Check out this cool (ASP.net 2.0 / AJAX) website :-)

My latest hobby-project:
www.joinup.ch - invite for a party

Simple but handy web site to invite friends for any kind of party by email. The website always shows the event summary and responses to the automatically invited friends.
Add more friends later on, receive custom messages from your friends concerning the event and store your event into outlook. Even monitoring your event by RSS feed is possible.

Let me know what you think, otherwise i'm getting bored :-)

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 BETA

At last, the long awaited Service Pack 1 is out for Visual Studio 2005. BUT: It's BETA !! After trying out several new technologies and "packages" from Microsoft (ClickOnce, Composite Application Blocks and Smart Client Software Factory, Visual Studio 2005 and 2003, themselves, some time ago (which are all not beta)), every final V1 product being released by Microsoft recently rather felt like a Beta product, and the service pack made it then feel like a final version at last.

But the fact that the service pack itself is called BETA version seems like a desperate measure to release the long-awaited piece of code faster than it should be. Of course everyone has been waiting for that service pack and that's why probably most developers including me are installing it. I just hope that the beta version of this service pack rather feels like RTM Version or a release candidate. I would otherwise expect a software company to not at all release BETA Service Packs and rather get their job done right.

I'll see.. The beta SP1 is currently installing, and will either even more "increase my productivity" and remove really annoying and obvious bugs, or will cost me a day of non-productivity. Also, I hope this service pack doesn't break my ClickOnce Deployment configuration for my CAB application i am currently working on.

UPDATE:
The Service Pack is here, a surprisingly short time after the Beta Release. Have quite some disk space ready (particularly on your Windows partition) and get accustomed to watching Visual Studio 2005 being updated for 30-45 minutes, but it's worth it ! You're in for quite a few performance-improvements, bug fixes and usuability improvements (among others "Find throughout the whole Solution !")

MVP Pattern - overview and differences to MVC Pattern

Are you working with the Composite Application Blocks Library from Microsoft and are wondering yourself what the difference between the MVC (Model-View-Controller) and MVP (Model-View-Presenter) Pattern is ? If you are like me and know the MVC Pattern but have missed the introduction of the MVP Pattern, here's a short summary of the differences and how to change MVC to become MVP:

Chillout Lounge Blog Article

Windows Vista

I have now been looking at EVERY release of a new Vista beta or Release Candidate, including installing the first version that we got at the PDC 2005 in my hotel room just after receiving the long-awaited DVD set. Latest installation experience is RC1 of Windows Vista. Expectations were mixed,as the previous versions all had some oddities. But this version is fast and responsive, although i am not sure about the broad acceptance of the new UI. Also, increased security features are great, but it should be kept in mind that the huge installation base of Windows probably exists due to the ease-of-use (no root accounts, no "switch user" like with unix, no file permission settings etc.). After experiencing frequent DNS timeouts today, Windows couldn't repair the network, but Windows Help then told me to open the network properties window, open TCP/IP settings and enter "root" credentials if requested. THEN close the window again without modifying anything.... That means to me that regardless of all the security popups (which are a bit annoying at times, but a good thing security-wise), the Network connection apparently couldn't acquire administration rights and needs the user to just open properties. Apart from the fact that it was real luck that i've for once looked at the help text, this action makes neither sense nor can it in ANY way explained to an average user. Why doesn't a network connection ask for Administrator details when set up by Vista automatically ?
But apart from that, using Windows Vista is much more fun, especially for the eyes. i'll keep evaluating ;-)

Remote Debugging with ASP.net 2.0 / 3.0

So far, remote debugging has been cumbersome - connecting to a remote server failed with weird errors, software had to be installed on servers (yes, also our IT admins didn't like that at all !) and i was thus expecting the worst, or maybe a slight improvement in Visual Studio 2005.

By default, remote debugging would still not work, as the Server wouldn't run the Debug Monitor, which is perfectly fine and understandeable. But VS 2005 would now tell me, that the monitor is simply not running on the server, and would not just fail either silently or with some odd message that it not at all appropriate ! Cool !

After finding out how exactly that Monitor needs to be started/installed, this (german) MSDN article explains how to start the process on the server and guess what: You don't need to install ANYTHING on the server, no VS 2005, not even parts of it as the article clearly points out that the monitor can even be started from a network share ! This is awesome - so you just connect to your server through remote desktop (with drive sharing enabled), open the shares that RDP creates that point to your local PC (where VS 2005 is installed) and start MSVSMON from your local PC's hard drive on the server - no installation, a GUI, and clear messages, and even a debug mode that needs no authentication whatsoever (be sure though that this mode is only for corporate or private networks, as it's unsafe and MS clearly tells you so).

