Monday, April 30, 2012

CahabaWeb Makes Big Impact with Three Recent Mobile Website Launches



CahabaWeb interactive marketing is excited to announce three new mobile website launches for their clients. CahabaWeb is rapidly establishing itself as a development and design company specializing in mobile website design and development in Birmingham. They have three new mobile web projects launched this quarter including: Seascape Resort in Destin, Florida, Stegall Heating, Cooling and Plumbing, and Next Total Fitness. Companies have embraced mobile web and are using these enhancements to their current web marketing to make an even bigger impact.

Todd Rosser, Founder and CEO of CahabaWeb says "Mobile web development does not have to be that complicated. We talk to many of people about mobile, and how they plan to integrate it into their current web initiatives. With our past development strategies we are usually able to use the core components of an existing website and simply create the mobile initiative using the same components. This keeps time and cost to a minimum."

Website visits from mobile devices continue to increase dramatically across all industries. Clients like Seascape Resort in Destin, Florida have functional systems in place that book online reservations. CahabaWeb was able to implement a mobile layer on top of the core ASP.NET website to make mobile booking functionality a reality long before their competition. These opportunities exist in all development environments including ASP.NET, PHP and many other popular web frameworks. “We deal with alot of different platforms and development environments,” says Rosser. “Many companies are not usually sure what they have or how they should even approach the situation. That’s the most critical part. That’s where we do our best work.”

"We believe that visitors to a website expect and demand a different experience when they are using a mobile device. We are seeing as much as 25% of all site traffic being from mobile devices on some websites. When we really sit down and look a the usage data and how the mobile visitors behave before and after the mobile web is implemented, you can really get an idea of the critical nature of acting on this now" says Rosser.

CahabaWeb is a web design, development and interactive marketing company located in Birmingham, Alabama. Founded in 2001 by Todd Rosser. They are a privately held company with more than 15 years of web development and marketing experience which ranges from development and design to marketing and strategy.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

JetBrains launches New Version of dotTrace Performance

 has released dotTrace 5.0 Performance, the latest version of its .NET performance profiling solution. In this release, users can now attach the profiler to running processes dynamically. Following are highlights of the dotTrace 5.0 Performance improvements and new features:

1. HTTP is now used for remote profiling instead of a custom protocol.
2. IPv4 and IPv6 are now supported for remote profiling.
3. Passphrase exchange has been removed between dotTrace 5.0 Performance and the remote agent, which makes profiling easier in restricted environments.
4. The dotTrace profiling agent can now run as a regular service or an ASP.NET Web Service.
5. dotTrace 5.0 Performance can attach the profiler to an existing .NET Framework 4.0 process and can run a sample performance analysis on the process.
6. Users can now attach to running remote processes.
7. dotTrace 5.0 Performance now includes support for ISS Express.



Create Claims-Enabled Applications Using Packt's New Book and eBook



Packt is pleased to announce the publication of Microsoft Windows Identity Foundation Cookbook, a new book and eBook for developers, which contains over 30 recepies that will help them master claims-based access control in ASP.NET MVC 3 applications using Windows Identity Foundation and Access Control Services.

About the author:
A technology enthusiast, Sandeep Chanda is not only a Director of Solutions at Neudesic but also a Microsoft National Systems Integrator, Gold Certified Partner and speaker at various corporate events and public webinars. His expertise lies in several Microsoft Technologies and has authored many articles in online developer magazine. Service Oriented Computing, Pervasive Computing and Haptic Devices are his areas of interest.

Windows Identity Foundation enables .NET developers to externalize identity logic from their application, improving developer productivity, enhancing application security, and enabling interoperability. It is part of Microsoft's identity and access management solution built on Active Directory.

Microsoft Windows Identity Foundation Cookbook will allow developers to master the different ways to extend the available runtime for a customized implementation across interoperable platforms and support OASIS SAML 2.0 profiles for security token exchange in Passive Federation scenarios. Furthermore, the book explores AD FS 2.0 and features recipes showcasing steps to configure claims in Microsoft's server technologies.

This book covers all aspects that professionals face while enabling support for claims-based identity, provide implementation of security token services and building claims-enabled applications. It will not only enable readers to leverage cloud based access control services in their application but also implement enterprise-wide scalable and interoperable applications.

