All MSDN Magazine Topics

• Cutting Edge: Exploring ASP.NET 4.0—Web Forms and Beyond
  Dino Esposito - September 2009 2009
  The upcoming ASP.NET 4.0 platform has the same foundation as the latest 3.5 SP1 version, but it provides further refinement in the areas of Web Forms, Dynamic Data controls, and ASP.NET AJAX. In this article, Dino takes a look at what’s new and improved in the Web Forms model.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Search Engine Optimization with ASP.NET 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 and IIS7
  Scott Allen - September 2009 2009
  In this article, the author takes a look at SEO practices that the reader can apply when using the latest Microsoft Web technologies.
  
  
• Usability in Practice: The Tao of Screen Design
  Ambrose Little, Charles B. Kreitzberg - September 2009 2009
  This article describes methods for designing screens in a user interface and the technology frameworks that support screen design.
  
  
• Silverlight: Composite Web Apps With Prism
  Shawn Wildermuth - July 2009
  This article reviews the Prism project developed by the Microsoft patterns & practices group and demonstrates how to apply it to composite Web applications using Silverlight.
  
  
• RESTful XHTML: RESTful Services With ASP.NET MVC
  Aaron Skonnard - July 2009
  This article describes how to use XHTML and ASP.NET MVC to implement REST services.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Taking Silverlight Deep Zoom To The Next Level
  Jeff Prosise - July 2009
  With the help of Silverlight Deep Zoom and a remarkable control named MultiScaleImage, you can create scenes with many levels of zoom. Jeff Prosise illustrates with what else but the Mandlebrot set.
  
  
• Data Points: Building An Out-of-Browser Client With Silverlight 3
  John Papa - June 2009
  Silverlight 2 applications are restricted to running inside a browser. However, Silverlight 3 applications can run inside the browser or out. Here we build a social networking app as a standalone Silverlight 3 application.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Go Beyond HTML Forms With AJAX
  Dino Esposito - June 2009
  This month we examine forms in the context of AJAX applications and look at various approaches to implementing features such as auto-saving, just-in-time validation, and submission throttling.
  
  
• Data Services: Access Your Data On Premise Or In The Cloud With ADO.NET Data Services
  Elisa Flasko - May 2009
  In this article the author looks at two versions of the same application--one consuming an on-premise Data Service, and one consuming an Azure Table Data Service to illustrate data access in the cloud.
  
  
• Security Briefs: A Conversation About Threat Modeling
  Michael Howard - May 2009
  Listen in on a chat between a developer and security pro that delves into some of the major Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) requirements we impose on product teams here at Microsoft
  
  
• Lessons Learned: Optimizing A Large Scale Software + Services Application
  Udi Dahan - April 2009
  Udi Dahan explains how his team identified and overcame unforeseen problems while developing a large-scale software + services trading application.
  
  
• Data Points: Using Silverlight 2 With ADO.NET Data Services
  John Papa - April 2009
  ADO.NET Data Services and Silverlight make a powerful combination, but to make them work well together, there are a few things you need to understand. Here, John Papa explains.
  
  
• Windows With C++: The Virtual Disk API In Windows 7
  Kenny Kerr - April 2009
  This month we look inside the Windows 7 beta to examine the Virtual Disk API and the Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format.
  
  
• { End Bracket }: Translate This Page
  Sandor Maurice & Vikram Dendi - April 2009
  This month we examine the Microsoft translation Web service and show you how you can incorporate translation services into your own Web application.
  
  
• Internet Explorer 8: New Features To Slice, Store, And Accelerate Your Web Applications
  Daron Yöndem - March 2009
  Internet Explorer 8 sports some exciting new features including Web Slices, Accelerators, and search suggestions along with AJAX navigation and DOM storage.
  
  
• Silverlight Patterns: Model-View-ViewModel In Silverlight 2 Apps
  Shawn Wildermuth - March 2009
  In this article, you’ll learn how to avoid problematic tight coupling by applying the Model-View-ViewModel pattern in Silverlight 2.
  
  
• CLR Inside Out: Isolated Storage In Silverlight 2
  Justin Van Patten - March 2009
  See how to get the most out of isolated storage in Silverlight to keep your applications safe.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Explore Rich Client Scripting With jQuery, Part 1
  Dino Esposito - March 2009
  Thanks to selectors and function chaining, jQuery allows you to write compact, cross-browser code.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Charting With ASP.NET And LINQ
  K. Scott Allen - March 2009
  The combination of the ASP.NET Chart Control and the data querying power of LINQ lets you build flexible charts. Learn how here.
  
  
• Wicked Code: 3 Important Tips For Silverlight Development
  Jeff Prosise - March 2009
  As a Web platform, Silverlight should be fast. Don’t keep your users waiting by not heeding these performance tips.
  
  
• Usability in Practice: Strategies for Designing Application Navigation
  Dr. Charles B. Kreitzberg and Ambrose Little - March 2009
  Good navigation makes for happy users, and happy users are good for your business. See what makes users happy this month.
  
  
• Silverlight: Build Line-Of-Business Enterprise Apps With Silverlight, Part 2
  Hanu Kommalapati - February 2009
  Here we wrap up the call center client application we began last month. The techniques we illustrate will help you build real-world enterprise solutions using Silverlight.
  
  
• Data Points: Syndicated Data And Isolated Storage In Silverlight
  John Papa - February 2009
  Here we build a syndicated news reader application to illustrate the use of isolated storage and data syndication in Silverlight.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Managing Dynamic Content Delivery In Silverlight, Part 2
  Dino Esposito - February 2009
  This month Dino continues his look at managing dynamic Silverlight content by discussing caching and isolated storage.
  
  
• Silverlight: Build Line-Of-Business Enterprise Apps With Silverlight, Part 1
  Hanu Kommalapati - January 2009
  Take a walk through the creation of a call center client application to learn how to build real-world enterprise solutions using Silverlight.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Managing Dynamic Content Delivery In Silverlight, Part 1
  Dino Esposito - January 2009
  This month Dino tackles the problem of large download size for Silverlight applications, explaining when to use streaming, when to divide the download, and other techniques for better performance over the wire.
  
  
• Agile SDL: Streamline Security Practices For Agile Development
  Bryan Sullivan - November 2008
  Bryan Sullivan discusses the new SDL for Web applications and Agile projects with more compressed release cycles.
  
  
• Utility Spotlight: 12 Steps To Faster Web Pages With Visual Round Trip Analyzer
  Jim Pierson - November 2008
  Download Visual Round-trip Analyzer (VRTA) to uncover the root of your Web page loading problems and identify these 12 common ailments.
  
  
• RIA: Light Up SharePoint With Silverlight 2 Web Parts
  Steve Fox and Paul Stubbs - November 2008
  Find out how to integrate SharePoint and Silverlight by creating a Silverlight media player and deploying it as a SharePoint Web Part.
  
  
• Data Points: Cloud Gazing From Silverlight 2
  John Papa - November 2008
  John Papa tackles questions about calling services from Silverlight 2 applications.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Browser Interoperability In Silverlight 2
  Dino Esposito - November 2008
  This month Dino Esposito explains how the browser interoperability layer in Silverlight addresses a number of your Silverlight / Web page interaction needs.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Silverlight 2 Transforms And Clipping Regions
  Jeff Prosise - November 2008
  Silverlight is powerful enough to let you easily build an image magnification feature for you web site with very little code, most of which is XAML. Find out how.
  
  
• ASP.NET AJAX 4.0: New AJAX Support For Data-Driven Web Apps
  Bertrand Le Roy - October 2008
  Here is an ASP.NET AJAX data-driven Web application that takes the best features from server- and client-side programming to deliver an efficient, user-friendly experience.
  
  
• CLR Inside Out: Security In Silverlight 2
  Andrew Dai - October 2008
  Andrew Dai of the CLR team discusses the Transparency model, which creates a strong isolation boundary between privileged and unprivileged code for Silverlight apps.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Code reuse in WPF and Silverlight 2.
  Dino Esposito - October 2008
  There’s a strong similarity between Web-based Silverlight 2 applications and desktop WPF applications. Enabling easy code reuse between the two is Dino’s focus here.
  
  
• Going Places: Ink-Enabled Apps For Tablet PC
  Gus Class - October 2008
  We show you how to create ink-enabled apps quickly with the Tablet PC SDK and the InkEdit and InkPicture ActiveX controls.
  
  
• Data Services: Create Data-Centric Web Applications With Silverlight 2
  Shawn Wildermuth - September 2008
  ADO.NET Data Services provide Web-accessible endpoints that allow you to filter, sort, shape, and page data without having to build that functionality yourself.
  
  
• Data Points: Service-Driven Apps With Silverlight 2 And WCF
  John Papa - September 2008
  Here John Papa demonstrates how to build a Silverlight 2 user interface that communicates through WCF to interact with business entities and a database.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Building A Secure AJAX Service Layer
  Dino Esposito - September 2008
  This month Dino builds a service layer that authenticates users of Silverlight 2 and ASP.NET AJAX services to prevent illegal access to sensitive back-end services.
  
  
• Security Briefs: SDL Embraces The Web
  Bryan Sullivan - September 2008
  In this installment we introduce you to new Web-oriented security guidance and tools straight from the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) team at Microsoft.
  
  
• Data 2.0: Expose And Consume Data in A Web Services World
  Elisa Flasko and Mike Flasko - August 2008
  The goal of the ADO.NET Data Services Framework is to create a simple REST-based framework for exposing and consuming data-centric services easily.
  
  
• Silverlight: Create Animations with XAML and Expression Blend
  Lawrence Moroney - August 2008
  In this excerpt from his upcoming book, Laurence Moroney explains the basics of Silverlight animation and the animation tools available in Expression Blend.
  
  
• Write On!: Create Web Apps You Can Draw On with Silverlight 2
  Julia Lerman - August 2008
  We build a Silverlight 2.0 application using the InkPresenter to let users annotate a pre-defined collection of images, perform handwriting recognition, and save the annotations and recognized text into a server-side database.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Craft Custom Controls for Silverlight 2
  Jeff Prosise - August 2008
  If you're unfamiliar with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), building that first Silverlight custom control can be a daunting experience. This article walks through the process.
  
  
• Editor's Note: More than Pretty Pictures
  Howard Dierking - August 2008
  Complete freedom in creating the user experience can be a double-edged sword, but a little bit of artistry can transform an application's usability.
  
  
• Toolbox: Serializing objects, Scott Allen’s blog, Site Performance, and more
  Scott Mitchell - August 2008
  Serialize and Deserialize Fixed Length and Delimited Files, Scott Allen's blog, inspecting Web Pages, and more.
  
  
• CLR Inside Out: Program Silverlight with the CoreCLR
  Andrew Pardoe - August 2008
  The CoreCLR provides the perfect set of CLR classes and functionality for the Web.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Programming AJAX with ASP.NET Partial Rendering
  Dino Esposito - August 2008
  Dino Esposito compares the use of AJAX patterns and DOM manipulations to the use of the ASP.NET partial rendering engine.
  
  
• Windows with C++: Asynchronous WinHTTP.
  Kenny Kerr - August 2008
  This month's column explains how to use Windows HTTP Services, or WinHTTP, the new, powerful API for implementing HTTP clients.
  
  
• Data Services: Develop Robust and Scalable Apps with SQL Server Data Services
  David Robinson - July 2008
  Here the author introduces SQL Server Data Services, which exposes its functionality over standard Web service interfaces.
  
  
• Toolbox: Easy Wiki Hosting, Scott Hanselman’s blog, and Snagging Screens
  Scott Mitchell - July 2008
  Host a wiki the easy way, get the screen shots you need and mark them up, and read about LINQ this month in Toolbox.
  
  
• Office Space: Automated SharePoint Site Branding
  Ted Pattison - July 2008
  Here's a custom branding solution for SharePoint sites that integrates Master Pages and CSS files at the level of the site collection.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: The HTML Message Pattern
  Dino Esposito - July 2008
  In this installment, the author provides an enhanced implementation of the BST pattern and compares it to HTM solutions.
  
  
• Office Apps: Integrate VSTO with SharePoint Content Types
  Steve Fox - May 2008
  See how to build a document-level Visual Studio Tools for Office customization and integrate it with a content type in SharePoint.
  
  
• MOSS 2007: Automate Web App Deployment with the SharePoint API
  E. Wilansky, P. Olszewski, and R. Sneddon - May 2008
  Learn how to automate custom SharePoint application deployments, use the SharePoint API, and avoid the hassle of custom site definitions.
  
