASP.Net, is now called ASP.Net 2.0 AJAX Extensions, Microsoft said, while the client-side Atlas functionality, which integrates with ASP.Net 2.0 AJAX Extensions or other back-end platforms like PHP or ColdFusion, is now called the Microsoft AJAX Library, the company said.

Microsoft is also rebranding the Atlas Control Toolkit, which will be known as ASP.Net AJAX Control Toolkit, Microsoft officials said.

In a blog post, Scott Guthrie, a general manager in the Microsoft Developer Division, said that although the plan has been to ship Atlas with the next version of Visual Studio, code-named Orcas, which is expected to be available in 2007, Microsoft will deliver a production-ready version of ASP.Net 2.0 AJAX Extensions and the Microsoft AJAX Library by the end of 2006. This will enable our enterprise customers to take their Atlas applications into production with fully supported APIs.

Instalinux.com is a handy Web site from which users can create customized installation images for a handful of different Linux distributions. The site's service, SystemDesigner, is free, and administrators should find it particularly helpful when provisioning multiple machines—either physical or virtualized.

The Instalinux site was put together by former Hewlett-Packard employee Chris Slater, and SystemDesigner is based on HP's open-source Linux Common Operating Environment project.

We appreciated the option of having all available updates applied at install time. We also could choose to either set up our disk partition layout in advance or to take care of it interactively once we'd booted into our system's installer.

At Instalinux.com, users can create installation disks for CentOS' CentOS 4.3, Debian 3.1 and 3.2, and Red Hat's Fedora Core versions 3 through 5. The site also supports Novell SUSE 9.3 and 10, but not yet SUSE 10.1, as well as Canonical's Ubuntu and Kubuntu. The site does not support the latest Dapper Drake versions of Ubuntu or Kubuntu, however.

We could create installers for the x86 versions of each of the supported distributions; for the newer Fedora and Debian releases, we also could opt for x86-64 versions.

Instalinux.com's SystemDesigner acts as a front end to the automated install systems of the Debian, Red Hat and Novell SUSE distros, and it was interesting to compare the differing levels of customization that each automated installer offered.

I was able to fix many CDO exception related problems like "Could not access 'CDO.Message' object" in addition to others by using the following
work around. 
smtpMailObject>.smtpserver.insert(0,"server name") 
 instead of
smtpMailObject>.smtpserver = "server name"

I found this in a number of places still on the web and want to state that is not a good idea at all. It is a myth, and completely misleading. The only thing worse than no answer, is the wrong answer that wastes alot of time.

For a more indepth article on the topic "view this one". He is telling you the correct way. 

[Visual Basic] ' This example assigns the name of the mail relay server on the ' local network to the SmtpServer property.
SmtpMail.SmtpServer = "RelayServer.Contoso.com";

[C#] //This example assigns the name of the mail relay server on the //local network to the SmtpServer property.
SmtpMail.SmtpServer = "RelayServer.Contoso.com";

[C++] //This example assigns the name of the mail relay server on the //local network to the SmtpServer property.
SmtpMail::SmtpServer = S"RelayServer.Contoso.com";

Windows® Presentation Foundation (formerly code named "Avalon") is Microsoft's® unified presentation subsystem for Windows and is exposed through WinFX®, Windows Vista's™ managed-code programming model that extends the Microsoft .NET Framework. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) consists of a display engine that takes full advantage of modern graphics hardware and an extensible set of managed classes that development teams can use to create rich, visually stunning applications. WPF also introduces Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), which enables developers and designers to use an XML-based model to declaratively specify the desired user interface (UI) behavior.

Learn More Here

I ran across this SP to do this very easy and thought I would post it.

Exec sp_change_users_login 'Auto_Fix', 'Corrupt_Username'

Simply stated, a ClickOnce application is any Windows Forms or console application published using ClickOnce technology. You can publish a ClickOnce application in three different ways: from a Web page, from a network file share, or from media such as a CD-ROM. A ClickOnce application can be installed on an end user's computer and run locally even when the computer is offline, or it can be run in an online-only mode without permanently installing anything on the end user's computer. For more information, see Choosing a ClickOnce Deployment Strategy.

ClickOnce applications can be self-updating; they can check for newer versions as they become available and automatically replace any updated files. The developer can specify the update behavior; a network administrator can also control update strategies, for example, marking an update as mandatory. Updates can also be rolled back to a previous version by the end user or by an administrator. For more information, see Choosing a ClickOnce Update Strategy.  For more information on ClickOnce

Because ClickOnce applications are inherently isolated, installing or running a ClickOnce application cannot break existing applications. ClickOnce applications are completely self-contained; each ClickOnce application is installed to and run from a secure per-user, per-application cache. By default, ClickOnce applications run in the Internet or intranet security zones. If necessary, the application can request elevated security permissions. For more information, see ClickOnce Deployment and Security.    "Full Article here"

We want offer a special thanks to Tom Childers AKA Otis Mukinfus for the little address book clickonce application he has presented to everyone as a demo. You can install the application and see how easy this type of deployment can be.  http://www.arltex.com/AddressBook/publish.htm Note: This install does not appear to work with firefox, sorry use IE.

