New version of the AJAX Control Toolkit

A new version of the AJAX Control Toolkit is now available for download from CodePlex.

This release includes:
- More than twenty important bug fixes.
- New controls (HTMLEditor, ColorPicker, ComboBox supports search)

You can have a quick look on the new controls here

BizTalk 2009 Virtual Labs

Microsoft released some Virtual Labs to cover the new and main features of BizTalk 2009.

• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Building your first BizTalk Solution New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Working with Schemas New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Working with Maps New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Working with Pipelines New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Processing Flat Files New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Integration with POP3 and SharePoint and Routing Failed Messages New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Creating BizTalk Server Orchestrations New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Integrating Business Rules New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Deployment and Management New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Using the WCF Adapters in BizTalk Server 2009 New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Building a WCF Adapter using the WCF LOB Adapter SDK New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Processing EDI messages with BizTalk Server 2009 New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Sending EDI Messages with BizTalk Server 2009 R2 New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: Building an RFID application with BizTalk Server 2009 New!
• MSDN Virtual Lab: BizTalk Server 2009: What Is New In BizTalk Server 2009 New!

Source:
http://blogs.msdn.com/rgarg/archive/2009/05/04/biztalk-2009-now-available.aspx

User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) Design Patterns

Infragistics launched a new tool mainly focusing on user experience (UX) design patterns.

What is User Experience?
User Experience (UX) is the degree of usability and appeal that a website or application provides to its users.

The new tool was built to help making UX design patterns more findable, more discoverable, more usable, and more communal and social. The new tool called Quince.
http://quince.infragistics.com


Here is also another great resources for UI design patterns:

• http://ui-patterns.com
• http://patterntap.com
• http://www.designinginterfaces.com
• http://www.welie.com
• http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Design+Patterns

UrlReWrting makes your web site searchable by search engines

UrlRewritingNet.UrlRewrite is a great open source library that can be used in ASP .NET for rewriting URLs.

The documentation says that the library is compatible with ASP .NET 2.0, but I have tested it with ASP .NET 3.5 sp1 and it worked great.

The library documentation provides a simple and efficient explanation for describing the great benefit from rewriting URLs:
A little example. You’re developing blog software which stores its entries in a database. To get the entry for displaying it in a details page you need the identity (ID) of the record to display. To get the ID you usually transport this value by Query String: http://myblog.com/details.aspx?id=234.

If your blog is ready and online you want to be found by potential readers on search engines like Google or Yahoo. These search engines send bots out to the World Wide Web to find interesting content. So what do you mean what the bot does with a Url like shown above? Not much, right.

So, wouldn’t it be cooler if the bot could find the topic of the blog entry in the Url for example? A rewritten Url could look like this: http://myblog.com/detail/good-news-for-a-better-world-234.aspx.

The machine (search engine bot) has something to analyze and the user can imagine what the topic is about on this page, too.

Application Architecture Guide 2.0 Released

p&p guys just released Application Architecture Guide 2.0.

This is a very beneficial guide for designing applications using MS .NET technology, it can be considered as a first step going forward to the .Net software architecture.

Increase Your Monitor Size = Increase Your Productivity

Researchers found that if you increase the size of your monitor or added on another monitor, your productivity would increase by 40% to 52%.

(Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however: Productivity dropped off again when people used a 26-inch screen.)

This of course will increases the whole organization productivity as well with the same percentage.

This is totally logical. Large monitor will keeps you away from doing too many scrolls, and gives a whole picture of the work you are working on. This of course will increase the productivity.

It's not required to proof this, I can feel it myself.

LINQ to SQL Obsolete

According to Oct. 2008 blog posts by Lead Program Manager Tim Mallalieu, Microsoft is making significant investments in the Entity Framework such that as of .NET 4.0 the Entity Framework will be the recommended data access solution for LINQ to relational scenarios.
Applications built on LINQ to SQL will continue to work but might not benefit from future Microsoft technologies. However, migration from LINQ to SQL is manual, and developers might want to wait for the next version of the Entity Framework before migrating.

