********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010814.asp: Simulating Inheritance with Visual Basic 6 by Angelo Kastroulis Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is more than just a programming concept. It is a way of thinking about applications. It is learning to think of applications not as procedures, but objects and real entities. This article covers explain four main object oriented design concepts: Inheritance, Polymorphism, Aggregation, and Encapsulation (containment), and includes a case study simulating OOP in VB6. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010814.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Using VBScript Classes in ASP Applications http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000629.asp Object Oriented Features in VB.NET http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010518.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010815.asp: Using MSMQ and Windows NT services (part 2) by Dzhafar Dzhafarov In the first part of this article, Dzhafar Dzhafarov looked at some basic principles of Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ). He also outlined the architecture of a sample application which made use of MSMQ to asynchronously process order shipments. ATL COM Application Wizard was used to create a simple Windows NT Service, which we are going to use to process the shipping of purchase orders taken by a web storefront. In this second (concluding) part of the article, he shows us how we can provide the necessary functionality to the skeleton Windows NT Service created in the first part of the article. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010815.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Back Office Integration Using ASP, COM, XML & MSMQ http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010314.asp Back office Integration Using ASP, COM, XML and MSMQ - Part 2 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010327.asp Build Enterprise Application Integration Components using VB, SOAP and XML http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010430.asp Using MSMQ and Windows NT services (part 1) http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010810.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010816.asp: Automating COM+ Application Setup using XML configuration file by Leonid Sheinfeld This article describes a generic and simple way to automate COM+ Applications Setup. It has three main areas of value: ·First the application can be a real time saver for a team that is working on an extensive infrastructure of COM objects running inside of COM+ Applications. No more DLL Hell that comes with breaking objects compatibility and versioning. Even very complex setup on development and production machines can be done with a single double-click and one time modification to a sample configuration file. ·Secondly it shows and explains all the code necessarily to work with the COM+ Admin objects that can be used to create and manipulate COM+ applications programmatically. ·Finally it describes how to process the XML configuration file using an XML parser. This technique of using an XML configuration file and XML processing can be reused for different projects and solutions. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010816.asp Related ASPToday Articles: The ABC's of Scripting Technology http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19990408.asp Handy Tools for XML Schema Design and Conversion http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000301.asp Administrating COM+ with ASP http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000725.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010813.asp: Automation of Visual Studio.NET Using Macros by Matthew MacDonald Everyone understands the value of automating repetitive tasks in a programming environment, but few people make use of the full power of macros. But it’s hardly a surprise that macros are underused — the current macro facility in Visual Studio 6 is incomplete and poorly documented for Visual C++ and Java programmers, and Visual Basic programmers don’t have a macro facility at all! Visual Studio.NET, the new shared IDE for .NET programmers of all stripes, improves the picture considerably. In this article, Matthew Macdonald starts by examining a simple recorded macro, takes a quick tour of the DTE (Design Time Environment) object model, and then delves into advanced macros that use .NET components effortlessly and can even understand your code. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010813.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010810.asp: Using MSMQ and Windows NT services (part 1) by Dzhafar Dzhafarov Most applications built today use some sort of distributed architecture. Using a distributed architecture has many benefits, but those benefits can easily be lost if the application relies only on synchronous communications. Asynchronous communications are much better at taking advantage of the benefits of distributed computing. To enable the distributed architecture we need to use some sort of messaging mechanism. Such a mechanism is available with Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ). MSMQ provides a set of services for designing and developing distributed applications, and is an integral part of the Windows 2000 operating system. In this article, Dzhafar Dzhafarov takes a look at MSMQ, and shows how to build a sample application that will make use of MSMQ architecture. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010810.asp Related ASPToday Articles: An Introduction to MSMQ with ASP http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19990727.asp Back Office Integration Using ASP, COM, XML & MSMQ http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010314.asp Back office Integration Using ASP, COM, XML and MSMQ - Part 2 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010327.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010809.asp: XSLT as a Code Generator by Jonathan Moore If you thought XSLT was only useful for data interchange and generating HTML and XML dialects, this article will help you see greater possibilities. In this article Jonathan Moore will show you various architectural uses and tips and tricks for using XML/XSLT to generate output that is not valid XML, but instead C++, VB, or Javascript code to name but a few. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010809.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Creating applications using SOAP and XMLHTTP Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000718.asp Dynamic XML Transformation http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000724.asp XML Driven Form Builder http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010209.asp Gaining Client Interoperability by Using SOAP and WSDL http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010713.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010808.asp: Getting Page by page XML Data from a Database Using ASP, IE5 and WebService Behaviour by Yosif Wiryonoputro When dealing with a large number of records, we need to make the information easier to consume for the user by displaying the results in a paged format. The server application, which provides the data, will handle the paging functionality, so the client is able to retrieve the data page-by-page in an easy way. In this article Yusuf Wiryonoputro implements this functionality in a web service scenario. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010808.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Implementing SOAP's low-level APIs in ASP http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010514.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010807.asp: Building a sample web site based on .NET Framework - Part III by Naveed Zaheer In Part 1 of this article, Naveed showed how to create a UI template for a fictitious website called 'All About .NET', a directory of available .NET resources. These articles are based on his experiences developing the portal http://www.worldofdotnet.net (a directory of .NET resources). In part 2 he moved on to the next step and began to add some more functionality to the website. In this article Naveed Zaheer goes on to tackle issues like managing users and their preferences effectively, by creating a generic Personalization component. He also builds a multi-purpose User Control that will be used on different Web Forms to perform multiple tasks, such as user registration, editing user profiles and user maintenance. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010807.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Building a sample web site based on .NET Framework - Part I http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010411.asp Building a Sample Website based on .NET Framework PART 2: Creating a Multi-purpose List Control based on ASP.NET Data Grid http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010625.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010806.asp: How to debug compiler components in com by David Everhart Whilst error handling can to a degree tell us where it blew up in the component, it cannot tell us the previous values of variables or what may have caused it to blow an error. I wont get into the concepts of how to put error handling into your component as that in itself is a hotly debated concept and implemented in many different ways. Even if your component does not raise an error, it may return inaccurate results or no results at all , leaving you without a clue as to what went on in your component. In this article, Dave Everhart will explain how to use the Constructor string to allow you to turn on and off debugging of your compiled component. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010806.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Expanding ASP with COM Components http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19990506.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010803.asp: Implementing a HTML Document publishing App part 2 by Alexandre Pinho In his former ASPToday article, "Create a common user updateable news publishing system with IE HTML Editing", Alexandre Pinho described a way of editing HTML using nothing but IE itself.This is the second half of his article “Implement an HTML Document Publishing Application", in which he creates a full content publishing application, allowing common (non-technical) users to publish documents on an Internet site, in a structured way. Where the first part was centered on the application concepts and its usage, this article focuses on the technical and implementation details. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010803.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Create a common user updateable news publishing system with IE HTML Editing http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001213.