He also offers some other code samples as well. http://www.arltex.com/ and at. http://otismukinfus.com/vault/vault.htm

The Phalanger is a complex solution giving web-application developers the ability to benefit from both the ease-of-use and effectiveness of the PHP language and the power and richness of the .NET platform. This solution enables developers to painlessly deploy and run existing PHP code on an ASP.NET web server and develop cross-platform extensions to such code taking profit from the best from both sides. Compatible with PHP 5.0, the object model in Phalanger enables to combine PHP objects with the .NET ones. It is possible to use a class written in PHP from a .NET application or even to import a .NET class (written for example in C# or Visual Basic .NET) into PHP scripts provided that this class respects the PHP object model implemented in the Phalanger. The Phalanger is the only existing PHP compiler which produces .NET Framework MSIL bytecode.

From another point of view, Phalanger provides the .NET programmers with the giant amount of practical PHP functions and data structures - many of them reimplemented in the managed environment of the .NET Framework. The whole Phalanger class library (including functions implemented in the PHP extensions) is accessible to a .NET programmer regardless to her favorite programming language together with type information and in-library debugging.  Learn More Here   "Migrating MS Article"

Adobe Systems has made what the company hopes is a game-changing move by bringing its Flex core software development kit to developers free of charge.  Adobe announced the availability of the Adobe Flex 2 product line and Adobe Flash Player 9. But it is the company's new tiered licensing model aimed at bringing the power of Flex development to the masses that has the company excited, said Jeff Whatcott, senior director of product marketing for Adobe's Enterprise and Developer Business Unit.

"Our strategy is to get us into the enterprise and get a million developers using Flex in three to five years," Whatcott said. With a tool set based on the Eclipse open-source development environment, a data services offering and the newly free Adobe Flex 2 SDK, Adobe is preparing developers for the next generation of the Web and rich Internet applications.

The Flex 2 SDK is the core SDK—a command-line compiler—for Flex, and is the heart of the Flex product line. This technology used to be available for $15,000 but is now free. This represents a tremendous changing of the game and is our approach to getting a lot of developers in the platform.

With Flex 2, we have improved the richness and usability of application interfaces available to our staff, which contributes directly to how productive we can be," said Chris Culhane, software engineer for Sun Life Financial, in Toronto, in a statement. "On the development side, we can develop applications twice as fast compared to developing in other environments. We write less code, the Flex applications integrate seamlessly with backend systems, and the final applications are easier to maintain. "Learn more"

In September 2005, the ASP.NET team released the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the new features in ASP.NET code-named "Atlas." This extension to the Microsoft^® .NET Framework 2.0 enables developers to more easily create rich, interactive Web sites that take advantage of both browser and server features.

The type of rich development that Atlas enables is broadly referred to as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), which is a relatively new acronym for a combination of technologies that have been around for quite some time. Modern browsers include the XMLHttpRequest object that can be used from JavaScript for making calls back to the server. This allows the page to react to user input and perform out-of-band operations without requiring that the whole page be refreshed. This concept is generally simple, but AJAX libraries can greatly alleviate the arduous task of writing client-side JavaScript to communicate with the server and deal with the XML that is returned from a Web service.

The general problem that AJAX attempts to solve is rooted in the HTTP protocol itself. HTTP is the standard used by browsers to communicate with Web servers to retrieve pages and post data back from them. The protocol is stateless, which means that preserving user input between page refreshes is up to code on the server. The typical user experience has been that the entire page gets refreshed to carry the state information back to the server. The user input on the page is then restored in the HTML sent back to the browser.

ASP.NET manages this process for you by carrying a hidden view state form field. Even though only part of the page may actually be getting updated, the entire page’s HTML is transmitted and the screen blanks out momentarily. While this refresh occurs, the user is not able to interact with the page until the new view is received and rendered by the browser. AJAX improves this experience by using the XMLHttpRequest object to make calls back to the server to invoke Web services without refreshing the entire page. The portion of the page being updated is then modified directly in JavaScript based on the XML that is received. The user may not even perceive that a page update is occurring and can continue reading or interacting with the page while the out-of-band work is happening asynchronously in the background. Full Artilce

The Atlas CTP is available as a download from atlas.asp.net.

The source and dll for the project can be downloaded here: CaptchaControl.zip

About

A CAPTCHA image displays text that is readable to humans, but not to computers. The concept is useful because it provides a means to filter out automated programs while allowing real users to pass through. Bots for example, which spam comments on weblogs and other dynamic websites, are a fairly pervasive problem and even a regularly new and low traffic blog like this was getting dozens of spam comments every day. CAPTCHA is a means to stop them while still allowing real users to post.

CaptchaControl is an ASP.NET server control that is designed to start working by just being dropping onto the page, without any modification. This version is based off Michael Trefry’s implementation, which is in turn based off Dan Burke’s. My update fixes a couple of issues around storing the code in a browser cookie and adds features like client validation.  Full Article

The JavaScript Object Notation, or JSON, is a lightweight syntax for representing data. JSON's elegance comes from the fact that it's a subset of the JavaScript language itself.

