Countdown to Ext JS 4: Drawing and Charting
Thursdays links
Posted by admin
on February 10, 2011
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Programming Windows Phone 7 Free eBook
Posted by admin
on December 16, 2010
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This book is from the famous Charles Petzold. Here is the introduction:
This book is a gift from the Windows Phone 7 team at Microsoft to the programming community, and I am proud to have been a part of it. Within the pages that follow, I show you the basics of writing applications for Windows Phone 7 using the C# programming language with the Silverlight and XNA 2D frameworks.
Yes, Programming Windows Phone 7 is truly a free download, but for those readers who still love paper—as I certainly do—this book will also be available (for sale) divided into two fully-indexed print editions: Microsoft Silverlight Programming for Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft XNA Framework Programming for Windows Phone 7.
With the money you’ve saved downloading this book, please buy other books. Despite the plethora of information available online, books are still the best way to learn about programming within a coherent and cohesive tutorial narrative. Every book sale brings a tear of joy to an author’s eye, so please help make them weep overflowing rivers.
In particular, you might want to buy other books to supplement the material in this book. For example, I barely mention Web services in this book, and that’s a serious deficiency because Web services are likely to become increasingly important in Windows Phone 7 applications. My coverage of XNA is limited to 2D graphics and while I hope to add several 3D chapters in the next edition of this book, I don’t really get into the whole Xbox LIVE community aspect of game development. Nor do I discuss any programming tools beyond Visual Studio—not even Expression Blend.
My publisher Microsoft Press has a couple additional Windows Phone 7 books coming soon: Windows Phone 7 Silverlight Development Step by Step by Andy Wigley & Peter Foot offers a more tools-oriented approach. Although Michael Stroh’s Windows Phone 7 Plain & Simple is a guide to using the phone rather than developing for it, I suspect it will give developers some insights and ideas.
Moreover, I also hear that my old friend Doug Boling is working hard on a Windows Phone 7 enterprise-programming book that is likely to be considered his masterpiece. Be sure to check out that one.
To download click here.
10 Tips for Writing Quality Code
Posted by admin
on October 20, 2010
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Pre-Development
– Gather all the requirements from clients up front. Schorr recommends thinking of these in terms of “stories” as “it’s more in line with how the non-developer thinks.”
– Clarify what is necessary and what’s just “nice-to-have.”
– Refuse to reproduce lousy code. In other words, turn down work if you’re going to be asked to reproduce a poorly designed system – unless you are being given the freedom to do it right. (This begs the question, of course: How do you define “lousy code”?)
– Reject unrealistic timelines
Development
– Out-engineer user-error as much as possible. “In other words,” writes Schorr, “never trust that the user will do what you expect, especially when entering data.”
– Be open to including other languages and technologies where appropriate.
– Don’t reinvent the wheel.
Post-Development
– Review your code for speed, stability, security, and usability.
– Have non-technical people do real-world testing on your product.
– Revisit old code periodically and see what you would’ve done differently.
Microsoft Silverlight 4 and SharePoint 2010 Integration
Posted by admin
on September 9, 2010
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Download free chapter which consists of 42 pages from here.
Techniques, practical tips, hints, and tricks for Silverlight interactions with SharePoint
- Develop Silverlight RIAs that interact with SharePoint 2010 data and services
- Explore the diverse alternatives for hosting a Silverlight RIA in a SharePoint 2010 Page
- Work with the new SharePoint Silverlight Client Object Model to interact with elements in a SharePoint Site
- Use Visual Studio 2010′s new features to debug Silverlight RIAs that interact with SharePoint 2010
- Learn to perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) operations on SharePoint 2010 lists from Silverlight
- Access and interact with external data sources and WCF Data Services
- Use themes and work with multiple interactive animations and effects to create distinct User eXperiences (UX) in a SharePoint environment
- Develop Silverlight RIAs that interact with SharePoint Visual Web Parts
- A step-by-step, fast-paced book that guides you in implementing Silverlight 4 applications in SharePoint 2010 environments
In Detail
Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for the Web, desktop, and mobile applications. Integrating Silverlight RIAs in SharePoint 2010 offers amazing opportunities to combine the power and flexibility offered by SharePoint. It is easy to create great user experiences when you have a step-by-step guide to implement Silverlight 4 applications on SharePoint 2010 sites.
