A few minutes ago Microsoft released an advance notification security bulletin announcing that we are releasing an out-of-band security update to address an ASP.NET Security Vulnerability . The security update we are releasing resolves a publicly disclosed Denial of Service issue present in all versions of ASP.NET.  We’re currently unaware of any attacks on ASP.NET customers using this exploit, but we strongly encourage customers to deploy the update as soon as possible.  We are releasing the security update via Windows Update and the Windows Server Update Service.  You can also manually download and install it via the Microsoft Download Center.  We will release the update on Thursday, December 29th at approximately 10am...

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This talk was an adaptation of two chapters from Silverlight 5 in Action. I started with a brief explanation of REST, and then explained the solution we were going to build during the session. The idea was to show how you can use REST in place of the heavier Soap approach in many cases, and make your services accessible to far more clients. I also showed how to share model objects between various implementations of .NET, using linked files and conditional compilation. Without watching the session or reading the chapters, the source and slides are only somewhat useful as you miss the interim steps. So, if you happen to be at an event where I deliver this again (I've submitted it to several upcoming 2012 events), great. If not… buy my Silverlight...

I was playing with the new Membership API (System.Web.Providers) for the upcoming Virtual TechDays While I was trying out a lot of options for using as DB store, one of the obvious choices was SQL Azure. With SQL Azure, I could offload the Database hosting capabilities to Azure and just focus on my application code. Of course, it comes at a cost and SQL Azure is a subscription based database available in different sizes and rates there of. One of the challenges I faced was, working with the Membership API’s connectionstring called as “DefaultConnection”. The Default Connection is something you would use simply for all connection strings once you upgrade the application to use the New Membership API. While configuring the connection string, I...

The Windows Azure SDK includes command-line tools that make it easy to package and deploy almost anything to the cloud. In this tutorial, I’ll walk through how to use those tools to package a Python web application and deploy it to the cloud, assuming no prior Windows Azure experience. Prerequisites To follow this tutorial, you’ll need to install the Windows Azure SDK . Because this tutorial uses Python, you’ll also want to install Python 2.7.2 . Python will automatically be installed in the cloud when you deploy this application, but to develop the app and test in the Windows Azure emulator, you’ll need Python installed locally. To complete the last step of deploying to the cloud, you’ll need a Windows Azure account. (Sign up at http://windowsazure...

The Windows Azure SDK includes command-line tools that make it easy to deploy almost anything to the cloud. I’ve blogged about this functionality in the past, but those posts have assumed a significant amount of Windows Azure background. In this tutorial, I’ll walk through how to use those tools to package a standalone executable and run it in the cloud, assuming no prior Windows Azure experience. For our example application, we’ll run the Mongoose web server , a tiny one-file web server written in C++. Prerequisites To follow this tutorial, you’ll need to install the Windows Azure SDK . To complete the last step of deploying to the cloud, you’ll need a Windows Azure account. (Sign up at http://windowsazure.com .) Quick Walkthrough Download...

As some of you might know, I’ve spent much of my time the last 6 months working on Windows Azure – which is Microsoft’s Cloud Computing Platform (I also continue to work on ASP.NET, .NET, VS and a bunch of other products). Next Tuesday, Dec 13th we’ll be holding a special Learn Windows Azure training event for developers.  It will provide a great way to learn Windows Azure and what it provides.  You can attend the event either by watching it streamed LIVE online, or by attending in person (on the Microsoft Redmond Campus).  Both options are completely free. Learn Window Azure Event During the Learn Windows Azure event attendees will learn how to start building great cloud based applications using Windows Azure. I’ll be kicking...

Damn, Rob saw right through the PR lies of Phil Haack about the new NuGet gallery and figured it all out. Kidding, kidding. For your enjoyment and context, here is Rob’s post: http://wekeroad.com/2011/12/06/nuget-and-orchard/ Phil made a thoughtful answer to the post where he gives the rationale behind the decision: http://wekeroad.com/2011/12/06/nuget-and-orchard/#comment-380571113 What I want to address here is what that means (or not) about Orchard. “Why wasn’t it fast before?” Because by default, back when the NuGet gallery was first built, Orchard was grossly under optimized. We made a lot of progress, but it still is under optimized out of the box --in a number of ways-- which is why we’re having this discussion for the 1.4 release: http...

So my last day at Microsoft ended up being a very long one as the NuGet team worked late into the evening to deployan updated version of NuGet.org. I’m very happy to be a part of this as my last act as a Microsoft employee. This is complete re-write of the gallery. Why a rewrite? We’ve learned a lot since we first launched, and our needs have evolved to the point where a rewrite made sense. The new implementation is a vanilla ASP.NET MVC 3 application and highly optimized to be a gallery with just the features we need. For example, we made extensive use of Mvc Mini Profiler to ensure pages made the least number of database queries as necessary. Also, the site is now hosted in Azure! What’s in this new implementation? There’s a lot of great improvements...

Well, as I wrote before , today is my last day at Microsoft. Last night we had our office Holiday party in the observation deck and lounge of the Space Needle. The party was just fantastic and we were lucky to have a nice clear evening with spectacular views. What a great way to go! I had a brief exit interview where I handed over my badge with an air of finality. However, I am still an employee until midnight tonight. So it’s not so final just yet. Which is a good thing as the NuGet team is working to deploy the new NuGet.org gallery tonight if all goes well. Once that’s been up for a few days and we’re comfortable with it being stable, we’ll release NuGet 1.6. In the meanwhile, my office has been razed of all the good equipment including my...