Wednesday, November 24, 2010

10 Essential Tools for building ASP.NET Websites

10 Essential Tools for building ASP.NET Websites: "

I recently put together a simple public website created with ASP.NET for my company at Superexpert.com. I was surprised by the number of free tools that I ended up using to put together the website. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to create a list of essential tools for building ASP.NET websites. These tools work equally well with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC.

Performance Tools

After reading Steve Souders two (very excellent) books on front-end website performance High Performance Web Sites and Even Faster Web Sites, I have been super sensitive to front-end website performance. According to Souders’ Performance Golden Rule:

Optimize front-end performance first, that's where 80% or more of the end-user response time is spent”

You can use the tools below to reduce the size of the images, JavaScript files, and CSS files used by an ASP.NET application.

1. Sprite and Image Optimization Framework

CSS sprites were first described in an article written for A List Apart entitled CSS sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death. When you use sprites, you combine multiple images used by a website into a single image. Next, you use CSS trickery to display particular sub-images from the combined image in a webpage.

The primary advantage of sprites is that they reduce the number of requests required to display a webpage. Requesting a single large image is faster than requesting multiple small images. In general, the more resources – images, JavaScript files, CSS files – that must be moved across the wire, the slower your website.

However, most people avoid using sprites because they require a lot of work. You need to combine all of the images and write just the right CSS rules to display the sub-images. The Microsoft Sprite and Image Optimization Framework enables you to avoid all of this work. The framework combines the images for you automatically. Furthermore, the framework includes an ASP.NET Web Forms control and an ASP.NET MVC helper that makes it easy to display the sub-images. You can download the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework from CodePlex at http://aspnet.codeplex.com/releases/view/50869.

The Sprite and Image Optimization Framework was written by Morgan McClean who worked in the office next to mine at Microsoft. Morgan was a scary smart Intern from Canada and we discussed the Framework while he was building it (I was really excited to learn that he was working on it).

Morgan added some great advanced features to this framework. For example, the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework supports something called image inlining. When you use image inlining, the actual image is stored in the CSS file. Here’s an example of what image inlining looks like:

.Home_StephenWalther_small-jpg

{

width:75px;

height:100px;

background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAEsAAABkCAIAAABB1lpeAAAAB

GdBTUEAALGOfPtRkwAAACBjSFJNAACHDwAAjA8AAP1SAACBQAAAfXkAAOmLAAA85QAAGcxzPIV3AAAKL

s+zNfREAAAAASUVORK5CYII=) no-repeat 0% 0%;

}

The actual image (in this case a picture of me that is displayed on the home page of the Superexpert.com website) is stored in the CSS file.

If you visit the Superexpert.com website then very few separate images are downloaded. For example, all of the images with a red border in the screenshot below take advantage of CSS sprites:

clip_image001

Unfortunately, there are some significant Gotchas that you need to be aware of when using the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework. There are workarounds for these Gotchas. I plan to write about these Gotchas and workarounds in a future blog entry.

2. Microsoft Ajax Minifier

Whenever possible you should combine, minify, compress, and cache with a far future header all of your JavaScript and CSS files. The Microsoft Ajax Minifier makes it easy to minify JavaScript and CSS files.

Don’t confuse minification and compression. You need to do both. According to Souders, you can reduce the size of a JavaScript file by an additional 20% (on average) by minifying a JavaScript file after you compress the file.

When you minify a JavaScript or CSS file, you use various tricks to reduce the size of the file before you compress the file. For example, you can minify a JavaScript file by replacing long JavaScript variables names with short variables names and removing unnecessary white space and comments. You can minify a CSS file by doing such things as replacing long color names such as #ffffff with shorter equivalents such as #fff.

The Microsoft Ajax Minifier was created by Microsoft employee Ron Logan. Internally, this tool was being used by several large Microsoft websites. We also used the tool heavily on the ASP.NET team. I convinced Ron to publish the tool on CodePlex so that everyone in the world could take advantage of it. You can download the tool from the ASP.NET Ajax website and read documentation for the tool here.

I created the installer for the Microsoft Ajax Minifier. When creating the installer, I also created a Visual Studio build task to make it easy to minify all of your JavaScript and CSS files whenever you do a build within Visual Studio automatically. Read the Ajax Minifier Quick Start to learn how to configure the build task.

