Tony Lombardo

Web development is all about breaking up your application into pieces. Multiple pages make up a site.  UserControls are used to break up pages into smaller pieces, and custom libraries are often used for either framework value, or as GUI libraries.  Any time you start working with these scenarios, assemblies and references are going to start to enter the equation. 

Microsoft is about to ship Visual Studio 2008 SP1, and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.  Now service patches aren't always very exciting, but these are because they contain some great new features.  You've probably already heard the buzz around AJAX History support, and Dynamic Data.  Script Combining is also part of SP1, and it's something that you should certainly be interested in.

There's a really cool contest going on right now, promoting both Silverlight and open source.  If you check out Silverlight Control Builder Contest '08 over at gosilverlight.org, you can read up on the details.  To state it simply, build the coolest Silverlight control, and win some great stuff including NetAdvantage for .NET (ASP.NET and Windows Forms) + NetAdvantage for WPF.  Additionally contest winners are entitled to NetAdvantage for Silverlight once it ships.  All in all, there are thousands of dollars in prizes available, all to reward you for building cool stuff and sharing it with others.  

I know, I'm a little late on this announcement - but this has been one crazy summer!  Ok, we've officially only been in summer for less that a week, but considering the temp was 98 degrees when I got back from TechEd a couple of weeks ago, I say summer has been with us for a while. 

I've written about moving the <%@ Register TagPrefix ... %> directives out of your ASPX pages, and into your web.config.  But one thing I never talked about was - how to do that step.  I always did it manually, but about a year ago, I remember talking with one of the developers on the Project Upgrade Utility.. Well, that discussion to my surprise spawned off a lovely feature..  So here's the simple 2 step process

Well, it finally happened.. my PDC 2005 laptop bag started to tear apart at the seams.  It took me about a week to finally choose its replacement.  I had was looking for three things.  It had to look good for one.  For the amount of time I carry my laptop around with me, it's almost like a fashion accessory.  My second requirement was that it was small.  With the amount of traveling I do, the last thing I want is a big clunky bag.  My final requirement was that it looked professional enough for me to comfortably take it into business meetings without being embarrassed.  I finally decided on the Case Logic bag.

I'm finally back from Orlando, or at least I think I am.. but the weather here in NJ isn't the beautiful 75 degrees it was when I left, it's the 95 degrees that I was hoping to leave in Orlando.  Oh well, it's still good to be home.

That seems like a long title, but now that TechEd is cut in two, I wanted to be sure we were all on the same page.  If you're going to be in Orlando next week, you'll likely run into some Infragistics shirts while you're there.  We've got quite a few people heading out there.  Here are some ways you can meet up with me/us