Ajaxus place on the net

Yesterday was announced that ASP.NET MVC 2 is final! What is new:

- New Strongly Typed HTML Helpers
- Enhanced Model Validation support across both server and client
- Auto-Scaffold UI Helpers with Template Customization
- Support for splitting up large applications into “Areas”
- Asynchronous Controllers support that enables long running tasks in parallel
- Support for rendering sub-sections of a page/site using Html.RenderAction
- Lots of new helper functions, utilities, and API enhancements
- Improved Visual Studio tooling support

Here is a whitepaper with more info.

Here is ASP.NET MVC Code Examples from MSDN, where you can download and view how to:

- MVC AJAX Application
- MVC Areas Application
- MVC Asynchronous Controller
- MVC Basic Walkthrough
- MVC Controller
- MVC Data Views
- Using the Templated Helpers to Display, Edit and Label Data
- Validating Model Data Using DataAnnotations Attributes

Few days ago ExtJS posted about their latest version 3.2 of their library. It was long anticipated because it is one of the coolest javascript libraries on the net. In fact ExtJS is the core to another tool we use on daily bases - Coolite.

Here are some of the new features:
- Multiple sorting and filtering on Stores
- Animated DataView transitions
- Composite Fields
- Slider improvements
- Toolbar plugins
- New Accessibility Theme
- Quality Assurance: Unit Testing

Full description and more information you can find on Ext JS blog at http://www.extjs.com/blog/2010/03/09/announcing-ext-js-3-2-beta-multisort-transitions-and-composite-fields/

Great post by Pinal Dave! He shares some tips how to get most of the stored procedures.

Dont miss it here.

• Illustrates which parts of the ASP.NET MVC Framework get called when a request is made
• Check out the purpose and features of routing, controllers, actions, and views
• Quick-reference diagram – print and display on a wall next to where you sit

Download the poster from here!

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is the latest release of SQL Server. This article will introduce the top 10 features and benefits of SQL Server 2008 R2. The “R2” tag indicates this is an intermediate release of SQL Server and not a major revision. However, there are a number of interesting new features for both DBAs and developers alike. At the time of this article, R2 is available as a CTP (Community Technology Preview). In addition to new features, there are two new editions as well, SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter and SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse.

Report Builder 3.0

Report Builder is a tool set for developing rich reports that can be delivered over the web. Some of the features of Report Builder include the ability to create reports containing graphs, charts, tables, and printing controls. In addition, Report Builder also supports drill downs and sorting. If you are familiar with the third party tool Crystal Reports, then you have good idea of what to expect from Report Builder.

New features in SQL 2008 R2 / Report Builder 3.0 include: Map Layers, which can hold spatial and analytical data and will integrate with Microsoft Virtual Earth. Indicators, these are gauges used to show the state of one value. Report Parts, this object can be reused or shared between multiple reports. Aggregate Calculating, this allows you to calculate the total value of other aggregate calculated totals.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter

The new Datacenter edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 is targeted towards Enterprise Edition users who require a greater performance platform. The new edition will support 256 logical processors, high numbers of instances, and as much memory as the operating system will support.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse

Another new SQL Server edition, Parallel Data Warehouse, formally codenamed “Madison”, specializes in handling extremely large amounts of data. This new version uses massively parallel processing to spread large tables over multiple SQL nodes. The multiple nodes are handled by a propriety Microsoft technology called Ultra Shared Nothing. This new technology is described as a Control Node spreading queries to Computer Nodes, evenly distributed, then collecting the results.

StreamInsight

New in SQL Server 2008 R2 is component called StreamInsight. This interesting component allows streaming data to be analyzed on the fly. Meaning the data is processed directly from the source stream prior to being saved in a SQL Server table. This could be extremely handy if you’re running a real time system and need to analyze data but can’t afford the latency of a committed write to a table first. Examples usually cited for this application include stock trading streams, click stream web analytics, and industrial process controls. Multiple input streams can be simultaneously monitored.

Master Data Services

Master Data Services (MDS) is both a concept and a product. The concept of a Master Data Service is that there is a central data gate keeper of core business data. Data items such as customer billing addresses, employee/customer names, and product names should be centrally managed so that all consuming applications have the same information. The Microsoft example given is a company that has a customer address record in the customer table but a different address in the mailing table. A Master Data Service application would ensure that all tables would have only one correct address. While an MDS can be a homegrown application, SQL Server 2008 R2 includes an application and an interface to manage the central data.

PowerPivot for SharePoint

PowerPivot is an end-user tool that works in conjunction with SharePoint, SQL Server 2008 R2, and Excel 2010 to process large amounts of data in seconds. PowerPivot works like an Excel Pivot Table, and includes analytical capabilities.

Data-Tier Application

A Data-Tier Application (abbreviated as DAC –no idea what the C stands for, and not to be confused with the Windows Data Access Components also abbreviated as DAC ) is an object that stores all the needed database information for a project, such as login, tables, and procedures into one package that can be consumed by Visual Studio. By creating a Data-Tier Application, a SQL Server package version could be saved with each Visual Studio build of your application. This would allow application code builds to be married to a database build in an easily managed way.

Unicode Compression

SQL Server 2008 R2 uses a new algorithm known as Simple Compression Scheme for Unicode storage. This reduces the amount of disk spaced used by Unicode characters. This new format happens automatically and is managed by the SQL Server engine so no programming changes are required of the DBA.