JSON produces slightly smaller documents, and JSON is certainly easier to use in JavaScript. XMLHttpRequest parses XML documents for you whereas you have to manually parse JSON, but is parsing JSON slower than parsing XML? I tested the XML parser built into XMLHttpRequest against JSON on these address cards and put them through thousands of iterations. Parsing JSON was 10 times faster than parsing XML! When it comes to making AJAX behave like a desktop application, speed is everything, and clearly, JSON is a winner.

Of course, you might not always have control of the server-side that's producing data for your AJAX application. You might be using a third-party server for your data and it's possible that server provides only XML output. And, if it happens to provide JSON, are you sure you really want to use it?

Notice in your example that you passed the response text directly into a call to eval. If you trust and control the server, that's probably okay. If not, a malicious server could have your browsers executing dangerous actions. In that case, you're better off using a JSON parser written in JavaScript. Luckily, one already exists.

Speaking of parsers, Python fans might've noticed that not only is JSON a subset of JavaScript, it's also a subset of Python. You can evaluate JSON directly in Python, or take advantage of a safe JSON parser instead. Parsers for JSON exist in dozens of other languages as well; the JSON.org Web site lists them. Full Article

One of the reasons ASP.NET is successful is that it lowers the bar for Web developers. You don’t need a Ph.D. in computer science to write ASP.NET code. Many of the ASP.NET people I encounter in my work are self-taught developers who wrote Microsoft^® Excel^® spreadsheets before they wrote C# or Visual Basic^®.Now they’re writing Web applications and, in general, they’re doing a commendable job.

But with power comes responsibility, and even veteran ASP.NET developers aren’t immune to mistakes. Years of consulting on ASP.NET projects has shown me that certain mistakes have an uncanny predisposition to keep pitfalls occurring. Some of these mistakes affect performance. Others inhibit scalability. Still others cost development teams precious time tracking down bugs and unexpected behavior.

Here are 10 of the pitfalls that litter the path to releasing your production ASP.NET applications, and what you can do to avoid them. All of the examples draw from my experiences with real companies building real Web applications, and in some cases I provide background by describing some of the problems that the ASP.NET development team encountered along the way. Full Article

Microsoft is continuing to roll out—slowly but surely—new branding that will be part of its overall Windows Vista campaign. On June 9, company officials disclosed the latest name change. Microsoft has decided to avoid any confusion in the naming scheme for its core developer technology and is renaming it in an effort to better reflect the direction the company is pursuing.

Microsoft is making a move to rename WinFX to the .Net Framework 3.0. WinFX is a programming model for Vista and is the follow-on to Microsoft's Win32 technology.

.Net Framework 3.0 consists of the .Net Framework 2.0, WCF (Windows Communication Foundation), WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), WF (Windows Workflow), and InfoCard—now known as WCS (Windows CardSpace) as part of the renaming scheme.

S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsoft's developer division, said the move to rename WinFX was taken to avoid any confusion in the naming scheme for Microsoft's core developer technology, but that the renaming will have no impact on the delivery schedule of the .Net Framework, the next major version of Visual Studio known as "Orcas," Vista, or Office 2007.

The gist of the issue is that Microsoft has two successful developer brands in WinFX and .Net, and the company has seen 320,000 downloads of WinFX—and 700 signed GoLive licenses—since the December Community Technology Preview, and more than 35 million downloads of the .Net Framework since the November launch.

.Net has been successful and on its own trajectory, and Microsoft expects WinFX to see the same kind of adoption.

With early adopters the branding strategy has been pretty clear; however, Microsoft officials said they believe that as WinFX gets out of pre-release and goes mainstream, it may confuse developers as to which framework to build on and which tools to use.

Jupiter Web has done it again, the people that bring you great sites like internet.com, DevX.com, Graphics.com, and EarthWeb.com.

Adding two minute tips can help the novice and intermediate web developers. Discover the features and functions of .net 2.0 development environment with 2 minute online learning bits. Of course like anything in the world today including cable, they are not without the bloody commercials. Enough of the boo-hiss sounds, off you go then.  "Two Minute Tips"

AJAX can make the HTML user experience almost as pleasant as Flash. The main advantage of Flash, in spite of its vector animations, is that you never reload the page. Flash Remoting allows you to interface with the server in the background and AJAX does exactly the same for HTML pages.

In my previous article, "What's AJAX?" (CFDJ, Vol. 7, issue 9), I covered the basics of AJAX - everything from setting it up, all the way to having it running in an MVC design with basic functionality. Thus far, we have only sent and received simple objects, which is good way to understand the principle, but far from reality.

CFAJAX allows you to send complex objects, but for some reason it's extremely difficult to receive and interpret them on the ColdFusion side. For this reason I came up with a much simpler and straightforward way: WDDX serialization.  Full Article

I am sure that most of you have heard about or have had a chance to use Google Maps. It's a great service and I was really impressed by the responsiveness of the application and the ease with which users could drag and zoom maps from a Web browser. It has in many ways heralded the arrival of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), which I am sure will revitalize Web development in the days to come.