  
• Security: Safer Authentication with a One-Time Password Solution
  Dan Griffin - May 2008
  One-time passwords offer solutions to dictionary attacks, phishing, interception, and lots of other security breaches. Here's how it all works.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Single-page Interface and AJAX Patterns
  Dino Esposito - May 2008
  This month we begin a look at the Single Page Interface (SPI) model and some design patterns for designing AJAX applications.
  
  
• Test Run: Request/Response Testing with Windows PowerShell
  Dr. James McCaffrey - May 2008
  Did you know you can use Windows PowerShell to perform lightweight request/response testing for an ASP.NET Web app? Here's how.
  
  
• Performance: Scaling Strategies for ASP.NET Applications
  Richard Campbell and Kent Alstad - April 2008
  Performance problems can creep into your Web app as it scales up, and when they do, you need to find the causes and the best strategies to address them.
  
  
• Silverlight: Building Advanced 3D Animations with Silverlight 2.0
  Declan Brennan - April 2008
  Animating with Silverlight is easier than you think. Here we create a 3D app that folds a polyhedron using XAML, C#, and by emulating the DirectX math libraries.
  
  
• Toolbox: Logging Web App Errors, Learning LINQ, and More
  Scott Mitchell - April 2008
  See how to log Web application errors for better health monitoring, what to read if you’re thinking about LINQ, and which blog Scott recommends reading this month.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: ListView Tips and Tricks
  Dino Esposito - April 2008
  This month, use nested ListView controls to create hierarchical views of data and extend the eventing model of the ListView by deriving a custom ListView class.
  
  
• ASP.NET MVC: Building Web Apps without Web Forms
  Chris Tavares - March 2008
  Chris Tavares explains how the ASP.NET MVC Framework's Model View Controller pattern helps you build flexible, easily tested Web applications.
  
  
• Test Run: Web UI Automation with Windows PowerShell
  Dr. James McCaffrey - March 2008
  Here we show you how to use Windows PowerShell to create quick and easy UI test automation for ASP.NET and classic ASP Web applications.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: The Only Data-binding Control You'll Ever Need
  Fritz Onion - March 2008
  Fritz Onion demonstrates how the ListView control in ASP.NET 3.5 makes data-binding tasks easier with support for styling with CSS, flexible pagination, and a full complement of sorting, inserting, deleting, and updating features.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Customize Controls with AJAX Extenders, Part 2
  Dino Esposito - February 2008
  This month Dino looks at AJAX control extenders again, adding more advanced features including masked editing and autocompletion.
  
  
• IIS 7.0: Enhance Your Apps with the Integrated ASP.NET Pipeline
  Mike Volodarsky - January 2008
  Mike Volodarsky demonstrates how IIS 7.0 lets you add performance and security upgrades to PHP apps without touching a line of PHP code.
  
  
• World Ready: Around the World with ASP.NET AJAX Applications
  Guy Smith-Ferrier - January 2008
  The .NET Framework has excellent internationalization support, but JavaScript does not. If you're using ASP.NET AJAX, learn what you need to do to adapt.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Customize Controls with AJAX Extenders
  Dino Esposito - January 2008
  AJAX Extenders extend the behavior and features of ordinary Web controls so you can reduce postbacks and control input even better than with AJAX alone.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Drag and Drop with ASP.NET AJAX
  Jeff Prosise - January 2008
  Jeff Prosise shows how you can implement drag-and-drop functionality in your Web app with ASP.NET AJAX.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Encapsulate Silverlight with ASP.NET Controls
  Fritz Onion - January 2008
  To implement Silverlight in ASP.NET pages, you can encapsulate your Silverlight elements in ASP.NET controls. Here's how.
  
  
• Office Space: Events in SharePoint 2007
  Ted Pattison - November 2007
  Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 provides a new and improved infrastructure for handling server-side events. In this installment of Office Space, we look at techniques for hooking up Before Events and After Events using both Features and code.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Managing the User Experience in AJAX
  Dino Esposito - November 2007
  This month Dino takes a look at limitations and UI issues in Partial Rendering AJAX pages and techniques for managing the UI.
  
  
• Bugslayer: Measuring the Impact of View State
  John Robbins - November 2007
  Bloated view state can be a real performance bottleneck for your Web app, but it can be difficult to diagnose. John Robbins creates a handy tool that records and reports the view state size for pages in your ASP.NET applications.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: AJAX application architecture, Part 2
  Dino Esposito - October 2007
  The second of this two-part series delves into the script services programming model, which is useful if you're looking for a full paradigm shift in building AJAX applications.
  
  
• ASP.NET: ScriptManager Enables AJAX In Your Web Apps
  Ben Rush - September 2007
  Learn how to use the ScriptManager control, which provides much of the magic behind ASP.NET AJAX.
  
  
• Find It: Integrate Search Into Your Site With ASP.NET
  Marco Bellinaso - September 2007
  We implement search providers for both Live.com and SharePoint so you can take advantage of either in your own applications.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: AJAX Application Architecture, Part 1
  Dino Esposito - September 2007
  In the first of a two-part column, Dino explains AJAX from an architectural standpoint to help developers, architects, designers, and administrators better understand the issues that affect their sites.
  
  
• { End Bracket }: Turning the Pages with WPF
  Tim Sneath - September 2007
  The British Library is digitizing some of its collection to reach a broad audience. Even better, the digitized versions are being turned into a rich interactive experience that brings the books to life.
  
  
• Gadgets: Build Your Own Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget
  Donavon West - August 2007
  A Sidebar gadget is a powerful little too that's surprisingly easy to create. Get in on the fun with Donavon West.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Canceling Server Tasks with ASP.NET AJAX
  Dino Esposito - August 2007
  This month Dino explains how to remotely cancel tasks running on the server using ASP.NET AJAX.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Web Client Software Factory
  Fritz Onion - August 2007
  The Web Service Software Factory is designed to provide guidance and enhanced tools for building Web services using ASMX or WCF.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Context-Sensitive Feedback with AJAX
  Dino Esposito - July 2007
  Beyond progress bars: talking to server-side apps with ASP.NET AJAX.
  
  
• { End Bracket }: Weaving Your Photos with Photosynth
  Richard Szeliski - July 2007
  See what the Interactive Visual Media Group at Microsoft Research is up to these days.
  
  
• SILVERLIGHT: Get Started Building A Deeper Experience Across The Web
  Laurence Moroney - June 2007
  Build rich, compelling, cross-platform, interactive applications with Microsoft Silverlight.
  
  
• Wicked Code: UpdatePanel Tips and Tricks
  Jeff Prosise - June 2007
  Jeff Prosise explains when it's better to use UpdatePanel and when it's better to use asynchronous calls to WebMethods or page methods instead.
  
  
• Migration: Convert A Java Web Application To ASP.NET Using JLCA
  Brian Jimerson - May 2007
  
  
  
• Office Space: Features for SharePoint
  Ted Pattison - May 2007
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Subclassing and Overriding ASP.NET Pages—Part II
  Dino Esposito - May 2007
  
  
  
• Identity: Secure Your ASP.NET Apps And WCF Services With Windows CardSpace
  Michèle Leroux Bustamante - April 2007
  Windows CardSpace replaces traditional authentication with a more consistent and streamlined login process and improves trust between end-users, applications and services. Michèle Leroux Bustamante explains.
  
  
• ASP.NET 2.0: Enforce Web Standards For Better Accessibility
  Ben Waldron - April 2007
  Web standards are about much more than closing HTML tags. They are a critical factor in how well software components can be used in future contexts.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Subclassing and Overriding ASP.NET Pages—Part I
  Dino Esposito - April 2007
  There are a number of techniques that allow you to modify a running ASP.NET page without touching its source code. Dino discusses some this month.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Web Deployment Projects
  Fritz Onion - April 2007
  ASP.NET 2.0 development is the easiest ASP development yet. Fritz Onion reveals why.
  
  
• { End Bracket }: Geopegging
  Joshua Trupin - April 2007
  Josh Trupin introduces geopegging--a special technique for storing GPS location data in a JPG.
  
  
• IIS 7.0: Explore The Web Server For Windows Vista And Beyond
  Mike Volodarsky - March 2007
  
  
  
• ASP.NET 2.0: Manage Web Users With Custom Profile Providers
  Jason N. Gaylord - March 2007
  
  
  
• { End Bracket }: Developing the Virtual Earth 3D Control
  Duncan Lawler - March 2007
  
  
  
• SQL Server 2005: Regular Expressions Make Pattern Matching And Data Extraction Easier
  David Banister - February 2007
  Now you can perform efficient, sophisticated text analysis using regular expressions in SQL Server 2005.
  
  
• Test Run: AJAX Test Automation
  Dr. James McCaffrey - February 2007
  This month James McCaffrey presents a technique that allows you to write lightweight test automation to verify the functionality of AJAX Web applications.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Perspectives on ASP.NET AJAX
  Dino Esposito - February 2007
  AJAX allows you to build rich browser applications using powerful combinations of existing client-side Web technologies. This month Dino delves into AJAX
  
  
• Desktop Security: Create Custom Login Experiences With Credential Providers For Windows Vista
  Dan Griffin - January 2007
  Why is a change to the Windows logon plug-in interface so exciting? Because with credential providers you can customize the logon experience for your users.
  
  
• Security Briefs: Using Protocol Transition—Tips from the Trenches
  Keith Brown - January 2007
  Now that Windows Server 2003 is widely deployed, Keith Brown addresses questions from readers who are trying to use protocol transition to build secure gateways into their intranets.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: The Client Side of ASP.NET Pages
  Dino Esposito - December 2006
  This month Dino Esposito dissects the client-side source code generated by ASP.NET pages.
  
  
• { End Bracket }: And Along Came 10…
  Duncan Mackenzie - December 2006
  IntroducingOn10.net (http://on10.net), the Channel 9 answer for the technology enthusiast who isn’t necessarily a programmer.
  
  
• Security Briefs: Limited User Problems and Split Knowledge
  Keith Brown - November 2006
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Simplify Task Progress with ASP.NET "Atlas"
  Dino Esposito - October 2006
  Dino Esposito rewrites his task progress bar with the help of ASP.NET “Atlas.”
  
  
• Security Briefs: CardSpace, SqlMembershipProvider, and More
  Keith Brown - October 2006
  This month Keith Brown fields some reader questions on InfoCard turned CardSpace and passwords for SqlMembershipProvider.
  
  
• Earthly Delights: Code Your Applications To Deliver The World With Virtual Earth APIs
  Chandu Thota - September 2006
  In this article, Chandu Thota highlights some of the most salient features of the Virtual Earth APIs and shows you how to build your own powerful mapping and local search applications using them.
  
  
• Secure By Design: Your Field Guide To Designing Security Into Networking Protocols
  Mark Novak and Andrew Roths - September 2006
  If you were to build a new communications protocol from scratch, how would you address security? Here the authors take a look at that question and generate some valuable insights into secure protocols.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Reporting Task Progress With ASP.NET 2.0
  Dino Esposito - September 2006
  The progress bar is great for keeping users informed about the progress of a task. Unfortunately, there’s no progress bar element built into ASP.NET, so Dino Esposito solves that problem with his ProgressPanel control.
  
  
• Gathering MOSS: New Dev-Centric Features In Office SharePoint Server Keep Your Apps Rolling
  Ted Pattison - August 2006
  Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 provides great portal and search features and much more, and Ted Pattison puts them to good use here.
  
  
• Design Patterns: Model View Presenter
  Jean-Paul Boodhoo - August 2006
  The MVP pattern helps you separate your logic and keep your UI layer free of clutter. This month learn how.
  
  
• Atlas At Last: ASP.NET Atlas Powers the AJAX-Style Sites You’ve Been Waiting For
  Matt Gibbs - July 2006
  
  
  
• Web App Follies: Keep Sites Running Smoothly By Avoiding These 10 Common ASP.NET Pitfalls
  Jeff Prosise - July 2006
  
  
  
• WSS 3.0 Preview: Discover Significant Developer Improvements In SharePoint Services
  Ted Pattison - July 2006
  
  
  
• Editor's Note: Get Ready for AJAX
  - July 2006
  If you’re fortunate enough to attend a developer conference this year, look around at the variety of people. There are all kinds out there, a diverse ecosystem as the marketing folks might say. Even within a relatively narrow group like programmers, you’ll find a wide range of goals and interests.
  
  
• Inside MSDN: Building the MSDN Aggregation System
  John Mollman - July 2006
  Have you visited msdn2. microsoft. com? It’s the new online face of the MSDN® Developer Tools and Enterprise Server documentation. The infrastructure behind it includes a system developed by my team at Microsoft for aggregating information related to our content.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Asynchronous Web Parts
  Fritz Onion - July 2006
  Building a customizable Web site complete with a collection of pluggable Web Parts is fairly easy with the portal infrastructure of ASP. NET 2. 0. This model is very flexible, allowing users to easily place your Web Parts anywhere on the Web page so they are free to customize your site.
  