3. ySlow

The ySlow tool is a free add-on for Firefox created by Yahoo that enables you to test the front-end of your website. For example, here are the current test results for the Superexpert.com website:

clip_image002

The Superexpert.com website has an overall score of B (not perfect but not bad). The ySlow tool is not perfect. For example, the Superexpert.com website received a failing grade of F for not using a Content Delivery Network even though the website using the Microsoft Ajax Content Delivery Network for JavaScript files such as jQuery.

Uptime

After publishing a website live to the world, you want to ensure that the website does not encounter any issues and that it stays live. I use the following tools to monitor the Superexpert.com website now that it is live.

4. ELMAH

ELMAH stands for Error Logging Modules and Handlers for ASP.NET. ELMAH enables you to record any errors that happen at your website so you can review them in the future. You can download ELMAH for free from the ELMAH project website.

ELMAH works great with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. You can configure ELMAH to store errors in a number of different stores including XML files, the Event Log, an Access database, a SQL database, an Oracle database, or in computer RAM. You also can configure ELMAH to email error messages to you when they happen.

By default, you can access ELMAH by requesting the elmah.axd page from a website with ELMAH installed. Here’s what the elmah page looks like from the Superexpert.com website (this page is password-protected because secret information can be revealed in an error message):

clip_image003

If you click on a particular error message, you can view the original Yellow Screen ASP.NET error message (even when the error message was never displayed to the actual user).

I installed ELMAH by taking advantage of the new package manager for ASP.NET named NuGet (originally named NuPack). You can read the details about NuGet in the following blog entry by Scott Guthrie. You can download NuGet from CodePlex.

5. Pingdom

I use Pingdom to verify that the Superexpert.com website is always up. You can sign up for Pingdom by visiting Pingdom.com. You can use Pingdom to monitor a single website for free.

At the Pingdom website, you configure the frequency that your website gets pinged. I verify that the Superexpert.com website is up every 5 minutes. I have the Pingdom service verify that it can retrieve the string “Contact Us” from the website homepage.

clip_image004

If your website goes down, you can configure Pingdom so that it sends an email, Twitter, SMS, or iPhone alert. I use the Pingdom iPhone app which looks like this:

clip_image005

6. Host Tracker

If your website does go down then you need some way of determining whether it is a problem with your local network or if your website is down for everyone. I use a website named Host-Tracker.com to check how badly a website is down.

Here’s what the Host-Tracker website displays for the Superexpert.com website when the website can be successfully pinged from everywhere in the world:

clip_image007

Notice that Host-Tracker pinged the Superexpert.com website from 68 locations including Roubaix, France and Scranton, PA.

Debugging

I mean debugging in the broadest possible sense. I use the following tools when building a website to verify that I have not made a mistake.

7. HTML Spell Checker

Why doesn’t Visual Studio have a built-in spell checker? Don’t know – I’ve always found this mysterious. Fortunately, however, a former member of the ASP.NET team wrote a free spell checker that you can use with your ASP.NET pages.

I find a spell checker indispensible. It is easy to delude yourself that you are capable of perfect spelling. I’m always super embarrassed when I actually run the spell checking tool and discover all of my spelling mistakes.

The fastest way to add the HTML Spell Checker extension to Visual Studio is to select the menu option Tools, Extension Manager within Visual Studio. Click on Online Gallery and search for HTML Spell Checker:

clip_image008

8. IIS SEO Toolkit

If people cannot find your website through Google then you should not even bother to create it. Microsoft has a great extension for IIS named the IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit that you can use to identify issue with your website that would hurt its page rank. You also can use this tool to quickly create a sitemap for your website that you can submit to Google or Bing. You can even generate the sitemap for an ASP.NET MVC website.

Here’s what the report overview for the Superexpert.com website looks like:

clip_image010

Notice that the Sueprexpert.com website had plenty of violations. For example, there are 65 cases in which a page has a broken hyperlink. You can drill into these violations to identity the exact page and location where these violations occur.

9. LinqPad

If your ASP.NET website accesses a database then you should be using LINQ to Entities with the Entity Framework. Using LINQ involves some magic. LINQ queries written in C# get converted into SQL queries for you. If you are not careful about how you write your LINQ queries, you could unintentionally build a really badly performing website.

LinqPad is a free tool that enables you to experiment with your LINQ queries. It even works with Microsoft SQL CE 4 and Azure.