Some of the chapters emphasized in this book are:
Chapter 1: Overview of Claims-based Identity
Chapter 2: Programming with Windows Identity Foundation
Chapter 3: Advanced Programming with Windows Identity Foundation
Chapter 4: Cloud-based Identity with Azure Access Control Service
Chapter 5: Identity Management with Active Directory Federation Services
Chapter 6: Enterprise Server Interoperability with WIF, Azure ACS 2.0, and AD FS 2.0
Chapter 7: Extension and Future of Windows Identity Foundation

Create web applications by using Reporting Tool.


Stimulsoft Company, a leading manufacturer of software products for Business Intelligence, announces the release of the first version 2012.1 of the reporting tool for building Web applications Stimulsoft Reports.Web for MVC. This product is available as a separate package as well as included in Stimulsoft Reports.Ultimate.

The reporting tool Stimulsoft Reports.Web for MVC is designed to create and edit reports in ASP.NET MVC (a growing in popularity framework for building Web applications). Stimulsoft Reports.Web for MVC provides a complete development cycle of reports, ranging from the creating report templates and ending with showing them in a web browser. The product supports both the classic ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET MVC Razor. The report generator supports all versions of MVC Framework starting with version 2.0.

Stimulsoft Reports.Web for MVC is equipped with a full-featured web reports designer, with which one can create complex reports and edit them directly in the browser window. There is only one requirement - it runs on any Web browser and Flash Player 10.2 or higher. The web designer meets the client´s sophisticated needs to render reports. In the product, one can find a well thought-out user interface, easy-to-use components builder, several artists creating reports, and many other functions for easy and fast editing of reports.

The product has great functionality. Reports can be displayed in the browser window. They can be printed or saved to more than 20 file formats such as PDF, XPS, Excel, Word, HTML, RTF, XML and many others.

´In this release we wanted to pleasantly surprise our customers, - says Vladimir Hotchenko, a head of the Web Development department. - And I believe we have succeeded. The new product is yet another niche in the universe of generating reports. Maybe it is not a new galaxy, but it is at least a space shuttle for the flight to it.´

A detailed description of the product, as well as links to additional helpful resources related to the software can be found at http://www.stimulsoft.com/ReportsWebM...

Pricing and Licensing

The reporting tool Stimulsoft Reports.Web for MVC does not require licensing fees when it is used on the client side. Accordingly, the appropriate license can be chosen on the basis of the number of developers in the company.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

College Students Build Tool to Feed the Hungry


A team of students from Arizona State University aims to use Microsoft technology to get uneaten meals from restaurants and catered events to nearby families who would otherwise go hungry.

Team FlashFood with its solution, FlashFood, was the winning team in the prestigious software design category at Microsoft’s U.S. Imagine Cup finals on Monday.  The team will advance to compete in the Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide finals in Sydney, Australia July 6-10.

In the U.S. Imagine Cup’s two gaming categories, the Drexel Dragons from Drexel University won in the Windows Phone game design competition for making a game that teaches elementary school students math, and the team Dr. Fishbowl from Carnegie Mellon University won the Xbox game design competition for creating a game that teaches players about sustainability and how to be responsible for byproducts and waste. LegenDairy, a team from Brigham Young University, won a special new U.S. Windows Azure award for its agriculture cloud computing solution.

All of the 74 students in the competition also received an Acer laptop (loaded with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview) and a Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone, courtesy of sponsors Acer and Nokia.Shortly after winning the software design category, students from FlashFood used the words “excited,” “ecstatic,” “elated” and “stunned” to describe their victory.

“It was a lot of anxiety,” says team member Jake Irvin. “I was telling myself that even if we didn’t win first place, we did a really good job, and Microsoft has treated us really well. We really wanted to win, but we knew if we didn’t win, we’d still made it a long way and we talked to a lot of great people at Microsoft.”

Team FlashFood created a real-time food recovery solution using ASP.NET, SMS texting, Windows Phone, Silverlight and Visual Studio to coordinate same-day food donation deliveries to families in need.