  
• Share The Load: Report Visual Studio Team System Load Test Results Via A Configurable Web Site
  Wen Ding - June 2006
  This article discusses a new load test tool in Visual Studio 2005 Team System for performance and stress testing your Web sites, Web services, and other server components. Combined with its handy reporting capabilities, the load test tool provides some powerful options for sharing and managing test results.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: A Provider-Based Service for ASP.NET Tracing
  Dino Esposito - June 2006
  When it comes to catching programming errors, the debugger is a developer's best friend. ASP. NET tracing, however, is a nice complement to the debugger and shouldn't be overlooked. It enables your ASP.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Three Cures for Common Site Map Ailments
  Jeff Prosise - June 2006
  Data-driven site navigation is among the niftiest and most useful features in ASP. NET 2. 0. To get it working, all you do is create an XML site map file (or a SQL site map if you're using the MSDN®Magazine SqlSiteMapProvider), add a SiteMapDataSource, and bind a TreeView or Menu to the SiteMapDataSource.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Extending the GridView Control
  Dino Esposito - May 2006
  Welcome to my100th consecutive installment of Cutting Edge. I've been writing this column since January 1998 in Microsoft Internet Developer. Looking back over the past eight years, I realize that I've touched on almost every subject in the Windows® SDK and the Microsoft® .
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Keeping secrets in ASP.NET 2.0.
  Rob Howard - May 2006
  Storing data securely in a configuration system is not an easy problem to solve. While I was on the ASP. NET team, this particular feature, secure connection string storage, looked as if it wouldn’t get done.
  
  
• Security Briefs: Step-by-Step Guide to InfoCard
  Keith Brown - May 2006
  In my April 2006 column I began a discussion of InfoCard, the upcoming identity metasystem, which is being prepared for release in the Windows Vista™ timeframe. If you haven’t read that column, you should definitely start there because I’m going to assume you’re familiar with the basics I covered.
  
  
• C++ at Work: Web Version Checking, Adding Sound to an App
  Paul DiLascia - May 2006
  This month: CWebVersion revisited using HTTP instead of FTP, and adding sounds to an MFC-based app.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: A New Solution to an Old State Storage Problem
  Fritz Onion - April 2006
  State management in Web applications is a contentious issue. Should you store user data per session or should you persist it across sessions? You can easily store information temporarily while someone navigates your site by using session state.
  
  
• Basic Instincts: Introducing ASP.NET Web Part Connections
  Ted Pattison - February 2006
  When you begin to work with the Microsoft® . NET Framework 2. 0 and ASP. NET, you discover that the new Web Parts infrastructure adds some very powerful functionality to the underlying platform. In the September 2005 issue of MSDN®Magazine, Fritz Onion and I have an article on programming Web Parts titled "ASP.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Custom Data Control Fields
  Dino Esposito - January 2006
  In ASP. NET 2. 0, the GridView and DetailsView controls are designed to work together. They don't merely provide complementary services, they also share a number of helper classes and components. The output of the GridView control consists of a sequence of rows, each with a fixed number of columns.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Codebehind and Compilation in ASP.NET 2.0
  Fritz Onion - January 2006
  As I write this column, the release candidates of the Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio® 2005 have just come out, and by the time you read this, they will both already be on the shelves. It feels like it's been a long time coming.
  
  
• Smart Clients: Craft A Rich UI For Your .NET App With Enhanced Windows Forms Support
  Chris Sells and Michael Weinhardt - Visual Studio 2005 Guided Tour 2006
  The System.Windows.Forms namespace has increased by approximately 134 percent over the .NET Framework 1.1. There are 446 new public types; 113 existing types have been updated with new members and values; 218 types have been carried over from the original namespace. Read about it here.
  
  
• Web Apps: An Overview Of The New Services, Controls, And Features In ASP.NET 2.0
  Jeff Prosise - Visual Studio 2005 Guided Tour 2006
  ASP.NET 2.0 aims to reduce the amount of code required to accomplish common Web programming tasks by 70 percent or more. New services, controls, and features make it almost as dramatic an improvement to ASP.NET 1.x as that was to ASP Classic. Here Jeff Prosise explores the new features.
  
  
• UI on the Fly: Use the .NET Framework to Generate and Execute Custom Controls at Run Time
  Morgan Skinner - December 2005
  Creating UI controls on the fly can be accomplished via run-time code generation. And there are lots of reasons to do so. Generating these controls once and then reusing them as needed is more efficient than generating the controls each time. Read on.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Flexible Custom Data Views
  Dino Esposito - December 2005
  ASP. NET 1. x introduced some powerful and useful data-bound controls. However, none were designed specifically to manage the view of a single record. When you build master/detail views, you need to display the contents of a single record.
  
  
• Are You Protected?: Design and Deploy Secure Web Apps with ASP.NET 2.0 and IIS 6.0
  Mike Volodarsky - November 2005
  Ensuring the security of a Web application is critical and requires careful planning throughout the design, development, deployment, and operation phases. It is not something that can be slapped onto an existing application. In this article, Mike Volodarsky outlines best practices that allow you to take advantage of the security features of ASP.NET 2.0 and IIS 6.0 to build and deploy more secure Web applications.
  
  
• Who Goes There?: Upgrade Your Site's Authentication with the New ASP.NET 2.0 Membership API
  Dino Esposito and Andrea Saltarello - November 2005
  Here Dino Esposito and Andrea Saltarello cover the plumbing of the Membership API and its inherently extensible nature, based on pluggable providers. To demonstrate the features, they take an existing ASP.NET 1.x authentication mechanism and port it to ASP.NET 2.0, exposing the legacy authentication mechanism through the new Membership API.
  
  
• Web Q&A: ASP.NET Session State, Validation, DataGrids, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - November 2005
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: A Quick Tour of Themes in ASP.NET 2.0
  Dino Esposito - November 2005
  It's much easier to build a rich user interface into your Web application in ASP. NET 2. 0 than it was in previous versions. Master Pages let you build pages based on existing templates of markup and code.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Page Navigation
  Rob Howard - October 2005
  In my childhood I spent several weeks a year in Holland with my extended family. As a young American boy I was fascinated with the electric Dutch trains, something we didn't see in my hometown of Dallas, Texas.
  
  
• Test Run: Low-Level Web App UI Test Automation
  James McCaffrey - October 2005
  As Web applications have become more complex, testing them has become more important. There are many testing techniques available to you. For example, in the April 2005 issue of MSDN®Magazine, I describe a simple JScript®-based system that can test a Web app through its UI by using the Internet Explorer Document Object Model.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Personalization and User Profiles in ASP.NET 2.0
  Dino Esposito - October 2005
  Personalization is growing to be more and more of an essential ingredient in many types of Web apps, including portals and shopping sites. Without it, it's quite difficult to serve your customers efficiently.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Asynchronous Pages in ASP.NET 2.0
  Jeff Prosise - October 2005
  ASP.NET 2.0 is replete with new features ranging from declarative data binding and Master Pages to membership and role management services. But my vote for the coolest new feature goes to asynchronous pages, and here's why.
  
  
• Best Practices: Fast, Scalable, and Secure Session State Management for Your Web Applications
  Mike Volodarsky - September 2005
  ASP.NET provides a number of ways to maintain user state, the most powerful of which is session state. This article takes an in-depth look at designing and deploying high-performance, scalable, secure session solutions, and presents best practices for both existing and new ASP.NET session state features straight from the ASP.NET feature team.
  
  
• ASP.NET 2.0: Personalize Your Portal with User Controls and Custom Web Parts
  Ted Pattison and Fritz Onion - September 2005
  ASP.NET 2.0 introduces a Web Part control that is designed to deal with the serialization, storage, and retrieval of customization and personalization data behind the scenes. In this article, the authors explain how you can put the WebPart control to work in your ASP.NET 2.0 applications.
  
  
• Call MOM: Instrument and Monitor Your ASP.NET Apps Using WMI and MOM 2005
  Michael Jurek - September 2005
  The current version of Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) satisfies many current and future manageability requirements. In this article Michael Jurek demonstrates how WMI provides important system management capabilities and develops a WMI-aware monitoring solution you can use to instrument your ASP.NET applications. He then introduces the capabilities of MOM 2005 that allow you to monitor these instrumented applications.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Smart Navigation, ASP.NET Project Structure, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - September 2005
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: ASP.NET Forms
  Dino Esposito - September 2005
  Forms are an essential piece of ASP. NET—the ASP. NET Web programming model itself wouldn't be possible without forms. The use of forms is not constrained in pure HTML, but it is subject to some restrictions in ASP.
  
  
• Security Briefs: Credentials and Delegation
  Keith Brown - September 2005
  I get loads of security questions from friends and former students, and recently I've gotten a number of questions about building secure data-driven Web sites for internal enterprise systems. I've decided to answer them here to hopefully save you some headaches in your own projects.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Web Page Layout, Quirks Mode, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - July 2005
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: DHTML-Enabled ASP.NET Controls
  Dino Esposito - July 2005
  In the past, I've covered some core aspects of the interaction between DHTML behaviors, the browser, and ASP. NET runtime (see Cutting Edge: Extend the ASP. NET DataGrid with Client-side Behaviors and Cutting Edge: Moving DataGrid Rows Up and Down).
  
  
• Web Q&A: Locking Pop-Up Blocker, Mixed Authentication, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - June 2005
  
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: Tools of the Trade: Application Center Test
  Rob Howard - June 2005
  When you sit down to write an ASP. NET application, how much time do you spend thinking about performance? It's unfortunate, but for most developers performance is an afterthought. Performance planning and design really need to be front and center.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Power Programming Tips for ASP.NET 2.0
  Jeff Prosise - June 2005
  In the February 2005 issue, I introduced five lesser-known features of ASP. NET 2. 0 that have the potential to make a significant impact on the security, performance, and robustness of your code (see Wicked Code: Five Undiscovered Features on ASP.
  
  
• Web Q&A: ASP.NET Performance, Notification, Keeping Sort Order, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - May 2005
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Collections and Data Binding
  Dino Esposito - May 2005
  When it's time to design the Data Access Layer (DAL) of your distributed Microsoft® . NET Framework-based app, one of the key decisions you'll make is how you'll pass data to and from methods of DAL classes.
  
  
• Extreme ASP.NET: A Little Bit of Control for Your Controls
  Rob Howard - May 2005
  Having worked for so many years designing and developing ASP. NET while at Microsoft, it's exciting now to have a venue in which to talk about it. In this new column, Extreme ASP. NET, I'll discuss and demonstrate time-tested techniques and approaches to implementing high-performance, reliable, secure, and user-friendly Web applications with ASP.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Get Authentication Type, Get Screen Resolution, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - April 2005
  
  
  
• Test Run: Lightweight UI Test Automation for ASP.NET Web Apps
  James McCaffrey - April 2005
  The release of ASP. NET revolutionized Web development and made it easy to create full-featured Web applications. Visual Studio® 2005 and ASP. NET 2. 0 will let you add even more functionality to your applications, but the more features a Web application has, the more important testing becomes.
  
  
• ASP.NET: Combine Web and Windows Services to Run Your ASP.NET Code at Scheduled Intervals
  Andrew Needleman - March 2005
  If you want to schedule ASP.NET tasks, one solution is to use a Web service to provide an interface to your ASP.NET application and build a Windows service that calls to it at scheduled intervals. Thus the ASP.NET application doesn't have to own the scheduling logic. Here the author shows how to schedule your ASP.NET tasks using a Windows service to initiate the Web service call because Windows services can start themselves when Windows boots up.
  
  
• SQL Server: Display Your Data Your Way with Custom Renderers for Reporting Services
  James Yip - February 2005
  SQL Server 2005 Reporting Servicesis a great tool that offers a centralized approach to storing and rendering reports. It also lets users view and download reports without installing additional software. Plus, reports can be saved in any number of different formats using custom report renderers. In this article, the author will develop one such report renderer that outputs HTML reports, but the skills you'll learn can easily be used to create a renderer for Microsoft Word documents or any other format of your choosing.
  