You can use LinqPad to execute a LINQ to Entities query and see the results. You also can use it to see the resulting SQL that gets executed against the database:

clip_image012

10. .NET Reflector

I use .NET Reflector daily. The .NET Reflector tool enables you to take any assembly and disassemble the assembly into C# or VB.NET code. You can use .NET Reflector to see the “Source Code” of an assembly even when you do not have the actual source code. You can download a free version of .NET Reflector from the Redgate website.

I use .NET Reflector primarily to help me understand what code is doing internally. For example, I used .NET Reflector with the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework to better understand how the MVC Image helper works. Here’s part of the disassembled code from the Image helper class:

clip_image013

Summary

In this blog entry, I’ve discussed several of the tools that I used to create the Superexpert.com website. These are tools that I use to improve the performance, improve the SEO, verify the uptime, or debug the Superexpert.com website. All of the tools discussed in this blog entry are free. Furthermore, all of these tools work with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC.

Let me know if there are any tools that you use daily when building ASP.NET websites.



"

ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome (jQuery Ajax helpers)

ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome (jQuery Ajax helpers): "It contains a rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form and Pager"

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Best Practices for Mobile Web Interfaces

Best Practices for Mobile Web Interfaces: "

We’ve seen tremendous growth in the mobile market since smart phones have taken over. Most of the tech-savvy adopters who understand the benefits couldn’t go a day without their precious iPhone or Android device. Websites are continually required to hold up to these standards and have adapted to fit a dire need.


The increase for demand of mobile-fashioned websites will drive webmasters into a scuttle. Website layouts have to be updated and require tweaks to the formatting so everything will display properly on mobile devices. I’ve described some best practices below and how you can re-build your site to be entirely mobile friendly.



Create through Simplicity


No matter which device you’re working with all mobile hardware just isn’t built up to standards with a desktop platform. Simplicity is the name of the game and it will determine whether you can hold onto your mobile visitors or lose the market entirely.



Large graphics, videos, and unfitted page content will surely cause visitors to cringe. Each visitor stays on your website under the mission to gain some type of information. And they want to find it as quickly as possible with the least amount of distractions.


Try re-designing your page menu structure and setting up a different layout for your content. Often times a single column is enough for a great mobile design layout. Branding and core links should remain at the very top of the page since it’s the most accessible area.


Implement Mobile Stylesheets


CSS is a great language for applying edits and new formatting. The letter “C” in the acronym stands for cascading, meaning you can apply styles in one file and import or roll over newer properties in a later file. This creates an atmosphere for detailed customizations and a lot of power over any template.



The process of designing new style rules isn’t very complex. In fact it should fit nicely into the task of re-formatting the entire HTML structure of your pages and doesn’t require much attention. Below is an example of a simple CSS import code to apply 2 different stylesheets.


@import url('/css/styles.css');
@import url('antiscreen.css') handheld;

This method works well if you’re looking to present an overall mobile template that fits on generally all devices. This supports most older browsers from Windows Mobile and Symbian operating systems as well as iOS, Android, BlackBerry and others. The security in backwards compatibility is nice, but if you’re looking to get the best response from the larger mobile audience it’s best to define specific CSS files for unique occasions.


Working with Media Queries


This is a new set of functionality added into the CSS library with the release of CSS3 and HTML5. By focusing on the HTML code used to embed external stylesheets we can play around with the media attribute by calling upon CSS selectors.



This may all seem a bit confusing since it’s never been used in the semantic web before recently. Check out the W3C docs page for more details. Looking at CSS syntax we can break down media queries into just data values parsed via HTML and used to determine how to display page styles. I’ve demonstrated a possible example below.


By defining the max-width property the parsing engine can check the total width of whatever device the user is on and display a set stylesheet accordingly.


<link href="/css/mobile.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="only screen and (max-width: 767px)" />


The example above is code you could use to include a stylesheet for iOS devices such as an iPhone and iPod Touch. The max-width property checks to see the overall screen size and will only append the styles if the condition is met. 767px is the specific size of an iOS device’s screen in landscape mode. This means we will catch and apply changes to all devices at this width value or less.


Although not a necessary component you may also consider adding the following meta tag into your header.


<meta content="width=device-width" />

Safari on iOS devices has great zooming functionality that will break most versions of your stylesheet. If you plan to set fluid page widths and allow content to rearrange dynamically this code will keep styles from breaking. This tells the browser to trust our stylesheet and keep the page in full zoom at all times.


