What is Turbo C#?

Turbo C# Professional is an extensible and customizable solution including 200+ pre-built drag and drop components providing everything you need to start real C# development today, as well as an extendable environment for build-your-own and third party components and IDE add-ons.

The free Turbo C# Explorer edition is a fixed, all-in-one solution which lets beginners and hobbyists learn programming and develop applications using the C# language.

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.

“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.

“My conclusion is that Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET. They implement very little of their own code using .NET. The framework is provided as part of the operating system, but this is so that code written by third party developers can run on Vista without the large download of the framework. Supplying the .NET runtime for third party developers in this way is similar to Microsoft supplying msvbvm60.dll as part of XP.” 

I agree with those who say that Vista core should not be made with .NET, but I’d expect much more MS applications delivered with OS to be developed with .NET, especially Visual Studio. I’m interested to see important MS applications, money generators, developed with .NET as a strong assertion for its capabilities and power. By comparison, Java Studio Creator & Java Studio Enterprise is build with Java.

As this technology is named, everything is asynchronous: a request is made and a callback function is declared, which is called during the process and at the end of the request. Nothing about synchronous operations, this object supports.

Asynchronous operations are very good with lengthy requests, when user is not blocked till the request is processed. You can display an animated images to let user know that is working, and the whole process is made in the background. All AJAX is based on this idea. But there are times when user is only waiting for response, usually short response, just to process small amounts of data. In this case more logical is a synchronous operation, still available with XMLHttpRequest.

For details how to use XMLHttpRequest see this interesting article: Dynamic HTML and XML: The XMLHttpRequest Object. In this example is used an asynchronous call (see processReqChange() callback function). Let’s change it synchronous:

var req;

function loadXMLDoc(url) {
 req = false;
    // branch for native XMLHttpRequest object
    if(window.XMLHttpRequest) {
     try {
   req = new XMLHttpRequest();
        } catch(e) {
   req = false;
        }
    // branch for IE/Windows ActiveX version
    } else if(window.ActiveXObject) {
        try {
         req = new ActiveXObject(”Msxml2.XMLHTTP”);
       } catch(e) {
         try {
            req = new ActiveXObject(”Microsoft.XMLHTTP”);
         } catch(e) {
            req = false;
         }
  }
    }
 if(req) {
  req.open(”GET”, url, false);
  req.send(”");
  return(req.responseText);
 }
} 

Then you can use it simply: alert(loadXMLDoc(’local_file.htm’))

Changes are minor: only pass ‘false’ as third parameter for open() and you don’t need a callback function. Everything happens synchronously: user make a request and wait for its response.

Very important is security limitation, in all browsers: you can’t access files from another domains, because of the ’sandbox’ policies. But you can access files from the same server (maybe you can build a page to load other URLs server-side).

The only thing I want to highlight here is that it may be times when synchronous process is enough and simpler. Is this AJAX or SJAX?

- 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 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.

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.

Good part is that there is something in CPanel for mod_mono installation. I tried to install it from browser, just ticking a check-box. It just didn’t worked. I think current integration on mod_mono with CPanel don’t work at all. I tried to compile mod_mono library on the server but it just missed to many other modules and the biggest problem: I’m not experienced Linux administrator. I didn’t worked, either. Then I asked for support of hosting company. They didn’t figured out. I did some searches on the net, I saw some solutions that work (I know is possible), but at the end I gave up.

Actually, I gave up because of other a few reasons:

• Even if I install it I should spent more time developing Mono / .NET software I’d need. I read that some .NET blog software works with mono (BlogX) but I’m still not convinced;
• Then it’s Mono itself. Unfortunatelly, I think it will be always one step behind Microsoft .NET. See what they say about Mono 1.1.13: “Many .NET 2.0 updates”. There aren’t all updates of .NET 2.0 and truth is that many classes are not there or behind schedule (see Windows.Forms, even if it’s another story for its necessity for WebForms & web development). Why a company would invest in a second hand technology, only because it’s free? I don’t say it’s not possible that Mono will become first grade technology, running side by side with Microsoft solution, just it’s not there yet, I think.
• Also, regarding Mono itself, I don’t see too much happen in it’s community. Sorry to say this, but I new emerging technology would need more support and active members.

I’ll still keep an eye on Mono and jump for it whenever I’ll consider it’s good for me, just that not right now.

Some may give me links how to solve my problems. Thanks, but I don’t have to much time for ‘trial and error’ solutions.

Good luck Mono!

There are may websites focused on Microsoft .NET, so we don’t want to just create another one, but something developer centered, with thoughts and ideas that come from our experience. This is why this would be mainly a weblog, with additional pages, rather than an article website with an additional weblog.

Other main topic will be open-source useful tools, not only limited to .NET. There are many great programs available, many of them almost unknown. This website wants to share some thoughts on some of these programs.

Thanks for reading these and stay close.