Simon's Mu-zings : ASP.Net

Have your favorite ASP.NET book listed on forums.asp.net

simonmu — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:18:00 GMT

Joe is working on recommended book sections for each forum in the ASP.NET forums. If you have a favorite book that Joe should know about, send him an email with a pointer to the book (title and author) so he can review it and add it to the site.

Thanks,

Simon.

Search on www.asp.net now Live

simonmu — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:57:00 GMT

Yesterday we rolled out Live Search integration on www.asp.net. Type what you are looking for in the space in the navigation bar and up come the results. Use the tabs at the top of the results window to do a search specific to weblogs.asp.net or forums.asp.net.

Enjoy,

Simon.

Announcing the ASP.NET website Community Recognition Program

simonmu — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 21:16:00 GMT

Last night we launched the Community Recognition Program for the www.asp.net site, which seeks to recognize each person’s contribution to the site.

Historically the greatest contribution has been in the forums, where many people moderate and answer questions from developers. More recent initiatives include the ability for people to submit articles for the home page, to provide suggestions for content (see the Videos page), to vote on polls (see the By the Community, For the Community program), and to publish weblog entries (see the Community Blogs page). Then with the launch of the German, Spanish, French and Chinese foreign-language sites, there are even more levels of contributions that people are making to the site.

The Community Recognition Program will keep track of each person's contributions and publish the details for all to see. The program is very simple. Various activities on the site have points associated with them, and when a community member does that activity he or she will receive that many points. Specifically, here's the current set of activities and points for each:

Location	Activity	Description	Points
Forums	Reply	You reply to a thread started by another member	2
	Answer Post	Your reply is marked as the answer	10
	Mark Post as Answer	You mark a post as the answer	1
	Moderate a Post **	You approve a post	1
Blogs	Aggregated Post **	Your weblog post is aggregated on the Community Blogs page	5
	Foreign Language Post **	Your weblog post is aggregated on one of the foreign-language sites	10
Content	Submit an Article	You submit an article which is accepted for the home page	10
	Create Original Content	You submit a tutorial or tool that is accepted for the site	100
	Translate Content **	You translate some content for use on one of the foreign-language sites	variable
	Vote on a Poll	You vote on any poll on the site	1
	Suggestion	You submit a suggestion through one of the suggestion boxes on the site	1

** By invitation only

As a community member earns more points, he or she will progress through five different levels, starting with Member and ending with All-Star:

Level	Name	Points
	Member	1	to	750
	Participant	751	to	2000
	Contributor	2001	to	7500
	Star	7501	to	15000
	All-Star	over		15000

To start the ball rolling, we awarded 5 points for each forum post a member has contributed to date. Check out the Community Recognition Program home page for full information on the program and see the Hall of Fame page for lists of the top contributors in the community. View your own profile to learn of your own Level within the program.

Happy holidays and have fun contributing,

Simon.

PS - Now you know why my blog has been quiet for the last two months J

The next series of team member Live From Redmond webcasts

simonmu — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 12:24:00 GMT

The feedback continues to be highly positive about this series of webcasts, so we are offereing the third installment of the Live From Redmond webcasts. These webcasts are done by actual team members working on the technology itself - so if you have a question you won't get any closer to the source than here.

Upcoming Smart Client Talks

Date	Title	Speaker	Registration URL
7-Nov	Live From Redmond: ClickOnce Tips and Tricks and what’s new in Orcas	Saurabh Pant	link
14-Nov	Live From Redmond: Smart Client: Offline Data Synchronization and Caching for Smart Clients	Steve Lasker	link
28-Nov	Live From Redmond: Client Application Services in Orcas	Saurabh Pant	link
4-Dec	Live From Redmond: Visual Studio: Developing Local and Mobile Data Solutions with SQL Server Everywhere	Steve Lasker	link
Dec 6	Live From Redmond: IronPython: Developing agile but rich client applications using Python	Mahesh Prakriya	link

Upcoming Web Talks

Date	Title	Speaker	Registration URL
10-Oct	Live From Redmond: Introducing the Microsoft AJAX Libraries	Joe Stagner	link
10-Oct	MSDN Webcast: Application Services in "Atlas"	Mir Tariq	link
19-Oct	Live From Redmond: Introducing the Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions	Joe Stagner	link
26-Oct	Live From Redmond: An In-depth Look at UpdatePanel	Kashif Alam	link
2-Nov	Live From Redmond: Enriching Existing ASP.NET Applications with ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions	Richard Ersek	link
9-Nov	Live From Redmond: Introducing the Microsoft AJAX Control Toolkit	Joe Stagner	link
16-Nov	Live From Redmond: Building your own Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX control extender.	Joe Stagner	link
21-Nov	Live From Redmond: Using the Microsoft AJAX Library with “other” server technologies.	Joe Stagner	link
30-Nov	Live From Redmond: Microsoft AJAX Patterns - Implementing Predictive Fetch with Microsoft AJAX	Joe Stagner	link
8-Dec	Live From Redmond: An in-depth look at the "ListView" control	Kashif Alam	link
12-Dec	Live From Redmond: Team development on web applications	Jim Bresler	link

I hope to see you at some of these talks,

Simon.