Always Offer a “Normal” Mode


Some visitors will become agitated with a mobile template after an extended period of use. It happens, and there’s nothing you can do as a developer to please everybody.



The best solution is to offer a link for changing back to the default site layout. In most applications this is placed at the very bottom of the page. Here it is out of harm’s way yet still in place for visitors to easily find the resource. Facebook and Digg are good examples of this.


A secret technique many web services implement is redirecting mobile devices to a sub-domain containing the alternative mobile version of the site layout. For example m.domain.com is a common trend seen among web 2.0 apps. This provides a few benefits, namely the ability to store configuration files in separate directories. This is a clean separation for removing a veil of confusion over how to structure web apps.



The era has only just begun as we start to see more consumers of mobile data and mobile phones. iPhone and Android sales are through the roof and show no signs of stopping. We can assume the amount of mobile Internet users will skyrocket over this holiday season with devices going on sale around the globe.


These tips are a great introduction into the mobile development environment. There are also many other mobile-friendly tools to check out if you’re interested in delving deeper. Trends will continue to fluctuate as the market changes but the core values of individual users will mostly stay the same. The truly successful webmasters will learn from this and scale their operations to fit their consumer base.

"

Monday, November 15, 2010

Building Pure CSS Mega Menus

Building Pure CSS Mega Menus: "Ecd-css-orange_thumb

Mega menus, which are alternatively called multi-level, fly-out, or tiered menus, are an excellent form of website navigation.

These menus—whether arranged horizontally or vertically—allow visitors to quickly and intuitively browse a site's hierarchy, which is of particular importance on ecommerce sites.

Frequently, mega menus are executed using either JavaScript or Flash and ActionScript. While these are both excellent choices, there may be certain times or certain projects wherein a lighter, all CSS solution, is called for. So in this quick tutorial, I will describe one approach to building a pure-CSS mega menu.

Building the HTML

For this tutorial, I set up a simple page that has a header and a short, four-anchor menu.



Within m...

"

100 Visual C# Training Videos

100 Visual C# Training Videos: "

Here are over
100 Visual C# Training Videos
, hosted by Microsoft. These are
designed for all Visual C# (C Sharp) developers, from the beginner (novice) to
the more advanced (professional).





Visual C# Video Topics:



C# 4.0 Video Series

How Do I Use the Visual Studio IDE

SharePoint Development with Visual Studio
2010 Video Series


Office Development with Visual Studio 2010
Video Series


WPF Forms with Entity Framework

Practical Entity Framework for C#

WPF Forms over Data Series

Windows Forms Controls Series

Developing Windows Azure Applications





Named and Optional Parameters in C# 4.0:



The
new Named and Optional Parameters feature in C# 4.0 provides an
alternative to method overloading. (Requires Visual Studio 2010.) Presented
by Sam Ng




Length: 10 minutes 22 seconds

Video Downloads: WMV (Zip) | WMV | iPod | MP4 | 3GP | Zune | PSP

Audio Downloads: AAC | WMA | MP2 | MP3 | MP4





C# 4.0 Video Series:



This video series shows new features in pre-release versions of C# 4.0
and explains how to use them.



#1 | How Do I: Named and Optional Parameters in C# 4.0?

(10 minutes, 9 seconds)



#2 | How Do I: COM Interop and Office in C# 4.0?

(10 minutes, 13 seconds)



#3 | How Do I: Use Covariance and Contravariance in VS
2010 Part I?


(8 minutes, 22 seconds)



#4 | How Do I: Use Covariance and Contravariance in VS
2010 Part II?


(11 minutes 19 seconds)





How Do I Use the Visual Studio IDE:



This
series features techniques you can use to enhance the development
process in the Visual Studio IDE. Tips for C# and VB developers
highlight how they can use built in features of the IDE to create code
more quickly and more efficiently. Presented
by Charlie Calvert




#1
| How Do I Use Highlight References in the Visual Studio 2010 IDE


(4 Minutes, 8 Seconds)



#2
| How Do I use Code Snippets in the Visual Studio IDE


(9 Minutes, 42 Seconds)



#3
| How Do I Use Generate from Usage in Visual Studio 2010?


(7 Minutes, 35 Seconds)



#4
| How Do I: Use the Call Hierarchy with DJ Park?


(6 Minutes, 39 Seconds)



#5
| How Do I: Step with The Debugger in Visual Studio?


(7 Minutes, 56 Seconds)



#6
| How Do I: Refactor my Code in Visual Studio?