SQL Server Utility

The new SQL Server Utility is a repository object for centrally controlling multiple SQL Server instances. Performance data and configuration policies can be stored in a single Utility. The Utility also includes an Explorer tool where multi-server dashboards can be created.

Multi Server Dashboards

While the SQL Server Management Studio could always connection to multiple servers, each was managed independently with no central view of all of them. Now with SQL Server 2008 R2, Dashboards showing combined server data can be created.

Good news for all of us who havent upgraded to IE8 yet. Internet Explored 9 is on its way! The web browser would be coming with great performance upgrades.

Browser performance involves many different sub-systems within the browser. Different sites – and different activities within the same site – place different loads and demands on the browser.

Developers want more capabilities in the browser to build great apps and experiences; they want them to work in an interoperable way so they don’t have to re-write and re-test their sites again and again. The standards process offers a good means to that end.

As engineers, when we want to assess progress, we develop a test suite that exercises the breadth and depth of functionality. With IE8, we delivered a highly-interoperable implementation of CSS 2.1 and contributed over 7,200 tests to the W3C. Standards that do not include validation tests are much more difficult to implement consistently, and more difficult for site developers to rely on.

Some standards tests – like Acid3 – have become widely used as shorthand for standards compliance, even with some shortcomings. Acid3 tests about 100 aspects of different technologies (many still in the “working draft” stage of standardization), including many edge cases and error conditions.

Read more here!

.Net Framework 4.0 adds also some new and cool features to file system objects. File class has now ReadLines() methods that returns IEnumerable. WriteAllLines() methods has two overload methods that accept IEnumerable instead of strings array that was also supported in previous versions of .Net Framework. This posting introduces ReadLines() and WriteAllLines() methods and gives you some ideas how to use these methods in your applications.

Also the new .Net Framework 4.0 Beta 2 has new IsNullOrWhiteSpace() method for strings generalizes IsNullOrEmpty() method to incluse also other white space besides empty string. In this posting I will show you simple example that illustrates how to use IsNullOrWhiteSpace() method.

.Net Framework 4.0 Beta 2 introduces new class in System.Numerics namespace: Complex. Complex represents complex numbers and enables different arithmetic operations with complex numbers. In this posting I will show you how to use complex numbers in .Net Framework 4.0 applications.

Complex class has two constructors – one of them has no arguments and the other takes real and complex parts of complex number. Complex numbers have also properties for phase and magnitude. Let’s see the following code.

Here is a more complete list:
* Complex Number
* Location
* IObservable
* Stream.CopyTo
* Guid.TryParse, Version.TryParse, and Enum.TryParse
* Enum.HasFlag
* String.Concat and String.Join overloads that take IEnumerable
* String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace
* Environment.SpecialFolder additions
* Environment.Is64BitProcess and Environment.Is64BitOperatingSystem
* Path.Combine params support
* TimeSpan Globalized Formatting and Parsing
* Stopwatch.Restart
* StringBuilder.Clear
* IntPtr and UIntPtr Addition and Subtraction operators
* ServiceProcessInstaller.DelayedAutoStart
* ObservableCollection moved to System.dll

To read more, follow the links here and here.

To read about “Data Binding in ASP.NET AJAX 4.0” click here.

Today from Microsoft released the links to download the new Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2!

Here is the link.

VS 2010 Product Line SKU Simplifications

With VS 2010 we are simplifying the product lineup and pricing options of Visual Studio, as well as adding new benefits for MSDN subscribers. With VS 2010 we will now ship a simpler set of SKU options:

* Visual Studio Express: Free Express SKUs for Web, VB, C#, and C++

* Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN: Professional development tools as you are used to today with the addition of source control integration, bug tracking, build automation, and more. It also includes 50 hours/month of Azure cloud computing.

* Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN: Premium has everything in Professional plus advanced development tools (including richer profiling and debugging, code coverage, code analysis and testing prioritization), advanced database support, UI testing, and more. Rather than buying multiple “Team” SKUs like you would with VS 2008, you can now get this combination of features in one box with VS 2010. It also includes 100 hours/month of Azure cloud computing.

* Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN: Ultimate has everything in Premium plus additional advanced features for developers, testers, and architects including features like Intellitrace (formerly Historical Debugging), the new architecture tools (UML, discovery), test lab management, etc. It also includes 250 hours/month of Azure cloud computing.

Side by Side Support with VS 2008

VS 2010 and .NET 4.0 can be installed side-by-side on the same machine as VS 2008 and .NET 3.5. You can install the Beta 2 version on a machine and it will not impact your existing VS 2008 / .NET 3.5 development.

Go-Live License Available

.NET 4 and VS 2010 Beta 2 include a “go-live” license which means you can start using the products for production projects.

Some of the new features also include making SEO-friendly url’s. Before we used to write some keywords mapping but now it all could be done with code.
Before:
http://ajaxus.net/news.php?newsID=23232

Now:
http://ajaxus.net/news/Url_routing

This can be achieved with the function MapPageRoute.

Handling PostBack Scenarios

URL Routing with ASP.NET 4.0 fully supports postback scenarios. The

Here are four free chapters from the book “The Microsoft Expression Web Developer’s Guide to ASP.NET 3.5: Learn to create ASP.NET applications using Visual Web Developer 2008“. You can download it from here or buy it from here.

The list of the free chapters:
* Creating Web sites
* Creating and Managing CSS Styles
* Applying CSS to Web Forms
* Debugging ASP.NET Applications