What makes the service even better is the availability of the Google Maps API (Application Programming Interface) as a free Beta service. The API allows developers to embed Google Maps in their custom applications. It also allows them to overlay information on the map and customize the map to their needs. As I write this article there are quite a few sites that utilize Google Maps, and more and more of them are appearing by the day.

Full Article

If your thinking about hosting your asp.net 2 site on a shared hosting environment there are a few considerations you should know about before you take the plunge. If you have already upgraded you may be wondering why your site that was working fine in version 1.1 but now has problems working in Asp.Net version 2.

Code Access Security

If you receive one of those generic yellow error messages that say something like the following:

Security Exception

Description: The application attempted to perform an operation not allowed by the security policy. To grant this application the required permission please contact your system administrator or change the application's trust level in the configuration file.

Exception Details: System.Security.SecurityException: Request for the permission of type 'System.Net.WebPermission, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' failed.

Full article by John Belthoff  article Using Medium Security MS

PIXOH online image editing

Edit pictures online without software or if you are away from your tools. 

Dojo is the Open Source JavaScript toolkit that helps you build serious applications in less time. It fills in the gaps where JavaScript and browsers don't go quite far enough, and gives you powerful, portable, lightweight, and tested tools for constructing dynamic interfaces. Dojo lets you prototype interactive widgets quickly, animate transitions, and build Ajax requests with the most powerful and easiest to use abstractions available. These capabilities are built on top of a lightweight packaging system, so you never have to figure out which order to request script files in again. Dojo's package system and optional build tools help you develop quickly and optimize transparently.

Dojo also packs an easy to use widget system. From prototype to deployment, Dojo widgets are HTML and CSS all the way. Best of all, since Dojo is portable JavaScript to the core, your widgets can be portable between HTML, SVG, and whatever else comes down the pike. The web is changing, and Dojo can help you stay ahead.

One of the advantages of using a library is that someone else has though about optimisation for you. So for us, the library authors, we need to know which is the fastest way of doing things in our target environments. The best way to get an idea of the speed of things is to benchmark, so introducing a benchmark suite allows us to evaluate the performance of particular ways of doing things.

Dojo makes professional web development better, easier, and faster. In that order. "Get it here"

Providing additional support for agile development on the Microsoft enterprise development tools platform, Conchango has introduced Scrum for Team System. The new tool lets development teams use the Scrum agile development methodology with Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 Team System, or VSTS. Microsoft's recent delivery of the Team Foundation Server component of VSTS enabled London-based Conchango to deliver its solution, which had been in beta.

Scrum for Team System is a free agile software development methodology add-in for VSTS, developed by Conchango, in collaboration with Ken Schwaber and the Microsoft Technology Centre UK. Schwaber co-developed the Scrum process with Jeff Sutherland in the early 1990s and is one of the signers of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, according to the company.

The plug-in, which will be available as a free download from www.scrum-master.com, will provide development teams with deep support for the use of Scrum, a popular Agile Alliance methodology, when using Visual Studio Team System. This will mean that the software lifecycle development product will recognise the best practices that are defined by Scrum, and build them into any work and processes conducted by the development team.

IntelliSense Code Snippets are reusable, task-oriented blocks of code. Visual Studio 2005 includes code snippets covering tasks ranging from creating a custom exception, to sending an e-mail message, to drawing a circle. A set of Visual Basic and Visual C# Code Snippets are included in the Visual Studio 2005 box – additional Code Snippets can be found here.

Adding Blogging to Your Apps with My.Blogs and Visual Basic 2005

My.Blogs is a collection of sample code that shows how to easily provide programmatic access to blogs in your applications. Chris Mayo shows how easy it is to read and publish blog entries within Visual Basic 2005 using My.Blogs. Full source code is provided under "Related Resources".

"Click Here"

Museum of Modern Art: MoMam.org
Pixar: 20 Years of Animation
December 14, 2005–February 6, 2006

Film and Media Gallery, Titus 1 Lobby Gallery, Titus 2 Lobby Gallery, and throughout the first floor.

In the past we have pointed at a couple of free templates or starter kits for dotnet 2.0 developers. A Starter Kit is an enhanced project template distributed to other developers to demonstrate a specific technology or implementation. Starter Kits usually include documentation, sample code, and sample data. When a Starter Kit is opened the project can be run without any additional coding, or more features can be added by the user. Starter Kits are a great way to help others learn a language, class features, or a specific programming implementation or technique using a real world project example.

To create a Starter Kit.

Please be aware that these steps do not resolve any issue with Macromedia Flash, but are a configuration step for Microsoft Windows 2003 and Microsoft IIS Server 6.0. Any difficulties in executing those instructions or any errors that may arise from modifying your system settings should be addressed to Microsoft. For more details, please refer to your IIS documentation.