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010802.asp: ADO.NET : Migrating from beta 1 to beta 2 by Dan Wahlin Shortly after .NET Beta 1 was released I wrote an article for ASPToday titled “Using ADO+ and C# in the .NET Framework” that detailed the features ADO.NET (then called ADO+) offered and showed different ways it could be used. In this article I’ll provide you with a look at how ADO.NET has changed from Beta 1 to Beta 2 to make migrating existing code an easier process. Specifically, I'll focus on the following Beta 1 classes and show how they have changed in Beta2. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010802.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Using ADO+ and C# in the .NET Framework - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000925.asp Using ADO+ and C# in the .NET Framework - Part 2 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000926.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010801.asp: Adding Field-Level Tracking to Your Access Web Applications by Brandon Owens Microsoft (MS) Access, with its rapid application development environment, ease-of-use, and low administrative overhead, is a very good choice for some N-tiered Internet applications. However, Access does not provide native support for field-level information tracking. This means that Internet applications built on an Access foundation cannot tell users when a particular field was changed and by whom. This can be a serious drawback, especially in Internet and Intranet environments where database applications are typically used as central data repositories for geographically dispersed users. In this article Brandon Owens shows how to add such field-level tracking to your Access Web Applications. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010801.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010731.asp: Web Accessibility: An Introduction To Web Development For the Visually Impaired by Derek Truman After spending some time with a blind gentleman, Derek Truman was amazed by the the way in which this man could navigate his way through sites, when they were properly designed. In this article he defines some of the steps which can be taken to open your site to the 185 million suffering visual impairment world-wide. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010731.asp ********************************************************************** http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010305.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010302.asp Using DB2 C++ Stored Procedures with ASP ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010301.asp How Exceptions Work in ASP.NET By Eric Griffin Exceptions are one of the critical new features in ASP.NET. They play an important role, and when used properly, can help make your web application more robust and easier to maintain. In this article, Eric Griffin prepares us with a thorough understanding of exceptions. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010301.asp ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010228.asp SVG and Server-side ActiveX Components By Jon Frost Eric Frost In this article, Eric and Jon Frost will explore the possibilities that open up when we are able to generate SVG on the server via ASP pages using ActiveX components. The intent of this article is to explore a few of these possibilities while emphasizing the many benefits that can result from taking the time to learn how to roll-our-own ActiveX components. ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010308.asp Banner Rotation in ASP.NET By Peter McMahon Currently one of the most popular forms of advertising on the Internet is rotating banner advertisements. By using a banner rotation system rather than inserting static banner ads, you can sell many more banner ads for a smaller price. This article looks at how Ad Rotating is dealt with in ASP.Net and how it resolves some issues from Ad Rotating in previous versions. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010308.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Extracting Useful Data with Microsoft?s Ad Rotator Component ? Part II http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010115.asp Extracting Useful Data with Microsoft?s Ad Rotator Component http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010112.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010309.asp Regular Expressions in Microsoft .NET By Alex Lehmberg Although a challenge to master, Regular expressions are very useful, and provide a very effective and slightly easier way to do certain things such as advanced searches/replaces. with the advent of .NET, regular expressions are becoming far more prevalent - they form an integral part of the cross-language libraries that make up the backbone of the .NET platform. In this article, Alex Lehmberg takes you through their functionality in .NET, including examples, where regular expressions constitute the best solution to the problem. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010309.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010312.asp Creating a Web-Based Mail Merge Application By Ian Vink In this article Ian Vink covers a common problem - the need to send multiple, yet personalized e-mails. The solution he creates is compatable with all e-mail clients, and fully web-based; enabling numerous people to have access to the tool. The insertion of personal details is automated using either a database or delimited file. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010312.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Sending Email Messages with ASP http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19990415.asp Setting Up the SMTP Mail Service in Windows 2000 - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000306.asp Setting Up the SMTP Mail Service in Windows 2000 - Part 3 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000320.asp Setting Up the SMTP Mail Service in Windows 2000 - Part 2 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000313.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: Online Survey Generator - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010215.asp Online Survey Generator - Part 2 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010313.asp By Mark Hughes In Part one of this two part series, Mark Hughes showed us how to build the administration tools needed to create online surveys. In this second part, he expands on this and shows us how to round off this application by adding more features including displaying the survey to the end-user, handling the capturing of user responses and notifying the survey owner of a new new survey response. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010313.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Some Useful Generic Functions for Formatting Data Returned from a DB http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001201.asp Setting Up the SMTP Mail Service in Windows 2000 - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000306.asp Understanding SMTP Event Sinks - Developing a Simple Mailing List System with VB and CDO http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001212.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010314.asp Back Office Integration Using ASP, COM, XML & MSMQ By Richard Costall Many businesses today have a good infrastructure in place with automated systems managing day-to-day processes. In the example of order placement, orders can be received via fax, phone, email, or over a trade counter, and then the back office application controls processes such as order tracking and stock levels. This introduces a layer of complexity, with disparate systems (the web shop and back office) communicating with one another, and with E-commerce, the solution needs to be scalable, resilient, and able to cater to the stateless world of the Internet. Wouldn't it be wonderful if on-line users could have access to real time order tracking and stock level information from ASP pages? In this article, Richard Costall covers one solution to this problem using ASP, COM, XML, and MSMQ. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010314.asp Related ASPToday Articles: An Introduction to MSMQ with ASP http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19990727.asp Combining COM+ Transactions and Message Queuing http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010216.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010315.asp ASP.NET Web Forms: An Overview - Part 1 By Rey Nuñez Web forms are an ASP.NET technology designed to easily build dynamic, interactive web pages. They provide a programming interface akin to the API's in "forms-based" development tools that are used in building highly responsive office productivity applications. In the first part of this two-part series, Rey Nuñez delivers an introduction to getting to grips with this technology. In the second part, tommorrow, he completes the story by going into web controls in detail. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010315.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010316.asp ASP.NET Web Forms: An Overview - Part 2 By Rey Nuñez Yesterday, in part 1, Rey Nu?ez introduced us to Web forms, an ASP.NET technology designed to easily build dynamic, interactive web pages. Today, he delves a little bit deeper into this technology, looking in detail at web controls - ASP.NET web controls are analogous to, but more flexible than HTML controls. They are designed to provide a simplified way to add powerful functionality to a web page via web forms. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010316.asp Related ASPToday Articles: ASP.NET Web Forms: An Overview - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010315.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010319.asp Developing and using the collection class in VBScript By Lance Luttsch The introduction of classes in VBScript 5.0 enabled web developers to leverage the benefits of object oriented design approaches in their scripted code. Unfortunately version 5.0 of VBScript does not provide the Collection Classes that its bigger brother Visual Basic (VB) does. Lance Luttsch describes how you can develop and use a homegrown collection class to organize the objects in your scripted code using the same properties and methods that you use in VB. To demonstrate this, he creates a simple scripting tag creation tool. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010319.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Take Advantage of VBScript 5 Classes http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000216.asp Using VBScript Classes in ASP Applications http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000629.asp Applying Classes to Everyday Forms http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010104.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010320.asp Generating Cross-Tab Reports Using ADO, XML, XSLT, CSS By Chad De Silva A common problem faced by developers working with a SQL Server 7.0 backend is that there is no easy, reusable way to generate Cross-tab reports without writing a lot of customized code. One approach to dealing with this problem - as Chad de Silva explains - is by using XSLT (including some new features available in the MSXML3.0 release) to recursively transform an XML result tree into a Cross-tab report, without hard-coding column or row names, or pulling data from a pivot table. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010320.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Building a Data Driven Web Application With XML and SQL Server 2000 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010105.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010322.asp Debugging ASP Scripts in a Dedicated Window By James Spibey A major hurdle in ASP development is overcoming the lack of debugging or diagnostic facilities within the ASP environment. In this article, James Spibey presents a comprehensive debugging system that allows the developer to send debug statements to a dedicated debugging window - which makes for easy fault diagnosis without affecting the existing page layout. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010322.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010321.asp Processing Received Emails On The Server By Alexandre Pinho The IIS SMTP service is capable of receiving emails, including attachments, and your ASP pages can process them. In this article Alexandre Pinho improves on a web news forum he created in his previous article, 'Create a common user updateable news publishing system with IE HTML Editing', by giving it the functionality to recieve and process news articles automatically through E-Mail . http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010321.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Create a common user updateable news publishing system with IE HTML Editing http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001213.asp Exploring the MSXML3 ServerXMLHTTP Object http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001116.asp File Uploading with ASP and VBScript http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000316.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010320.asp Generating Cross-Tab Reports Using ADO, XML, XSLT, CSS By Chad De Silva A common problem faced by developers working with a SQL Server 7.0 backend is that there is no easy, reusable way to generate Cross-tab reports without writing a lot of customized code. One approach to dealing with this problem - as Chad de Silva explains - is by using XSLT (including some new features available in the MSXML3.0 release) to recursively transform an XML result tree into a Cross-tab report, without hard-coding column or row names, or pulling data from a pivot table. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010320.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Building a Data Driven Web Application With XML and SQL Server 2000 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010105.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010323.asp Writing a low-level File Zip Component with VB and ASP - Part II By Chad Hutchinson In part I of this article Chad Hutchinson created an ActiveX component in Visual Basic that allowed end-users to do on-the-fly file zipping on a web server. In this article he shows us how to expand the component to add functionality for "unzipping" files, allowing end-users to browse the contents of any downloadable zip files or even extract them to a specified directory on the server. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010323.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Writing a low-level File Zip Component with VB and ASP - Part I http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010122.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Sponsor: Planet Source Code Are you an ASP hotshot? Then you can win free development software in the Planet Source Code Coding contest! http://www.pscode.com/xq/ASP/lngWId.4/qx/vb/contest/ContestInfo.htm Or browse over 34,000 lines of free ASP Code at http://www.pscode.com ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010326.asp Security Considerations Implementing Solutions Based on Windows 2000 SMTP Service and Event Sinks By P?ter Holp?r We live in a distributed, but not separated world of computing. Computers and networks are connected to each other in very complex ways. We should regulate permissions and user rights strictly and wisely to avoid annoying situations, and thus security becomes one of the most important considerations of our system planning. In this article P?ter Holp?r shows us how security works in the case of the Windows 2000 SMTP Service, explaining what we can do with the SMTP Service in the field of security, what we cannot, and why. Specifically, the points covered are: resource access, user authentication and identification, secure communication, and tracking the activity of our users; we investigate some related problems as well. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010326.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Understanding SMTP Event Sinks - Developing a Simple Mailing List System with VB and CDO http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001212.asp Setting Up the SMTP Mail Service in Windows 2000 - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000306.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010327.asp Back office Integration Using ASP, COM, XML and MSMQ - Part 2 By Richard Costall In the previous article Richard Costall showed how we could link a back office application to a shopping cart application. In this article we will evolve the previously created application to include the following features, message priority, Guaranteed Delivery, Asynchronous communication , presentation and XML Documents. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010327.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Back Office Integration Using ASP, COM, XML & MSMQ http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010314.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010328.asp File Upload Using POP3 Mailboxes from ASP By Matthew Reynolds HTTP uploading is useful, but only for small files. If you are using a slow modem, HTTP uploading becomes impractical. In this article, Matthew Reynolds focuses on a combination of e-mail and VB to provide a more reliable way of uploading files to a server; a topic inspired by a friend who wanted to allow customers to upload MP3 files of music they've written to a site. This method can be adapted to other applications, including receiving notifications from other computer systems. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010328.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Writing a low-level File Zip Component with VB and ASP - Part I http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010122.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010329.asp Enhancing the Scripting Runtime - Part 1 By Will Smith Even with the ever increasing and tremendous inherent power of ASP, situations sometimes arise where the capabilities of existing components do not meet the requirements for a specific project . In the first part of this 3 part article Will Smith describes the process of analyzing an existing component and building a suitable replacement component shell in VB. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010329.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010330.asp Code Reuse Strategies Using ASP.NET - Part 1: Code Behind By Avonelle Lovhaug John Philipps Valerie Winberg Writing reusable code is what most professional software developers strive to achieve, but few are actually successful. However, there are many benefits to using code that has already been written and tested. This article series looks at the new methods in ASP.NET that can encourage code reuse. Today Avonelle Lovhaug, John Philips, and Valerie Winberg introduce with examples code behind method. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010330.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010402.asp Developing a Chat Application Using ASP.NET By D. Venkatesh Prasad This article shows us how to create a chat application in .NET using C#. By using ASP.NET for this sort of application you can avoid issues such as creating a server side listener. We can do this using The HttpApplicationState Object, provided to us by the NET Framework, which solves the problem of sharing information across applications http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010402.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010403.asp XML Serialization By Matthew Reynolds In this article Matthew Reynolds looks at XML serialization. This is the process of taking an object, turning it into an XML document and either storing it for later use, or moving it to another part of the network for use elsewhere. He shows us how to use the .NET XmlSerializer object to convert an object into a block of XML and send it down one of the stream objects in the Framework. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010403.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010404.asp Protecting Your DHTML Using ASP By Jean - Luc David Dynamic HTML allows developers an opportunity to create powerful client web applications that are cross-browser compliant, interactive and portable. Unfortunately, when you publish to the web your JavaScript code is insecure. Your hard work can be viewed, downloaded and copied. This article will describe an experimental innovative method of securing your DHTML code using server authentication and "data streams". The method in question will prevent the end user from directly accessing the source code. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010404.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010405.asp User Authentication by means of Digital Identities - Part 1 By Alejandro Ramirez Andrade The first part of this two part article on using digital identities to authenticate users consists of a brief introduction to Digital Identities. Alejandro Ramirez Andrade shows us what they are, what they do, and why they are a good alternative to authenticating the users. In addition we will see an example of a very simple website to show the process of authentication by using Digital Identities. Finally in this first part, we will see the functional design of user authentication by using Digital Identities. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010405.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010406.asp An overview of .NET winforms By Benny Johansen Jan Narkiewicz This article is the first of a series discussing client-side development using .Net Windows Forms (WinForms). Most web developers do not delve into this dark art known as traditional client-side development. However over the last couple of years, and especially with the introduction of .NET, the distinction between pure web development and pure client-side development has been blurred considerably. Using WinForms you can easily develop a functionally and graphically rich application. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010406.