Essentially their tool would make sure surplus perishable food generated by businesses, restaurants and caterers finds its way to hungry families.  The tool would help businesses make tax deductible donations of their surplus food to a nonprofit that could – using web applications, smart phones and volunteer drivers – transport that food to those who need it.

The team hopes to address “food deserts,” or areas in a city or community that are both low-income and a mile or farther from a grocery store where people have healthy food options. Given limited options, people will choose more expensive and less healthy fast food or food from convenience stores, or may also just go hungry, they say.

“There is food to feed these people, it’s just a distribution issue,” Irvin says. “We’re looking at ways to bring healthier food into these communities. That’s part of the reason we’re focusing on perishable food, not only to fight food waste, but because it tends to be healthier than canned or non-perishable food.”

Team FlashFood got its start in August when Irvin, along with teammates Eric Lehnhardt, Katelyn Keberle and Steven Hernandez (who competed in last year’s Imagine Cup), were looking for a school project that would let them use their engineering and technology skills to identify and solve a community problem, Keberle says.

The team zeroed in on bridging two separate but related issues – businesses with surplus but perishable food, and hunger. Traditionally food banks and other community organizations can’t use perishable food donations because they can’t distribute the food fast enough. But what if technology could help change that?

“We started to get the idea that using rapid digital communications, including smart phones, websites and text messaging, we could coordinate the kind of rapid delivery that hasn’t been possible before,” Lehnhardt says.

The students say that while they were working on the project, their teammate Hernandez encouraged them to consider entering it in the Imagine Cup. The team read up on the competition and found that they shared the same mission as Microsoft’s competition – in short, using technology to solve real-world problems and make the world better place.

Microsoft had more than 113,000 students register for the 2012 U.S. Imagine Cup, and 22 teams traveled to Microsoft’s Redmond campus this weekend for the final competition. Now in its 10th year, the Imagine Cup has grown substantially in its first decade but it’s only the beginning, says Mark Hindsbo, vice president of Microsoft’s U.S. Developer and Platform Evangelism Group.

“The first year there were 2,000 applicants. We’re creating a hockey stick effect – it keeps getting bigger and better,” Hindsbo says. “Every year I go in thinking, ‘This can’t be better than last year,’ and every year I get surprised and amazed again. The students are all at the cutting edge of adoption, whether cloud computing, mobile or Kinect.”

Hindsbo said the Imagine Cup inspires young people to find creative, technology-driven solutions to some of the toughest problems in their communities and the world, from hunger to healthcare.

He hopes the growth and the momentum of Imagine Cup will inspire others to participate, as doing so will help them learn real-world skills they need to help them get high-end computing jobs. More than 800,000 tech industry jobs will be created by 2016, a demand that will be tough to meet in the United States given the shortage of students studying in science, technology, engineering and math in the country.

In addition to the competition becoming bigger, it is also attracting teams of multi-disciplinary students, not just those focused on computer science and engineering. There are now medical students, graphic artists, musicians, business and marketing students, and more represented among the teams.

“My biggest goal is that this is not just a fabulous experience for the students that compete, but that each team inspires 10 new students that might not have thought of pursuing a career in science or technology to pursue a career,” Hindsbo says. “That would be the ultimate dream.”

Choosing a cloud API in a non-standardized world


Whether you use a public cloud service provider or maintain a private cloud, you are faced with the task of managing server instances. With Infrastructure as a Service, IT teams create and manage instances and perform load balancing and storage management using a control panel and an API. But different cloud vendors provide different APIs. With no standard cloud API in sight, how can IT pros maintain control and compatibility with current and future cloud services?

Several organizations have attempted to create a standard API for cloud computing. The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), for example, has an initiative to create standards for clouds; its draft specification is called the Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface (CIMI) Model and REST Interface over HTTP.

Even though several working groups are committed to developing a standard cloud API, standards only partially exist and vendor support is limited.
The European organization ETSI has published several studies regarding cloud technologies as well as some early APIs that apply more to grid computing than cloud computing. And Open Grid Forum produced a cloud-specific API; however, it’s only partially complete, as it doesn’t offer any monitoring or billing methods. Specifications for those features are in progress.

SimpleCloud, an organization headed by Zend Technologies that includes Microsoft and Rackspace, has created the basic Simple Cloud API.

