Brian Goldfarb's Blog : Visual Web Developer Express

Microsoft Web Platform Installer Release Candidate – Now works with XP and Windows 2003!

bgold — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:37:57 GMT

I'm going to blatantly steal Bill Staples words since they were so good :)

"I’m excited to announce the availability of the Release Candidate version of the Microsoft Web Platform Installer (Web PI).

Web PI is a free tool that makes it simple to download and install the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including IIS, ASP.NET, Visual Web Developer Express and SQL Server, along with a lot of cool IIS extensions like URL rewrite and ASP.NET MVC.

Web PI offers a simple experience for downloading and installing the entire stack through a single installer to help you obtain the software you need to build and run a complete Web solution on the Microsoft Web platform, whether you are using Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, or Windows Server 2008.

Run Web PI to get started and then run it again anytime to check for new extensions to the platform. Every time Web PI is run it checks online to ensure the most current versions and new additions to the Microsoft Web Platform are downloaded. Give Web PI a try today!"

A new job for me, better products for you

bgold — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 19:40:58 GMT

And hopefully some more time to blog :) This week we re-organized our team so that we could better serve the needs of our internal and external partners and customers. I won't bore you with the details but it has a pretty major impact on what I do and the kinds of information I want; so I figured this was a great opportunity to share.

My new job is focused on Developer Division (which includes designers) Platform Strategy. My new team is 100% focused on making sure we build the best possible products for the market place. We get to understand the trends, the big picture, the little picture, customer needs, partner needs, and partner deeply with the engineering teams run by Scott Guthrie (NDP) and Eric Zocher (Designer) to help ensure that the products we build work great together and address the key needs of the market today, tomorrow, and way into the future.

Sounds like a huge daunting challenge, but gurantee it is going to be a lot of fun. To date, I've spent some of my time on this, but we've decided it is so critical that me and my team get to spend 100% of our time focused here. The results, well you'll be able to tell me as we lead up to MIX, PDC, and the next rev's of our products.

My team looks after the following technologies -- so take a look and lay it on, good, bad, ugly. What you want, what you don't want, what you don't even think you want, anything that you think will help us.

Tools

Expression Studio (Blend, Media, Web, Design) + futures
Visual Web Developer (the Web tooling inside Visual Studio)
"Cider" (the WPF tooling for VS) + futures

Platforms

ASP.NET
WPF
"WPF/E"
AJAX
Internet Explorer
Commerce Server

Plus the broader marketplace that encompasses these technologies (Web 2.0, UX, etc.)

I'll still be posting as much useful info as I can around the outbound work that we do, but my energy is going to be focused on building amazing products. Spread the word, we want your feedback.

Oh and joining me on the team are:

Brad Becker looking after Rich Client Platform and Tools

Sanjoy Sarkar looking after Web Platform

Pete LePage looking after IE, Web Tooling, Standards

Max Akbar looking after Commerce Server

and we are hiring a few positions

1) Expression Media and Media Workflow strategy

2) Rich Client Platform - Developer strategy

3) Rich Client Platform - Designer strategy

I'll associate JD's once we write them ;)

Refactor! for ASP.NET Beta released

bgold — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 01:15:17 GMT

After seeing the amazing success and interset in the great Refactor! for VB applications last year, we've been working with the folks at DevExpress to deliver a rich refactoring expereince around common Web scenarios and specific ASP.NET features. My hats off to Mark and othesr at DevExpress for an amazing partnershpi and a fabulous product. Check it out, tell your friends, and watch the screen cast -- it will blow you away -- everything you want to knowbelow:

http://www.devexpress.com/refactorasp

Training Videos

12-minute Training Video (1024x768):

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/IDETools/RefactorASP/Presentation/Refactor_for_ASP_NET/

Same Training Video, full size (for larger monitors):

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/IDETools/RefactorASP/Presentation/Refactor_for_ASP_NET_Full/

Screen Shots

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/IDETools/RefactorASP/Presentation/MoveStyleAttributesToCss.png

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/IDETools/RefactorASP/Presentation/MoveToCodeBehind.png

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/IDETools/RefactorASP/Presentation/SurroundWithUpdatePanel.png

Support

ASP.NET developers should contact support@devexpress.com with any questions, issues, or suggestions concerning this release.

We have also established a newsgroup at news.devexpress.com for this product:

devexpress.public.refactor.asp

Our developers monitor this newsgroup.