  
• Web Q&A: ActiveX Privileges, Making Icon Files, Sticky Sessions, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - February 2005
  
  
  
• Inside MSDN: Designing URLs for MSDN2
  Tim Ewald - February 2005
  This is the first installment of a new column about MSDN® projects: what we're doing, how we're doing it, and what we're learning along the way. It will be written by MSDN staff with the goal of sharing the team's experiences in solving the real-world business problems MSDN faces.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Adding a Context Menu to ASP.NET Controls
  Dino Esposito - February 2005
  Although the context menu is a common element of most desktop applications, it is still fairly uncommon in Web application names because it doesn't map well to a server-based technology like ASP. NET.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Five Undiscovered Features on ASP.NET 2.0
  Jeff Prosise - February 2005
  By now, developers everywhere have had the opportunity to download the first beta of the Microsoft® . NET Framework 2. 0. ASP. NET developers who have played with it are no doubt salivating at all the cool new features.
  
  
• ASP.NET: 10 Tips for Writing High-Performance Web Applications
  Rob Howard - January 2005
  Writing a Web application with ASP.NET is unbelievably easy. So many developers don't take the time to structure their applications for great performance. In this article, the author presents 10 tips for writing high-performance Web apps. The discussion is not limited to ASP.NET applications because they are just one subset of Web applications.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Caching and Expiration, Connection Pools, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - January 2005
  
  
  
• Data Points: Data Source Controls in ASP.NET 2.0
  John Papa - January 2005
  ASP. NET 2. 0 introduces a series of new tools that improve data access including several data source and data bound controls. The new assortment of data source controls can eliminate a ton of repetitive code that was required in ASP.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Custom Script Callbacks in ASP.NET
  Dino Esposito - January 2005
  ASP. NET client callbacks represent a neat and elegant way to execute server-side code without posting and refreshing the current page. I discussed ASP. NET callbacks in the August and December 2004 installments of Cutting Edge, considering them from the perspective of rendered pages making background callbacks to the server, sending input data to the relevant page, and receiving a response.
  
  
• The ASP Column: Determining Browser Capabilities in ASP.NET
  George Shepherd - January 2005
  Web applications are different from applications that run in homogenous environments because they send their output to all kinds of platforms and Web browsers. Some browsers support client-side scripting, some support XHTML, and still others have limited screen real estate.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Windowed and Windowless Elements, Cookie Characters, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - December 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Implications of Script Callbacks in ASP.NET
  Dino Esposito - December 2004
  Script callbacks in ASP. NET 2. 0 is a feature whose time has come. Script callbacks can significantly speed up an application by limiting server postbacks. They also allow you to execute small portions of server-side code without having to manage the view state for reading or writing.
  
  
• Service Station: Run ASMX Without IIS
  Aaron Skonnard - December 2004
  When the Microsoft® . NET Framework first shipped, it introduced a breakthrough Web services framework known as ASMX. The motivation behind the ASMX design was to simplify the process of developing Web services as much as possible so that even if you're not an XML expert, you can get a Web service up and running.
  
  
• Web Q&A: ADO.NET Joins, HTML to XHTML, ASP.NET ViewState, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - November 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: The ASP.NET 2.0 Wizard Control
  Dino Esposito - November 2004
  ASP.NET has a lot to offer to both the low-level programmer willing to control every little step of the code and the busiest of developers who needs to point-and-click his way through Web app development using just a few existing components.
  
  
• ASP.NET 2.0: Speed Up Your Site with the Improved View State in ASP.NET 2.0
  Fritz Onion - October 2004
  View state is a wonderful thing. It allows the ASP.NET developer to maintain state for server-side controls that are not form elements.Used judiciously, it can improve the user experience. But in the wrong hands, it can cause your pages to grind to a halt. The release of ASP.NET 2.0 will include a variety of improvements to view state that will make it easier to use and less likely to slow performance.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Refreshing Web Pages, Spyware, Group Policy, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - October 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Design Smarter Tracing for ASP.NET Pages
  Dino Esposito - September 2004
  Tracing is important to the success of your ASP. NET applications. When tracing is enabled for an ASP. NET page, a large chunk of runtime information is appended to the page's output for your perusal.
  
  
• The ASP Column: What's in ASP.NET Config Files?
  George Shepherd - September 2004
  Even though you've been using ASP. NET for a while, how much do you really know about ASP. NET configuration files? While you've probably touched the Web. config file from time to time, there are some nuances involved in configuring ASP.
  
  
• Reporting: Deliver User-Friendly Reports from Your Application with SQL Server Reporting Services
  John C. Hancock - August 2004
  SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services--a server-based reporting platform built on the .NET Framework and integrated with SQL Server 2000--lets you easily add reporting from diverse data sources. Using Visual Studio and Reporting Services you can integrate reports from any data source that has an OLE DB, ODBC, or ADO.NET provider into your Web applications. This article explains how it's done.
  
  
• GridView: Move Over DataGrid, There's a New Grid in Town!
  Dino Esposito - August 2004
  When incorporating the ASP.NET DataGrid control into your Web apps, common operations such as paging, sorting, editing, and deleting data require more effort than you might like to expend. But all that is about to change. The GridView control--the successor to the DataGrid-- extends the DataGrid's functionality it in a number of ways. First, it fully supports data source components and can automatically handle data operations, such as paging, sorting, and editing, as long as its bound data source object supports these capabilities. In addition, the GridView control offers some functional improvements over the DataGrid. Here DataGrid expert Dino Esposito introduces the GridView and explains all its long-awaited features.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Page Ready State, DataGrid Row Deletion, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - August 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Script Callbacks in ASP.NET
  Dino Esposito - August 2004
  If you're involved in Web development you may have faced a problem that you couldn't find a good solution for—making client-to-server calls outside the current page. For example, you might want to validate the content of a textbox against data stored on the server asynchronously, without interrupting the continuity of the work or without forcing a full page refresh, which is particularly heavy for UI-rich pages.
  
  
• Test Run: Test Automation for ASP.NET Web Apps with SSL
  James McCaffrey - August 2004
  If you're encrypting user data with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) over HTTP and you want to test your Web applications programmatically you'll find that the techniques are not widely known. In this month's column I'll show you how to set up a test SSL server and write test automation that verifies the functionality of a simple but representative Web application.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Foiling Session Hijacking Attempts
  Jeff Prosise - August 2004
  Let's face it: every minute of every day, someone, somewhere, is patrolling the Web looking for sites to hack. ASP. NET developers must constantly be on their guard to ensure attempted hacks can't be successful.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Pop-Ups, Encrypting an ADO.NET Data Stream, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - July 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Implement Custom Cache Dependencies in ASP.NET 1.x
  Dino Esposito - July 2004
  One of the most compelling improvements that ASP. NET brought to ASP programming was the Cache object. The Cache has some similarities to the Application object and is a container of global data (as opposed to session-specific data) that features a fair number of innovative characteristics.
  
  
• Advanced Basics: Data Binding Radio Buttons to a List
  Duncan Mackenzie - July 2004
  
  
  
• The Big Story: An Overview of the New Services, Controls, and Features in ASP.NET 2.0
  Jeff Prosise - June 2004
  ASP.NET has become a bit of a gold standard for Web programming. The upcoming version, ASP.NET 2.0 will have even more of the kinds of features that have made it the popular framework it is today. This article takes a broad look at those features, including what's new in data source controls, themes and skins, the DataGrid and its new functionality, managing roles, and other administrative tasks.
  
  
• Security: Security Headaches? Take ASP.NET 2.0!
  Keith Brown - June 2004
  ASP.NET 2.0 provides significant advantages with respect to security, especially for folks developing Web sites that use Forms authentication. By providing a user profile repository with support for roles, Forms authentication will move beyond the purview of the ASP.NET internals guru, and should become much more broadly accessible. This article introduces security in ASP.NET 2.0 to give you a head start with upcoming features.
  
  
• Portals: Unleash Your Site's Potential with Web Parts and Personalization in ASP.NET 2.0
  Steven A. Smith - June 2004
  ASP.NET 2.0 has addressed some of the most common problems developers face today with a suite of controls, components and IDE tools. One such issuer is maintaining preferences information about individual users of a Web application in a uniform manner. This article drills down into ASP.NET 2.0 to illustrate how it helps solve these problems far easier than is possible today, and demonstrates how these features can be combined to build powerful, personalized Websites in very little time.
  
  
• Data: More Load, Less Code with the Data Enhancements of ASP.NET 2.0
  Dino Esposito - June 2004
  A data source control is a server control that wraps some basic functions of a data source - be it a SQL Server database, an XML document, an Excel worksheet, or a sitemap description. Through the services of a similar component, data-bound controls can fetch data as well as insert new records or update and delete existing ones. Data source controls enable a consistent model across a variety of data sources and dramatically reduce the amount of code needed to implement a two-way data-binding scenario. This article provides an introduction to data source controls and other related data binding features.
  
  
• Master Pages: Master Your Site Design with Visual Inheritance and Page Templates
  Fritz Onion - June 2004
  Master pages in ASP.NET 2.0 solve a problem many Web developers have been solving on their own with a variety of techniques for years - providing a single master template for an entire site. This article covers the details of master pages, discussing their usage and implementation and how they are a natural evolution of custom techniques developers are using today.
  
  
• Controls: Plan Your Migration to the Visual Studio 2005 Navigation Controls
  Dave Donaldson and Steven DeWalt - June 2004
  Navigation is central to a well functioning Web application and it can be implemented numerous ways using today's technologies. This article highlights some of the key details of the new navigation controls that are part of the upcoming ASP.NET 2.0, and talks about how to design and implement one of these navigation controls today. This article contains a simple Web site that demonstrates the use of these navigation controls, pointing out some of the key items such as a breadcrumb control and things to watch for along the way. The article then describes how to implement a breadcrumb control today.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Visual Studio 2005, HTC Memory Problems, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - June 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Dress Your Controls for Success with ASP.NET 1.1 Themes, Part 2
  Dino Esposito - June 2004
  
  
  
• Resource File: Blogging Tools
  Aaron Skonnard - June 2004
  
  
  
• Web Q&A: Request Timeouts, Byte Array Conversion, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - May 2004
  
  
  
• Data Points: Saving Parent-child Data in a Multitiered App Using ADO.NET
  John Papa - May 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Dress Your Controls for Success with ASP.NET 1.1 Themes
  Dino Esposito - May 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Image Generation Service for ASP.NET 1.1
  Dino Esposito - April 2004
  
  
  
• ISA Server 2004: Developing an Application Filter for Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004
  Yigal Edery - March 2004
  The beta version of Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 is now publicly available. It includes a rich SDK with several extensibility mechanisms that allow third parties to integrate their specialized solutions on top of the ISA platform. In this article, the author explores the application filter extensibility mechanism, which enables you to add high-level application layer filtering capabilities to ISA Server and to provide rich content filtering solutions. He also highlights the new features of the ISA Server 2004 SDK, then moves on to describe how to develop a basic application filter that monitors all data going through the ISA Server, and how to integrate a filter into the ISA Server management console to create a seamless interface experience for your users.
  
  
• Data Points: Exception-handling Techniques
  John Papa - March 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Personalization in ASP.NET 1.1
  Dino Esposito - March 2004
  
  
  
• The ASP Column: Using SOAP Extensions in ASP.NET
  George Shepherd - March 2004
  
  
  
• Web Q&A: ANSI Chars in XML, E-commerce Architecture, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - February 2004
  
  
  
• The ASP Column: Web Services: ATL Server Versus ASP.NET
  George Shepherd - February 2004
  
  
  
• Wicked Code: Client-side Paging for DataGrids
  Jeff Prosise - February 2004
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Extend the ASP.NET DataGrid with Client-side Behaviors
  Dino Esposito - January 2004
  
  
  
• Web Q&A: Virtual Directories, Releasing DB Connections, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - December 2003
  
  
  
• Design Patterns: Asynchronous Wait State Pattern in ASP.NET
  Lyn Robison - December 2003
  
  
  
• OLAP: Build an OLAP Reporting App in ASP.NET Using SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services and Office XP
  Jeffrey Hasan and Kenneth Tu - October 2003
  Many organizations analyze their business-critical data using Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) technology. OLAP-based data mining provides a way to query multidimensional data sets and drill down into the data to find patterns. ASP.NET and the Microsoft Office Web Components (OWC) enable Web-based OLAP reporting. The OWC controls include PivotTable and Chart components that can be embedded in a Web page and scripted by programmers. In this article, the authors build a Web-based OLAP reporting app using ASP.NET, OWC, and SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services to illustrate the process.
  