Simplified Chinese and German sections on www.asp.net

simonmu — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 12:35:00 GMT

This morning we launched the Simplified Chinese section and the German section on www.asp.net to provide web developer content in those specific languages.

I’d like to say a special thank you to the community members who helped review the sites before launching, specifically Xuegen Jin, Colt Kwong, Junmin Lui, Shijie Ma, Michael Schwarz, Zhenlin Tan, Damir Tomicic, Alexander Zeitler, Xinglin Zhu, and Ye Zhu.

If you find additional content that is missing, or are interested in another language that we don’t currently provide, please let me know.

I hope you enjoy these new additions to the www.asp.net site.

Thanks,

Simon.

Webcast series on Migrating to ASP.NET

simonmu — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 12:35:00 GMT

If you are familiar with JSP, PHP or ColdFusion and would like to learn more about ASP.NET, we just added a series of webcasts to the site here. We have the first few webcasts for each area on the site, and then link to the complete series on www.learn2asp.net.

If there are other topic areas you would like to see here, let me know.

-- Simon.

Regular Series of Atlas How-Do-I videos to be Published

simonmu — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:53:00 GMT

We received such positive feedback on the first eleven How-Do-I videos that were published on www.asp.net that we decided to do another series of videos focused specifically on Atlas and the Atlas Control Toolkit.

Last Tuesday Joe Stagner’s first two videos were released and there will be two more a week until we run out of topics. These two focus on building your first Atlas application and your first application using the Control Toolkit and in future weeks Joe will be drilling into more complex Atlas topics.

I hope you enjoy them and if you have topic suggestions, enter the into the suggestion box on the right hand side of the videos page.

Thanks,

Simon.

Foreign Language subsites on www.asp.net

simonmu — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 01:33:00 GMT

I’ve received several questions recently asking various questions about the foreign language sub-sites that we launched on www.asp.net, specifically the French and Spanish sub-sites. So let me go through the questions one-by-one.

Question: Why is there a language X sub-site but not language Y?

Answer: I initially picked seven languages I thought were good potential candidates for foreign language content on the site. Those languages were chosen by looking at web traffic, 3^rd party community sites for web developers, and to some degree on my ability to be able to parse the content (I can read a little German, French and Spanish, so it’s easier for me personally to review content for those languages than say for Japanese which I can’t read, write or speak.) After reviewing the feedback from the community members and discussing with Telligent the work required to launch a new sub-site, we created a prioritized schedule that had French launching first, with Spanish next.

Question: The follow-on question is "I would like to help you create a XXX language sub-site for www.asp.net. What do I do?"

Answer: Email me with information. There are two fundamental requirements I always look for: 1) is there enough local language content available to make the site interesting not only at launch but months after launch and 2) can we make a site that is useful and engaging for developers. Specific content that makes sites engaging and useful are: articles, blog feeds, FAQ content, video content, tutorial content, and language community sites all in the specific language.

Question: How do I get my blog added to the front page blog roller for language X?

Answer: Send me your blog and RSS feed. If you have a general blog then send me the tagged specific feed for just your web development content. Assuming not every second post is about your visit to the doctor’s office, we will take it from there.

Question: I run a community site that isn’t listed as one of the community sites?

Answer: Email me your link and we will get it added. Note that we only add sites that have significant web developer content on them.

Question: I know of a great FAQ, tutorial, etc. that isn’t list on the site. How do I get it listed?

Answer: As above, contact me. If it is an article you can submit it directly using the article submit buttons for English, for French, and for Spanish. If it’s other content for now email me. We’re thinking about a better content submission engine but that is a little ways off.

Question: I would like to translate some English content into another language. How does this work?

Answer: Contact me with details and we will go from there.

Hope this helps, and if there are other questions I missed, let me know.

-- Simon.

Upcoming team webcasts - Live From Redmond series

simonmu — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:29:00 GMT

That’s right - the “Live From Redmond” webcast series is back by popular demand with 19 new live meetings.

I blogged about the first series of presentations in April and the survey results from attendees were very positive (average score of 4.9 out of 5 for continuing the series) so we decided to do another set, focused on client developers, web developers, mobile developers and Commerce Server.