While these moves demonstrate the industry is making some progress, as with any standards work, not all vendors are on board. Amazon Web Services (AWS), for example, has spent years developing a proprietary infrastructure and cloud API and has little incentive to switch to an industry standard. Other cloud vendors have developed their own standards, including ElasticHosts API, FlexiScale API, GoGrid API and SunCloud API. Additionally, OpenStack, the open source cloud software from Rackspace, is an entire infrastructure -- not just an API -- that’s gaining steam.

Centralizing cloud management and source libraries
A few companies have produced their own Web-based cloud instance management products, which are cloud vendor-agnostic. RightScale, for example, has a management console that provides a single API and a management console that works with multiple cloud vendors.

Several cloud developers strayed from building a standard API and, instead, offer a library that supports large cloud players and provides a simple API. Functioning like a translator, the library allows programmers to target an API and then specify which cloud vendor they want to use.

Apache Deltacloud is an open source cloud library that communicates with numerous hosted cloud platforms, including Amazon, Rackspace, GoGrid and RimuHosting, as well as a private cloud that’s built using OpenStack and VMware vSphere. Similarly, jclouds provides a single API that supports most major cloud vendors, including AWS as well as vendors that implement OpenStack.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Active Web Group, Inc. Offers Free Web Design Quote to Business Owners


Active Web Group, Inc. (AWG), the award-winning Digital Media agency headquartered in Hauppauge, New York, today announced it is again offering, by popular request, its free Web Design Quote analysis to interested business owners. By signing up to receive their no-cost, customized quote, businesses may expect to learn why their existing websites may need updating. Active Web will also demonstrate exactly what those features would be and the results interested parties may expect from a website redesign.

Active Web Group, Inc. (AWG), the award-winning Digital Media agency headquartered in Hauppauge, New York, today announced it is again offering, by popular request, its free Web Design Quote analysis to interested business owners. By signing up to receive their no-cost, customized quote, businesses may expect to learn why their existing websites may need updating. Active Web will also demonstrate exactly what those features would be and the results interested parties may expect from a website redesign.

“Many businesses have obsolete websites that are preventing new customers from locating their firm online,” notes Pat Norton, Vice President and Director of Business Development, Active Web Group, Inc. “The pace of online business advances swiftly as millions of new sites are launched on the Internet every day,” Norton states. “Even a website that is five years old may be five years too old and no longer attracting relevant site traffic,” he adds. Norton recommends contacting Active Web for the free analysis to learn how their sites can be updated on-time and within budget.

Active Web Group specializes in designing and building custom sites that are SEO-friendly and target lead generation, conversions and ecommerce. Online business owners should take advantage now of this free Web Design Quote offer.

Active Web Group is an industry leader who has assisted many businesses to build and retain their professional standing online. A full-service digital media agency, Active Web Group also has extensive experience in SEO-friendly Web Designs and Redesigns, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Programming (all proficiencies including php, asp and asp.net), Email Marketing, Website Content Development, Graphic Design, E-Commerce, Magento Ecommerce, WordPress Ecommerce, Mobile sites, custom solutions and Pay-Per-Click Marketing.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Microsoft IIS 8 new features


Each new version of Microsoft Internet Information Services is a little like a new installment in a novel series where each book comes several years apart, but proves to be well worth waiting for. IIS 8, which comes with Windows Server 8’s beta edition, has new features aimed at those who are putting together large-scale web hosts. But one of the nice side effects of those big-scale features is how they dial down to smaller hosts and individual servers as well.