  
• Blogging: Design Your Own Weblog Application from Scratch Using ASP.NET, JavaScript, and OLE DB
  Marco Bellinaso - October 2003
  The ASP.NET advanced templated controls, such as the DataList and DataGrid, are perfect for many data representation situations. However, when you need the flexibility to render a variety of layouts, the Repeater control is what you need. In this article the author builds a full-featured blog application to illustrate the use of the Repeater and DataList controls that render nested data in a master-detail relationship. He then discusses how to override the default implementations of these controls by adding some client-side JavaScript code that makes the blog more responsive and enhances its usability.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Nested Grids for Hierarchical Data
  Dino Esposito - October 2003
  
  
  
• Web Q&A: InfoPath Back End, WSH Script Signing, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - September 2003
  
  
  
• The ASP Column: The Internet Explorer Toolbar Control
  George Shepherd - September 2003
  
  
  
• ASP.NET: Jump Start Your Web Site Development with the ASP.NET Starter Kits
  Paul Litwin - August 2003
  If you're building an ASP.NET Web site you could probably use a good, solid code foundation to start with and build upon. Wouldn't it be nice to start with a complete site, make a few tweaks and customizations, and go live? The ASP.NET Starter Kits are packaged solutions that let you do just that. The five kits—Community, Reports, Commerce, Portal, and Time Tracker—supply full, reusable code that can be easily customized. In addition, there are a number of ISPs that support automatic deployment of ASP.NET Starter Kit Web sites, leaving you with little left to do when you have to get there fast. Here, the author introduces the ASP.NET Starter Kits and builds a community Web site with lots of advanced features such as ratings, user polls, upload quotas, change notifications, and themes.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Creating a Multi-table DataGrid in ASP.NET
  Dino Esposito - August 2003
  If you bind a multi-table DataSet to a DataGrid, only the first table is recognized. Here Dino Esposito writes a custom solution the the multi-table problem.
  
  
• C++ Q&A: Finding a Win32 Handle, HTML in CHtmlCtrl
  Paul DiLascia - August 2003
  This month Paul DiLascia discusses how to find windows with GetLastChild and outputting HTML with a C++ procedure equivalent to document.write.
  
  
• Resource File: Creating Privacy-aware Web Sites
  - August 2003
  Privacy issues are of primary concern to those involved in Internet commerce. Some consumers are hesitant to provide information to Web sites without clearly understanding how their data will be used and with whom it will be shared.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Accessible Images, Image Format Converter, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - July 2003
  
  
  
• Data Points: Managing Hierarchical Inserts in ASP.NET and ADO.NET
  John Papa - July 2003
  
  
  
• ASP.NET Pipeline: Use Threads and Build Asynchronous Handlers in Your Server-Side Web Code
  Fritz Onion - June 2003
  Fortunately for developers, threading in ASP.NET is a lot easier than it was in ASP. In this article, the author takes a look at threading in the ASP.NET HTTP pipeline, and explains how threads are managed efficiently without the involvement of the developer. The article considers how the common language runtime threadpool is used by ASP.NET to service requests, looks at the pooling mechanisms used for handlers, modules, and applications, and covers both IIS 5.0 and IIS 6.0 and how they differ in their approach to request processing and thread allocation. Finally, how and when to use asynchronous handlers is discussed for developers who still need to use threads in their own applications.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Font Sizing, Internationalization in JScript, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - June 2003
  Font Sizing, Internationalization in JScript, and More.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: ASP.NET Controls Templates
  Dino Esposito - June 2003
  It's easy to create a custom control in ASP.NET by deriving a new class from an already existing control. Creating a new ASP.NET control from scratch, on the other hand, is more challenging. When you need a Web server control and none of the existing ones meet your requirements, you can derive from one of the base classes - Control or WebControl. Try it out.
  
  
• The ASP Column: Tree Controls with XSL
  George Shepherd - June 2003
  Manipulating the TreeView server-side control is very much like programming any other ASP.NET server-side control. There are a number of properties, methods, and events that are available both programmatically and through the designer. Find out how to take advantage of it.
  
  
• Data Points: Techniques for Managing Rowset Paging
  John Papa - May 2003
  There are a number of ways to handle paging in Web applications. This month I'll examine several paging techniques and weigh their pros and cons. John Papa discusses how to manage paging and caching issues through the lower tiers of an n-tiered architecture, including how to make SQL Server manage the paging on your app's behalf.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Form-based Programming in ASP.NET
  Dino Esposito - May 2003
  One of the most common snags that ASP developers encounter when they first approach ASP.NET is that managed Web applications must be written according to a single-form interface model. Find out how it works.
  
  
• ASP.NET: Nine Options for Managing Persistent User State in Your ASP.NET Application
  Steven Smith - April 2003
  ASP.NET provides many different ways to persist data between user requests. You can use the Application object, cookies, hidden fields, the Session or Cache objects, and lots of other methods. Deciding when to use each of these can sometimes be difficult. This article will introduce the aforementioned techniques and present some guidelines on when to use them. Although many of these techniques existed in classic ASP, best practices for when to use them have changed with the introduction of the .NET Framework. To persist data in ASP.NET, you'll have to adjust what you learned previously about handling state in ASP.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: MyTracer Monitors and Traces ASP.NET Apps
  Dino Esposito - April 2003
  The Microsoft® . NET Framework comes with a rich set of programming tools for debugging and tracing applications. I'm not talking about integrated debuggers; I'm referring to software components that you use in the development cycle.
  
  
• Wicked Code: Supporting Database Cache Dependencies in ASP.NET
  Jeff Prosise - April 2003
  Developers love the ASP. NET application cache. One reason they love it is that ASP. NET lets them create dependencies between items placed in the cache and files in the file system. If a file targeted by a dependency changes, ASP.
  
  
• Resource File: ASP.NET Starter Kits
  - April 2003
  It's a well-known axiom in the world of programming: build the samples and they will come. ASP. NET is well suited for building online storefronts and communities, but a lack of easy-to-use, standardized samples has sometimes slowed adoption.
  
  
• Site Skinning: Rich XML Classes Let Users Personalize Their Visual Experience on Your ASP.NET Site
  Harry Pierson - March 2003
  One way that Web sites and applications become better able to meet the needs of customers is by allowing them to personalize their experience. For Web sites, this means displaying the content as the user wants to see it. For rich-client applications, this often means allowing the user to choose the user interface through a technique known as skinning, which is similar to themes in Windows XP. This article shows how you can apply skinning to Web sites, wrapping their functionality in a new user interface. The technique uses the rich XML classes in the .NET Framework and the built-in extensibility of ASP.NET.
  
  
• Web Q&A: IDs as Anchors, Preventing Search, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - March 2003
  
  
  
• House of Web Services: Accessing Raw SOAP Messages in ASP.NET Web Services
  Tim Ewald - March 2003
  Web Services exchange XML messages. Most of today's Web Service toolkits do their best to hide this fact from developers, by exposing a Web Service's behavior as method invocations against objects instead.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: The ASP.NET View State
  Dino Esposito - February 2003
  In ASP. NET pages, the view state represents the state of the page when it was last processed on the server. It's used to build a call context and retain values across two successive requests for the same page.
  
  
• The ASP Column: Using the Internet Explorer WebControls
  George Shepherd - February 2003
  During the lifespan of ASP, there have been many technologies developed for making browser-based user interface development easier. For example, during the early days of classic ASP development, keeping a browser-based UI consistent required many conditional statements into the ASP script.
  
  
• Scale: Real-World Load Testing Tips to Avoid Bottlenecks When Your Web App Goes Live
  Jeff Dunmall and Keith Clarke - January 2003
  Load testing should be part and parcel of every Web development effort, and it should be performed early in the process. However, if you think you can load test using your development environment, you're going to have some surprises when you go live. In this article, the authors outline the process of planning your load testing effort, considering which machines to use, how many users to simulate, which tools are right for you, and how to interpret your results.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Releasing Memory in JScript, Bulkload Problems, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - January 2003
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: ASP. NET Client-side Hosting with Cassini
  Dino Esposito - January 2003
  In the September and October 2000 issues of MSDN® Magazine I discussed how to build a client-side environment for ASP applications; that is, a serverless environment to run ASP pages (see Cutting Edge: A Client-side Environment for ASP Pages and Cutting Edge: A Client-side Environment for ASP Pages—Part 2).
  
  
• XML Schemas: Take Advantage of Existing External XML Schemas with a Custom Import Framework in ASP.NET
  Scott Short - December 2002
  Over the years, many industry-standard XML schemas and dialects have been developed. These industry-specific schemas embrace the original purpose of XML and are extremely valuable in promoting and supporting B2B interaction. Unfortunately, the ASP.NET Web Services runtime does not allow developers to directly reference external schemas from within their XML Web Services interface (the WSDL file). This article builds an external schema framework as an extension to the ASP.NET Web Services runtime to enable you to reference external schemas within your XML Web Service interface.
  
  
• Provisioning: Use Web Services Provisioning to Control Access, Usage, and Billing on Your Site
  Chandu Thota - December 2002
  Building Web Services to provide enterprise-level solutions is only the first step. You need to take care of the infrastructure aspects of your solution as well, including provisioning, billing, security, and reporting. In this article, the author uses the .NET Framework and SQL Server 2000 to design a provisioning system that will take care of all these housekeeping tasks. He discusses the general requirements of a Web Service provisioning system, walks through the implementation, and then outlines various scenarios for putting this system to work.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Web Services
  Edited by Nancy Michell - December 2002
  
  
  
• Wireless Web: Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit Lets Your Web Application Target Any Device Anywhere
  Paul Yao and David Durant - November 2002
  If you've built Web sites using ASP.NET, you'll welcome the Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit (MMIT). MMIT extends the Visual Studio .NET IDE you already know by providing new controls for handheld devices letting you easily develop applications for wireless devices. This means you can write less code while adapting it to more devices. Not only does MMIT integrate with Visual Studio .NET, it extends ASP.NET as well. This article gives you the background you need to write, test, and deploy a site with MMIT and make all your code able to target specific devices for a custom fit.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Mobile Internet Toolkit versus Smart Device Extensions, SSL Glitch Again, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - November 2002
  
  
  
• The ASP Column: Deploying an ASP.NET App Using Visual Studio .NET
  George Shepherd - November 2002
  When Visual Studio® . NET was released back in February 2002, it included a number of new features that made it easier to create Web applications. The Microsoft® . NET Framework includes classes for intercepting and processing HTTP requests, and Visual Studio .
  
  
• Web Q&A: Allowing ASP in IIS 6.0, Sorting XML Elements, SSL and Navigation, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - October 2002
  
  
  
• Passport Secure Sign-In: Provide Your Users with Secure Authentication Capabilities Using Microsoft .NET Passport
  Michael Kogotkov-Lisin - September 2002
  Secure sign-in, a new feature in version 2.0 of the .NET Passport single sign-in and profile service, is a functionality that will be especially useful for sites containing confidential information or anywhere security is a primary concern. Such sites include banks, medical sites, and so on. Secure sign-in is as safe as any SSL-based Web site login used today and provides a way to virtually eliminate vulnerability to replay and dictionary attacks.This article explains secure sign-in and demonstrates how you can implement this feature with very little effort in either ASP using the Passport.Manager COM object or in ASP.NET using the .NET class PassportIdentity.
  
  
• HTTP Pipelines: Securely Implement Request Processing, Filtering, and Content Redirection with HTTP Pipelines in ASP.NET
  Tim Ewald and Keith Brown - September 2002
  ASP.NET is a flexible and extensible framework for server-side HTTP programming. While most people think of ASP.NET in terms of pages served, there is a lower-level infrastructure sitting beneath this page model. The underlying plumbing is based on a pipeline of app, module, and handler objects. Understanding how this pipeline works is key if you want to get the most out of ASP.NET as an HTTP server platform, while making your process more efficient, and keeping your server secure. This article introduces the architecture of the pipeline and shows how you can use it to add sophisticated functionality to an ASP.NET-based app.
  
  
• Tamper-Resistant Apps: Cryptographic Hash Algorithms Let You Detect Malicious Code in ASP.NET
  Jason Coombs - September 2002
  Cryptographic hash algorithms produce fixed-length sequences based on input of arbitrary length. A given input always produces the same output, called a hash code. Using these algorithms, you can compute and validate hash codes to ensure that code running on your machine has not been tampered with or otherwise changed. ASP.NET provides a software mechanism for validating hash code fingerprints for every page requested by a client. In this article, the author shows how to use hash codes with ASP.NET applications to detect tampering and prevent malicious code from running when tampering is detected.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Scripting Security
  Edited by Nancy Michell - September 2002
  
  
  
• ASP.NET: Intercept, Monitor, and Modify Web Requests with HTTP Filters in ISAPI and ASP.NET
  Panos Kougiouris - August 2002
  There can be many reasons to reroute incoming Web requests. For instance, sometimes it's necessary to redirect a browser to a page based on user criteria without passing long lists of parameters in the URL. In the past, the only way to intercept such page requests and send them elsewhere was with ISAPI. Now, in ASP.NET, the IHttpModule interface provides notification of server requests, and lets you easily reroute them based on criteria other than browser type or version. Here the author demonstrates the use of IHttpModule for interception and explains the use of ISAPI filters for anyone who isn't yet using ASP.NET.
  