Thanks Microsoft, this is for once a really cool step forward !

Declarative programming in ASP.net 2.0 - good or bad ?

Since ASP.NET 1.1, i have not been a friend of declarative programming in ASP.NET pages. Coming from a C++/ Java/Unix Environment originally, I like to know what happends behind the scenes of a programming statement. Declarative programming to me seems like handing control to same "magic" component (ASP.NET in this case) that makes SOMETHING out of the declared code. What it exactly creates is, at least that's how i feel, unknown to the programmer and very difficult to find out (is it even possible ? Maybe in the class .net compiles the ASPX/ASCX into ?). While developing ATLAS/AJAX controls recently, i stumpled across one more declarative language - xmlscript, i'll first have to figure out what it exactly is. If that's the case for you as well or if you're just curious about the concepts and wether it's useful or wether it puts more obstacles in the way, read this blog entry

Telecommuting (working from home is now officially confirmed to improve productivity)

While a difficult and often discussed-about (at least in small- to mid-sized companies) topic, telecommuting or working from home / anywhere for a limited time/amount of days does seem to have more benefits for everyone than it has drawbacks.

I have been agreeing to that conclusion since i first tried telecommuting, and even more have i noticed that not being able to telecommute is way less fun, either in the office as well as out of the office (i don't believe in fully separating work and life from each other).

It is true as well that letting your people telecommute poses some risks, for example do you have to be capable of finding and managing employees that organize themselves autonomously and don't just sit around waiting for their next tasks. On a personal level, such an employee can be harder work, but the results he yields are in my opinion often better.

On the other hand, you get employees that are usually willing to work and be in charge at times a normal employee would already have gone home and doesn't pick up when called by the employer.

Just a few thoughts.. Now finally the document I'm writing about :-)
Here's the article that analyzes a few pros and cons of telecommuting.

It happened (Riddle!)

We've worked for almost a year on this, it was the final big open issues (in order to see many more of those in front of us, but all manageable :-) ). Today we learned that this obstacle will have been left behind us in the near future - which makes us ready to move from there very soon and with full energy !
!!! Congratulations and thanks to all !!!

Debug ASP.NET ATLAS/Ajax controls

ATLAS development is an interesting task and offers some new challenges. Debugging ATLAS control was such for me - how would one debug a webservice call done by an ATLAS/AJAX control if the call is not making it to the web application sitting on your server ?

XMLHttpRequest Debugging for IE (don't click, but add this link to your favourites)

XMLHttpRequest Debugging for Firefox (Requires Greasemonkey)

Once you have set the bookmark/favourite, go to the page that uses Xml Http Calls to get data from your web application, click the bookmarklet/favourite and a nicely done layer pops up that traces Javascript calls to the server and also displays the response. VERY VERY neat !

Thanks a lot Julien ! This little tool helped me save hours.
Check for updates on Julien's blog

Exception Handling best practice

Sounds pretty basic, but i believe that for every developer not thinking about Exception Concepts each day, this is a good refresher or for starters, a perfect introduction about how to handle (or not handle) exceptions in an application.

Karl Seguin on Understanding and Using Exceptions

The Ultimate Asp.net 2.0 Security, Role, Membership and Profile Provider List V1.0

Just a cheap blog entry to make sure that you know this page in case you work with .net 2.0 Roles, Membership, Profiles and Security. If you can't find what you need to know here, don't look any further.. ;-)

http://arnonel.com/blogs/arnonel/archive/2006/03/28/12.aspx

Are you a leader ?

Are Web Developers/Web Project Managers that have been working on/for/with the web for years (since 1995 here, which is ELEVEN years already !! Woah, I'm getting real old real quick..), the future leaders in terms of Internet strategies and so on ? Exactly that thought crossed my mind last weekend, and i have not been sure whether working on the Internet is rather something seen as "trivial" compared to a proper Software Engineer, doing Java or something similar. Software Developers still seem to have less reputation than Java developers. But on the other hand, they have to know many (rapidly advancing) technologies. Granted, most of these technologies only now start to mature (in terms of OO, compatibility), but all these technology-layers a Web Project incorporates have all still a certain complexity.

