Contents tagged with .NET Development
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What books should I buy?
Next month, when Amazon's quarterly period for their Associates program ends, I'll be getting a gift certificate for about $70. I figure this is enough to buy at least 2 books, maybe 3. I'd like to get back in the habit of reading some technical books, so I figured I'd ask for some recommendations from my readers. Here are some titles I'm considering:
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Blogs at VBCity.com!
I happened to be checking my blog url (http://weblogs.asp.net/jamauss) tonight over at Technorati (a bit of ego-surfing if you will) and noticed I had an inbound link from the man behind VbCity.com and DevCity.net, Serge Baranovsky. Upon further inspection it turns out that Serge has set up blogs for the VbCity community here, using .TEXT. If you've done VB development with any regularity (like I have) I'm sure you've stumbled across VbCity while finding answers to your problems. Both VbCity and DevCity are great resources and both are part of the CodeWise Community of websites. Give them a look if you haven't already. And if you're interested in keeping up with the latest on VB, subscribe to Serge's blog. I'm sure he'll be posting interesting VB information in forthcoming posts. (Don't worry Serge - no pressure!)
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Finally - a *good* GMail client
A friend of mine that works at the California State Bar IM'd me today to tell me about a GMail client that a co-worker of his Johnvey Hwang has built. I downloaded and installed it, and lo and behold, it works great! I had tried a couple of different GMail clients before, but they all had little annoyances with them that lead me to uninstall and stop using them. So far though, no annoyances detected with this one. Good job Johnvey!
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The Complete Reference - JavaScript 2nd Edition - Review Part 1
A couple days ago I received my copy of this book from Osborne/McGraw-Hill. (X)HTML/CSS/JavaScript (a.k.a “DHTML“) isn't going away any time soon so I felt now was as good a time as any to start further educating myself on one of the most used languages of the web - JavaScript. I've previously read a couple of Thomas Powell's web development books and I really like his style of writing. It's clear and concise and he rarely leaves pertinent information uncovered. This book has been no exception so far. I've read through the first 4 chapters and it's already taught me a few things about JavaScript.
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Language Wars and Developer's Dirty Laundry
After reading Carl's thoughts on this page, and then LazyCoder's comments, it was Rory's post that finally provoked enough emotion in me to want to weigh in with my 2 cents. And Rory, don't worry man, I fell for the whole Nike Swoosh gimmick too - and I'm far too embarassed to mention how old I was before I came to the same realization you did.
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Managing Websites and Paging Content
I've given this subject a good amount of thought and still haven't come up with something I'm happy with so I'm putting the question out there for the public to chew on.
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Joel expresses my frustration for me...
Joel has once again said it best - if you have about 15 minutes (it's a lengthy article by Joel On Software standards) - go read his article on “How Microsoft Lost the API War”. One of the best articles he's written in quite a while, in my opinion.
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Hacking the Code
The other day I received my copy of Hacking the Code and so far I'm enjoying it quite a bit. On the cover it says, “ASP.NET Web Application Security” but let me tell you, the ideas and topics discussed go far beyond just ASP.NET and web applications. I just finished reading the first chapter, “Managing Users” which was about 50 pages and went very deep into implementing secure password schemes. I had heard some of the advice before but, also picked up a few things I hadn't thought about before, which is always good. I like coming away from reading security books aware of some new security issues I didn't know about before. So far, it seems like a book I would definitely recommend , in addition to Writing Secure Code, 2nd Edition to anyone interested in learning more about coding and security. I'd also recommend Dana Epp's Security Blog.
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Database Naming Conventions, Part Deux
A couple of weeks ago I posted about database naming conventions, asking if anyone knew of a good website or resource that detailed naming conventions for database objects. Since I didn't receive much feedback, I decided to strike out on my own in search of something. Even with help from Google, I found less than half a dozen “good” resources that discussed naming database objects. In each case, the convention seemed skewed towards SQL Server, Oracle, or some other database system. So, I decided to aggregate what I found and add some of my own opinions, to produce my own naming convention. I've come to the conclusion that there can't be a single naming convention that can be taken as pure gospel. There's just too many ways to come up with good names. Having said that, I think what I've come up with makes good logical sense and will raise very few problems, if any.
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Awesome collection of Web UI Widgets
I just received word today from Ed Boelzner that his collection of Web UI widgets are now available for purchase at his website, Stedy.com. He's now made them available as ASP.NET controls that you can bind to XML data so you can drag n drop them from the vs.net toolbar. Trust me, they're very cool - you owe it to yourself to at least check them out if you're doing any kind of web application projects.