1. CPU throttling: the nextgeneration

2. IIS 7’s CPU throttling feature is all-or-nothing: you either kill the offending process or take no action

3. SSL improvements

4. Centralized certificate management

5. Server Name Indication support (for using SSI with host headers)

6. Scalability

7. FTP Logon Restrictions and Dynamic IP Restrictions

8. Multicore scaling and NUMA awareness

9. WebSockets

Making a mint from internet websites


The soaring number of net users in Viet Nam has led to an explosion in personal websites. Some are interesting, most are mundane but virtually none make money because businesses in Viet Nam are failing to capitalise on the advantages of advertising their products and services in cyberspace.
Do Phong has developed dozens of musical and cultural websites. He does it for entertainment and to share his love of music with others. But he is also aware of the economic benefits of selling advertising space on his website in the form of banners and logos.
Meanwhile, Ngo Anh Chieu, who works for the Ha Noi-based Censtaf Group, which offers managerial and administrative training, personal websites are becoming increasingly popular as computer users become more net-savvy. He says designing a personal website is like building a house which you can decorate according to your taste. And it is an inexpensive way of reaching potentially millions of customers – a fact that seems to have escaped the business community, he says.
Chieu says he publishes advice about photography on his site, and through the contacts he makes and the advertising space he sells, he earns a regular if modest income, in addition to his full-time job.
Meanwhile, Le Quy set up a webpage that advertises real-estate. An advert on his site trungtambatdongsan.info costs VND500,000 (US$24) - a poultry amount compared to the cost of taking out an ad in the traditional media.
He set up the site three months ago, and earns about VND10 million ($476) per month. The costs he says were "minimal".
And to build a webpage, which costs virtually nothing, Quy says users only needed a basic knowledge of programming languages such as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), XML (Extensible Markup Language), PHP, ASP.net or JAVA.
Le Tong Quang, has a webpage that offers advice to advertisers on what words to use if they want to appear prominently when potential customers do a Google search.
"I researched Google advertising services and found out how to get money from users via the internet." He says it is possible to make millions of dollars if you know what you are doing.
He has built a number of websites on travel, internet services, health and online selling from which he earns between $2,000 and $3,000 a month.
"Money comes from good ideas. A good website can earn the designer a fortune."
Meanwhile, Ngoc Nga, a student at Ha Noi University of Science and Technology, says: "The most important thing is the original idea, followed by a good domain name that has to be short and easy to remember." And the outlay is minimal, Nga says.
"Designing personal websites is a form of long-term investment and costs virtually nothing. I believe that there are only benefits from doing it. If your website proves unsuccessful, you lose nothing in terms of money."
But Nguyen Thanh, a website designer who works for Vietnam Social Media Company, which manufactures semiconductors, warns that making money from a personal website is not as easy as it appears. He also points out that it is important to form yourself into a company so that businesses can claim back their costs against tax.
"Most individuals only exchange website logos and banners. Those buying space on a webpage will want to fill out a red bill [receipt for tax]."
And online transactions are prone to fraud and viral attacks, he warns. However, the advantages outweigh the risks and the opportunities cyberspace offer are virtually limitless, he adds. — VNS

Monday, April 23, 2012

Visual Studio 2011 and Windows 8 for Metro style Apps for .Net Development


Windows 8 & Visual studio 2011 includes some new features that help .Net developers and ASP.Net developers for their .net development. Here we will explore Windows Runtime that can be designed for developing Metro Style Apps for .net developers who are expert in Unmanaged C++, JavaScript and .Net.

Windows Runtime (WinRT)

Metro Style Apps can be called one the coolest features in Visual Studio 2011 and Windows 8. For getting access to templates for Metro Style App the initial step would be to install VS2011 developer preview on Windows 8 Developer Preview. Windows Runtime (RT) handles these apps and RT is designed for easily developing metro style apps using the expertise of Asp.net developers.

For developing web application .net developers can use HTML 5, CSS 3 and JavaScript. For accessing rich hardware functionality Javascript calls WinRT system.For developing Metro style applications .Net developers can make use of extensible application Markup language (XAML), C#, VB.NET.

Windows check all the access rights to the user data and system resources for programming with WinRT. Package Manifest specifies these access rights. The Metro Style application needs to send a quick response to the end-user and for this apps use Asynchronous operations.

As per Microsoft’s definition “Metro style apps are full screen apps tailored to your users’ needs, tailored to the device they run on, tailored for touch interaction, and tailored to the Windows user interface.

Windows helps you interact with your users, and your users interact with your app”

How to create Metro Style Apps using C#?

Step 1: Open VS2011 and create a new Windows Metro Style App as below:

You will receive below project structure after creation of application:

Step 2: You need to double click on ‘Package.appxmanifest’ for viewing the settings of application as below:

You will see information for the “Application UI” e.g. Logo as shown in the above image. Also note the size restriction for the Logo image.