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010409.asp Using XML to Cache SQL Server Queries By Benny Johansen Jan Narkiewicz For websites with regular, but relatively infrequent, databases updates (for example, a jobs portal), we can optimize our data access to avoid a performance bottleneck by caching queries on the filesystem in XML. Instead of continually querying against a database, users query against the XML file. In this article, Benny Johansen and Jan Narkiewicz present a method of creating such an automatically updating XML cache. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010409.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010410.asp An Introduction to Threading in VB.NET By Matthew Reynolds One of the most notable new features in VB.NET is the ability to create threads in your application. Visual C++ developers have been able to write multithreaded code for years, but achieving the same effect in VB6 was fraught with difficulty. In this article, Matthew Reynolds shows us how to start and stop multiple simultaneous threads using VB.NET. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010410.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010411.asp Building a sample web site based on .NET Framework - Part I By Naveed Zaheer To demonstrate the power of ASP.NET user controls, in this and the next few articles, Naveed Zaheer develops a fictitious website called All About .NET. This site will be a directory of available .NET related resources across the Internet. It will also provide advanced search capabilities. Our basic objective is to identify as many reusable GUI components as possible without being too granular and then create them as ASP.NET user controls. Finally we will modify their behavior through the exposed properties and methods, and use them on different Web Forms. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010411.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010412.asp Protect your Member Only Webs by Using Active Directory By Lei Pan Almost every aspect of Windows 2000 uses Active Directory in one way or another; so how about a Web site being built on this platform? If you are planning a Web site open to all visitors without authentication, it will not be necessary to involve Active Directory in your project. However, to implement any kind of large-scale "member only" website in a Windows 2000 web farm, it is necessary to store member profiles securely somewhere on the server. In this situation, Active Directory can play an important role, as Lei Pan explains here. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010412.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Determining User Attributes In ASP http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19990628.asp E-mail Address Lookup with LDAP and ADSI http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000329.asp Delegating of NT Administration Rights http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19990625.asp Extending the Active Directory User Object with Custom Attributes http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001020.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010419.asp Creating web services using Visual Studio.Net By Thiru Thangarathinam Web Services expose a uniform and consistent programming model for developers to program the Web and expose software as Services that will drive a new breed of software, which is significantly more integrated than what we see now in the Internet environment. The ability to program the web, instead of simply browsing the Internet, opens up a whole set of new avenues and business opportunities that were there never before. In this article, Thiru explains the creation of web services, and a client application that consumes the web service and finally we will talk about a transactional web service that seamlessly accesses a COM object to provide functionality to the consumers of the web services. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010419.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010423.asp: SAX and Microsoft XML Parser 3.0 by Essam Ahmed XML is the de facto standard for working with data not only across systems, but also for working with data locally. But the XML DOM provides its functionality at a cost - one of which being high memory usage. The entire XML document needs to be loaded into memory before the XML DOM is available to you. This article discusses a COM object created by Essam Ahmed called ado2xml that allows developers to query a database and obtain the results in XML. ado2xml is capable of sending its output directly to a string (which you can load into an XML DOM object using its load method), or into an ASP Response object. If you use ado2xml on an ASP page it will, by default, send its output through the ASP Response object directly to the client. You can disable ado2xml's use of the ASP Response object if you want to capture its output in a string. Read on for more detail. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010423.asp Related ASPToday Articles: SAX 2.0 Programming With Visual Basic http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001024.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010427.asp: Creating an International Site with Unicode Using ASP 3, IIS 5.0, Win 2000 and SQL 7 by Chetan Mistry This article demonstrates the importance of Unicode in designing multilingual sites without the mess of handling code pages and character sets. Before the invention of Unicode, if we needed to display multilingual text on a single page, it was done through the use of graphics. Nowadays people have realised that in order to expand their business to a wider market they need to develop their site in different languages. In this article Chetan Mistry describes and presents a way of creating a Unicode framework for an IIS 5.0 based website, covering each aspect of Unicode data flow from the Web Server to ASP Pages to VBCOM to SQL Server and back to the browser. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010427.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010430.asp: Build Enterprise Application Integration Components using VB, SOAP and XML by Dzhafar Dzhafarov In today's fast paced business environment there is often a need to access various global applications, possibly maintained by different organizations whose expertise and objectives may not be compatible with your own. Extensible Markup Language (XML) can only partially alleviate the problem of making the disparate business applications collaborate with each other. With the upcoming release of the Microsoft .NET framework many tools for building fast, flexible and secure intranet/internet based applications will be available. But you can start building Enterprise Application Integration components today using VB, SOAP and XML. In this article Dzhfafar Dzhafarov will builds a sample EAI component, which will connect an electronic procurement application to the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010430.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Tips on Using Microsoft Transaction Server - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000614.asp Working with the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001030.asp Tips on Using Microsoft Transaction Server - Part 2 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000615.asp Comparison of ADO, COM+ and T-SQL Transactions - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001101.asp Comparison of ADO, COM+, and T–SQL Transactions – Part 2 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010109.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010501.asp: Securing Windows 2000 IIS 5.0 applications by Kurt Schroeder As web application designer you may find yourself in this situation: The company that wants a web application has staff aware of the need to secure networks and they know about firewalls and network security but may not have any experience securing IIS 5.0 and Windows 2000. Just because every port except 80 and 443 are blocked at the firewall doesn't mean that your site is secure. Further adding to the mix are the recent revelations of Eastern European hackers stealing credit cards via IIS vulnerabilities. This article covers some of the fixes availabl in IIS 5.0 that will help you solve these security issues. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010501.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Error Handling In IIS5.0 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19990308.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010502.asp: Runtime Diagnostics in ASP.NET by Scott Allen After you deploy your web application into production, you often find the need to diagnose problems. You might need to track down a bug, troubleshoot a performance bottleneck, or simply assess the overall health of your software while keeping the site up and running. The need to quickly identify problems in production environments requires a little up front planning in the design of your application. Your software can help you in these situations by providing useful diagnostic information during runtime, as Scott Allen demonstrates. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010502.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Optimization and Testing Performance with the Web Application Stress Tool http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000420.asp ********************************************************************** oday's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010503.asp Creating an XML-Based Online Help By Budi Kurniawan In this article Budi Kurniawan shows us how to create the structure for an Online Help facility - or indeed any application which uses a Table Of Contents based on an XML document. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010503.asp ********************************************************************** Today's ASPToday Article: http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010504.asp ASP.NET Authentication Options - Part 1 By Srinivasa Sivakumar When it comes to Internet or Intranet based applications, security plays a major role. In this article, Srinivasa Sivakumar covers the basics of the security options available with ASP.NET. We'll see URL authorization, Passport authentication and basic Form/Cookie authentication. We'll also seen how to use the IIS authentication methods and how to use the tag in the config.web file. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010504.asp Related ASPToday Articles: SSL: Both Secure and Friendly - Part I/II: Why and How to use SSL. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19991206.