  
• Commerce with ASP.NET: Leverage the Authentication and Form Validation Features of ASP.NET to Bolster Your Commerce App
  Jason Lefebvre and Robert Lair - August 2002
  If you're planning to build an e-commerce site, you'll be pleased to see that ASP.NET makes it easier than ever. Existing controls can be used and extended to add a great deal more functionality than you might expect. In this article, forms-based authentication is used to verify the identity of users and make certain areas of the site, such as the check-out page, inaccessible to unauthorized users. The power and flexibility of validation controls are demonstrated using the CustomValidator control to connect to a Web Service that verifies addresses. A shopping cart is then implemented in ASP.NET using the DataGrid, and finally, credit card authorization and billing are performed.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Passing XML to SQL Server, Document.write on Resize, Transformations on the Fly, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - August 2002
  
  
  
• The ASP Column: Code-behind in ASPX Files
  George Shepherd - August 2002
  
  
  
• Wicked Code: Code Your Way to ASP.NET Excellence
  Jeff Prosise - August 2002
  
  
  
• .NET Zero Deployment: Security and Versioning Models in the Windows Forms Engine Help You Create and Deploy Smart Clients
  Chris Sells - July 2002
  Windows Forms applications solve many of the problems inherent in building Web applications the old fashioned way?with HTML. To demonstrate the use of Windows Forms over the Web, the author takes his existing app, Wahoo!, and ports it to Windows Forms. In doing so, he discusses versioning, linked files, security, storage isolation, the deployment model, and everything else you need to get started building your own Windows Forms apps for the Web.
  
  
• Bug Tracker: Build a Configurable Web-Based Bug Management Tool Using ADO.NET, XML, and XSLT
  Roy Margolis - July 2002
  One of the most significant features of ADO.NET is its integration with XML. Developers can either use an ADO-like API to access the data or work directly with an XML representation of the data. This article demonstrates how both of these techniques can be used together to create Web applications that take advantage of XML standards such as XSLT. The example presented here is a bug tracking application built using C# and the.NET Framework. The development of the application covers several topics including data access using ADO.NET, the presentation of data using XSLT stylesheets, and the integration of ADO.NET with the .NET XML Framework.
  
  
• Web Q&A: HTML Table Control, WindowClosing Event, Numerous ActiveX Controls, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - July 2002
  
  
  
• ASP.NET: Develop Polished Web Form Controls the Easy Way with the .NET Framework
  David S. Platt - June 2002
  Pre-built custom controls make application design easier and faster and allow you to maintain UI consistency. However, prepackaged controls can be big and slow, and are OS-specific. For those who don't want to use prepackaged controls, Visual Studio .NET provides controls for Web Forms similar to those found in Windows Forms, including label and textbox, and new additions such as the DataGrid, all of which you can customize. If you want to design your own controls, the .NET Framework provides inheritable classes that take care of all the nasty stuff you want to avoid, including page lifecycle, maintaining state across invocations, and browser detection. This article discusses these concepts, as well as eventing, rendering, and client-side scripting.
  
  
• C#: XML Comments Let You Build Documentation Directly From Your Visual Studio .NET Source Files
  J. Andrew Schafer - June 2002
  C# allows developers to embed XML comments into their source files-a useful facility, especially when more than one programmer is working on the same code. The C# parser can expand these XML tags to provide additional information and export them to an external document for further processing. This article shows how to use XML comments and explains the relevant tags. The author demonstrates how to set up your project to export your XML comments into convenient documentation for the benefit of other developers. He also shows how to use comments to generate help files.
  
  
• Return of the Rich Client: Code Access Security and Distribution Features in .NET Enhance Client-Side Apps
  Jason Clark - June 2002
  Rich clients employ many of the features and conveniences of the operating system they run on, and the list of these features has been growing since the dawn of the PC. But as apps have migrated to the Web, the trend towards increasing client-side functionality has ground to a virtual halt. There are several reasons for this; chief among them are security and deployment problems. But that's all about to change. With the .NET Framework, you can participate in building the distributable rich client of the future. In this article, the author enumerates the pertinent features of .NET that will allow you to build safe, easily deployable controls. The features discussed include managed code, code access security, versioning control, Windows Forms classes, and isolation.
  
  
• Editor's Note: Scratching Out Web Bugs
  - June 2002
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Building a Data Navigator Control, Part III
  Dino Esposito - June 2002
  
  
  
• SQLXML 3.0: Build Data-Driven Web Services with Updated XML Support for SQL Server 2000
  Christian Thilmany - May 2002
  XML is becoming the ubiquitous data format on the Web, and XML support in SQL Server is evolving to meet the additional demand. Using XML, SOAP, HTTP, and SQL Server, you can now build powerful Web Services easily. To show just how simple it is with SQLXML 3.0, this article walks the reader through the process step by step, from setting up a virtual directory enabling data access via HTTP to executing queries and building Web Services. Finally, the author illustrates the creation of two Web Services clients-one with C# that works with the Microsoft .NET Framework and one with the SOAP Toolkit 2.0 for anyone still using earlier development tools.
  
  
• Web Q&A: XML Data Islands, Updategrams, Stored Procedures, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - May 2002
  
  
  
• The ASP Column: HTTP Modules
  George Shepherd - May 2002
  
  
  
• Data Points: Building a Tiered Web App Using the DataSet and the ASP DataGrid
  John Papa - May 2002
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Building Editing Capabilities into the SqlDataNavigator ASP.NET Control
  Dino Esposito - May 2002
  
  
  
• Virus Hunting: Track and Report Server Attacks Quickly and Easily with the .NET Networking Classes
  G. Andrew Duthie - April 2002
  To help stop the spread of worms, viruses, and other hostile activity, it is important to track down and report the servers used in these attacks along with those used to send spam. Many Web administrators, however, don't take the time to track them because the manual process can be quite cumbersome. The Microsoft .NET Framework comes to the rescue with several networking classes, including the Dns class and the TcpClient class, that abstract away the complexity of performing DNS and WHOIS lookups. These classes make it easy to create a simple, straightforward ASP.NET-based utility for performing these lookups and automating this very important task.
  
  
• ASP.NET: Selectively Enable Form Validation When Using ASP.NET Web Controls
  James M. Venglarik II - April 2002
  Sometimes the extra controls that come with Visual Studio .NET can be a bit inflexible or they just don't provide enough functionality or flexibility for all situations. The ASP.NET form validation controls, while powerful and easy to use, require that the entire page be valid before it's submitted back to the server. Through the use of the new object-oriented features of Visual Basic .NET, it is possible to extend their functionality to overcome this limitation. This article tells you how and helps you decide when it's a good idea to keep validation on the client and when you'd be better off disabling it.
  
  
• SharePoint Portal Server 2001: Search and Access Disparate Data Repositories in Your Enterprise
  Kayode Dada - April 2002
  The knowledge worker is greatly empowered if she is able to access information across the enterprise from a central access point. With the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 Search Service you can catalogue information stored in Exchange public folders, on the Web, in the file system, and even in Lotus Notes databases. This article discusses the use of ActiveX Data Objects and the Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol for creating search solutions based on SharePoint Portal Server 2001.
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Building a DataNavigator Control
  Dino Esposito - April 2002
  
  
  
• IIS 6.0: New Features Improve Your Web Server's Performance, Reliability, and Scalability
  George Shepherd - March 2002
  As the Web evolves, so does the role that Internet servers play. The Internet has seen the growth of e-commerce, B2B business, collaboration, streaming and other new media, and these new applications require new features to meet increasingly complex needs. Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) has many of the features today's mature Web sites need. This article outlines the features in the upcoming version 6.0 and discusses how they promote better scalability, reliability, and performance. Features such as Remote administration, caching, and metabase improvements, as well as custom isolation and security enhancements, make IIS 6.0 the Web server of the future.
  
  
• ASP.NET: Create Snazzy Web Charts and Graphics On the Fly with the .NET Framework
  Scott Mitchell - February 2002
  Knowledge workers can understand data more effectively when raw numbers are presented in a graphical format. This is especially true when displaying database information on a Web page, where a simple chart can make the difference between a dry presentation and a vivid data source. In the past, creating dynamic, data-based charts on the fly in ASP required purchasing a third-party, image-generating COM component. Now with ASP.NET, developers can access the .NET Framework's drawing classes directly with C# to create dynamic images and charts.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Threading in MSXML, Sorting XML, Order-by, Changing Mouse Pointer, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - February 2002
  
  
  
• The XML Files: Publishing and Discovering Web Services with DISCO and UDDI
  Aaron Skonnard - February 2002
  
  
  
• DHTML and .NET: Host Secure, Lightweight Client-Side Controls in Microsoft Internet Explorer
  Jay Allen - January 2002
  In the past, Web developers often used ActiveX controls if they wanted customized client-side functionality incorporated into their Web applications. Now, they can build objects supported by the Microsoft .NET Framework which are more compact, lightweight, secure, and seamlessly integrated. By hosting .NET Windows Forms controls in Internet Explorer, developers can realize many of their client-side Web development goals. This article adapts ActiveX concepts for use with Windows Forms, and builds a multifile upload application that demonstrates these techniques.
  
  
• SQL Server 2000 and XML: Developing XML-Enabled Data Solutions for the Web
  Scott Howlett and Darryl Jennings - January 2002
  Using XML for data access allows you to separate the data from the presentation, and promotes reuse, extensibility, and division of labor. XML also has a simplified data model, which promotes easier testing. This article presents and compares five data access approaches, using a variety of technologies including ASP and ADO, XSLT, and DirectXML. Once built, the solutions are compared on the basis of their speed and efficiency.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Navigation, Clickthroughs, Debugging, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - January 2002
  
  
  
• Data Points: Using the ADO.NET DataSet for Multitiered Apps
  John Papa - January 2002
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Understanding Templates in ASP.NET
  Dino Esposito - January 2002
  
  
  
• Security Briefs: Managed Security Context in ASP.NET
  Keith Brown - January 2002
  
  
  
• Generative Programming: Modern Techniques to Automate Repetitive Programming Tasks
  Chris Sells - December 2001
  Even when developers have recurring computer-readable metadata to process and a clear idea of how code should be structured, they can still find themselves in need of a technique to automatically generate the code to avoid the drudge work of repeatedly writing and tweaking it. Generative programming is a technique that addresses this problem. Using generative programming techniques, you can solve software engineering problems in families, rather than individually, saving time and coding effort. This article describes these techniques, and builds a sample template-driven code generator. The article also lists existing utilities that have been built with generative programming techniques, as well as actual code generators.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Multiple Entry Points, Optimizing JScript
  Edited by Nancy Michell - December 2001
  
  
  
• The ASP Column: DataList vs. DataGrid in ASP.NET
  George Shepherd - December 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Using Session and Application Objects in ASP.NET, Part 2
  Dino Esposito - December 2001
  
  
  
• Web Q&A: A Look at Usability
  Edited by Nancy Michell - November 2001
  
  
  
• Data Points: Abstracting ADO.NET
  John Papa - November 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Using Session and Application Objects in ASP.NET
  Dino Esposito - November 2001
  
  
  
• Security Briefs: ASP.NET Security Issues
  Keith Brown - November 2001
  
  
  
• ISAPI Extensions: Creating a DLL to Enable HTTP-based File Uploads with IIS
  Panos Kougiouris - October 2001
  The MIME-compliant content type, called multipart/form-data, makes writing HTML that uploads files almost trivial. On the server side though, ASP does not have a way to access data in the multipart/form-data format. The most flexible way to access the uploaded file is through a C++ ISAPI Extension DLL. This article describes a reusable ISAPI extension DLL that allows you to upload images and files without writing C++ code. It is coupled with a few COM components that make it readily reusable for ASP development. With .NET, this whole process is much easier, and this article shows preliminary code that uploads files using ASP.NET features.
  
  
• ISAPI Filters: Designing SiteSentry, an Anti-Scraping Filter for IIS
  Rodney Bennett - October 2001
  The Microsoft Internet API for IIS, ISAPI, sits between the client and the Web server. Therefore, you can access the HTTP data stream before IIS gets to see it. The project in this article takes advantage of the ISAPI architecture to create a filter that monitors access to a Web site to determine if visits are from typical users or from automated processes designed to pilfer information from your site. The author tracks the regularity of visits to the site to determine the likely source. Once the determination is made, the app either redirects the user or continues to track information about those hits.
  