Step 3: By clicking on the Capabilities tab you will get the List of System Features that the application can use.

Step 4: Click on the ‘Declaration’ Tab and by using this tab, you can add declarations for the application:

The packaging tab also allows developers for defining properties that identify and describes the package for application at the time of deployment.

Step 5: Add a new class file in the MyApp application and name it as ‘DataClasses.cs’. Below are the classes you need to add in it:

Step 6: Open MainPage.Xaml then add a ListBox and use the Databinding expression as shown below:

Step 7: By running the application you will get output in the Emulator as follows:

You are finished with it and we saw how WinRT can be used for developing Metro Style Apps by .Net developers.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Ukraine is the World’s Leader by the Number of Certified Master-Level IT Specialists


According to the 2012 Bench Games Leader Board, Ukraine ranks 3D globally (out of 50 countries) in the “Most Certified Citizens” category, following the United States and India. The winners of this category are nations with the highest number of the certified professionals in over 600 skill areas. This year, Ukraine has left Russia and other European countries behind and, therefore, became the European leader by the number of the certified workforce.

In the “Most Master-Level Certified Nation” category Ukraine ranks 2d globally, following the United States. However, it has outrun the USA by the number of IT certifications: Ukraine has gained 91 Master-Level IT Certificates out of 96 granted, while the United States – only 60 out of 146 granted.

The Individual Leader Board puts Ukraine in the leading position for the following technologies: .Net Framework (2.0, 3.5, 4.0), Adobe, AJAX, ASP.Net (3.5, 4.0), BEA WebLogic Application Server 8.1, C# (3.0, 4.0), Cisco Network, Flash MX 2004, and others.

Regarding its neighbors, Russia and Belarus rank 4th and 6th accordingly in the “Most Certified Citizens” category and 3D and 4th accordingly in the “Most Master-Level Certified Nation” category with 40 and 21 Master-Level IT Certificates granted.

The Bench Games competition was conducted online between March 5th and 9th, 2012. The free access to the competition was provided to all Brainbench members and website registrants.

Back in 2006, Ukraine ranked 4th in the “Most Certified Citizens” category and 10th in the “Most Certified Nation” category that determined the nation with the highest number of the certified specialists as a percentage of the overall population.

The 2012 International Skills Rating by Brainbench proves Ukrainian IT talent to be highly competitive on the global scale.

Getting Started with ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms




The application you'll create is named the Wingtip Toys. It's a simplified example of a store front web site that sells items online. This tutorial series highlights several of the new features available in ASP.NET 4.5 Beta.

This tutorial series is the first installment of two. Comments are welcome, and we'll make every effort to update this tutorial series based on your suggestions.

Audience

The intended audience of this tutorial series is experienced developers who are new to ASP.NET Web Forms. A developer interested in this tutorial series should have the following skills:

 Familiar with an object oriented programming language
 Familiar with Web development concepts (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
 Familiar with relational database concepts
 Familiar with n-tier architecture concepts
Application Features

The ASP.NET Web Form features presented in this series include:

 The Web Application Project (not Web Site Project)
 Web Forms
 Master Pages, Configuration
 Entity Framework Code First, LocalDB
 Request Validation
 Strongly Typed Data Controls, Model Binding, Data Annotations, and Value Providers
Application Scenarios and Tasks

Tasks demonstrated in this first series include:

 Creating, reviewing and running the new project
 Creating the database structure
 Initializing and seeding the database
 Customizing the UI using styles, graphics and a master page
 Adding pages and navigation
 Displaying menu details and product data

Thursday, April 19, 2012

ImageGear for .NET and Silverlight Add Cloud Capture


Accusoft, the leading provider of document, content and imaging solutions, announces the release of ImageGear for .NET v19.4 and ImageGear for Silverlight v19.3 with Cloud capture technology.

Enterprises and software vendors are continuously looking for ways to lower the costs of software development and distribution. Traditional document capture solutions have prevented many enterprises form taking advantage of these savings in their applications. The ability to enable document capture in web applications can reduce the number of applications an organization needs to build and maintain lowering development costs, and freeing up developers for other projects.

