DOCUMENT OUTLINE

Notes on DotNet

Port80 Software develops security and performance tools for Microsoft IIS Servers. It released the results of a recent survey of server usage in Fortune 1000 companies, which states that IIS 6 passed IIS 5 for the first time as the leading web server platform, with a ranking of 36.5 percent. This also puts IIS 6 ahead of the Apache server, at least among Fortune 1000 sites.

Continue reading "IIS 6 is Tops in Server Survey "

Posted by John Dorsey at 07:31 PM  Permalink |

Training and consultant services firm Wintellect has announced that noted author and sometimes U-Haul driver Charles Petzold is consulting for the company, working with clients on Windows Presentation Foundation projects. Charles' latest book, 3D Programming for Windows, was released in July. He's worked with the company previously, delivering the keynote at Wintellect's Devscovery conference last May. Visit Wintellect's site for more info on its collaboration with Charles.

Posted by John Dorsey at 03:30 PM  Permalink |

The Cubicaller cubicle door bell gives your workmates a way to announce their presence at your desk. (It also gives the manufacturer a way to announce that it was able to talk you out of $12.) I see the Cubicaller market really taking off after I invent the Cubi-Bag-of-Flaming-Dog-Poo.

Posted by John Dorsey at 01:08 PM  Permalink |

Amanda Silver, Lead Program Manager for Visual Basic (and 50 Cent fan) is giving a talk in Second Life, Tuesday, July 31, 4 p.m. Pacific Time (which is also Second Life Time). The talk is being held on Visual Studio Island (Here's the SLURL). Amanda will be speaking in the Visual Studio Theater. Come early to get a good view -- the theater only seats about 60 avatars.

If you miss today's talk, Brad Abrams, GPM for the UI Framework and Services team is giving a talk on the Island on August 30, at 3:00 p.m. Brad will be discussing ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight. If you're new to Second Life and want more info before signing up, check out www.visualstudioisland.com. Also if it's dark out when you get to the island, you can always Crtl-Shift-Y to force the sun to noon. For more online Silverlight training check out Dr. Dobb's Sparkleball tutorial.

As for Real Life training, Tim Sneath has posted a healthy list of Silverlight and WPF training courses happening in RL all around the globe. The courses are being held throughout August and September by Microsoft partners, including Wintellect, Dunn Training, Developmentor, and others.

Posted by John Dorsey at 05:07 PM  Permalink |

Microsoft's John Lam announced the 0.1 Pre-Alpha release of Iron Ruby at the OSCON 2007.
IronRuby is an .NET implementation of the Ruby programming language and is licensed under the Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL), which allows users to view, modify, and redistribute the source code for either commercial or non-commercial purposes. JOhn also announced that they're inviting any interested parties to contribute source to the IronRuby libraries (although not to the compiler proper just yet).

Posted by John Dorsey at 06:26 PM  Permalink |

For all the true XAML believers, Debreuil Digital Works has created The Converted, a SWF to XAML conversion tool. The Converted processes swf files containing vector-based animations and sound, converting them into XAML code. Note that it does not process ActionScript events or embedded video. The full program is $249.00 and a "watermark" trial version is available too.
Of course, there is also the SWF2XAML tool that Mike Swanson created last year, but Mike's converter does not support audio export. Mike also created an Illustrator to XAML converter.

Posted by John Dorsey at 12:34 AM  Permalink |

Dr. Dobb's launched a Silverlight tutorial microsite that walks you through the creation of a breakout-style game called "Sparkleball." The tutorial requires Silverlight 1.1, Microsoft Expression Blend, and Microsoft Visual Studio Express or 2005. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be adding new demos and tutorials.

Posted by John Dorsey at 05:47 PM  Permalink |

Last week NETiKA Tech announced the release of GOA WinForms 2.0 a collection of over 40 WinXP-style .NET System.Windows.Forms controls that you can use in Silverlight 1.1 and Flash 8 and 9 apps. The free version of GOA WinForms includes treeview, combobox, XamlCanvas, draggable and dockable toolbars and more. The Professional version, now in alpha, also includes a DataGrid control and other more-advanced controls. GOA WinForms for Silverlight is designed for Visual Studio 2008 (support for VS 2005 in the Pro version only).

Posted by John Dorsey at 08:36 PM  Permalink |

In Scott Swigart's latest video tutorial,Build .NET Controls for VB6 Apps, he shows how the Interop Form 2.0 toolkit lets you build .NET controls that are usable from within VB6. Scott builds a simple ping control in .NET that asks for an IP address to ping and then displays the results in a text box. After compiling the the user control, Scott, builds VB 6 form that seemlessly hosts it.

Posted by John Dorsey at 01:14 AM  Permalink |

The .NET 2.0 Framework includes a standard collection library in namespace System.Collections.Generic (SCG). In their article, The C5 Generic Collection Library, Niels Kokholm and Peter Sestofttake a look at some of the missing features and limitations of the SCG. They designed the open-source C5 collection library to provide advanced functionality and support future forms of collection classes. The C5 collection library, works with Microsoft .NET 2.0 and Mono 1.2 and is available www.itu.dk/research/c5.

Posted by John Dorsey at 01:16 AM  Permalink |