Opera for free, and yes no ads.. but only till the party lasts

get your registration code  http://my.opera.com/community/party/

well, now this is neat...

http://en.crystalxp.net/bricopack-vista-inspirat.php

This shell pack gives my XP Pro a Vista inspired look and feel. Now the nicest thing about this theme is that it modifies all the system dlls and changeshack.e all the icons and other resources inside. I spotted a process called "Reshack.exe" running while i was installing this. It's not heavy scince it is not anything additional. It could do with some more work, the icon edges are jagged in places.

However, I do like the way it redcued the size of my task bar. The black slim task bar is really nice, and saves more screen space. The whole thing can be uninstalled safely...

A detailed post explaining the new web project system by Scott Guthrie. The features are interesting, but not implemented in Beta 2 or are buggy. MS expects all of this to be in the final release.

To summarise,

No need for Frontpage server extensions on the server or development machine. Just install VS 2005 and you are good to go. No need for IIS too. This is good cos now it would be possible to test web apps using Apache and the mod_dotnet module.

There is no web project file. The project infers the contents from the file system. With this there would be no more mapping a IIS virtual directory for a web project. Very useful when you want someone else to open your web project.

There is a "hit refresh to compile" feature. Say you make a change to a page or a code behind file, now just refresh the page for it to compile.

Anyways thats just a lil bit of what interests me. The has been quite a bit of confusion regarding the new web project system, and this post clears some of that. However, I'll have to wait and see how this all works in the Final version.

Presentations from Tech ED introducing the new features of ASP .Net 2.0

Download them here.

A collection of HOW TO's from Brain Goldfarb.

ASP.NET 2.0

• How To: Prevent Cross-Site Scripting in ASP.NET: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/PAGHT000004.asp
• How To: Protect From Injection Attacks in ASP.NET: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/PAGHT000003.asp
• How To: Protect From SQL Injection in ASP.NET: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/PAGHT000002.asp
• How To: Use Regular Expressions to Constrain Input in ASP.NET: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/PAGHT000001.asp

Authentication and Authorization

• How To: Use Forms Authentication with Active Directory: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT02.asp
• How To: Use Forms Authentication with SQL Server 2000: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT03.asp
• How To: Create GenericPrincipal Objects with Forms Authentication: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT04.asp

Code Access Security (.NET Framework 1.1)

• How To: Create a Custom Encryption Permission: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/HTCustEncr.asp
• How To: Use Code Access Security Policy to Constrain an Assembly: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/HTCode_Acc.asp

Communications Security

• How To: Call a Web Service Using Client Certificates from ASP.NET: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT13.asp
• How To: Call a Web Service Using SSL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT14.asp
• How To: Set Up SSL on a Web Server: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT16.asp
• How To: Set Up Client Certificates: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT17.asp
• How To: Use IPSec for Filtering Ports and Authentication: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/HTUseIPSec.asp
• How To: Use IPSec to Provide Secure Communication Between Two Servers: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT18.asp
• How To: Use SSL to Secure Communication with SQL Server 2000: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT19.asp

Configuration

• How To: Create a Custom Account To Run ASP.NET: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT01.asp

Cryptography

• How To: Create a DPAPI Library: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT07.asp
• How To: Create an Encryption Library: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT10.asp
• How To: Store an Encrypted Connection String in the Registry: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT11.asp
• How To: Use DPAPI (Machine Store) from ASP.NET: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT08.asp
• How To: Use DPAPI (User Store) from ASP.NET with Enterprise Services: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT09.asp

new blog version , new look and feel..

let me know what you think...

Finally got Dasblog to build under .Net 2.0. I got an update to the migration wizard from http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/08/07/421827.aspx (Thanks Chris). There were 2 snags in the migration. The dasblog.web project was not converted because there wasn't a IIS virtual directory for it, I created a virtual directory and reloaded the project. VS 2005 then converted the project. However it missed one file 'Activity.aspx'. I had to change the codebehind attribute to codefile and the class declaration to a public partial. After this the project compiled, but still will not run. A resource assembly seems to be missing. I'll have to hunt this issue later. Atleast I got to the point where the site runs and gives me a stack trace. The web site does not work under IIS and only on the development webserver.

fyi I'm converting dasblog 1.6.4121.1.

If anyone has any .Net 1.1 to .Net 2.0 conversion stories,tips,tricks and gotchas to share.. please let me know. As I posted earlier I was able to convert a 1.1 Winforms project with no problems, and this was under the Express edition.

anyways more on this later...

As posted earlier I'm trying to migrate Dasblog from 1.1 to 2.0. Visual studio refused to compile aspx pages in the dasblog webproject after the conversion. The aspx pages did not see the custom controls the custom controls that were used by the pages and the compiler was throwing missing reference errrors. The controls themselves did not have any errors and compiled individually but will not show up in Intellisense and the class viewer. None of the pages showed up in the class viewer. I even tried adding a new page, but still no luck.

Googling for this got me here http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2130.aspx. Well atleast I'm not alone in this. The reason for this seems to be partial classes. Now partial classes are combined to a complete class at compile time and for some reason these complete classes made of partial classes are not visible at design time. I'm using the February 2005 CTP release of Visual Studio 2005. I dont have a solution yet..so I've paused this conversion project for now. I'll try it again when I get the June 2005 release or the final.

If any of you have had this problem and solved it please let me know...