Content

This drop includes 25 refactorings, nine of which are dedicated to ASP.NET development:

Add Validator

Extract ContentPlaceHolder

Extract ContentPlaceHolder (and create master page)

Extract Style (Class)

Extract Style (id)

Move to Code-behind

Move Style Attributes to CSS

Rename Style

Surround with Update Panel

(Extract to User Control will arrive in a future drop)

This drop also includes 16 standard refactorings that work inside *.cs and *.vb code-behind files (most of these refactorings also work on code placed inside <script> tags):

Extract Method

Extract Property

Flatten Conditional

Inline Temp

Introduce Constant

Introduce Local

Move Declaration near Reference

Move Initialization to Declaration

Reorder Parameters

Rename

Replace Temp with Query

Reverse Conditional

Safe Rename

Simplify Expression

Split Initialization from Declaration

Split Temporary Variable

Known Issues

· Extract Style (Class) and Extract Style (id) are not available inside content pages. We will address this in a future release.

· Surround with Update Panel does not modify the Web.Config file. We are still deciding whether it makes sense to change this or whether it makes more sense to suppress availability of the refactoring if the project is not set up to exploit AJAX.

Great new ASP.NET training from Total Training

bgold — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 03:28:15 GMT

I got a mail from the folks over at Total Training today letting me know that Set 1 of their awesome ASP.NET 2.0 video training is available -- they are offering a free hour to wet your appetitie -- details below. Enjoy!

Total Training offers 1 Hour of complimentary video training on ASP.NET 2.0:

http://totaltraining.com/prod/outlines/microsoft/aspnet2_set1.asp

Curious about what’s included in the 10 hour series for ASP.NET 2.0? Get started with one hour of complimentary lessons from Total Training.
Set 1 Highlights

¨ Learn how to create web applications using the wide range of controls available in ASP.NET 2.0.

¨ Understand how to perform robust user-input validation.

¨ See how to access functionality in classes, assemblies, and web services.

¨ Discover how to use data binding to display and update data from a database.

¨ Create consistent and standardized user interfaces by using master pages, themes, and style sheets in ASP.NET 2.0.

¨ Discover how to create new Web controls, portals, and WebParts within a site to allow for faster and more efficient site application development.

Why Visual Studio? Take a Guided Tour

bgold — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 22:25:00 GMT

Do you ever need to show someone why visual studio or help walk them through their first experiences? Well we've launched a great new Why Visual Studio portal on MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/why/ .

Best of all is a great Visual Web Developer guided tour which you can get directly to at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tour/vs2005_guided_tour/WebDev/WebDev/webdev1.htm

Or get access to all the Guided Tours at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tour/vs2005_guided_tour/default.htm

Let me know what you think!

Download the official .NET Framework 2.0 Redist TODAY

bgold — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 05:15:00 GMT

The official launch of Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET F/X 2.0 is still 10 days away, but you can download the .NET F/X 2.0 right now -- so get it on your box and get ready to start building sites with ASP.NET 2.0 -- oh and for a sneak peak at the new VWD masthead logo, look below:

ASP.NET/Design

bgold — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 18:48:00 GMT

We are building a new section of the ASP.NET Dev Center focused on design -- it will consist of generic design stuff -- HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, etc. and additional resources focused on how to do design for ASP.NET --

Right now I have in the queue:

Whitepaper on ASP.NET and Web Standards
5 CSS/DIV html templates with full documentation (and 1 extra color variation)
5 Table based html templates with full documentation (and 1 extra color variation)
Two master page templates for two-column layouts with three different themes each.
Two master page templates for three-column layouts with three different themes each.
Master page templates based on the CSS/DIV / Table layouts above (I'm building these, so they are moving slowly :))...

And we are working on collecting our other already existing content on Javascript, DHTML, HTML, CSS, etc. so it is in one easy to use, accessible place. Oh and the site is going to have a nice clean design (yes I hired a professional!) --

So what do I want from you?

What else do you want to see? What resources will be useful to you as a developer? As a designer? Interested in building any of that content? I'm always looking for new contributors. Let me know -- we hope to have the site live by the end of the summer!

Learn Visual Web Developer Express and ASP.NET 2.0 Video Series!

bgold — Wed, 18 May 2005 20:13:00 GMT

Bob Tabor over at LearnvVisualStudio.net built out a great introductory video series to get people up to speed using Visual Web Developer Express and ASP.NET 2.0 to build web sites. The content starts at the very basics and gets more advanced. The first 8 videos are done (about 4 hrs of total content per language) and they are produced in both VB and C#. Over the next few weeks we should be rolling out the final videos which will cover building a survey application end-to-end.

