Archive for November, 2006

Here are a few online resources for studying towards MCTS: .NET Framework 2.0 Web Applications:

Exam 70–528: .NET 2.0 Web-Based Client Development

• Microsoft Preparation Guide
• Web-based Client Development – Free Skills Assessment
• MeasureUp practice test (150 questions)
• Wikibook MCTS textbook

Exam 70–536: .NET 2.0 Application Development Foundation

• Microsoft Preparation Guide
• MeasureUp practice test (150 questions)
• MCTS 70-536 Exam Prep (book)
• Exam syllabus with MSDN links
• C# Online.NET Study Guide

Microsoft is currently offering free subscriptions to some of its E-Learning courses:

Visual Studio 2005

• Creating Your First ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application
• Upgrading from VB6 to the .NET Framework
• Performing Asynchronous Tasks using Multithreading
• Building and Consuming a Simple XML Web Service

SQL Server 2005

• Installing and Securing SQL Server 2005
• Administering and Monitoring SQL Server 2005
• Data Availability Features in SQL Server 2005
• Programming SQL Server 2005
• Building Services and Notifications Using SQL Server 2005
• Creating the Data Access Tier Using SQL Server 2005

You might also want to check out the free .NET 3.0 E-Learning clinics from my earlier post.

This short article demonstrates how to use an ASP.NET HTTP Module to restrict access to your ASP.NET website based on a user’s IP address. As you probably know, it’s also possible to do this by configuring IIS, as explained in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

HOW TO: Restrict Site Access by IP Address or Domain Name

However, if IIS security doesn’t give you enough control and flexibility, then you can build your own custom authorisation using an HTTP Module, for example if you need to look up permitted IP addresses in a database.

Microsoft has released Windows PowerShell 1.0, its next-generation command-line shell.

• Download Windows PowerShell 1.0
• Introducing Windows PowerShell
• Scripting with Windows PowerShell
• Official Windows PowerShell Blog
• Windows PowerShell SDK
• Windows PowerShell Programmer’s Guide

Unlike traditional shells, Windows PowerShell is object-oriented and processes .NET objects instead of text. It’s also highly extensible, you can build your own commands (or cmdlets in PowerShell speak) using .NET.

Microsoft Fiddler is an HTTP debugging proxy that displays raw web traffic as it travels between your PC and the network. Although there are browser plug-ins that do the same thing, such as ieHTTPHeaders and LiveHTTPHeaders, what really sets Fiddler apart is its ability to manipulate incoming or outgoing data, and its extensibility through .NET scripting.

These two MSDN articles show how to get the most out of Fiddler when developing and testing web applications:

• Fiddler PowerToy – Part 1: HTTP Debugging
• Fiddler PowerToy – Part 2: HTTP Performance

You can customise Fiddler’s behaviour using its event-based scripting subsystem, as shown in the FiddlerScript CookBook which gives plenty of examples. There is also a FiddlerScript Editor to make scripting even easier.

Tired of using Lorem Ipsum for dummy text in your latest masterpiece? This text generator has been developed based on years of careful research and is guaranteed to improve even the most lacklustre of designs.

Here’s a handy trick for temporarily shutting down your ASP.NET 2.0 site, maybe when performing maintenance or deploying an update.

Create a new HTML file containing a suitable message, rename it App_Offline.htm, then put it in your application’s webroot. This will cause the website’s application domain to be shut down, and any subsequent requests will return App_Offline.htm instead of the requested page.

When you’re finished, just delete or rename the App_Offline.htm file.

Sun open sources its implementations of Java, will Microsoft ever follow suit by opening up the .NET framework source code?

XML Notepad 2006 is a handy little tool from Microsoft for working with XML documents.

Some of the features include:

• Tree View synchronised with Node Text View for quick editing of node names and values;
• Incremental searching;
• In place popup multiline editing of large text node values;
• Full find/replace dialog with support for regex and XPath;
• Instant XML schema validation;
• IntelliSense;
• Handy nudge tool bar buttons for quick movement of nodes up and down the tree;
• HTML viewer for testing XSLT;
• XML diff tool.

Here’s a screenshot showing the Tree View side-by-side with the Node Text View:

This is a really great application, its simple and intuitive interface makes XML editing a breeze. Goodbye Notepad!

In no particular order, ten of the most useful free tools for .NET developers:

• Fiddler HTTP Debugger
  HTTP debugging proxy
• Lutz Roeder’s .NET Reflector
  .NET assembly browser, explorer, analyser and decompiler
• FxCop
  .NET best-practice code analyser
• C# Snippet Compiler
  Lightweight C# code snippet compiler
• Sysinternals DebugView
  Monitors debug output on a local or remote computer
• WinMerge
  Visual text file differencing and merging tool
• GhostDoc
  Visual Studio add-in that automatically generates XML documentation
• CopySourceAsHtml
  Visual Studio add-in that copies syntax-highlighted code to the clipboard as HTML
• NUnit
  Unit-testing framework for .NET
• SQL Prompt
  IntelliSense style auto-completion for SQL Server