This book is not a primer on Silverlight 4 or SharePoint 2010. This book focuses on the integration of Silverlight 4 and SharePoint 2010 and provides step-by-step guidelines for implementing Silverlight RIAs in SharePoint. It is filled with real-world examples that depict the various techniques for interacting with data and services provided by this powerful business collaboration platform, for the enterprise and the Internet. As you sit reading this, you might have already started thinking about the benefits of implementing multiple Silverlight applications in a SharePoint environment. This book will help bring those thoughts to fruition.
This book begins with the fundamental concepts of integrating Silverlight 4 with SharePoint 2010, such as the preparation of the development environment to create applications using Silverlight 4 and the addition of one or more Silverlight RIAs to a SharePoint site. Then, it moves on to the SharePoint Silverlight Client Object Model world, using step-by-step examples to combine a Silverlight application and a SharePoint module. It also covers methods to deploy and debug the Silverlight application while it runs as Silverlight Web Part in a SharePoint page. The book teaches you to take advantage of the new features offered by Visual Studio 2010 to browse SharePoint lists.
Once the reader has control over the SharePoint Silverlight Client Object Model and its asynchronous operations in Silverlight applications, it is time to access external databases through the new Business Connectivity Services (BCS) and interact with workflows. Then, the book explains to perform CRUD operations by consuming the new SharePoint 2010 WCF Data Services in Silverlight. In the end, you’ll learn to utilize Silverlight 4′s rich media features to add effects and interactive animations to images and videos, thus offering the final touches to the Silverlight 4 and SharePoint 2010 integration learning experience.
By the end of this book, you’ll learn to take advantage of the unique features offered by Silverlight in order to create impressive UX that interact with SharePoint 2010.
A hands-on guide packed with real-world examples for integrating your Silverlight 4 applications in a SharePoint 2010 environment.
New stuff in ASP.NET world!
Posted by admin
on July 7, 2010
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Last week Scott Gu posted about several new things coming up onto the ASP.NET scene. They are:
IIS Developer Express: A lightweight web-server that is simple to setup, free, works with all versions of Windows, and is compatible with the full IIS 7.5.
SQL Server Compact Edition: A lightweight file-based database that is simple to setup, free, can be embedded within your ASP.NET applications, supports low-cost hosting environments, and enables databases to be optionally migrated to SQL Server.
ASP.NET “Razor”: A new view-engine option for ASP.NET that enables a code-focused templating syntax optimized around HTML generation. You can use “Razor” to easily embed VB or C# within HTML. It’s syntax is easy to write, simple to learn, and works with any text editor.
WebMatrix: A new lightweight web development tool that also integrates the above technologies, and makes it even easier for people to get started with web development using ASP.NET. This tool is free, provides core coding and database support, integrates with an open source web application gallery, and includes support to easily publish/deploy sites and applications to web hosting providers.
Sencha = Ext JS + jQTouch + Raphaël
Posted by admin
on June 16, 2010
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Here are the latest news from ExtJS, as always they are pushing the limits of client tool programming far. Stay tuned for more news:
Exciting things are happening! Today, we’re combining forces with the jQTouch and Raphaël projects, changing our company name to Sencha, and moving our web address from www.extjs.com to www.sencha.com.
jQTouch and Raphaël are the leading open source projects in their areas, and we’re incredibly excited to have their creators, David Kaneda and Dmitry Baranovskiy, joining with the Ext JS team to form Sencha. We believe these collaborations will lead to some spectacular new things in the weeks and months ahead.