"The latest updates to ImageGear give our customers the ability to migrate document scanning applications to a web deployed application," said Russ Puskaric, Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Accusoft. "As more businesses are transitioning to web based applications, ImageGear for .NET and ImageGear for Silverlight provide the tools needed to take advantage of this new and pioneering way of distributing applications."

Scanning documents into web applications is problematic with traditional scanning technologies because they generally require a desktop application or use of an ActiveX control. ImageGear's new Cloud capture technology gives web applications full control of the scanner and its capabilities through a local web service. This enables the creation of a true zero footprint document capture web application.

Using ImageGear's ASP.NET and ISIS Cloud capture functionality, web application developers can provide a seamless customer experience for document capture and display. The ImageGear for .NET toolkit provides developers with all of the controls required to build a robust HTML5 based image display and capture application.

Nevron's .NET Data Visualization With Ajax Controls


Nevron Software has released its .NET Vision 2012.1 data visualization component suite for .NET development with new ThinWeb chart and ThinWeb diagram controls. As well a selection of customary performance improvements, this new tool also features a custom-creation chart series, a triangulated surface series, web chart/diagram options as well as zoom, scroll, and panning functions.

"With this release we have introduced the brand new AJAX web controls — ThinWeb Chart and ThinWeb Diagram. The ThinWeb controls set new standards in client-side interactivity. They can be integrated in any server-side framework including ASP.NET WebForms and MVC, providing support for popular browsers such as IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. Because the new ThinWeb Chart/Diagram controls are completely HTML/JavaScript based, no client-side plugins are required," says Ivo Milanov, CTO of Nevron Software.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Announcing Windows Azure Media Services


Windows Azure Media Services is a cloud-based PaaS solution that enables you to efficiently build and deliver media solutions to customers. It offers a bunch of ready-to-use services that enable the fast ingestion, encoding, format-conversion, storage, content protection, and streaming (both live and on-demand) of video. It also integrates and exposes services provided by industry leading partners – enabling an incredibly deep media stack of functionality that you can leverage.

You can use Windows Azure Media Services to deliver solutions to any device or client - including HTML5, Silverlight, Flash, Windows 8, iPads, iPhones, Android, Xbox, and Windows Phone devices. Windows Azure Media Services supports a wide variety of streaming formats - including Smooth Streaming, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), and Flash Media Streaming.

One of the unique aspects of Windows Azure Media Services is that all of its features are exposed using a consistent HTTP REST API. This is true both for the media services we've built, as well as the partner delivered media services that are enabled through it. This makes it incredibly easy to automate media workflows and integrate the combined set of services within your applications and media solutions. Like the rest of Windows Azure, you only pay for what you use with Windows Azure Media Services – making it a very cost effective way to deliver great solutions.

ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source


Microsoft has made the source code of ASP.NET MVC available under an open source license since the first V1 release. We’ve also integrated a number of great open source technologies into the product, and now ship jQuery, jQuery UI, jQuery Mobile, jQuery Validation, Modernizr.js, NuGet, Knockout.js and JSON.NET as part of it.

I’m very excited to announce today that we will also release the source code for ASP.NET Web API and ASP.NET Web Pages (aka Razor) under an open source license (Apache 2.0), and that we will increase the development transparency of all three projects by hosting their code repositories on CodePlex. Doing so will enable a more open development model where everyone in the community will be able to engage and provide feedback on code checkins, bug-fixes, new feature development, and build and test the products on a daily basis using the most up-to-date version of the source code and tests.

We will also for the first time allow developers outside of Microsoft to submit patches and code contributions that the Microsoft development team will review for potential inclusion in the products. We announced a similar open development approach with the Windows Azure SDK last December, and have found it to be a great way to build an even tighter feedback loop with developers – and ultimately deliver even better products as a result.

Very importantly - ASP.NET MVC, Web API and Razor will continue to be fully supported Microsoft products that ship both standalone as well as part of Visual Studio (the same as they do today). They will also continue to be staffed by the same Microsoft developers that build them today (in fact, we have more Microsoft developers working on the ASP.NET team now than ever before). Our goal with today’s announcement is to increase the feedback loop on the products even more, and allow us to deliver even better products. We are really excited about the improvements this will bring.