If you are new to ASP.NET or Visual Studio or looking for a quick refresher this is a great way to get involved. Be sure to check out www.learnvisualstudio.net to see other great videos on DotNetNuke, C#, VB, and more.

Check out the videos here: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/learnvwd/

ASP.NET and Visual Web Developer Team Blogs!!

bgold — Wed, 11 May 2005 03:12:00 GMT

I know we are a little late to the game, but now on the ASP.NET Developer Center you can find a slowly growing list of all the folks on the Web Platform and Tools team that are blogging. Check it out: http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/community/blogs/team/

GetVWD

bgold — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 08:49:00 GMT

http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/getvwd/

I'm very excited about this "landing page" - -on May 1st we are going to be kicking off a World Wide ad campaign for Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition. The ads will run online in 29 markets World Wide and the "call to action" is this landing page. We are trying something new and edgy with the ads -- they are "superhero" themed and they will be thematic. The first ad will be very "Kavalier and Clay" if you will (a must read if you haven't) and has a very 1940's/1950's superman esque feel to it. The second theme is "the guru" and is more old anime styled with the "knowledgeable guru" giving his superpowers to our young Web Developer.
Call it trite, call it kitsch, call it out of the box -- call it whatever you want, I personally love it. The image on /getvwd/ was taken from a frame of the ad. Once the ads are live I'll post links to them, but I'm super excited that Beta 2 is out and can't wait for everyone and anyone to give it a run. I think people will be pleasantly suprirsed with the quality, functionality, ease of use, and power of the product.

Whidbey Beta 2 signoff, ASP.NET style

bgold — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 01:59:00 GMT

ScottGu asked me to point folks to his blog entry -- we signed off on Beta 2 a few days ago and he catalogs some of the hard problems we worked through in the end-game .. a must read -- check it out here

ASP.NET 2.0 makes 'AJAX' like functionality pretty darn easy :)

bgold — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 00:45:00 GMT

Bertrand Le Roy, one of the rock-star developers on the Web Platform and Tools team has been doing a lot of work lately using the new out of band postback features of ASP.NET 2.0 -- you've probably heard of AJAX at this point and this blog begins to discuss the history of the technology and lots of awesome ways that ASP.NET 2.0 makes it super easy for anyone to take advantage of out-of-band updating of web pages without a refresh using XmlHttpRequest -- check it out!

http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/archive/2005/04/08/397761.aspx

one-way hashing and encryption with membership: passwords and secret answers

bgold — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 18:02:00 GMT

So I just wrapped up my whilrwind tour through Europe (I'm in Sweden, heading back home to the states tomorrow AM) and wanted to address a question that came up a few places with regards to our security system.

In Beta 1 we encrypted and hashed the passwords in the membership database by default, but not the secret answer to the secret question... my advice was if you want this, you can just customize the provider -- while this is true, that default behavior is not as secure as it needs to be.

In Beta 2 the secret answer will follow the settings for the password itself -- so if you have it set to use hashing and encryption the same will be used for the secret answer. Definitely better.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion :)

European Roadshow -- get the slides and intro code

bgold — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 10:46:00 GMT

As I've promised in Madrid and Prague, and will continue to promise :), here is a link to get the slides from the European roadshow presentation and also a snapshot of the application built during the intro part 1 / part 2 talk.

For those of you who were unable to attend any of the presentations we are going to be recording the content, with demos, at MS Studios in the next six weeks or so and will make it available on MSDN for everyone to download/watch... Right now the plan is to have Scott Guthrie deliver the recorded versons too! I'll make sure to link to them when they are ready, but in the mean time get the slides and demos below:

Download Slides

Download Demo

Make your application part of the VS 2005 / .NET F/X 2.0 test suite

bgold — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:15:00 GMT

Jay Roxe is working to identify 3rd party applications (your applications) to use at tests for VS2005 -- get all the details here, it is worth checking out -- some benefits from his blog are:

Microsoft will test your application on the latest Whidbey bits. The degree of this testing will vary from application to application based on compatibility requirements being tested.
Microsoft will report to you the pass/fail result along with the issues in the application that Microsoft observed (in case of failure) and suggestions to mitigate the problem.
Microsoft does not commit to making sure your app works on the latest bits. However, this effort is striving to ensure we are aware of all compatibility issues our customers may experience and are doing our best to ensure existing applications work on the .NET Framework 2.0.
You're responsible for providing the application, any necessary prerequisites (test data, other resources), and setup instructions for how to install and run the application on a clean machine. Microsoft will not be able to test any application that requires domain-specific resources or that has real customer data in it.