Category Archives: AJAX

Introducing the Microsoft AJAX CDN

Posted by on September 17, 2009 1 comment

Yesterday from Microsoft released the AJAX CDN. The Microsoft Ajax CDN enables you to significantly improve the performance of ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC applications that use ASP.NET AJAX or jQuery. The service is available for free, does not require any registration, and can be used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

ASP.NET 4.0 will make it especially easy for ASP.NET Web Forms developers to take advantage of the CDN. By setting one property of the ScriptManager control, you will be able to redirect all requests for the built-in ASP.NET JavaScript files to the CDN and improve the performance of your Web Forms applications.

You can get a full listing of the JavaScript libraries (and associated URLs) we already have loaded in our CDN cache here: www.asp.net/ajax/cdn

Three new free books from Microsoft

Posted by on November 5, 2008 No comments

Sorry for not writing lately but I have been distracted with some other projects. Here are some interesting books I came across yesterday. Enjoy!

Programming Microsoft® ASP.NET 3.5
ms asp net cvr Three new free books from Microsoft

Programming Microsoft LINQ
ms linq cvr Three new free books from Microsoft

Introducing Microsoft® SilverlightTM 2 Second Edition
ms silverlight cvr Three new free books from Microsoft

Rich Internet Application Technology Comparison: AJAX, Flash, Silverlight

Posted by on February 6, 2008 2 comments

Today at .Net Developers Journal was posted this interesting article by Judy Lee. Check it out here as Judy makes fast comparison of these products related to their projects. At the bottom is the final conclusion table.
Today, RIA technology is widely used, also referred to as Rich Internet Clients (RICs). RICs provide the usability, responsiveness, and reuse of client/server applications with the deployment, manageability, and availability of a traditional Web application. Many websites are using DHTML and AJAX technology in HTML pages. Another very popular technology is Flash. How about Silverlight, though?

RIAs offer the flexibility and ease of use of an intelligent desktop application, and add the broad reach of traditional web applications with an entirely new kind of web experience that is engaging, interactive, lightweight, and flexible.

DHTML and AJAX

We used DHTML and AJAX technology in HTML pages in some of our .NET outsourced projects. However, we encountered problems of browser incompatibility. (For example, DOM is quite different in IE and in Safari.)

Although it is possible to make this kind of web application work in all browsers, it will take the developer much time and it is very difficult to maintain when the browsers update.

Flash

Another very popular technology is Flash, it doesn’t have any browsers compatibility problems, but it’s very hard to integrate with .NET. Integrating Flash demands that .NET developers make a special effort, and since our specialty is .NET software outsourcing, Flash is not the best choice for us.

Silverlight

Silverlight is a cross browser technology, so there’s no browser compatibility problem. Plus it integrates with .NET very well, so it is easier to use and develop. Silverlight does not have controls at present, but in version 2.0, many controls will be released for Web designers. Those controls will make Web development easier and faster.

Based on the features supported by Silverlight (see our chart below) more web page elements and properties can be controlled than DHTML&AJAX. Silverlight also offers a good user experiences.

ajax Rich Internet Application Technology Comparison: AJAX, Flash, Silverlight

Source

A Study of Ajax Performance Issues

Posted by on January 29, 2008 No comments

Quite interesting study from Coach Wei, of Nexaweb and Apache:

Introduction:
Ajax application performance largely depends on the performance of JavaScript execution and browser DOM operations. I’ve heard various people saying various things about Ajax performance. Some people say JavaScript is just too slow. Some people say that the problem is not JavaScript but rather Browser DOM being too slow. Some people would then argue that browser DOM operations are fine. The problem is Internet Explorer that is unbelievably slow.

More specifically, here is a list of Ajax performance issues:
1. Array performance on all browsers in general
2. HTML DOM performance in general
3. Calculating Computed Box Model and Style
4. FireFox: “eval”, Object Creation and “in” Operation
5. “String” Manipulation Performance on IE
6. Safari: “pop” Operation Performance

Check out the whole study here

Something funny – O’Reilly Maker

Posted by on January 28, 2008 No comments

With this tool you can easily create book covers with a template similar to the one used by O’Reilly Press. Yesterday with just few click I have created this one:
alfa Something funny OReilly Maker

Check it out here

Free Microsoft Press e-books!

Posted by on January 24, 2008 2 comments

Once again Microsoft brings some knowledge to the masses icon smile Free Microsoft Press e books! This time its free e-books. All the headings speak for them selfs and with few words these books are MUST HAVE for every developer. Only few chapters are included in pdf’s as you are encouraged to buy them! Here is the content:

ms linq cvr Free Microsoft Press e books!Introducing Microsoft LINQ
by Paolo Pialorsi and Marco Russo

ISBN: 9780735623910

* Chapter 1: LINQ Introduction
* Chapter 2: C# Language Features
* Chapter 3: Visual Basic 9.0 Language Features
* Chapter 4: LINQ Syntax Fundamentals
* Chapter 5: LINQ to ADO.NET
* Chapter 6: LINQ to XML

ms ajax cvr Free Microsoft Press e books!Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX
by Dino Esposito

ISBN: 9780735624139

* Chapter 1: The AJAX Revolution
* Chapter 5: The AJAX Control Toolkit

ms silverlight cvr Free Microsoft Press e books!Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 1.0
by Laurence Moroney

ISBN: 9780735625396

* Chapter 1: Silverlight and User Experience
* Chapter 5: Programming Silverlight with JavaScript

Log into Microsoft Press home page for more info here

Aptana releases Jaxer, Ajax server built on Mozilla

Posted by on January 22, 2008 No comments

jaxer Aptana releases Jaxer, Ajax server built on MozillaIf you are familiar with Aptana, then you will enjoy this news. Modern web sites and applications use Ajax to create engaging user experiences: the HTML and CSS are set in motion using JavaScript running in the browser and calling back the server. To achieve this, the server needs to prepare the web page appropriately, and to know what to do when the JavaScript calls it. But the server knows nothing about the HTML and CSS DOM, nor how to handle JavaScript data, and you can’t code it in JavaScript…

…Jaxer changes all that. Jaxer is the world’s first true Ajax server. HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are native to Jaxer, as are XMLHttpRequests, JSON, DOM scripting, etc. And as a server it offers access to databases, files, and networking, as well as logging, process management, scalability, security, integration APIs, and extensibility.

page flow diagram Aptana releases Jaxer, Ajax server built on Mozilla

Some of the key features that Jaxer provide are:

– Write entire applications or presentation layers in Ajax
– Share validation code on the browser and server
– Full DOM and JavaScript on the server
– Database, file, and socket access from JavaScript
– Seamless communications between browser and server
– Open-source, standards-based, and uses the APIs you already know
– Access existing pages written in other languages like PHP, Java, or Ruby on Rails

Here is an Ajaxians post
Here is Jaxer web site

ASP.NET Personal Web Site Starter Kit – Ajax Enabled with .NET Framework 3.5 and VS2008

Posted by on January 21, 2008 No comments

Brad Abrams just converted the existing Web Site Starter Kit from the VS 2005 web site to use the new dot Net 3.5 framework, LINQ and Ajax extenders. Here is the full source code for that.

Here are some of the key points from his post:

– VS2008 Can Target .NET Framework 2.0
– Upgrade to ASP.NET 3.5 and Take Advantage of Linq
– Ajax Enabling the Site
– Tricking out the site with the Ajax Control Toolkit

read the whole post here