Free ebook: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
Posted by admin
on April 20, 2010
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Introduction
Download link “Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2”
Our purpose in Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is to point out both
the new and the improved in the latest version of SQL Server. Because this
version is Release 2 (R2) of SQL Server 2008, you might think the changes are
relatively minor—more than a service pack, but not enough to justify an entirely
new version. However, as you read this book, we think you will find that there are a
lot of exciting enhancements and new capabilities engineered into SQL Server 2008 R2
that will have a positive impact on your applications, ranging from improvements
in operation to those in management. It is definitely not a minor release!
Who Is This Book For?
This book is for anyone who has an interest in SQL Server 2008 R2 and wants to
understand its capabilities. In a book of this size, we cannot cover every feature
that distinguishes SQL Server from other databases, and consequently we assume
that you have some familiarity with SQL Server already. You might be a database
administrator (DBA), an application developer, a power user, or a technical
decision maker. Regardless of your role, we hope that you can use this book to
discover the features in SQL Server 2008 R2 that are most beneficial to you.
How Is This Book Organized?
SQL Server 2008 R2, like its predecessors, is more than a database engine. It is a
collection of components that you can implement either separately or as a group
to form a scalable data platform. In broad terms, this data platform consists of
two types of components—those that help you manage data and those that help
you deliver business intelligence (BI). Accordingly, we have divided this book into
two parts to focus on the new capabilities for each of these areas.
Part I, “Database Administration,” is written with the DBA in mind and introduces
readers to the numerous innovations in SQL Server 2008 R2. Chapter 1, “SQL
Server 2008 R2 Editions and Enhancements,” discusses the key enhancements,
what’s new in the different editions of SQL Server 2008 R2, and the benefits of
running SQL Server 2008 R2 on Windows Server 2008 R2. In Chapter 2, “Multi-
Server Administration,” readers learn how centralized management capabilities
are improved with the introduction of the SQL Server Utility Control Point. Step-by-
step instructions show DBAs how to quickly designate a SQL Server instance as
a Utility Control Point and enroll instances for centralized multi-server management.
Chapter 3, “Data-Tier Applications,” focuses on how to streamline deployment
and manage and upgrade database applications with the new data-tier application
feature. Chapter 4, “High Availability and Virtualization Enhancements,”
covers high availability enhancements and includes step-by-step implementations
for ensuring business continuity with SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008
R2, and Hyper-V Live Migration. Finally, in Chapter 5, “Consolidation and Monitoring,”
a discussion on consolidation strategies teaches readers how to improve
resource optimization. This chapter also explains how to use the new dashboard
and viewpoints to gain insight into application and database utilization, and it also
covers how to use capacity policy violations to help identify consolidation opportunities,
maximize investments, and ultimately maintain healthier systems.
In Part II, “Business Intelligence Development,” readers discover components
new to the SQL Server data platform, as well as significant enhancements to the
reporting component. Chapter 6, “Scalable Data Warehousing,” introduces the
data warehouse appliance known as SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse
by explaining its architecture, reviewing data layout strategies for optimal query
performance, and describing the integration points with SQL Server BI components.
In Chapter 7, “Master Data Services,” readers learn about master data
management concepts and the new Master Data Services component. Chapter 8,
“Complex Event Processing with StreamInsight,” describes scenarios that benefit
from complex event analysis, and it illustrates how to develop applications that
use the SQL Server StreamInsight engine for complex event processing. Chapter
9, “Reporting Services Enhancements,” reviews all the new features available in
SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services that support self-service reporting and
address common report design problems. Last, Chapter 10, “Self-Service Analysis
with PowerPivot,” continues the theme of self-service by explaining how users can
integrate disparate data for analysis by using SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel, and
how to centralize and share the results of this analysis by using SQL Server Power-
Pivot for SharePoint.
ASP.NET MVC 2 released
Posted by admin
on March 12, 2010
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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