1. On the Windows 2003 server, open the Internet Information Services Manager.
2. Expand the Local Computer Server.
3. Right-click the local computer server and select Properties.
4. Select the MIME Types tab.
5. Click the New... button and enter the following information:
   • Associated Extension box: .FLV
   • MIME Type box: flv-application/octet-stream
6. Click Ok.
7. Restart the World Wide Web Publishing service.

PowerWEB LiveControls for ASP.NET uses remotely generated script to replace the standard postback with a non-refresh callback. By removing the need for a full browser refresh, new types of techniques and applications are now possible when writing ASP.NET applications. For example: Live Demo

• Build web-applications that look and feel like Windows applications.
• "Stream" data (sports scores, stocks, etc) in real-time.
• Implement DHTML effects, show alert boxes, and play sounds using server-side code.

Technical specs:

• Contains 20+ server controls which can interact with each other in a callback.
• Comprehensive cross-browser support.
• 100% DHTML. No security warnings, ActiveX, Flash, Java, or other plugins required.
• Uses standard ASP.NET control development techniques. No learning curve!
• Unified coding model. No need to write JavaScript. Server code only!

Download SDK

I have heard alot of talk about open source development and how great all this php stuff is. I am sorry but I really do not understand how any serious code writer would prefer a scripting environment over a proper application development environment. Just watch a few of the only line videos. Afterward, understanding what you can get for free here should make you understand that this scripting approach with no ability to protect the code you spend that much time on seems logical.

Visual Web Developer Express 2005    Visual Web Developer 2005 Feature Tour

SQL Server Express 2005 edition    SQL Server Express Online Demo

Starting with Windows 2003 Server, Microsoft security requires that all file types the server is going to host be registered with the server via MIME types. If you have recently migrated from an earlier server to a 2003 platform, you may notice your tours do not work until these MIME types are added to the server's configuration.

The MIME type info is as follows:
file extension=.ips   application/x-ipscript
file extension=.ipx   application/x-ipix

This video series is designed specifically for individuals who are interested in learning the basics of how to create applications using Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition and Visual C# 2005 Express Edition. This includes over 10 hours of video-based instruction that walks from creating your first "Hello World" application to a fully functioning RSS Reader application. Learn how to write your first application today!!

For more information on software development with Visual Basic Express Edition or Visual C# Express Edition, you may be interested in these "Go Here"

Also the Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition Forums are very helpful. Link to the QuickStart.

Scott Hanselman posted a great tutorial for hooking a web cam to Dotnet. I personally found the entire concept a fun weekend adventure.  To read the article "Click Here".

Scott Hanselman is the Chief Architect at the Corillian Corporation, an eFinance enabler. He has twelve years' experience developing software in C, C++, VB, COM, and most recently in VB.NET and C#. 

Many times I get this php question; How do I use a different mail server than is mentioned in the Php.ini to send mail from a web site form?

The simple way is to have something like this included as part of the doc. By placing this at the top of the doc you can define it to your php scripts. A special note though many hosts use a internal relay server as a preferred. This is due to the fact that they force authentication in order to send mail from their mail servers. You may wish to check with your web host to make sure if this does not work. They would typically give you the name of the internal relay server that would handle this outbound mail. This would go into the field "mail.domainname.com".

ini_set('SMTP', "mail.domainname.com");
ini_set('sendmail_from', "noreply@domainname.com");

Microsoft is compelled to offer an Ajax solution, said analyst John Rymer, vice president of application development and infrastructure at Forrester Research Inc.

"It fills a gap within their development environment. They didn't address Ajax at all," Rymer said. "I think a lot of people are overestimating Ajax, how valuable it's going to be. But a lot of people are using it, and Microsoft just had no answer."

He added that Ajax is just scripting. Although flexible and easy, it is difficult to maintain applications written with scripts because of a lack of structure, he said. "It's not a silver bullet."  "Full Article" "More Here"

The Redmond, Wash., software company instituted a new policy for all developers that bans functions using the DES, MD4, MD5 and, in some cases, the SHA1 encryption algorithm, which is becoming "creaky at the edges," said Michael Howard, senior security program manager at the company, Howard said.

MD4 and MD5 are instances of the Message Digest algorithm that was developed at MIT in the early 1990s and uses a cryptographic hash function to verify the integrity of data. "Eweek article"

While Bruce Schneier, and other experts in the field outlined the end of MD5.  It appears that MS is at least listening to some degree. Though one would think they would be on the edge at least they are not ignoring this. Seems that scraping SHA1 is also in their best interest as well.

The next and more serious question is what about all the exsisting use, that is in production. Is the problem so serious that we cannot get beyond it? As I have stated I am certainly no crypto expert. It seems a fair question, and is some cause for concern.

Oracle Corp. announced Tuesday that it is shipping Oracle Database 10g Release 2 on the Windows platform.

The move gives the company's Windows-based customers the ability to tap into enhancements made to the version, specifically in the areas of grid computing, performance, scalability and security.

"This announcement is one in a long line of those we've already made that show our commitment to the Windows platform and its users," said Willie Hardie, Oracle senior director of product management.

Oracle has served customers on Microsoft Corp. platforms since 1985, and in May 2004, the company joined the Microsoft Visual Studio Industry Partner program to offer better integration between Oracle Database and Visual Studio .Net 2003.