  
• Web Q&A: XML to HTML, Editable Dropdown List, Sending Large XML Files to SQL, Streaming Media, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - October 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Build a Variety of Custom Controls Based on the DataGrid Control
  Dino Esposito - October 2001
  
  
  
• Bugslayer: Handling Assertions in ASP.NET Web Apps
  John Robbins - October 2001
  
  
  
• SharePoint: SharePoint Portal Server Makes Your Intranet More Manageable and Easier to Navigate
  Darrin Bishop - September 2001
  Most large organizations have mounds of disjointed information in a variety of formats spread out across an enterprise. To make the most efficient use of that information, it must be readily accessible, easy to identify, and simple to navigate. SharePoint Portal Server 2001 unifies information by allowing members of any organization to create, share, and publish documents from a single access point. This article covers the services in SPS that can help an organization improve workflow and information management.
  
  
• C# and the Web: Writing a Web Client Application with Managed Code in the Microsoft .NET Framework
  Avi Ben-Menahem - September 2001
  When the author wanted to build a middleware Web client to connect to other applications over the Internet, he realized that the XMLHttpRequest COM object was not sufficient for his purposes. In order to build a Web client using managed code, the author had to use the HTTPWebRequest and HTTPWebResponse classes provided by the Microsoft .NET framework. These classes are used in the sample project as a substitute for the less powerful XMLHttpRequest COM object, allowing the author to build a full-featured Web client. They also take advantage of all the benefits that the CLR and managed code have to offer.
  
  
• ASP.NET: Collect Customer Order Information on an Internet Site Using XML and Web Forms
  Jeff Jorczak - September 2001
  XML has quickly become the new data structure standard for everything from database access to cross-platform computing. XML is typically considered to be a vehicle for data exchange, dynamic data presentation, and data storage. However, the potential of XML far surpasses those limited applications. This article examines one new use: the gathering of data across a number of forms in an ASP.NET Beta 1 framework application. The sample program is a Web app used for ordering pizza. It uses ASP and C# to gather order information and then stores it in XML. To build the application, several concepts are explained, including data collection, order persistence using cookies, grouping input forms, and formatting the data for display.
  
  
• .NET Migration Case Study: Using ASP.NET to Build the beta.visualstudio.net Web Site
  Jay Schmelzer - September 2001
  When the Web site used to collect customer feedback about the Visual Studio .NET beta needed an update, the Visual Studio team saw a good opportunity to implement, deploy, and showcase a real-world site using .NET technologies. This article covers the migration of the Web site, beta.visualstudio.net, from components written in Visual Basic 6.0 and ASP hosted on Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 to ASP.NET and the .NET Framework. The choices of technologies to be incorporated, along with issues such as validation, security, and authentication, are all discussed. Both existing components and the new components written in JScript and ASP.NET that were used to migrate the site are also explained.
  
  
• Web Q&A: XPath, XML Notepad, Data Islands, Case Sensitivity, XSL, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - September 2001
  
  
  
• The ASP Column: HTMLControls and WebControls in ASP.NET
  George Shepherd - September 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Reusability in ASP.NET, Part 2
  Dino Esposito - September 2001
  
  
  
• SQL and XML: Use XML to Invoke and Return Stored Procedures Over the Web
  Dave Grundgeiger, Anson Goldade, and Varon Fugman - August 2001
  Front-end developers frequently want to add functionality to the presentation tier of an n-tier architecture, but such requests can require changes on all tiers just to get the data and present it. This process can be made easier and more flexible by using SQL Server stored procedures to automate the delivery of data in XML format from the database to the front-end components. In the component presented here, stored procedures are invoked by XML strings, XML is returned, converted using XSL, and presented to the client in HTML. The technique supports rapid changes yet doesn't sacrifice the n-tier approach. This approach can be used with either SQL Server 7.0 or SQL Server 2000.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Include Files, ActiveX DLLs, Target a Window in JScript, Cancel a Form Submission, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - August 2001
  
  
  
• Data Points: ADO to XML: Building a Data Access Tier with the DataManager Component
  John Papa - August 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Reusability in ASP.NET: Code-behind Classes and Pagelets
  Dino Esposito - August 2001
  
  
  
• The ASP Column: ASP.NET Connection Model and Writing Custom HTTP Handler/Response Objects
  George Shepherd - July 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Custom Web Data Reporting
  Dino Esposito - July 2001
  
  
  
• FrontPage 2002: Build Database Connectivity and Office XP Collaboration Features Into Your Site
  Marnie Hutcheson - June 2001
  FrontPage 2002 is packed full of improvements and new features, and includes tighter integration with Microsoft Office. The result is that documents created in Word and Microsoft Excel drop right into your Web site. Tools such as the clipboard, context sensitive search, and advanced copy and paste features have been introduced. Improved views and editing features make content creation faster and easier. Enhanced publishing features give you finer control over what is published, and reports detail publishing and usage statistics. There are also many new wizards to help you fly through tasks such as database connection. This article looks at these and other important features you'll want to explore.
  
  
• .NET Mobile Web SDK: Build and Test Wireless Web Applications for Phones and PDAs
  Eric Griffin - June 2001
  Cell phones, PDAs, and other wireless devices that connect with the Internet enjoy growing popularity, making wireless applications more important and especially useful to companies with remote employees. This article presents an overview of the .NET Mobile Web SDK for building wireless apps. The technologies and design decisions that influence the development of mobile Web applications are discussed along with specific strategies for setting up a development environment using an emulator and building a real-world mobile Web application.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Navigating Backwards, Ditching the Frameset, Referencing XML Nodes, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - June 2001
  
  
  
• Data Points: Revisiting the Ad-Hoc Data Display Web Application
  John Papa - June 2001
  
  
  
• Exchange 2000 WSS: Web Storage System Improves Exchange Data Accessibility
  Sean McCormick - May 2001
  The Web Storage System (WSS) in Exchange 2000 is a Web-accessible database that stores any type of data such as e-mail, contacts, appointments, threaded discussions, and multimedia files, and renders the data in HTML in any browser. WSS is based on Internet standards, therefore data can be accessed through URLs, an Exchange OLE DB provider, drive mapping, XML, and Web Documenting and Versioning (WebDAV). This article discusses the WSS schema and how to extend the default schema for custom data. A sample application that uses a custom schema and a custom form to display WSS data is available for download.
  
  
• ASP.NET: Web Forms Let You Drag And Drop Your Way To Powerful Web Apps
  Jeff Prosise - May 2001
  Web Forms have the potential to change Web programming by introducing a new programming model built around server-side controls-a model in which controls render their own UIs by generating HTML to return to clients and firing events that are handled by server-side scripts. Since all the action takes place on the Web server, virtually any browser can run a Web Forms app. And thanks to Visual Studio .NET, building a Web Forms app is a lot like using Visual Basic: just drop a control onto a form then write an event handler. This article describes the Web Forms programming model, how it fits with ASP.NET, and introduces DataGrid, TextBox, and other classes in the .NET Framework class library.
  
  
• Server Farms: Application Center 2000 Offers World-Class Scalability
  Panos Kougiouris - May 2001
  Application Center 2000 simplifies the deployment of a Microsoft .NET-based application to clusters, which are shared-nothing, loosely coupled computers that appear as one virtual computer. This allows all the computers in Application Center 2000 clusters to provide the same service or Web application at the same time. This article explains network load balancing and component load balancing for COM+ components with Application Center 2000. Accessing the features of Application Center 2000 though the MMC snap-in interface and the command-line interface for batching administrative tasks is also covered.
  
  
• Go Global: Localizing Dynamic Web Apps with IIS 5.0 and SQL Server
  Jeremy Bostron and Doug Rothaus - May 2001
  The success of a database-driven international Web site depends on how well the code and localized content work together with the software on the client and server. Localizing a dynamic Web site is more complicated than localizing a static one. The use of HTML and ASP code for static and dynamic content on IIS 4.0 or 5.0, coupled with Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) and SQL Server, enables Web sites to support as many languages as necessary. Choosing the right character sets and code pages, the variations in the Unicode support for IIS 4.0 and 5.0, as well as ways to avoid some common pitfalls are all discussed.
  
  
• Web Q&A: TextAreas, AutoComplete Dropdown Box, JScript Garbage Collection, Caching, and More
  Robert Hess - May 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Server-side ASP.NET Data Binding, Part 3: Interactive DataGrids
  Dino Esposito - May 2001
  
  
  
• Secure Sockets Layer: Protect Your E-Commerce Web Site with SSL and Digital Certificates
  John Papa - April 2001
  Security is one of the most important factors in the future growth of e-businesses. Making sure that communications remain secure between customers and the Web server is a critical issue. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is the standard that secure Web sites are built upon today. This article presents an overview of SSL-based Web security, explaining such fundamental concepts as digital certificates and their distribution, encryption, and the proper configuration of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS). Acquiring a certificate, installing it, and configuring IIS for SSL are outlined in a step-by-step process.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Image Map Tooltips, Mouseover Effects, Script Execution Order, XML Schemas, and More
  Edited by Nancy Michell - April 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Server-side ASP.NET Data Binding, Part 2: Customizing the DataGrid Control
  Dino Esposito - April 2001
  
  
  
• Graphics: Manipulate Digital Images in Internet Explorer with the DirectX Transform SDK
  Alex Lerner - March 2001
  The Microsoft DirectX Transform is a Microsoft DirectX media API that can be used to create animated effects as well as to create and edit digital images for Windows-based applications. Scripting and HTML can be used to display an existing transform on a Web page, and improved transform support in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 makes it easy to use transforms. This article provides step-by-step instructions for writing a transform as an ATL project and shows an example of an image transform. C++ is used to instantiate, configure, and display transforms in this project.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Detecting Security Settings, Printing from the WebBrowser Control, Hiding the Print Button, and More
  Robert Hess - March 2001
  
  
  
• Serving the Web: HTML Scraping with Visual Basic and AsyncRead
  Ken Spencer - March 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Server-side ASP.NET Data Binding
  Dino Esposito - March 2001
  
  
  
• Visual Programmer: Advanced ASP.NET Server-side Controls, Part 2
  George Shepherd - March 2001
  
  
  
• Web Services: Building Reusable Web Components with SOAP and ASP.NET
  David S. Platt - February 2001
  XML and HTTP are cross-platform technologies especially suited for building applications that can communicate with each other over the Internet, regardless of the platform they are running on. Web Services in the Microsoft .NET Framework make it easy to write components that communicate using HTTP GET, HTTP POST, and SOAP. An understanding of these concepts, along with knowledge of synchronous and asynchronous operations, security, state management, and the management of proxies by the .NET Framework is essential in building these applications. This article has been adapted from David Platt's upcoming book introducing the Microsoft .NET Platform to be published by Microsoft Press in Spring 2000.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Scripting Interoperability, Login Control on a Web Farm, Custom Refreshes, App Servers, and More
  Robert Hess - February 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: The Component Model in ASP.NET
  Dino Esposito - February 2001
  
  
  
• Digital Dashboards: Web Parts Integrate with Internet Explorer and Outlook to Build Personal Portals
  Maarten Mullender - January 2001
  Digital dashboards gather information and functionalities from a wide variety of sources ranging from Web pages to applications such as Microsoft Outlook and SQL Server, and present the resulting information in a single user interface. Digital dashboards built with the Digital Dashboard Resource Kit (DDRK) are made up of distinct units called Web Parts. Web Parts, introduced with the DDRK 2.01, can contain any Web-based information, are reusable, and integrate with each other and with other dashboards. Creating Web Parts and getting them to work together is illustrated via a sample application that uses a PivotTable view. Integrating Web Parts with Outlook, the Outlook View control, storage, and debugging are also covered.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Printing from a Web Page, Screen Scraping, Origin of an HTTP Request, and More
  Robert Hess - January 2001
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Binary Behaviors in Internet Explorer 5.5
  Dino Esposito - January 2001
  
  
  
• Visual Programmer: Advanced ASP.NET Server-side Controls
  George Shepherd - January 2001
  
  
  
• Web Q&A: Client-side Cookies, Unchecking Checkboxes, Microsoft.com Toolbar, WebBrowser Control, and More
  Robert Hess - December 2000
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Element Behaviors in Internet Explorer 5.5
  Dino Esposito - December 2000
  
  
  
• Beyond ASP: XML and XSL-based Solutions Simplify Your Data Presentation Layer
  Scott Howlett and Jeff Dunmall - November 2000
  The combination of XML and XSL can provide a powerful alternative to ASP development. This article presents arguments for building even small-scale Internet applications on the XML model. An example written with traditional ASP programming is compared to the same example written with XML and XSL in order to show the benefits of this approach. The example is followed by nine good reasons to make the switch. These reasons include separation of presentation and data, reusability, extensibility, division of labor, enhanced testing, and legacy integration. The XML/XSL solutions described hold the promise of greater simplicity, flexibility, and durability than ASP solutions built the traditional way.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Onstop, Connecting to SQL with ASP, Hiding Images, Passing Values from a Control
  Robert Hess - November 2000
  
  
  
• Basic Instincts: To Cache or not to Cache
  Ted Pattison - November 2000
  
  
  
• ATL Server and Visual Studio .NET: Developing High-Performance Web Applications Gets Easier
  Shaun McAravey and Ben Hickman - October 2000
  When developing high-performance applications for the Web, developers often must choose between performance and ease of development. With ATL Server, new with Visual Studio .NET, developers get the best of both worlds. ATL Server uses a tag replacement engine written in C++, provides a simple programming model, and promotes enhanced performance and easy debugging. This article presents an overview of the ATL Server architecture, then creates a basic ATL Server project. It then goes on to explain processing SRF files, HTTP streams, forms, cookies, and header files. Managing session state is also discussed, along with file uploads and performance monitoring.
  
