If you've been a subscriber of my blog for while, you probably know that I am a big fan of ComponentArt's Web.UI controls.  Their controls are absolutely outstanding, both from a user's and a developers perspective.

ComponentArt has announced a new suite of controls created specifically for Microsoft's ASP.NET AJAX framework (formerly known as Atlas).  With extensive client-side APIs, integration with the Atlas type system, and optimized to work with the UpdatePanel control, this suite should prove to be the premier components for building rich, interactive AJAX-enabled Web applications.

I've been trying out Google Reader for the last couple of weeks.  I opened my browser tonight and was pleasantly surprised by a new version.  It's not just an update, it's a whole new app. 

Instead of categories, feeds are now arranged in folders much like other RSS readers.  As you scroll down your list of unread items, they are automatically marked as read.  I think the keyboard shortcuts have been expanded, too.

Be sure to check out the "Goodies" under account settings.  You can add book marks that allow you to navigate subscriptions, and to subscribe to new feeds without leaving a site. 

The only bummer is that it reset the status on all my feeds, so I had to mark a lot of items as read that I had already seen.  Not a very big deal, since you can click on folder and mark all items as read.

A guest speaker at my church has given us a homework assignment: tell our story to at least one person before returning to church tonight.  I decided to write my story down.  There's a lot more I could say, but I wanted to keep it as short as possible.  If you would take the time, I would greatly appreciate you reading it. 

Here is My Story.

Speaking of great apps that keep getting better, there's an interesting mojoPortal vs. DotNetNuke post over at mojoPortal.  Also, take a look at the interesting comments from a DNN user (www.wwwcoder.com). 

Joe reports that a new release is just around the corner.

dasBlog continues to improve.  The list of new features is very impressive.  I was able to upgrade without much effort.  If you're looking for simple-to-use and yet very powerful blog application, dasBlog is worth a look.  Also, check out the dasBlog documentation.

I just watched a very cool web cast for SubSonic (aka ASP.NET ActionPack).  Inspired by Ruby on Rails, it delivers to ASP.NET some of the same features such as rapid prototyping and data scaffolding.  Here's a quote from the SubSonic Community site:

This is our first step to try and pull the fun that Ruby On Rails is back into .NET. ASP.NET is getting bogged down with sooooo much ... "bloat" that it's hard to do our work on a daily basis without feeling like our code is not "best practice". We got into this because we thought it was fun - let's make it that way again!

Add the assembly, update your web.config, add a couple files, and away you go.  Out of the box it supports SQL 2K/2K5, MySQL, and the EnterpriseLibrary.  SubSonic also includes built-in code generators for your apps that must live in a Medium Trust environment.  Definitely worth a closer look.

I just read that Virtual PC is now a free download.  If you've never used it, Virtual PC allows you to setup and run other operating systems (Windows XP, 2000, 98, DOS, Server 2003, etc.) in a virtual environment on your existing PC.  This is all done with a big file called a virtual disk.  Virtual PC simulates all the hardware, and the guest operating system never knows the difference.  It can even share the host computer's CD-ROM and network connection so that you can install software and get connected to the Internet or local network.  Guest OS's will even show up as additional computers on your local network!  You can start, shutdown, suspend and resume your virtual environments at will.

One of the best features is being able to "undo" changes to your virtual environments.  When this feature is turned on, every change made to the guest OS is saved to a separate change file.  When you "undo" a Virtual PC, all the changes are completely blown away and it is as if those changes never happened at all.  This is ideal for testing application or Web installations, giving demos, or trying beta software, because you can always roll back to the exact same state to repeat your tests or if something goes wrong.  We all know that uninstalling an application doesn't always (and more likely never does) put your file system and registry back the way it was before you installed.

 

I have a few eBible.com beta invitations I can give out.  What's eBible, you ask?  It's a "next-generation" online Bible tool that not only lets you search for Bible passages, but also includes commentaries, dictionaries, and other resources, and allows you to bookmark passages.  There's a lot more to it, including a community aspect, but it'd be easier to see it for yourself than it would be for me to explain it ;)

Like a few others, I eventually ditched ASP.NET 1.1 Web Form projects in in favor of Class Library projects.  For any of you out there converting your 1.1 Class Library projects to ASP.NET 2.0 and want to use the after-market Web Application Project, here's what you need to do.

1. Convert your 1.1 project to 2.0 using the VS 2005 conversion wizard (just open the project in VS 2005)
2. Close VS 2005
3. Edit your .csproj or .vbproj file with a text editor
4. Find the line that reads <ProjectType>Local</ProjectType> and change it to:
   
   [C#]
   
   <ProjectTypeGuids>{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21};{fae04ec0-301f-11d3-bf4b-00c04f79efbc}</ProjectTypeGuids>
   
   [VB.NET]
   
   <ProjectTypeGuids>{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21};{F184B08F-C81C-45F6-A57F-5ABD9991F28F}</ProjectTypeGuids>
   
   

For any of you still developing under VS 2003, check out Fritz Onion's ASP.NET without Web Projects.

UPDATE: Found out that settings for VB.NET projects are different.

UPDATE 2: If you've upgraded a 1.1 project to WAP, you'll probably want to also right-click on the project and choose the "Convert to Web Application" option.  This will split the code-behind files into partial classes and enable designer support.  Thanks for the tip, Scott!

Awesome!  Red Gate has released SQL Prompt, and it's FREE!  Get Intellisense for Query Analyzer, Enterprise Manager, SQL Management Studio, and Visual Studio 2003/2005.  It even supports UltraEdit and EditPlus.

SQL Prompt can also automatically upper-case SQL keywords, and provides a code snippet engine.