Hardie added that the release will allow developers to tap into core functionality that's designed to increase scalability and management at an affordable cost.

Oracle Database 10g Release 2 incorporates new features geared toward Windows developers, such as extensions for .Net, which include stored procedures. The feature allows developers to use the .Net language they prefer, which Oracle believes will reduce the time needed to build and deploy its database applications.

Windows customers will also be able to tap into Release 2's regular features, including automatic storage management, transparent data encryption, real application clusters and support for the W3C XML query standard.

If you are looking for a simple FREE web service to use in your asp code to validate and Email address when someone signs up to your mailing list. Check out the script and article here.

    ' Name: A+ Email Verification
    ' Description:Will call a webservice that will verify an
    ' email address down to server level. 
    ' This service is provided for FREE! No costs involved.
    ' Try it out! By: TinyQuote
    '
    ' Inputs:email address
    ' Returns:A code that tells how good the address is
    '
    ' Assumes:This calls a web service that is free to use 
    ' if you only check 1000 or less addresses
    '
    ' Side Effects:Must have MSXML3.0 installed from MSDN 
    ' on the server you are using ASP on.
    '
    ' This code is copyrighted 

    <HTML>
    <%@LANGUAGE="VBScript"%>
    <%
    Dim email
    Dim status
    Dim emaildata
    if Request.Form.Count > 0 Then
    	' Requires Microsoft XML SDK 3.0 available at msdn.microsoft.com.
    	' fill data
    	email = Request.Form("email")
    	
    	' Call Webservice at CDYNE
    	 Dim oXMLHTTP
    	 
    	 ' Call the web service To Get an XML document
    	 Set oXMLHTTP = server.CreateObject("Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP")
    	 oXMLHTTP.Open "POST", _
    	"http://ws.cdyne.com/emailverify/ev.asmx/VerifyEmail", _
    	False
    	 oXMLHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", _
    	 "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
    	 oXMLHTTP.send "email=" & server.URLEncode(email) 
    	 Response.Write oxmlhttp.status
    	 if oXMLHTTP.Status = 200 Then
    		 Dim oDOM
    		 Set oDOM = oXMLHTTP.responseXML
    		 Dim oNL
    		 Dim oCN
    		 Dim oCC
    		 Set oNL = oDOM.getElementsByTagName("ReturnIndicator")
    		 For Each oCN In oNL
    		 For Each oCC In oCN.childNodes
    		Select Case LCase(oCC.nodeName)
    		 Case "responsetext"
    		emaildata = emaildata & "CodeTxt: " & occ.text & "<BR>"
    		 Case "responsecode"
    		emaildata = emaildata & "Code: " & occ.text & "<BR>"
    		End Select
    		 Next
    		 Next
    		 if status = "" Then status = "OK"
    		 Set oCC = Nothing
    		 Set oCN = Nothing
    		 Set oNL = Nothing
    		 Set oDOM = Nothing
    		 
    		 
    		 
    	 
    	 Else
    	 Status = "Service Unavailable. Try again later"
    	 End if
    	 Set oXMLHTTP = Nothing
    	
    End if
    %>
    <HEAD>
    <BODY><FORM method="POST" action="">
    <P>Email Address Checker<BR>
    <INPUT type="text" name="email" size="40" value="<%=email%>"></P><%=status %>
    <P><INPUT type="submit" value="Check Email" name="B1"></P>
    <P><%=emaildata%></P>
    </FORM></BODY>
    </HTML>

Learn about RSS and how to programmatically create an RSS file for your FrontPage 2003 Web site. The download that accompanies this article contains a VBA project and an XSLT file that you can use to generate and display RSS feeds.

If you have a Web site that contains content that you frequently update, such as articles or stories, you may want an RSS feed to help your customers keep up with your updates. This article explains the XML behind RSS and provides a Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) project that you can use to programmatically generate an RSS feed for your FrontPage Web site.

"Full Article Here"

Bruce Schneier, a security expert, talks about a new set of MD5 collisions generated by two researchers in Bochum. This renders MD5 not safe, i.e. completely useless. A very interesting read indeed.

For those of you who have never heard of MD5 before, a simple explanation is in order. Keep in mind that I am not a cryptography expert, and I am trying to understand these things myself.

The MD4, MD5 and SHA-1 algorithms are secure hash functions. They take a string input, and produce a fixed size number - 128 bits for MD4 and MD5; 160 bits for SHA-1. This number is a hash of the input - a small change in the input results in a substantial change in the output. The uses of secure hashes include digital signatures and challenge hash authentication.

This document is a good introduction to hash. While many people view MD5 not safe. But for a web site it is generally more than enough. "JavaScript Here." There are other hash-functions that are still considered secure, Tiger for instance, and SHA-2.

Microsoft (Quote, Chart) confirmed it's on track to release Visual Studio 2005 in November, backing itself up with the release of a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the development tool on Monday.

Microsoft released the beta 2 version of the software in April, as well as .NET Framework 2.0 beta 2, and the April Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2005.

