I'll be speaking at the Dallas C# User Group on February 1st on behalf of INETA and Interface Technical Training.  The topic I'll be discussing is Async Web Services in .NET 2.0 which includes a discussion of the pros and cons of async calls as well as several different techniques that can be used from callbacks and waithandles to the new event driven model.  If you're in the Dallas area and are interested in learning different techniques for calling Web Services asynchronously swing on by.

-- Updated for ASP.NET AJAX Final Release and for the February WPF/E CTP.  Live version now available --

Microsoft just released ASP.NET AJAX version 1.0 at http://ajax.asp.net!  Get it while it's hot! :-)  If you're new to ASP.NET AJAX and want to get started quickly, Microsoft has published several different videos.  I have several here on my blog as well.

It's no secret that events and delegates play a crucial role in the .NET framework.  Without them it would be hard to handle user input or notify other objects when an action occurs.  I get a lot of questions about events and delegates in classes I teach so I decided to put together a video that outlines the fundamentals of creating a custom class that exposes an event and a delegate.  The video also demonstrates how to create a custom  EventArgs class and how events can be consumed using C#.

One of Microsoft's biggest launch events in years is coming to Phoenix on January 17th.  If you're interested in learning more about Vista, Exchange 2007 or Office 2007 then you'll definitely want to attend.  If you register and attend the event you'll receive a free copy of Office 2007 Professional and Groove 2007 which is pretty cool!

Proxy code plays an important role in sending and receiving messages to and from Web Services.  If you've worked with Web Services before in .NET, Java or other programming frameworks then chances are you used a client-side proxy to call a Web Service.  With .NET, proxies are generated using wsdl.exe or Visual Studio's Add Web Reference menu option.  ASP.NET AJAX proxies aren't created this way, however.  In fact, they're even easier to create compared to C# or VB.NET Web Service proxies. An ASP.NET AJAX Web Service proxy is created by using the Services property of the ScriptManager control:

Microsoft's Mike Harsh just released an updated version of his WPF/E Pad that makes it easy to quickly test out XAML using the WPF/E viewer.  Pretty cool stuff!  Since I'm a big fan of XML I'm really excited about what WPF/E offers.

In this video tutorial I walk through how to use the XmlDocument class to edit XML.  Click the link below to view the video.