(08 Minutes, 16 Seconds)



#7
| How Do I: Refactor my Code with Visual Studio Part II?


(8 Minutes, 41 Seconds)





SharePoint Development with Visual Studio 2010 Video Series:



This
how-to video series is focused on SharePoint 2010 development using
Visual Studio 2010. You will need Visual Studio 2010 Professional or
higher and SharePoint 2010 Foundation or Server installed. For more
information see Setting Up the Development Environment for
SharePoint Server
.
Presented by Ben Hedges




#1 | How Do I: Create Visual Web Parts for SharePoint
2010 in Visual Studio 2010?


(05 minutes, 44 seconds)



#2 | How Do I: Create Sequential Workflows for
SharePoint 2010 in Visual Studio 2010?


(6 minutes, 26 seconds)



#3 | How Do I: Create State Machine Workflows for
SharePoint 2010 in Visual Studio 2010?


(15 minutes, 50 seconds)



#4 | How Do I: Create Event Receivers for SharePoint
2010 in Visual Studio 2010?


(5 minutes, 4 seconds)



#5 | How Do I: Create Content Types for SharePoint
2010 in Visual Studio 2010?


(4 minutes, 14 seconds)



#6 | How Do I: Create List Definitions for SharePoint
2010 in Visual Studio 2010?


(6 minutes, 21 seconds)



#7 | How Do I: Create Site Definitions for SharePoint
2010 in Visual Studio 2010?


(5 minutes, 36 seconds)



#8 | How Do I: Import a SharePoint Site Definition
using Visual Studio 2010?


(6 minutes, 13 seconds)



#9 | How Do I: Create a Business Data Connectivity
Model for SharePoint 2010 Using Visual Studio 2010?


(11 minutes, 48 seconds)





Office Development with Visual Studio 2010 Video Series:



This
how-to video series is focused on Office development using Visual
Studio 2010. You will need Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher
and Office 2007 or 2010 installed.



#1 | How Do I: Retarget an Outlook Add-In from .NET
Framework 3.5 to .NET Framework 4?


(10 minutes, 06 seconds)



#2 | How Do I: Retarget a Word 2007 Add-In from .NET
Framework 3.5 to .NET Framework 4 that uses Smart Tags?


(9 minutes, 11 seconds)



#3 | How Do I: Take Advantage of C# 2010 Language
Improvements in Office Projects?


(9 minutes, 37 seconds)



#4 | How Do I: Deploy Multiple Office 2010 Projects in
One Package?


(13 minutes, 29 seconds)



#5 | How Do I: Write a Post Deployment Action in
Visual Studio 2010 to Copy Office Documents to End User Computers?


(8 minutes, 55 seconds)



#6 | How Do I: Deploy Office 2007 and Office 2010
Projects that Target .NET Framework 3.5 and .NET Framework 4?


(10 minutes, 44 seconds)





WPF Forms with Entity Framework Video Series:



This
how-to video series is focused on data-based application development in
Windows Presentation Foundation using Entity Framework for data access
in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1.
It is recommended you watch these videos in order because each one
builds upon techniques shown in the previous video. Presented
by Beth Massi




You will need: SQL
Server
or SQL
Server Express
and Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 or Visual Basic 2008 Express Service Pack 1

Download Code and Discuss on Code Gallery: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/wpfdatavideos



#1 | How Do I: Get Started with Entity Framework in
WPF Applications?


(17 minutes, 33 seconds)



#2 | How Do I: Build a WPF Data Entry Form Using
Entity Framework?


(24 minutes, 42 seconds)



#3 | How Do I: Create a WPF Lookup Combobox using
Entity Framework?


(24 minutes, 27 seconds)



#4 | How Do I: Hook Up and Display Validation in WPF
using Entity Framework?


(29 minutes, 24 seconds)



#5 | How Do I: Build a WPF Master-Detail Data Entry
Form Using Entity Framework?