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010508.asp: Online Job Tracking Web Application Using XML and .NET by Saurabh Nandu One major problem that project managers have to face is the tracking of assignments and provision of follow-ups. The basic medium used by most web managers to communicate with freelancers is E-Mail. But there can be significant time lag and even miscommunication between the project leader of a site and the freelancer, due to the fact that the poor project leader has many mails to go through everyday, making it difficult to identify the mails from freelancers - which often need immediate attention. On the other hand freelancers face the problem of tracking down and remembering who has assigned what assignments! To provide a simple, cost effective and easy to use solution as an alternative to E-mail communication, Saurabh Nandu has built a Web Application to help the site project leader manage and track job assignments easily, using an XML database and C#. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010508.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010509.asp: Intoduction to Mobile Information Server 2001 by Andrew Krowczyk Andrew Krowczyk takes us through the ins and outs of Microsoft's Mobile Information Server. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010509.asp Related ASPToday Articles: ASP.NET Web Forms: An Overview - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010315.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010510.asp: Creating a Website For Web Broswers and Mobile Devices by Sanjeev Yadav In this article Sanjeev Yadav shows us a method to build applications where the presentation tier can be changed depending upon the requesting client and its capability of handling the application. The application used to demonstrate this method is a simple one of enabling your stock details to reach you either through the web or through your mobile. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010510.asp Related ASPToday Articles: WAP – An Introduction http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000717.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010511.asp: NET Remoting - Part 1 by Matthew Reynolds The one thing that Microsoft hasn't changed with the introduction of the .NET Framework is that we're still expected to build our application on the 3-tier model, i.e. presentation, business and data tiers. (If you're unfamiliar on how to build ASP applications using the 3-tier model, check out Creating a Recruitment Site.) What is starting to happen now is that Microsoft is proposing building a totally separate business tier to support all of your enterprise applications. .NET Remoting is the infrastructure that provides your applications with the capability to consume this separate business services tier. In this article, Matt Reynolds shows us how to build objects that can be consumed from a desktop client application. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010511.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Creating a Recruitment Site http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010129.asp XML Serialization http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010403.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010514.asp: Implementing SOAP's low-level APIs in ASP by Paul Looijmans Before SOAP it was very hard for developers using different programming languages on different platforms to use each other's software services. By using SOAP over HTTP developers finally have a platform independent, standards-based and simple way to use each other's services. The SOAP Toolkit 2.0 went public very recently; it's now fully supported by Microsoft and can be used to expose your DLLs as Web Services. Besides the necessary software to send and receive SOAP messages, the SOAP Toolkit contains a wizard to create WSDL and WSML files for your DLLs, a Trace Utility to visualize the SOAP messages being sent between client and server, and some very good documentation. But why use the low-level APIs when it is easier to use the high-level ones? There are four main reasons: flexibility, performance, interoperability, and finally as an excercise in understanding the SOAP framework better. Paul Looijmans takes us through these points with a sample low-level API application. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010514.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Build Enterprise Application Integration Components using VB, SOAP and XML http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010430.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010515.asp: ASP.NET Authentication Options - Part 2 by Srinivasa Sivakumar When it comes to Internet or Intranet based applications, security plays a major role. In the previous article in this series, Srinivasa Sivakumar covered the basics of the security options available with ASP.NET. In this article, we see how to use custom authentication and Form/Cookie based authentication to create a scalable solution for a real time web application with a Database such as SQL Server 2000. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010515.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010516.asp: Speeding-up Content Delivery to the Client with DHTML, XML, IE - Part I by Vincent Bedus In today's modern web applications, there is a growing need to return larger amounts of data, and return a response back to the client quickly. Vincent Bedus shows us how we can make quick responses to the users, even with large amounts of data by creating a simple html page that loads when the user submits their request. This page will have an instance of the Microsoft XML parser. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010516.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Server Side XML in ASP http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19990416.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010517.asp: Adding Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to you web applications Part 1 by Lance Luttschwager Recently WAP and PDAs have been touted as a way to keep in touch with your internet resources while away from your regular computer; but for a variety of reasons, wireless devices have yet to live up to expectations. In the meantime, the use of IVR and a standard touch-tone phone continues to grow, aided by the introduction of two new technologies that bring IVR to the web developer - VoiceXML and Microsoft's Web Telephony Engine (WTE). In this first article of a series, Lance Luttschwager introduces these technologies and shows us how we can set up a simple interactive page accessible over an ordinary phone. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010517.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010518.asp: Object Oriented Features in VB.NET by Kaushal Sanghavi Visual Basic has been the language of choice for millions of programmers and software designers over the years. VB owes its popularity to the simplicity of the language coupled with the power that it offers. However, as a veteran and diehard C++ programmer, Kaushal Sanghavi has always found VB lacking in a few areas, the biggest of which has been the lack of object oriented support in the language. VB.NET changes all that - it is truly object oriented, unlike its predecessor. There are numerous new language constructs that support object oriented features as well as any other object oriented language and now it is possible to write a pure object oriented solution in VB.NET. In this article, Kaushal covers the new object oriented features that VB.NET supports, and digs into some of the advanced features and demonstrate how and when to use these to derive the maximum advantage of this greatly enhanced language. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010518.asp Related ASPToday Articles: An Introduction to Threading in VB.NET http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010410.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010521.asp: Using a Web Service to enable your Excel Spreadsheet by D. Venkatesh Prasad Today Web Services represent one of the most fancied new facets of the World Wide Web. The basic difference between them and other modes of remote procedure calls like RMI, CORBA, COM, DCOM etc. is that Web Services are not a product of any proprietary technology. They are based on an open standard (XML) and protocol (http) standardized by the www.w3.org. Where COM is linked to Microsoft and CORBA to UNIX, Web Services are to the whole world using open technology. Moreover, COM objects require installation on the machine from where it is being used and DCOM requires installation somewhere on the same network. Web Services are a more distributed model - the program in Germany could be using a Web Service in Washington DC to access its functionality. No component needs to be installed on the network, no open connections to an object (no pooling), just a simple HTTP Request and HTTP Response via the web. All that one needs to know are the general principles of using a web service - like the formats of the SOAP Messages, the Service Description and the Ports and their Binding; even the documentation of the web service comes in the form of machine-readable XML documents in what is called the Web Service Description language. This article attempts to show how the functionality of Microsoft Excel can be enhanced using ASP.NET's web service and to introduce the basics of using web services in an Excel Spreadsheet. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010521.asp ********************************************************************* Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010522.asp: VBUSERSTATE. A COM Scriptlet wrapper for an application scope ADO Recordset by Larry Kraemer State maintenance is one of the key problems of web application design. As developers we close our eyes and repeat to ourselves that the HTTP protocol is inherently stateless. Larry Kraemer shows us how to use a combination of an Application scope custom ADO recordset and a VBSCRIPT based COM scriptlet which you can elegantly manage all the state information you can stand. The solution described is server based and works well in concert with a permanent data store or without one. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010522.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010524.asp: Speeding up Content Delivery to the Client with DHTML, XML and IE - Part II by Vincent Bedus In part I, Vincent Bedus showed us how to build a HTML table dynamically and how to use the Microsoft XML Parser to load data dynamically and display it on the page. He now expands this so that we can get data from a page on the web site that returns its results as an XML string, which will come directly from an ADO recordset. It will then be able to build the table dynamically. We are then going to expand that and make the user be able to define how many records they want to see per page along with allowing them to page through the data. We are going to do this by looking at the customer information of a fictitious company named "Acme". http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010524.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Speeding-up Content Delivery to the Client with DHTML, XML, IE - Part I http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010516.