Now, close to the November ship date, Microsoft must convince its most engaged developers that the product is good enough to ship.

As Visual Studio client development manager Shawn Burke put it on his own blog, the challenge Microsoft's Visual Studio team faces is: "How do I ship quality software that will do the right thing for my users and still close it down and get it out the door with known issues? You could literally keep at it forever if you kept fixing all the bugs."

On the MSDN Product Feedback Blog, product manager Marie Hagman wrote about "bug triage," the process of deciding which bugs to fix and which to ignore.

101 Samples for Visual Studio 2005

101 Samples, in both Visual Basic and C#, featuring many of the new features available with Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0. For more samples using Visual Studio 2003 .NET, see this download.

Download all 101 Samples: C# Version   |   VB Version

These samples have been written and tested with Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2005

MS Page Here

Frustrated with all the tag differences with XHTML and do not want to trace all the differences. This little app costs nothing and will help you quickly find the errors.

Amaya is a Web editor, i.e. a tool used to create and update documents directly on the Web. Browsing features are seamlessly integrated with the editing and remote access features in a uniform environment. This follows the original vision of the Web as a space for collaboration and not just a one-way publishing medium.

Get it here

The CodeHound Visual Studio .NET Add-In is designed to make life easier for developers who use Visual Studio .NET. With this free tool, you can search hundreds of Web sites and millions of newsgroup posts without leaving the VS.NET IDE!
 
Our VS.NET Add-In automatically detects which language you're using, whether it's Visual Basic .NET or C#, and directs you to the appropriate search engine. Simply highlight a word or phrase in your code, right click, and select Search CodeHound. Your default Web browser will launch with your search results instantly!

 Download our new Visual Studio .NET Add-In!

As you convert your ASP.NET 1.x applications to the new ASP.NET 2.0 framework, you may encounter issues related to the changes introduced by the 2.0 framework. In this article, we will look at both the conversion process and some of the common issues you may encounter during a conversion.

What Is ASP.NET 2.0?

ASP.NET 2.0 is a major update of the ASP.NET 1.x framework. Not only does ASP.NET 2.0 introduce many new features, it also fundamentally changes the way that an ASP.NET application is designed, compiled, and deployed. Although your ASP.NET 1.1 applications will run on ASP.NET 2.0 without recompiling, you will find that upgrading to use the new ASP.NET 2.0 features both simplifies your development and gives you more options for compiling and deploying your code. If you aren't familiar with ASP.NET 2.0, or the benefits of upgrading, please read Migrating from ASP.NET 1.x to ASP.NET 2.0.

With specific regard to upgrading an application, you will need to be aware of operational issues that affect how an application is compiled and deployed. You will also need to be aware of how new coding features affect your conversion and also give you opportunities to improve your application.

Rick Samona shows enhancements to Visual Studio 2005 that help make applications more secure. Learn fundamental design principles for building secure apps. See how FxCop and Code Access Security help create more secure managed code apps, while PREfast and the /GS switch help secure native code apps.

  See Video presentation.

The Web services technology enables cross-platform integration by using HTTP, XML and SOAP for communication thereby enabling true business-to-business application integrations across firewalls. Because Web services rely on industry standards to expose application functionality on the Internet, they are independent of programming language, platform and device.

Remoting is .a technology that allows programs and software components to interact across application domains, processes, and machine boundaries. This enables your applications to take advantage of remote resources in a networked environment.

Both Web services and remoting support developing distributed applications and application integration, but you need to consider how they differ before choosing one implementation over the other. In this article, I will show the differences between these two technologies. I will present samples for each type of implementation and identify when to use which technology.

Full Article here

When the user selects a single page deep within the site, We would like to show them their current position and, at the same time, make it easy to move back up the hierarchy to any point. They will have a TreeView, of course, but we don't think that a tree is as clear and easy as a horizontal list of past locations. So, We decided that We would create a breadcrumb control in Windows Forms.

When you are looking at the code sample, you'll notice that my control is called an "Eyebrow" instead of a breadcrumb. Eyebrow is the name used in MSDN code, and it just stuck in my mind. You're probably wondering how this control relates to an eyebrow. So are we. We know my eyebrows don't have any information about my current position, and they certainly don't help us get around, but that's what they're called in the code, so that's how it'll be.

Back to the control. The control works by being associated with a TreeView. You can configure that association programmatically or through the property grid in Visual Studio^® at design time. The control's rendering is then based on information in the associated TreeView, namely the currently selected node.

By hooking the tree's selection changed event (AfterSelect), the control is notified whenever it needs to be redrawn. The associated TreeView is accessed directly to find the currently selected node, to navigate up through all of the parent nodes, and to change the selected node when the user clicks on one of the hyperlinked items. By obtaining all of its navigational information from the TreeView, the breadcrumb control doesn't have to know anything about your particular application. As long as you set up and populate your TreeView and handle the tree's events, this control should work within your application.