(36 minutes, 20 seconds)





Practical Entity Framework for C#:



#1 | Practical Entity Framework for C#: Explore Entity
Framework


(11 minutes 52 seconds)



#2 | Practical Entity Framework for C#: Compiled
Queries in Entity Framework


(6 minutes 16 seconds)



#3 | Practical Entity Framework for C#: Entity
Framework for
ASP.NET

(12 minutes 8 seconds)



#4 | Practical Entity Framework for C#: Stored
Procedures in Entity Framework


(7 minutes 52 seconds)



#5 | Practical Entity Framework for C#: Paging

(11 minutes 52 seconds)





WPF Forms over Data Video Series:



This
how-to video series is focused on data-based application development in
Windows Presentation Foundation using Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack
1. Presented by Beth Massi



You will need: SQL
Server
or SQL Server Express and Visual
Studio 2008 Service Pack 1
or Visual Basic 2008 Express Service Pack 1

Download Code and Discuss on Code Gallery: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/wpfdatavideos



#1 | How Do I: Create a Simple Data Entry Form in WPF?

(24 minutes, 32 seconds)



#2 | How Do I: Display Data in a List in WPF?

(11 minutes, 47 seconds)



#3 | How Do I: Create a Lookup Combobox in WPF?

(23 minutes, 43 seconds)



#4 | How Do I: Hook Up and Display Validation in WPF?

(22 minutes, 20 seconds)



#5 | How Do I: Edit Tabular Data in WPF?

(31 minutes, 3 seconds)



#6 | How Do I: Create a Master-Detail Data Entry Form
in WPF?


(24 minutes, 58 seconds)



#7 | How Do I: Format Data in WPF Controls?

(11 minutes, 22 seconds)





Windows Forms Controls Series:



This
how-to video series is dedicated to getting beginner Visual C#
developers productive with some of the most common Windows Forms
controls, showing how to use them in Visual C#.



#1: How to Add Audio Part 1

(6 minutes, 28 seconds)



#2: How to add Audio Part 2

(5 minutes, 3 seconds)



#3: Customizing the Button Control

(9 minutes, 4 seconds)



#4: How to use the Dialog Controls

(12 minutes, 24 seconds)



#5: How to use the FlowLayout Panel

(6 minutes, 23 seconds)



#6: How to create a System Tray application using the
NotifyIcon control


(6 minutes, 45 seconds)



#7: How to call other applications using the Process
control


(7 minutes, 34 seconds)



#8: How to use the SplitContainer control

(5 minutes, 34 seconds)



#9: How to use the TableLayout control

(11 minutes, 26 seconds)



#10: How to use the Timer control

(6 minutes, 38 seconds)



#11: How to use the BackgroundWorker control

(9 minutes, 3 seconds)



#12: How to use the ListView control Part 1

(16 minutes, 42 seconds)



#13: How to use the ListView control Part 2

(17 minutes, 14 seconds)



#14: How to use the MenuStrip control

(11 minutes)



#15: How to use the PictureBox control

(9 minutes, 57 seconds)



#16: How to use the RichTextBox control

(9 minutes, 43 seconds)



#17: How to use the Status Strip control

(14 minutes, 54 seconds)



#18: How to use the Tab control

(8 minutes, 36 seconds)



#19: How to use the ToolStrip control

(7 minutes, 19 seconds)



#20: How to use the TreeView control

(17 minutes, 50 seconds)



#21: How to use the WebBrowser control

(13 minutes, 32 seconds)



#22: How Do I: Add Controls to a Document at Run Time
in an Application-Level Add-In?


(6 minutes, 5 seconds)



#23: Deploying Excel Application-level Add-ins with
Windows Installer


(6 minutes, 5 seconds)



#24: Deploying Excel Document-level Customizations
with Windows Installer


(6 minutes, 5 seconds)



#25: How Do I:Create a report from a database?

(10 minutes, 12 seconds)



#26: How Do I:Create a report from a business object?

(11 minutes, 38 seconds)



#27 | How Do I: Create a Detail Edit Form for Tabular
Data or Data in a Grid?


(21 minutes, 50 seconds)





The Developing Windows Azure Applications with Visual Studio
Video Series
:



In this series Jim Nakashima shows how to develop Windows Azure
applications with the tools provided in Visual Studio.

Presented by: Charlie Calvert



#1 | Windows Azure: Getting the Tools, Creating a
Project, Creating Roles and Configuration


(14 minutes, 26 seconds)



#2 | Running and Debugging a Windows Azure
Application Locally with Visual Studio


(6 minutes, 11 seconds)



#3 | Deploying Windows Azure Applications from Visual
Studio


(6 minutes, 56 seconds)


"

WebMatrix Beta 3: Now Available!

WebMatrix Beta 3: Now Available!: "Laurence Moroney announces the release of WebMatrix Beta 3, complete with some FAQ's and links for more info."