Technologies overview:
LINQ:
The Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is a set of APIs and programming language features that enable data access queries to be written in programming languages such as C# and Visual Basic, rather than treated as text data. LINQ simplifies data access code and enables the developer to use the Visual Studio tools, such as the compiler and IntelliSense command completion, to help write queries. At its launch, LINQ supported a variety of data sources, including in-memory data objects and XML documents, and the Microsoft C# team had built a stopgap LINQ connector to SQL Server—LINQ to SQL

LINQ to SQL:
LINQ to SQL enables application access to SQL Server via LINQ, a feature of languages such as C# that simplifies data access coding

Entity Framework:
More general data access technology that provides LINQ connectivity to SQL Server and other database management systems, including Oracle and IBM DB2.

LINQ to SQL and Entity Framework Story:
LINQ to SQL debuted with LINQ in the .NET Framework 3.5 in 2007. However, when LINQ to SQL shipped, the Microsoft data access team had already begun work on the ADO.NET Entity Framework. When the Entity Framework was introduced with the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 in July 2008, LINQ to SQL became largely redundant.

BizTalk Server to Skirt 'Oslo'

Microsoft has dropped plans to redesign BizTalk Server around new technology from a development project code-named Oslo. The new roadmap will cheer customers and partners who have invested in the current BizTalk Server product and will also benefit Microsoft's BizTalk Server developers. However, plans for BizTalk Server releases beyond 2009 are still fluid, and the Oslo project has yet to unveil its technology and roadmap to developers.

According to Microsoft declaration: In response to customer feedback, we are committed to continued support for BizTalk Server’s XLANG orchestration technology - the existing BizTalk orchestration engine. Additional support for WF will be prioritized for the coming releases based upon customer demand and scenarios.

Microsoft's BizTalk Server roadmap page http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/roadmap.aspx

The Application Architecture Guide

Microsoft patterns & practices guys have published The Application Architecture Guide (V 2.0) on codeplex.com
The Application Architecture Guide provides design-level guidance for the architecture and design of applications built on the .NET Framework. It focuses on the most common types of applications, partitioning application functionality into layers, components, and services, and walks through their key design characteristics.



This should be complete by the next January 2009.
Really great and awesome effort. I have been searching for such a repository of apps design and architecture for Microsoft technologies.

Application Architecture Guide on codeplex
http://www.codeplex.com/AppArch

Test your web design in different browsers

Browsershots is a free open-source online service provides the ability to see how is a web site looks like in different browsers.
<http://browsershots.org/>

Any public web site should be compatible with different browsers and versions to be able to serve a wide rage of users.

Browser compatibly was a feature in a project I worked in since 3 years ago, I can remember how is was time, effort, and hardware consuming was. I wish we had this service since then.

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 released

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 delivers:

• Improved WPF designers
• SQL Server 2008 support
• ADO.NET Entity Designer
• Visual Basic and Visual C++ components and tools (including an MFC-based Office 2007 style ‘Ribbon’)
• Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server (TFS) addresses customer feedback on version control usability and performance, email integration with work item tracking and full support for hosting on SQL Server 2008
• Richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools, and Web site deployment improvements

The .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 delivers:

• Performance increases between 20-45% for WPF-based applications – without having to change any code
• WCF improvements that give developers more control over the way they access data and services
• Streamlined installation experience for client applications
• Improvements in the area of data platform, such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and support for SQL Server 2008’s new features

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/cc533447.aspx>

Visual WebGui

Visual WebGui (VWG) is an open source rapid application development (RAD) framework for Line-Of-Bussines AJAX & Silverlight GUIs. VWG cuts down development time (proven up to 90%) , without compromising on extensibility, scalability, performance, security or complexity.

Visifire

Visifire is a set of open source data visualization components - powered by Microsoft^® Silverlight^™. With Visifire you can create and embed visually stunning animated Silverlight Charts within minutes. Visifire is easy to use and independent of the server side technology. It can be used with ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, JSP, ColdFusion, Ruby on Rails or just simple HTML. Don't take our word for it! Visit Visifire Gallery or design your own chart using Chart Designer.

Microsoft's Developer Tools Roadmap

Future versions of Visual Studio will focus on Silverlight and better team development. Version 2.5 of Expression Studio and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 support Silverlight 2.0, Microsoft's platform for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). A major update to Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, code-named Rosario, will then bring improved support for software testing.

Farther out, a new version of Visual Studio (not officially named, but called Visual Studio 10 here) will support the Oslo wave of new messaging and workflow technologies, which should also get support in the .NET Framework and Team Foundation Server.