For client developers, there are five upcoming webcasts (see left pane of the Windows Forms website here for the more detailed list):

Date	Title	Speaker	Registration URL
16-Aug	Smart Client: Offline Data Synchronization and Caching for Smart Clients	Steve Lasker	Click here
23-Aug	Windows Forms: An Overview of Windows Forms in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005	Saurabh Pant	Click here
30-Aug	Visual Studio: Developing Local and Mobile Data Solutions with SQL Server Everywhere	Steve Lasker	Click here
13-Sep	(WinFX) Windows Forms: How to Leverage Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation in a Single Hybrid Application	Scott Morrison	Click here
20-Sep	Windows Forms: Solutions to the Most Common Windows Forms Development Challenges	Scott Morrison	Click here

For web developers, there are ten upcoming webcasts (see here for the more detailed list and information):

Date	Title	Speaker	Registration URL
25-Jul	ASP.NET: An Overview of ASP.NET and Windows Workflow Foundation Integration	Kashif Alam	Click here
3-Aug	ASP.NET: Building Real-World Web Application UI with Master Pages, Themes and Site Navigation	Pete LePage	Click here
10-Aug	ASP.NET: Creating Web Applications Using Visual Studio 2005 Team System	Jeff King	Click here
17-Aug	ASP.NET Atlas: A Developers Introduction to Microsoft Atlas	Joe Stagner	Click here
22-Aug	Best Practices and Techniques for Migration Visual Studio 2003 Web Projects to Visual Studio 2005	Omar Khan	Click here
24-Aug	ASP.NET: An ASP.NET Developer’s Look at Using RSS	Joe Stagner	Click here
7-Sep	ASP.NET: Under the Covers - Creating High-Availability, Scalable Web Applications	Stefan Schackow	Click here
14-Sep	ASP.NET: Using User, Roles, and Profile in ASP.NET 2.0	Joe Stagner	Click here
21-Sep	ASP.NET: Comparing PHP and ASP.net	Joe Stagner	Click here
28-Sep	ASP.NET: Security Tips & Tricks for ASP.NET Developers	Joe Stagner	Click here

And there are three webcasts for Commerce Server and one for mobile developers:

Date	Title	Speaker	Registration URL
1-Aug	Multi-Channel, Connected Commerce (BTS/CS integration)	Caesar Samsi	Click here
15-Aug	Commerce Server 2007 Overview	Mark Townsend	Click here
29-Aug	.NET Compact Framework 2.0: Optimizing for Performance	Ryan Chapman	Click here
12-Sep	Commerce Server 2007 Architectural Deep-Dive	David Messner	Click here

I hope you tune in and that this set of talks is as useful as the last set.

-- Simon.

By The Community - For The Community

simonmu — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 13:20:00 GMT

I have loved this program since first proposed a few months ago, as it’s a great way for some of the experts in the community to provide content that the community is most interested in. It is a great partnership for everyone involved and a big thanks to Pete who picked up the implementation details and pushed the program live to the www.asp.net site two weeks ago.

So what does it take to launch such a program? Actually quite a lot, and it was a long road to fruition:

1. First we built and deployed the voting module. If you remember earlier in the year we had the voting module on the front page asking questions such as

a. “Which database do you use most commonly with your Web applications?”

With the results being: 37% SQL Serer 2000, 20% SQL Server 2005 and then MySQL at 13% over 1388 votes.

b. “How are you adding Ajax support to your Web applications?”

And the 1029 votes said: 31% Ajax.NET, 28% “Atlas” (Yeah!), and 15% “We’re not”.

2. Then I contacted the asp.net MVPs to see who would be interested in participating. There were a series of emails and feedback from which we made some changes to how the program was actually implemented and how the voting should work.

3. With Brendon, Scott, Ken, Mitch, Curt, and Jonathan volunteering to be the expects we were set, other than finalizing where the actual samples would live, the timeframes between the voting starting, ending, and when the sample would be published. Legal also wanted to review the program and provide their input.

4. Pete then picked up the program and worked with our good friends at Telligent to push the program live.

The first voting just closed, with 930 community members voting, with the Event Organization Site receiving 47% of the vote. Next on the list were Track Back for Everything (19%) and Creating a Mashup (16%). Mitch is currently working on the Event Organization Site for publication to the community on August 4^th, and voting for the next sample has started. You might notice that we took the 2^nd place vote getter from the 1^st vote (the “Track Back for Everything” suggestion) and added it to the second vote.

Overall we are looking for innovative ways to create the content most needed by the community and this program is one such mechanism. We will be introducing others and suggestions are welcome.

French section for www.asp.net

simonmu — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 00:30:00 GMT

That's right. In partnership with the community, we have a launched a French language section of the www.asp.net site, to provide core local language content and experiences for ASP.NET users. Check it out at www.asp.net/fr, and stay tune for additional languages.

10 ASP.NET Samples in VB

simonmu — Fri, 05 May 2006 00:46:00 GMT

And not to be outdone, MSDN also has a great set of ASP.NET samples available which showcase the 2.0 feature set:

Caching
Data Access
Data Controls
Master Pages
Membership

Menu Controls
Profiles
Security
TreeView
Portal development with Web Parts

Download the MSI from here.