Full Article here

Shopping bags have always been one of my favorites - I have implemented quite a lot flavors of these, with the last one being an XML implementation in ASP (presented in my latest book "Teach Yourself ASP 2.0 in 24 Hours"). This one was fairly neat in that you were storing XML as a string Session variable, however, the code didn't look too good and you had to be knowledgeable about XML.

The two outstanding features of XSB are: extensibility via custom properties, and scalability because you don't need to store an object in a Session variable - the XML data is sufficient, which is very small. See the sample shopping solution on how to implement it!

• Installation and Download
• Object model, methods and properties
• Samples

Component and Samples only (size is approx. 20KB)
The most current version number of the component is 1.0. It is compiled with Visual Basic 6.0 SP3.

Installation Version of XSB (NO samples) (size is approx. 1.35MB)
Download this file if you don't have the Visual Basic 6.0 runtime on your server. The setup program will install the component and the necessary files. To get the ASP samples, you also need the Component and Samples download.

Every once in a while, I have been asked to provide FTP services in my Access applications. Years ago, I found some really complex code in a VB Tutorial book that used the Inet Control for managing FTP commands. It was finicky at best and required thousands of lines to accomplish the simplest tasks.

Visual Basic.NET, C# and ASP.NET to build professional applications and websites.  Since then, the site has grown in size and popularity and now contains over 450 video tutorials -- over 80 hours of training.  While the original content was aimed at experienced developers, I soon realized that those who were just getting started found the style of presentation and the medium (screen-cam videos) invaluable. 
So if you are just getting started, I can honestly say that you'll probably get more out of watching a few videos than reading a couple of books.  In fact, this is the feedback I get often from my customers.  Its just human nature -- many of us are visual learners and therefore learn more quickly by watching others.

Like it or not there will be a change in your development. Certainly if you have been a dreamweaver web site developer. Oh sure nothing is going to change is the spin. Anyone developing on the web surely knows better. So I think that getting acquainted with adobe go live is important. Though I suspect that both tools will change to some common ground since the number of people using dreamweaver is substantially higher.

Some of the most common errors in XHTML are:

• Not closing empty elements (elements without closing tags)
  • Incorrect: <br>
  • Correct: <br />
• Not closing non-empty elements
  • Incorrect: <p>This is a paragraph.<p>This is another paragraph.
  • Correct: <p>This is a paragraph.</p><p>This is another paragraph.</p>
• Improperly nesting elements (elements must be closed in reverse order)
  • Incorrect: <em><strong>This is some text.</em></strong>
  • Correct: <em><strong>This is some text.</strong></em>
• Not specifying alternate text for images (using the alt attribute, which helps make pages accessible for devices that don't load images or screen-readers for the blind)
  • Incorrect: <img src="/images/88x31.png" />
  • Correct: <img src="/images/88x31.png" alt="Bla Bla Bla" />
• Putting text directly in the body of the document
  • Incorrect: <body>Welcome to my page.</body>
  • Correct: <body><p>Welcome to my page.</p></body>
• Nesting block-level elements within inline elements
  • Incorrect: <em><h2>Introduction</h2></em>
  • Correct: <h2><em>Introduction</em></h2>
• Not putting quotation marks around attribute values
  • Incorrect: <td rowspan=3>
  • Correct: <td rowspan="3">
• Using the ampersand outside of entities (use & to display the ampersand character)
  • Incorrect: <title>Cars & Trucks</title>
  • Correct: <title>Cars &amp; Trucks</title>
• Using uppercase tag names and/or tag attributes
  • Incorrect: <BODY><P>The Best Page Ever</P></BODY>
  • Correct: <body><p>The Best Page Ever</p></body>
• Attribute minimization
  • Incorrect: <textarea readonly>READ-ONLY</textarea>
  • Correct: <textarea readonly="readonly">READ-ONLY</textarea>

This is not an exhaustive list, but gives a general sense of errors that XHTML coders often make.

Internet Explorer's support of XHTML (the successor to, and current version of, the standard document markup language HTML), is incomplete, although no claim of any support was ever made. Rather, XHTML 1.0 was intentionally designed to be usable by HTML 4.0 user agents, like Internet Explorer, if certain document authoring guidelines for backward compatibility were followed.

Furthermore, when accessing XHTML documents over a network, such support by non-XHTML-aware browsers is predicated on the documents being served with a MIME type of text/html. To the extent that these requirements are met, IE supports XHTML. XHTML has since matured, and it is now possible to author modular documents that cannot be rendered in a non-XHTML-aware browser like Internet Explorer. Furthermore, the use of the text/html MIME type is now deprecated in favor of application/xhtml+xml.

Internet Explorer does not recognize this MIME type, so instead of rendering the page, a file download prompt is presented to the user. It is possible to force IE to show application/xhtml+xml pages as either HTML or generic XML, but this workaround involves the manual editing of Windows registry. By forcing XHTML to be interpreted as HTML, it also removes the advantages of using an XML parser like well-formedness checking. Despite the advent of application/xhtml+xml, many XHTML documents on the web are still served with the text/html type in order to make XHTML documents renderable in Internet Explorer. Some consider this practice harmful as it could result in proliferation of malformatted XHTML documents.