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010523.asp: NET Windows Forms Menus by Benny Johansen Jan Narkiewicz Like most other UI related tasks, the creation of menus has become a lot easier with the introduction of WinForms. But surprisingly the current support in .NET is far from complete - for example there is no easy way to synchronize a menu with a toolbar and a status bar. Nor is there built in support for the nice menus displaying small bitmaps in front of every menu item. We could see how one could implement a couple of classes to do this, but these features are so significant that Microsoft is bound to include support for them in Beta 2. So instead, in this article Benny Johansen and Jan Narkiewicz will focus on what we can do right now (with the public Beta 1). http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010523.asp Related ASPToday Articles: An overview of .NET winforms http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010406.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010524.asp: Speeding up Content Delivery to the Client with DHTML, XML and IE - Part II by Vincent Bedus In part I, Vincent Bedus showed us how to build a HTML table dynamically and how to use the Microsoft XML Parser to load data dynamically and display it on the page. He now expands this so that we can get data from a page on the web site that returns its results as an XML string, which will come directly from an ADO recordset. It will then be able to build the table dynamically. We are then going to expand that and make the user be able to define how many records they want to see per page along with allowing them to page through the data. We are going to do this by looking at the customer information of a fictitious company named "Acme". http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010524.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Speeding-up Content Delivery to the Client with DHTML, XML, IE - Part I http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010516.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010525.asp: Playing with VB.NET. An Implementation of Tetris by Owen Cutajar Microsoft has added a number of enhancements in VB.Net. Some of these features include providing accessibility to the new .Net framework, decent error trapping and the new IDE with its improved cross-language debugging. This article investigates some of the new functionality exposed by the framework in working with graphics. Previous versions of VB could only access the graphical interface using API calls. Now VB.Net exposes access to GDI+, the new Graphics Display Interface. This gives VB developer's unprecedented power and simplicity in dealing with image manipulation and also easy access to Windows graphic primitives. We will be using this functionality to build a working clone of Tetris. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010525.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010529.asp: Code Reuse with ASP.NET Part 3: Custom Controls by Avonelle Lovhaug Valerie Winberg John Philipps In part 2 of this series on code reuse techniques available in ASP.NET, the authors discussed the use of user controls (also known as pagelets) to create reusable sections of code. In this final article of our series, they demonstrate how to build custom ASP.NET controls for building flexible and reusable components. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010529.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Code Reuse Strategies Using ASP.NET - Part II: User Controls http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010416.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010530.asp: Creating SQL Databases, Tables and Stored Procedures on the fly with VB and XML by Mitchell Harper During application development, one of the most essential practices is to develop code that is both functional and re-useable. Mitchell Harper talks about how to create objects (such as databases, tables and stored procedures) under SQL Server on the fly. He shows us the ideal program that allows us to distribute these objects to as many servers as is needed and reflect updates across multiple servers. Although this may not actually be a practical way to create databases in the real world, it gives a good insight into the flexibility of developing an application using Windows DNA: There is always more than one way to do any particular task. In this article, He demonstrates an alternate way to perform the task described above. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010530.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010604.asp: How to Build a Master-Details Web Application Using ASP.NET and Visual Studio.NET (Part I) by Patrick Barnes The new Microsoft.NET technologies, languages, and developer tools empower the Web developer like nothing before. Although the .NET framework and its flagship IDE, Visual Studio, have only been released in Beta 1, there exists tremendous interest in what many have called "a whole new way of developing Web applications." This tutorial will take you down the real-world path of developing something that is very commonly needed in one form or another. That is a Master-Details application, i.e., a Web application by which a user can search for a record in a database, view, edit or delete the record, and add new records. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010604.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010605.asp: Using Class based Page Layouts by JS Greenwood As ASP.NET currently dominates web-development news items, it is easy to write off ASP 3.0, and the possibilities that have thus far been ignored. ASP.NET introduces the approach of separating presentation from business logic using code-behind, but this still leaves similar presentation elements, and their associated logic replicated for each page. This involves a lot of duplicated work, however, and even the .NET sample applications demonstrate these limitations. An alternative to this is removing all standard look-and-feel elements from the individual page level and wrapping them up in objects. This way, on-going design changes become simpler to manage, and implementing advanced functionality such as affiliate schemes becomes trivial. This article demonstrates a way of abstracting presentation away from the individual ASP pages in enterprise-level web applications. In doing so, this allows more rapid development, easier application maintenance, and tighter integration with COM+ components. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010605.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Using VBScript Classes in ASP Applications http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000629.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010606.asp: Receiving Text Messages with .NET by Ollie Cornes In a previous ASPToday article Ollie described how to send SMS text messages from .NET applications. In this article he'll explain how your application can receive SMS text messages and manage bi- directional communication with a handset. The article includes an application that you can download that can receive commands via text message and respond to them. The case study is in object-oriented design in C# and ASP.NET. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010606.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Sending SMS Text Messages from Your .NET Application http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010426.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010607.asp: Using XML for efficient Error trapping in COM components: Extending the concept for FORM validations by Chandu Thota There are many ways to trap error details. Some developers write to the Win NT log when errors occur in components using Win32 API calls. But this method is little complex and would also create problems when the event log is full! In this article, Chandu Thota shows us how to build more robust COM components (in VB) with less complexity in error handling by introducing XML as medium of communication while calling components. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010607.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.comcontent/articles/20010608.asp: Creating an SMTP Mail Component from scratch with VB, Windows Sockets and ASP by Chad Hutchinson Almost every application needs email functionality. There are a great number of mail components available nowadays, in some cases at no charge. Even IIS version 4 and higher ships with the CDONTS object, a lightweight version of CDO (Collaborative Data Objects), allowing ASP developers to send email in several lines of code. You can also send email in Visual Basic. In this article, Chad Hutchinson shows us how to do this. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010608.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010611.asp: Using System.CodeDom Part 1 - Replacing the Windows Script Host by Matthew Reynolds With .NET, Windows Script Host is gone, mainly because it's so easy to compile and execute code using the System.CodeDom.Compilers namespace. This namespace contains classes that are able to compile any of the managed languages supported by .NET. In the first part of this article Matt Reynolds builds a simple application called "Wrox CodeHost". This application will take a .vb or .cs file, compile the code and then execute it. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010611.asp Related ASPToday Articles: XML Serialization http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010403.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010612.asp: Enhancing the scripting runtime - Part 2 by Will Smith In the first article, we created a working version of our newly remodeled Super Scripting Runtime component. This article will picks up where we left off in part 1 by explaining some of the code used to build the component and adding functionality to the component such as the TextStream Class and Error Handling. Included with this article is the Visual Basic source code created so far. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010612.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Enhancing the Scripting Runtime - Part 1 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010329.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010613.asp: The Microsoft SOAP Toolkit Version 2 - The High Level API by Craig Murphy The Microsoft SOAP Toolkits go some way to removing the amount of code we have to write - in particular the amount of server-side code we have to write is dramatically reduced. Client-side, we still have to write some ourselves, however much of the complexity of type checking and fault handling is taken care of by the client-side Toolkit support. In this article, Craig Murphy provides an overview of the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit Version 2.0; the sample application code will be provided in Visual Basic and VBScript. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010613.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Working with the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001030.