Anyway, make your mind up for yourself and
see if you'll be a leader :-)

Has Microsoft lost confidence in .net ?

Having been at PDC 2005 and seen the praising of .net myself, I felt clearly confident that Microsoft and .net would be a marriage that lasts for years, with the inventor supporting the technologie virtually forever.

But Richard Grimes collected indicators that it wouldn't be so. Searching Windows XP and it's various successors for traces of OS-shipped applications, tools and (who knows) core services of the Operating System that rely on the .net Framework. He couldn't find much that encouraged him in thinking that Microsoft would indeed trust in it's new (cool !) technology.

Having said that, it also need to be stressed that the core developers that work on the Windows-core having been developing unmanaged (thus non .net) code for a long time. The risk of scraping everything they did (like Windows explorer) and start anew would be tremendous. But even then, Microsoft can be expected to be more honest to at least it's developer base, like PDC 2005 etc.

Read and decide for yourself: http://www.grimes.demon.co.uk/dotnet/vistaAndDotnet.htm

Visual Studio likes to work disconnected, but how to reconnect ?

I like to work on my notebook and work when- and wherever i can, like when in the train or plane etc. That did mean to work without any internet access and thus working on a checked-in C# project. Now fortunatly, both Visual Studio 2003 and 2005 nice let you know that it can simulate a check out and let you work disconnected. Very useful and just a confirmation click away. I might have been the only one expection it to nicely ask me to work connected again as soon as VS would start and find a connection to the VSS server again.

It didn't, and it took my at first quite a bit of time and hassle to reconnect AND be sure that no updates on my (faked checked-out) files at first.
While I could see that Visual Studio 2003 was a first of its kind, VS 2005 certainly isn't (I do definitely believe that MS did a good and extensive job with both versions, though). So I was again naive and looked forward to making reconnecting the project much easier, but I was in for a suprise - it did exactly what it's predecessor (?) did - nothing !

So whether you're in the fortunate situation to already work with VS 2005 or still stick to VS 2003, you still have to open "File" menu, go to Source Control and indicate to "Change Source Control" (which is not quite what I really want to do, but well..). You'll find your projects being disconnected, and have to check the box for each (and usually all listed) projects, which then causes VS to (most of the times, but you might even there run into trouble) connect again and let you know about next steps. For me, doing a GetLatest while not letting it overwrite writable files did the trick.

Resources in ASP.net 2.0 and Design time support

Today I noticed that the CreateUserWizard control I am working on throws an exception once switching to Design View of Visual Studio 2005, by saying "Error Creating Control - Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

The reason is that i declaratively reference my Global Resources for labelling ToolTip and CreateUserButton Text, which seem to be null during design time (which seems perfectly understandable).
But what can I do against that ? Finding out hopefully..

Update: 2 days later after investigating, I didn't find any clear documentation on that, but just moved the late-bound stuff like setting control properties to resource-texts form ASPX to the code-behind. Since the designer doesn't have to render these calls like this anymore, it's all fine. And although it would be nice to access resource texts including designer support and without using code, i can perfectly live with that. And I still suspect that there is a CustomAttribute or something like that to include Designer-support. Anyone ? ;-)

ASP.net User Controls - CreateUserWizard customization

Currently i am trying to get my head round .net 2.0 / ASP.net 2.0, which is indeed an interesting journey. Overall, also I have to express my admiration to what Microsoft has accomplished with .net 1.1, continuing pretty much the right path (imho) with .net 2.0 (I used to be a huge fan of Java, and had no sympathies for MS pre-.net)

While trying to customize the CreateUserWizard control in Terms of appearance and steps, some confusion came up. Not in general a fan of tiny things that generate themselves to some big magic balloon noone can look into/debug and grasp why things are rendered and why not.

To make things short, whenever i added a CompleteWizardStep

<wizardsteps>
<asp:createuserwizardstep>
</asp:createuserwizardstep>

<asp:completewizardstep>
</asp:completewizardstep>

<contenttemplate></contenttemplate>

</wizardsteps>




ASP.net 2.0 would still render my complete step and then additionally the default complete step. Anyway i was wondering how asp.net should know i intend to REPLACE the default complete step and not add my own.
After browsing through loads of (repeating) documentation and samples, i got suspicious that your step to overwrite the default one, it has to be called exactly like the default step, in my case "CompleteWizardStep1" which i found a bit strange and/or weird. But it's the first version of the control after all ;-)

Just in case somebody has a similar issue.

Happy coding
Denis