Source:
http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/

Microsoft's Data Access Technologies Roadmap

The .NET Framework replaced a series of data access APIs with ADO.NET. ADO.NET 2.0 brought improved access to third-party database formats along with support for asynchronous and batch updates to databases. In 2007, Microsoft introduced a new version of ADO.NET designed to support Language-Integrated Query (LINQ), a set of new programming language features coming in VB.NET and C# that allow developers to express database queries directly in the programming language instead of having to mix SQL syntax into their programs.

2008 will bring new data access technologies on top of the ADO.NET API. These include the ADO.NET Entity Framework, which enables developers to use entity data modeling to simplify maintenance and improve portability of data access code, and ADO.NET Data Services, which makes data from SQL Server, and potentially other databases, accessible via standard Hypertext Transfer Protocol requests using data formats common with the increasingly popular REST style of Web service.

Source:

http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com

Microsoft's Presentation Technologies Roadmap

2007 brought updates for a number of important presentation technologies, including Windows Vista, which contains the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and Visual Studio 2008, which includes a new version of Windows Forms, and an updated Visual Studio Tools for Office for building Office-based clients. Also released in 2007 was Silverlight 1.0, Microsoft's new platform for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), which uses a subset of the Windows Presentation Foundation for UI design and is primarily designed to support digital video. Silverlight 2.0, which is likely to appear by the end of 2008, will be the first version of the platform to support programming with .NET Framework languages rather than JavaScript.

Major updates to presentation technologies are likely with the next versions of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio (not officially named, but called .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 10 here), but details have not been released. InfoPath will also probably receive a major update (called InfoPath 14 here) in 2009 with the next major release of the Office suite.

Source:

http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com

The Six Thinking Hats Theory

The Six Thinking Hats technique of Edward de Brono is a model that can be used for exploring different perspectives towards a complex situation or challenge. Seeing things in various ways is often a good idea in strategy formation or complex decision-making processes.

Source:
<http://www.12manage.com/methods_bono_six_thinking_hats.html>

Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site

Excellent article about the best practices for speeding up internet web sites, I recommend reading this one, it’s very beneficial.
<http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html>

Microsoft Source Analysis for C#

This tool is known internally within Microsoft as StyleCop, and has been used for many years now to help teams enforce a common set of best practices for layout, readability, maintainability, and documentation of C# source code.

Source Analysis is similar in many ways to Microsoft Code Analysis (specifically FxCop), but there are some important distinctions. FxCop performs its analysis on compiled binaries, while Source Analysis analyzes the source code directly. For this reason, Code Analysis focuses more on the design of the code, while Source Analysis focuses on layout, readability and documentation. Most of that information is stripped away during the compilation process, and thus cannot be analyzed by FxCop.

The ultimate goal of Source Analysis is to allow you to produce elegant, consistent code that your team members and others who view your code will find highly readable. In order to accomplish this, Source Analysis does not allow its rules to be very configurable. Source Analysis takes a one-size-fits-all approach to code style, layout, and readability rules. It is highly likely that you will not agree with all of the rules and may even find some of the rules annoying at first! However, the majority of teams using this tool within Microsoft have found that after a short adjustment period, they came to appreciate the rules enforced by Source Analysis, and even began to find it difficult to read code not written in this style.

Source Analysis comes with a set of default rules analyzers covering approximately 200 best practice rules. These rules are full compatible with the default layout settings in Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008.
Specifically, these rules cover the following, in no particular order:
- Layout of elements, statements, expressions, and query clauses
- Placement of curly brackets, parenthesis, square brackets, etc
- Spacing around keywords and operator symbols
- Line spacing
- Placement of method parameters within method declarations or method calls
- Standard ordering of elements within a class
- Formatting of documentation within element headers and file headers
- Naming of elements, fields and variables
- Use of the built-in types
- Use of access modifiers
- Allowed contents of files
- Debugging text

After installation, Source Analysis can be run from within the Visual Studio IDE, and can also be integrated into MSBuild-based command line builds.


Download Source Analysis for C# from here:
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/sourceanalysis/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=1047

SQL Injection and how to avoid it

The safest way to keep yourself safe from SQL Injection is to always use stored procedures to accept input from user-input variables.

Details on source link:
<http://blogs.msdn.com/tom/archive/2008/05/29/sql-injection-and-how-to-avoid-it.aspx>