Web Frameworks, MVC, and ASP.NET

After nearly a year as a community tech preview, Microsoft has released the first true beta of the ASP.NET MVC framework. ASP.NET MVC is a radical departure from the WebForms technology has promoted in the past, and in the opinion of many, a return to mainstream web programming. The MVC pattern provides the cornerstone for web frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and Java's Spring Framework.

MVC web frameworks should not be confused with their namesake, the Model-View-Controller pattern first proposed by Trygve Reenskaug. Under Reenskaug's pattern, the view and controller were tightly bound to one another with a one-to-one mapping between each view and controller. With a MVC web framework, the view and controller are loosely coupled and it is not unheard of for multiple views to be tied to a single controller.

Regardless of which definition of MVC you prefer, the model remains an independent representation of data that has no knowledge of what is using it. This is in contrast to WebForms, where it is common for data to be stored in the UI elements themselves in the form of viewstate. Read More...

DropDownList asp.net Control

Sometimes we need a solution where we have to append certain hardcoded values which are given in the markup and then we have to append some values from the database after these hardcoded values.

These hardcoded value can be a single item saying “Select” or “Remove” or a list of asp list items.

So if we are not following the right steps in the sequence of databinding and clearing items from the dropdownlist control, this control may act a little different as we would have thought and create havoc in our programming life.

Today while building an application i came accross the similar situation where i have two dropdownlists one is “ddlCategories ” where current categories to which a post belongs are coming form the datasource it alos has a listitem value which is hardcoded in the markup saying Remove Existing Categories which have a value of -1 and index value 0.

There is one more list called “ddlAddUserCategories” in which all the categories related to particular user are databound using the datasource.

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Monday, April 16, 2012

ASP.NET Security Problems


Microsoft has released information on a critical security issue in ASP.NET. This issue affects both ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC web sites. Microsoft does plan to release a patch to fix the issue. However, it is important that you take the recommend workaround steps to secure your ASP.NET web site until then.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Netcetera Launches Free ASP.NET 4.5 Hosting Beta Sandbox for Developers


Isle of Man, British Isles, 21 March 2012 - Netcetera, one of Europe’s leading hosting service providers, has proudly announced that they are launching a new free ASP.NET 4.5 Beta Hosting sandbox as part of their hosting lab. This free hosting sandbox program allows users to experience the next generation .NET framework technology.

The free sandbox hosting program is a limited program offered as an open beta for developers, on a first come first serve basis.

With .NET Framework 4.5, Microsoft .NET has been enhanced significantly to enable developers to be as productive as possible while building rich, reliable and high-performance software in managed code. Enhancements include language, performance and networking support.

Out of the ordinary is the Open Source Leader


A few days ago the Linux Foundation raised eyebrows by disclosing that Microsoft has earned a place on its top contributors list.

Yes, that’s right. Microsoft has contributed enough code to Linux to make it #17 on the list of companies supporting the kernel. Red Hat and Novell rank higher, of course. So does Google. But we must now acknowledge Microsoft as a major contributor. Not bad for a company whose CEO once described Linux as “a cancer.”

The reaction among Linux hackers is best described as surprised and wary. Understandably, they are concerned that Microsoft is attempting to influence the development of Linux in ways that benefit Microsoft. But you know, that’s how open source projects work. Contributors are free to add the code that best instantiates their view of how the world should be. Microsoft’s likely goal is increased interoperability. That is unlikely to hurt anyone. On the contrary, it’s a good thing for everyone.



Saturday, April 14, 2012

Microsoft open sources more of its ASP.NET technologies


Microsoft has announced it is open sourcing more of its ASP.NET programming-framework technologies — and that it will allow developers outside of Microsoft to submit patches and code contributions for potential inclusion in these products.

Microsoft Corporate Vice President Scott Guthrie blogged about Microsoft’s latest ASP.NET moves on March 27, noting that Microsoft already had made the source code of ASP.NET MVC available since it released version 1 (in 2009 under the MS-PL open source license). Microsoft is making the two new pieces — ASP.NET Web API and ASP.NET Web Pages (originally codenamed “Razor”) available under the Apache 2.0 license.