Starting from today, MS Visual Studio Express is permanetly free. From their FAQ:
Effective April 19th, 2006, all Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions are free permanently. This pricing covers all Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions including Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, Visual J#, and Visual Web Developer as well as all localized versions of Visual Studio Express.
SQL Server 2005 Express Edition has always been and will continue to be a free download.
I’ve just read about new launched Nike & Google social-networking site: Joga.com.
“Joga is an online community created by Google and Nike for anyone anywhere in the world who shares a love for soccer, the world’s most popular sport. Joga is about getting to know your fellow fans; creating games and clubs; accessing athletes from Nike; and enjoying video clips and photos (you can even upload your own). You can strengthen existing friendships and begin new ones, join a wide variety of professional athletes and soccer communities, and even create your own to discuss soccer, exchange tips on the coolest moves, browse through various pitches worldwide, and plan your next game.
But most of all, Joga is about “Joga Bonito” — Portuguese for “play beautiful.” Are you ready to start down the path of soccer bliss? Join us, and show the world what playing beautiful means to you.”
That’s very nice. But have you noticed file extensions? *.aspx. A Google website (check ‘forgot password’ page or domain name whois) with ASP.NET? That’s very interesting. I also checked webserver software: GFE/1.3. This one and GWS/2.1 are Google webserver software, maybe based on some *nix flavour, I think. So, they have ASP.NET on other platform? It’s not that is impossible, but I never thought they would use .NET at all. I don’t think it’s only *.aspx extension, because would have no logic.
Then I did another test: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Agoogle.com+filetype%3Aaspx&meta=
Interesting results again, although the pages are not there (but they were when page was indexed).
So, I think is fair enough to say: yes, Google is using ASP.NET.
I started this post from Erik Porter’s blog. I saw and played with new live.com. I like the design, functionality and general idea, but … there are some ‘buts’:
- At least, for general information, feeds and search is similar with start.com, another Microsoft project (?). Same Web 2.0 ideas, page organization and even Passport login. It’s true that live.com has a very nice and interesting (futuristic ?) design, I really like.
- Lots of new stuff, like those macros but maybe some are still beta. See these problems:
First problem is that search box is under the logo, when resizing. Second, see how text is displayed when window is resized. Then, third one is a fatal error and nothing happen when opening this job macro search.
- Then, there is a problem with standards, or maybe is not a problem at all?
- I’d expect a tooltip for scrolling buttons. Also, I think is a problem this client-side scrolling because is far from smooth, on many computers. Normal browser scrolling is fast, smooth and more intuitive, not the same as this JavaScript solution.
Although somehow hidden (b.htm ?), pages use IIS & ASP.NET, I think (live.com/login.aspx). Is this an experimental site or something we’ll see live, without “beta” ?
I’m really curious what future will bring in web development because looks like each month there is something new and innovative.
I’ve read an interesting post about new released Microsoft Application Security Anti-Cross Site Scripting Library (Feb. 26). The only problem is that the link provided is not working. The same happened for other blog post.
I went further and searched MS site but all links take me to msdn.microsoft.com/downloads. On that page it might have been a link to this new library, but is no more there.
An excerpt from initial blog (Irena Kennedy):
The question is, since we already have HtmlEncode method under System.Web.HttpUtility to combat XSS, why do we need anything else? As it turns out, HttpUtility.HtmlEncode only escapes the known dangerous characters/strings; the new AntiXSSLibrary.HtmlEncode (and UrlEncode) only allows a small subset of known safe strings and escapes everything else. This is a much safer way to go!
I still couldn’t find this library on MS site, so I think something happened with it. Total mistery.
Update: the link is up and running now. Nice.
After multimillion-dollar patent spat with Chicago-based Eolas Technologies, Microsoft updated IE introducing new ActiveX controls activation. This affects all plug-ins available in IE as Adobe Reader, Apple QuickTime Player, Macromedia Flash, Microsoft Windows Media Player, Real Networks RealPlayer, Sun Java Virtual Machine and more. Read more about this process from CNET News, PC Mag, BetaNews and some other places.
Microsoft published this update in MSDN (Activating ActiveX Controls) and Support KB (Internet Explorer ActiveX update).
Basically, all ActiveX Controls must be activated before using their visual interface (mouse click, use keyboard, etc.). They are working at page load but user interface actions are blocked until is activated. See this image:
Once activated, they are working normally. There is a workaround: when loading plugin from an external file it works just fine, with no activation necessary.
Surely, this will affect all web developers in near future, forcing them to find solutions for rich media websites.
Regarding this subject but also regarding these new solutions for 2006 websites and web applications I read an interesting post by Jon Gallaway: IE Update disables Flash. Flash navigation is stupid. If you have to embed Flash, use FlashObject. He suggests to get rid of Macromedia Flash navigation and start using FlashObject, a JavaScript solution for embedding Flash in XHTML valid documents with correct Macromedia Flash plug-in detection. He also points new published workarounds for this IE update by Apple, Macromedia and Real.