  
• Taming the Stateless Beast: Managing Session State Across Servers on a Web Farm
  John Papa - October 2000
  Running a Web farm means managing session state across servers. Since session state can't be shared across a Web farm with Internet Information Services 5.0, a custom solution is required. One such solution using a tool called the session manager is described here. The article begins with a description of the SQL Server database used to store state information, the stored procedures used to update it, and the retrieval of session data. ASP code drives the session manager tool and the COM and COM+ components that run the stored procedures.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Using WinInet for File Transfer, MSDN Tree Control, The Web-safe Palette
  Robert Hess - October 2000
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Client-side Environment for ASP Pages-Part 2
  Dino Esposito - October 2000
  
  
  
• Visual Programmer: Server-side Controls in Active Server Pages+
  George Shepherd - October 2000
  
  
  
• Active Server Pages+: ASP+ Improves Web App Deployment, Scalability, Security, and Reliability
  Dave Sussman - September 2000
  ASP has been rebuilt from the ground up. The result? Active Server Pages+. ASP+, with a host of new features, provides for easier to write, cleaner code that's simple to reuse and share. ASP+ boosts performance and scalability by offering access to complied languages; development is more intuitive thanks to Web Forms; and an object-oriented foundation facilitates reuse. Other important features include page events, Web Controls, and caching. Server Controls and improvements in data binding are also new with ASP+. Libraries for use with ASP+, and the Microsoft .NET Framework which allows custom business functions to be exposed over the Web, provide more new development opportunities.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Targeting Frames, Hidden Fields, Dropdown Menu Positioning, and Distilling Other Web Sites
  Robert Hess - September 2000
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: A Client-side Environment for ASP Pages
  Dino Esposito - September 2000
  
  
  
• Develop a Web Service: Up and Running with the SOAP Toolkit for Visual Studio
  Rob Caron - August 2000
  The new Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Toolkit for Visual Studio 6.0 provides the infrastructure for developers to build, expose, and consume Web services. With a few exceptions that are outlined in the toolkit, the SOAP Toolkit complies with the SOAP version 1.1 specification. It includes the Remote Object Proxy Engine (ROPE), a Service Description and Code Generation Wizard, and code that provides ASP and ISAPI reference implementations of SOAP listeners. This article describes the tools and the object model of the SOAP Toolkit, and then demonstrates ASP and ISAPI implementations of a functional Web service using this toolkit.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Sending E-mail from Forms, Database Solutions, Web Site Planning
  Robert Hess - August 2000
  
  
  
• Wicked Code: Implementing Handler Marshaling Under Windows 2000: DeviceClient Sample App
  Jeff Prosise - August 2000
  
  
  
• Microsoft Office 2000: Create Dynamic Digital Dashboards Using Office, OLAP, and DHTML
  Todd Abel - July 2000
  Digital Dashboards provide users with one single interface through which they can view information from a variety of sources that have been chosen specifically for that user. In addition, dashboards allow a user to view the information offline, adding portability to the mix. This article discusses options for building a dashboard based on the Microsoft Outlook folder home pages feature. It covers culling the data from disparate sources and storing it using the MSDE. It then discusses the creation of nugget definitions for structuring the data, and providing a synchronization mechanism to update to the data stores.
  
  
• A Simple XML-driven Tool: Monitor Your Web Site's Activity with COM and Active Scripting
  Panos Kougiouris - July 2000
  This article describes a simple Web site monitoring tool built with XML, JScript, Windows Script Host, and COM objects. Although it is not intended to replace complete Web site monitoring software products, it has many useful features that help to keep Web servers up and running. An XML configuration file specifies which Web sites to monitor and the actions to be taken if the site isn't functioning properly. In addition, the tool can be scheduled to run at any specified interval using the Windows Task Scheduler. Functions that probe the sites, log events, and send e-mail notifications are written in JScript.
  
  
• Building a Custom Data Grid: Performing Ad Hoc Web Reporting with a VBScript 5.0 Class Object
  Randall Kindig - July 2000
  A flexible, customizable grid for displaying data is a useful tool for ASP developers. It allows Web visitors to customize their view of your data. This article takes the data grid presented in "Ad Hoc Web Reporting with ADO 2.0" by John Papa and Charles Caison (MIND, December 1998) and adds handy features such as a finds feature that supports multiple finds and a mode for adding and editing records. This version also improves response time by allowing asynchronous record download and it componentizes the code so it can be used as a standalone VBScript class object that can be reused in other pages.
  
  
• Go Global: Designing Your ASP-based Web Site to Support Globalization
  Michael Kaplan - July 2000
  If you have a Web site for your business, you already have an international presence. But how can you make sure users in any country can access your site effectively? The Trigeminal Software site at http://www.trigeminal.com has pages localized into up to 48 languages and allows users to see pages in the language of their choice. This article describes how the site was implemented and how issues such as whether the site should use frames and what character set to choose for multibyte languages were dealt with. Which database to use for storing dynamic content, whether to use static or dynamic pages, and how to implement localized solutions on both Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 is also discussed.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Using a DTC to Submit a Form, Using Word in a Web Page, Sending E-mail from Forms
  Robert Hess - July 2000
  
  
  
• Web Security: Putting a Secure Front End on Your COM+ Distributed Applications
  Keith Brown - June 2000
  The Internet requires that developers provide a different security model for clients than is used on a closed network. Because it would be too resource-intensive for both the client and server to prove their identity to each other, you need to look at other ways to ensure secure communications. This article covers the options, from digital certificates to public and private key encryption to Secure Sockets Layer and Web certificates. The discussion covers the installation of certificates in Microsoft Internet Information Services along with other options specific to IIS. This article was adapted from Keith Brown's Programming Windows Security (Addison-Wesley), due out in July 2000.
  
  
• Info on the Go: Wireless Internet Database Connectivity with ASP, XML, and SQL Server
  Srdjan Vujosevic and Robert Laberge - June 2000
  Many handheld wireless devices such as cellular phones and PDAs already have the ability to access Web sites. So how do you build Web applications that tap this wireless audience? Although there are a number of limitations to wireless devices-such as screen size, navigation, and connection speed-you can use familiar Web development technologies to make your existing Web applications available to mobile users. This article outlines the services and equipment currently available to support wireless Web access. A sample wireless-accessible Web site that dynamically draws data from a SQL Server database back end in real time is created using tools such as ASP and XML.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Switch Focus Between Frames, Connect a Web Page to a Database
  Robert Hess - June 2000
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Creating and Optimizing Performance for XML Document/View Web Applications
  Dino Esposito - June 2000
  
  
  
• Windows CE Web Server: Using Web Tools to Monitor and Manage Embedded Devices
  Leonid Braginski and Matthew Powell - May 2000
  When it ships, Windows CE 3.0 is expected to include Web services via the Windows CE Web Server. This new component of the Windows CE operating system will allow developers to share data or monitor and manage devices that are running Windows CE-whether they are handheld PCs or embedded in devices such as gas pumps or refrigerators. This article explains how the Windows CE Web Server component can be included in the operating system for a given device. We'll also show you how the Web server features you're familiar with from Microsoft Internet Information Services are implemented in the Windows CE Web Server.
  
  
• B2B Frontiers in E-Commerce: Implement Affiliate Programs to Create New Partnerships and Generate Business
  Ted Coombs - May 2000
  Like the Internet itself, e-commerce is evolving. Today's e-commerce companies are allowing their customers to plug into existing catalogs and ordering systems, creating new synergistic relationships. Some companies are even adding real-time chat with customer service personnel. This article gives you an overview of some of the new e-commerce concepts and implementations that are helping forge those new relationships with customers, vendors, and shipping companies. The importance of these relationships, as well as the specific technologies used to encourage communication and collaboration are discussed and illustrated with representative code samples.
  
  
• Virtual Source Code Control Systems: Promoting and Managing Projects using Visual SourceSafe
  Ken Ramirez - May 2000
  Source code control systems like Microsoft Visual SourceSafe can simplify just about any development project, and make it easier for your code to move safely among individual programmers, development teams, and project stages. Visual SourceSafe provides an object model that you can use as the basis of your own customized source code control environment. To give you an idea of what is possible, we'll walk you through the elements of a browser-based source code control system built with Visual SourceSafe, ASP, and VBScript. This simple system lets members of your team build, label, and promote individual files or entire projects, and to reverse promotions.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Displaying Processing Messages, Accessing File Size and Bandwidth, and Debugging ASP
  Robert Hess - May 2000
  
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Extending HTML with Custom Tags
  Dino Esposito - May 2000
  
  
  
• Using Server-Side XSL for Early Rendering: Generating Frequently Accessed Data-Driven Web Pages in Advance
  Paul Enfield - April 2000
  Dynamic data-driven pages have become the basis of many cutting-edge Web sites. Early render systems can provide better performance and maintainability for data-driven Web sites by generating frequently accessed pages that contain less-volatile information ahead of time. We'll show you an example of a server-side solution that uses Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) to merge data and layout information into HTML that is compatible with just about any modern Web browser. Using these techniques to render Web pages early can reduce the load on your database back end and increase performance for your users.
  
  
• New Directions in Redirection: Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0 Provides Two New Methods
  Ram Papatla - April 2000
  Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 provides several enhancements to its support for ASP-based Web development, including two new server-side redirection methods: Server.Transfer and Server.Execute. Rather than redirecting requests with a round-trip to the client, these new methods can be used to transfer requests directly to an ASP file without ever leaving the server. While this functionality doesn't replace the Response.Redirect method used by IIS 4.0, you can take advantage of it to implement better application flow control mechanisms and to handle errors more efficiently. The different redirection options are described, along with some tips and tricks for implementing them on your own site.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Windows Script Host, Dropdown Menus, ASP-to-HTML, and More
  Robert Hess - April 2000
  
  
  
• Serving the Web: Working with MTS, ASP, and Visual Basic
  Ken Spencer - April 2000
  
  
  
• SQL Server 2000: New XML Features Streamline Web-centric App Development
  Joshua Trupin - March 2000
  With XML support in SQL Server 2000, you can query SQL over HTTP with a URL, bring the data down to the browser, and manipulate it on the client machine. By adding Internet Explorer 5.0 to the mix and using XSL to convert the XML to HTML, you can lighten the load on your database server. Going still one step further, by using Vector Markup Language you can even create drawings on the fly using the data from your SQL queries. This article illustrates this combination of technologies by leading you through the creation of a Web app that queries a digitized street map database that's been imported into a SQL Server database, sorts and displays the data using XML, and draws maps using VML.
  
  
• Build an Easy Maintenance Intranet Site: Using Office Docs, File System Object, and OLE Structured Storage
  Josef Finsel - March 2000
  If you've ever needed to build an easy-to-maintain intranet site, here's a solution based on Microsoft Office documents. Many sites require constant updating of their HTML, but the use of Word documents can simplify the process. This article details the construction of a human resources site that exploits the File System Object (FSO), OLE Structured Storage, and ActiveX capabilities of Word documents. This allows the HR staff to copy their revised or newly created Word files to the site, dynamically generate a list of links to their files, and free IS from the constant recoding of HR updates into new HTML pages.
  
  
• Web Q&A: Web Page Design Tips, Digital Dashboard, Screen Scraper Alternatives, and More
  Robert Hess - March 2000
  
  
  
• The XML Files: XML-based Persistence Behaviors Fix Web Farm Headaches
  Aaron Skonnard - March 2000
  
  
  
• Serving the Web: Compiling Components in Visual Basic for ASP
  Ken Spencer - March 2000