Followup: SubSonic in WinForms or DLL

Looks like the feature to use SubSonic in WinForms and DLL's will be added to the next SubSonic release!

Also there's a new version of the tool that works with the SubSonic 1.0.6 release. It also now works with Enterprise Library projects as well. Thanks DevInstinct / Martin!

SubSonic in WinForms or DLL

I was recently trying to get SubSonic integrated into my Business Layer DLL, which compiled with my web project, and found a great tool in the SubSonic forums. It was a bit of a nuisance to manually do this after each release but thanks to DevInstinct in the forum who has created a Custom Tool add-in for VS 2005 to allow you to use SubSonic in a DLL or EXE (You can use it in Web Application Projects and WinForms too).

This is great because now I can properly separate my Presentation Layer with my Business Layer and package SubSonic in only the Business Layer project! Scale away! This tool is great so go check it out and show support for it so we can get it added to a future SubSonic release.


P.S. I don't pay too much attention to punctuation or properly formatted paragraphs, enjoy ;-) oh and Happy New Year!

SubSonic 1.0.6 Released

Merry Christmas... SubSonic 1.0.6 was released on Tuesday.

No change log yet but we'll just have to wait and see.

Taking your ASP.NET app offline

Something really interesting and useful for ASP.NET is the ability to take your application completely offline. As a matter of fact when you publish your website Visual Studio 2005 takes your application offline. So even if you go to mysite.com/here/there.aspx you will still get an "application offline" message. The best part is that you can customize the message.

All you have to do is upload a "app_offline.htm" file to your website. Thats it! You can create your own custom message in the htm file. There's no special tags to use, the file itself lets .NET know you want your app offline. Just remember to take it off ;)

If you want more details, including an example file, check out the 15 Seconds article: Taking an ASP.NET 2.0 Application Offline.

ASP.NET AJAX under the hood

Great article by Omar Al Zabir on some advanced tips & tricks using AJAX. Omar is the architect behind Pageflakes.com and uses ASP.NET / AJAX as the foundation. If you're using AJAX, much like I am, you will find the article very useful. It goes into batch calls, timeouts, caching, javascript tricks, and a few other items.

One thing I found very useful was how Omar implemented a "retry" feature when doing an AJAX call. This is exactly (or very close to) what I have implemented in my StickTo application. So go on and take a look. And in the near future I'll be posting some AJAX tips of my own including: displaying a progress bar without an update panel and how to use JSON de/serialization from client/server and back.

SubSonic - Sweet!

I've been using SubSonic: The Zero Code DAL (formerly known as actionpack) for about two months now and I LOVE IT! SubSonic is a tool that helps a website build itself. Remember how long it took to write your SQL Data Access Layer? Well SubSonic takes care of all of that for you in a real-time ORM Mapping manner and even incorporates Views and Stored Procedures too!

My favorite part of SubSonic is that since I've started using it I haven't had to write ANY Data Access Layer functions at all. SubSonic takes care of everything. I can get a DataSet in my business layer by simply calling something like:

Public Function QueryAllProducts() as DataSet
Return New Query(Tables.Products).ExecuteDataSet()
End Function

That's it!! Also looking at the code you can see: Tables.Products... Yes, everything is Strongly-Typed too, even the Stored Procedures! The project is still under development but it's certainly a strong build, a few applications have already been built using SubSonic. So certainly join the community and give SubSonic a try.



Check out the 20 minute demo webcast: http://www.wekeroad.com/actionpackintro.html

ATLAS: POST is slower than GET

A good article explaining that ATLAS defaults to POST when calling back and that POST is generally slower than calling a GET. However GET only supports strings, dates and numerals. The article goes on and shows how to implement a GET statement from your web service.

Very handy if you're looking to increase performance on your AJAX.NET app, if applicable of course :)

Choosing Between VB.NET and C#

Good article on choosing between the two languages. A lot of people look at VB.NET differently because of the older VB6. However VB.NET is just as powerful as C#, minus the ability to break out of managed code - which in a lot of cases is not recommended. Anyways, take a look at the article you'll find VB.NET is just like C# ~ And my personal opinion reflects this too. I can write C# just as well as I can VB.NET.

http://dnjonline.com/article.aspx?ID=mar05_vbvscsharp

Debug Javascript in Visual Studio 2005

I haven't posted in a while but came across something worthy and helpful! It's an article on how to debug javascript with VS2005! This is definitely going to come in handy. Just finished one of my other sites and can now move on to the project I've been excited about!! Debugging javascript will be intense so this came just in time.

Debug JS with VS2005

P.S. I needed to add some images, it was just too "texty" here.

Computer Geek!

For those of you not yet aware, Internet Explorer 7 is now available for download (the actual release not the beta). Get it here.

I just realized how much of a computer geek I am!! I just received an email from one of my co-workers and she said we have Visual Studio 2005 and the MSDN Library ready and waiting for us to install, unfortunately only after a version release, which isn't until the middle of November. I'm excited and can't wait to click the install button! Why!? *sigh* I'm the only one in my group who's excited...

Something worthy for you from Steve Wozniak (Apple co-founder)...

My advice has to do with what you do when you find yourself sitting there with ideas in your head and a desire to build them. But you're young. You have no money. Those ideas are what drive you, they're all you think about. But there's a big difference between just thinking about inventing something and doing it. So how do you do it? How do you actually set about changing the world?

· Believe in yourself. Don't waver.

· A revolutionary new product won't be understandable to most people. Don't let these people bring you down. They only know what they're exposed to. It's a type of prejudice against the spirit of invention. Trust your intuition, that way lies happiness.

· See things in "grey scale".

· Don't follow the crowd. Do a factual study. Don't waste time supporting a bad idea. Keep your ego out of the equation.

· Work alone.

· Don't work in a corporate environment where products are designed by committee.

-- STEVE WOZNIAK