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010614.asp: HTTP Handlers - a .NET Introduction by Kaushal Sanghavi IIS introduced the concept of Internet Server API filters that were used to enhance IIS applications with custom features such as enhanced processing of Http requests. These ISAPI filters were loaded by IIS when it started up and would remain in memory and process all incoming Http requests. While this was a powerful feature, writing ISAPI filters wasn't exactly simple. This required knowledge of C++ and multithreaded programming and since these DLLs were loaded into the IIS address space, debugging filters was not simple. Further, since the DLLs were loaded into the IIS address space, it was possible for a filter to bring IIS down in the event of a crash. The .NET framework takes the concept of ISAPI filters one step further by introducing Http Handlers which are custom components that process Http requests. In this article Kaushal Sanghavi covers some of the basic principles of Http Handlers and writes custom Http Handlers to customize the processing of some Http requests. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010614.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010618.asp: Implementing Passport with .NET by Ollie Cornes Microsoft is using Passport to drive adoption of the .NET platform. It offers centralised sign-in and storage for personal information including your name, email address and payment information. From a user perspective it is preferable to the current situation where it's necessary to remember multiple logins/passwords and enter the same personal details on site after site. Future versions of Passport will support a much broader range of services; Windows XP also has Passport support built-in. In this article Ollie Cornes leads us through Passport, giving background on what it is, why Microsoft are promoting it, and provide an implementation of Passport using the .NET platform as well as a slew of resources for you to investigate Passport further. Although this article includes a .NET example, much of the text is not .NET-specific and the article includes links to resources on the Internet where you will find information on implementing Passport using COM and ASP 3.0. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010618.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010619.asp: VB .NET Delegates by Kaushal Sanghavi Most programming languages have always provided a synchronous way of calling functions and methods on objects. There is always a well-defined interaction between a caller and a callee, which suffices for most cases. However, this is not always enough to handle all programming paradigms and patterns. We often feel the need of being called when a specific event occurs or in response to a specific action. This paradigm is called callbacks, and has taken on many forms since the days of Windows 3.1. VB .NET simplifies this paradigm by introducing the notion of Delegates, which is a form of a callback function. In this article, Kaushal Sangahvi will dig into how delegates are implemented and utilized in VB.NET http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010619.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010620.asp: Configuring and debugging webprojects using Microsoft MS Visual InterDev 6.0 and VB by E James O'Kelly Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) is a powerful, feature-rich Web server that can be used to deploy and administer Enterprise-level Web sites and Web applications.However, as with any robust application, integration and configuration problems can arise when using these powerful features. In this article we will be discussing how to make the most use of your Microsoft tools, to develop and debug your applications. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010620.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010621.asp: How to build a Master details web application part 2 by Patrick Barnes In Part II of this article Patrick Barnes continues with his explanation of how to build a Master-Details Web Application using ASP.NET, Visual Basic.NET, and SQL Server. In this second and final installment he provides a running commentary on the code used for creating the details page. Along the way he also shares some useful tips as well as alerts you to some pitfalls to avoid. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010621.asp Related ASPToday Articles: How to Build a Master-Details Web Application Using ASP.NET and Visual Studio.NET (Part I) http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010604.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010626.asp: Directing your Objects to the Database by David R. K. DeLoveh The need to co-brand an Active Server Page site can sneak up on many software development companies. A company may find they have developed a solution for a customer that can be resold, but with some minor revisions. A new customer may want the graphics changed, the name changed, and other cosmetic changes that normally absorb very little time. If the site was built using inline ADO and the database connection string stored in an application variable, the process of connecting to another database is simple. However, like most well constructed applications, a significant part of the site is logic intensive and would benefit from compiled code. With Microsoft technologies being the choice for the front end, the logical choice for the middleware is n-tier COM objects. The decision of how to direct your application to different databases must be made. The obvious options are get separate servers for each web site, or add a parameter to every call you make telling it which web called it. This is very time consuming and not very object oriented for those technical purity people. David DeLoveh presents an alternative that can remove most of the work from both of the previous options. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010626.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010627.asp: Polymorphism in VB.NET by Budi Kurniawan Now that Visual Basic is fully object-oriented, you should know more about object-oriented programming (OOP) in VB.NET. Kaushal Sanghavi has discussed OOP in VB.NET in general in the article published by ASPToday on 18 May 2001 (http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010518.asp). The article, among others, introduced the three principles of OOP: encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism. This article looks at polymorphism much closer. This article begins by giving the definitions of polymorphism in general and strictly in the OOP world. Understanding the term is crucial, as the word polymorphism often misunderstood by beginner OOP programmers. It then continues with the use of polymorphism in OOP and why it is so important. Finally, the article shows polymorphism in action with a Windows application example called WhatAmI. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010627.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Object Oriented Features in VB.NET http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010518.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010628.asp: Automated Invalidation of output cache in ASP.NET by Dion Olsthoorn Output Caching is one of the techniques in ASP.NET that really boosts the performance of your website. While Output Caching is very easy to implement, the key issue remains how to keep the cached output of a webpage up-to-date with its original data sources (e.g. SQL Server, Exchange Webstore or a legacy system). In this article, Dion Olsthoorn explores some techniques to keep the cached pages in sync with the real data, by automatically invalidating the cached pages when the real data changes. Finally, a cache-checking webpage will be built that compares the cached pages with the output from re-executed versions of the same pages. This way you can use slow-expiring Output Cache on webpages, which will be invalided if changes are made to the data source. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010628.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Cache Control with ASP+ http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001113.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010629.asp: Sorting Tables Using Client Side XSLT by Mark House Mark House presents a practical use for XML and XSLT, in the guise of lists sort-able on the client side. In doing so the example reduces the processing load on the server, and hands over the rendering of the XML to the client. This can significantly reduce the demands on the network, web server, and database server if you're currently using them to handle display changes. And from a design standpoint, it can also avoid the undesirable (though sometimes necessary) page refresh. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010629.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Dynamic XML Transformation http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000724.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010724.asp: MS Access Crosstab Queries via SQL Server by Willem Van Rooyen "For many years now we have been able to pivot and aggregate data output. Many of us use the pivot capabilities of the Microsoft Access Crosstab Query to display summaries and aggregations of data. The use of the crosstab-query has become so common that when I first started working with Microsoft SQL Server, I was surprised to find no such feature." In this, the first of two articles Willem takes you through the process of building your own simple pivot table service for SQL Server useing Crosstab-SQL. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010724.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010723.asp: Using MS Biztalk Server Messaging and Mapping Function by Salim Naim Biztalk Server 2000 (BTS) is an exciting new player in Microsoft’s suite of .NET servers. It, being designed to allow systems either in the home Organization, or External “Trading Partner(s)”, to integrate and communicate with one another. In this article Salim Naim illustrates the use of the Biztalk messaging services, with a travelling salesman application. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010723.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010720.asp: Create a custom IHttpHandler to allow ASP.NET pages to communicate with each other by Andy Elmhorst One of the questions that experienced web developers typically ask when learning the ASP.NET framework goes something like this: When I want to transfer control to a new page from the current page, how do I create an instance of the next page and pass it the state of the current request? To accomplish this, the default mechanism provided by the ASP.NET framework is to redirect the browser to the next page using the Page.Navigate() method. This approach to page navigation can be the cause for numerous undocumented dependencies between ASP.NET pages, their possible query string arguments and items stored in the Session. It also does not allow type checking to be done at compile time on the state information passed between the pages. In this article, Andy Elmhorst show us that it is possible for ASP.NET pages to communicate elegantly with each other as real objects. In the process, the application will save a round trip to the browser. As a result, the application will consume less server, client, and network resources. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010720.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010719.asp: A Serverless WEB Interface by David Waxman Okay, so your an experienced ASP web developer and you've been asked to provide an interface from a clients web site for a window’s based business application. The problem is that currently they receive applications for their services via email and then someone has to data enter the information from the email onto the system. They want their applicants to apply through a form on their web site, and drop the application into their database automatically. As an experienced ASP web developer, you say, "Sure, no problem! We’ll just take your database, connect it to an ASP enabled web server, drop some server side code in and then go out for a long lunch." The only problem is, that the client’s web site doesn’t run ASP script. Even if it did, there is no way that they want their precious database connected to a web server for security and logistical reasons. Furthermore, your boss wants to provide all of your other clients with the same solution, regardless of their hosting services' limitations. In today’s article, we are going to take the day off from .NET fever and get our hands dirty with some basic and primitive, albeit unconventional techniques. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010719.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Setting Up the SMTP Mail Service in Windows 2000 - Part 2 http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000313.asp Query String Basics with ASP http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000324.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010718.asp: Using XML to Extend Stored Procedures by Brady Gaster As a consultant, one of Brady Gaster's biggest fears lies in the possibility that, following my departure from a client’s project, the database structure will change so that it no longer works with the supplied component or middle-tier architecture. It’s easy to plan for extensibility, to plan your components and architectures in such a way that will provide the most scalable, adaptable environment for production systems. However, times exist when business needs change – not during the development cycle, but following project completion. Every good developer strives to accommodate future changes – system engineers, on the other hand, accommodate any future possibility into their code. Database redesign is the beast of burden many consultants face. What begins as a development project can turn into a maintenance contract, solely because database designs change and adapt to the business needs of an organization. This article will illustrate a possible end to the database redesign nightmare by using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) to design a data-mapping language that will drive any stored procedure. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010718.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010717.asp: Implementing a HTML Document Publishing Application by Alexandre Pinho In his former ASPToday article, Create a common user updateable news publishing system with IE HTML Editing, Alexandre Pinho described a way of editing HTML using nothing but IE itself. In this article, he builds on it to create a full content publishing application, allowing common (non–technical) users to publish documents on an Internet site, in a structured way. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010717.asp Related ASPToday Articles: File Uploading with ASP and VBScript http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20000316.asp Create a common user updateable news publishing system with IE HTML Editing http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20001213.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010716.asp: Securing Web Services by Jeremy Raccio In his first article on creating a web service, Jeremy Raccio explored using SOAP to create co-branded websites. The service that was created was accessible to anyone who could format a SOAP message and interpret a SOAP response. What if you are developing a web service that should only be accessed by specified clients? What if the service is to only be accessed by internal company systems? What if only paying customers should be able to use a web service? There are ways to secure web services so that they will only be available to specified systems and users. In the second part of his article, Mr. Raccio will explore ways in which Web services can be secured so that they will only be available to those that are specified to access them. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010716.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010726.asp: MS Access Crosstab Queries via SQL Server: Part 2 by Willem Van Rooyen "For many years now we have been able to pivot and aggregate data output. Many of us use the pivot capabilities of the Microsoft Access Crosstab Query to display summaries and aggregations of data. The use of the crosstab-query has become so common that when I first started working with Microsoft SQL Server, I was surprised to find no such feature." In this, the second of two articles, Willem looks at increasing the performance of his simple pivot table service for SQL Server useing Crosstab-SQL. He then goes on to add some of the extra features which were mentioned in the previous article. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010726.asp Related ASPToday Articles: MS Access Crosstab Queries via SQL Server http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010724.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010725.asp: Creating a Centralized Error Handler for a N-Tier Web Application by Thiru Thangarathinam The way errors are handled in ASP has always come in for criticism, as it does not provide an elegant approach for handling errors. The situation becomes even worse in a N-Tier application that is distributed across multiple machines and multiple tiers. In this article, Thiru demonstrates a way to create a generic distributed and centralized error handling approach for trapping, processing and logging the errors that may occur in a N-Tier application. We will also see how XML makes the life of developers easier in collecting and viewing more information about errors. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010725.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010727.asp: Leveraging the SQL Server 2000 XML features by Kent Tegels Traditionally, when working with relational and hierarchically structured data, Kent Tegels accessed this data through stored procedures returning multiple ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) Recordsets that would be loaded into COM+ objects. This data was also well behaved enough so that it could be treated as "shaped" records. All was well and good until it was realized that with a little planning and little learning, development time could be reduced and development efforts made easier if the data was exposed in XML (eXtensible Markup Language). Kent suggested that we would significantly reduce the development effort and footprint of our data access bits if we used SQL Server 2000’s new XML features. In this article he provides us with the solution. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010727.asp Related ASPToday Articles: Taking Advantage of the Dictionary Object http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/19991110.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010730.asp: NET Installers by Srinivasa Sivakumar When applications are installed on a target machine, they need to ensure that certain environmental conditions are satisfied. The very fact that there are numerous companies out there whose sole focus and cause of existence is to build installation programs that can set up a target machine to run an application is a case in point here. The problem with this is that if any of these settings get corrupt over the life of the application, the entire setup has to be run again to correct these problems. The .NET framework attempts to solve this issue by allowing developers to perform these functions within the component.itself. In this article Kaushal Sanghavi explores the support that the .NET framework offers for building installation components. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010730.asp ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010710.asp: File uploading using the .NET Remoting service by Gary Wu ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010713.asp: Gaining Client Interoperability by Using SOAP and WSDL by Brady Gaster Imagine there exists a man who speaks all 10,376 spoken languages. This guy is standing on top of a high peak, from where he can hear every individual in the world. He can hear everything that anyone in the world could say to him, and he has the ability to translate any message clearly into any other spoken language. This article will demonstrate such a situation. Client independence is a much discussed, yet previously unattainable concept in the world of distributed computing. With the advent of the various web service frameworks and the boom in supporting technologies, it can indeed exist. Once you have read through this article and have taken the time to work through and understand the examples provided, you should have a firm grasp on the methodologies and mechanisms necessary to expose your applications to SOAP using the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit 2.0 Gold Release. Additionally, you will have learned various strategies for accessing these [now] web services with a handful of various languages and technologies, and you will be provided with generic code fragments, which you can apply in your own environment. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010713.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010712.asp: Understanding .NET Assemblies by Bipin Joshi In the new .Net environment it will be the Assembly which provides the capability for bundled code reuse, associated in traditional Windows development with DLLs. Bipin JOshi, in this article, gives an overview of how to create and use assemblies. http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010712.asp ********************************************************************** Today on ASPToday, at http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010711.asp: Using XML to build a website in HTML and flash 5 by Nirav Patel Nirav Patel shows us that with the introduction of Macromedia Flash 5 with XML support, combined with the Microsoft .NET Framework, it is now possible to create HTML and Flash versions of a single web site or page that are feature identical with great ease in development and manageability http://www.asptoday.com/content/articles/20010711.asp **********************************************************************