Colt Kwong Blog

ASP.NET Developer's Cookbook Arrive/Stolen?

Being a contributing author of the ASP.NET Developer's Cookbook, I got the complimentary copy today!! Thanks to SAMS, Steve and Rob at first.

However, when I get the mail from the lobby and discover that...
the envelop WAS OPENED!!

Yes, I think of PaulWilson immediately as I remember he mentioned his experience about the Book in his blog in the past:

Today I finally got my free copy, only it was already opened and stolen off my front porch, or somewhere in route.  I've never had any stolen from my mail before, and this seemed like one of the least likely things to be taken.  My wife even had something come today that's probably more useful and expensive, but I guess the package didn't look as interesting.  The upside is that maybe someone around here will actually read it and start working with ASP.NET, and then later need my help to bail them out of a mess they get themselves into.  I can dream anyway.

A cOoL Flash-enabled web ad.

What's a good web page with attractive content and meaning ?

That's definitely one of my favorite:  ;-)

http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html 

First User Group Presentation

My local .NET User Group will organize a series of technical presentation session for a tertiary education institution starting from July, and I'll be the first speaker in this series who are not MS employee :)

Yes, this is my first presentation to students for my User Group (We invited a local MS office developer evangelist as our speaker in the past presentations).
I don't know why but I don't feel any pressure for this presentation, it may due to the fact that I read lots of Presentation Tips here, such as Julia's Presentation Tips.

Ah... I still haven't mention the topic of the presentation - it's called Web Form Basic, Beginning ASP.NET, ASP.NET Getting Started, or whatever you like to name it.

I choose this topic as majority of the students in that institution are young and have few (or none) knowledge about ASP.NET . The lecturer in that institution just recruiting trainers to train themselves in this summer vocation extensively.
(Why the syllabus in tertiary educational institution or university still not yet include .NET?)

I hope I can draw the attention from the students, inspire and give some idea to them for their coming yearly-long project  :)

Preparing the slide for that presentation is quite easy, at least easier than my previous presentation in TechEd, anyway, I hope the students have interest in my presentation and don't fall asleep inside the lecturer threatre, although it's summer vocation for students here. ;)

3 new local MVPs born

My local Microsoft office annouce 3 new MVPs who have received awards for the 2003 first half award cycle, and their names were displayed on the official Microsoft local office web site!
* Yes, you can't see my name on the new web page and it's really odd that they even forgot I'm a MVP too or don't know who I am?!

haha, that's just kidding, I know these 3 MVPs in person and we 're friends and committee members of the HK .NET User Group, and 2 of them are the Vice Presidents in our .NET User Group, and the third one is an active member in other .NET community like CSharpFriends and CSharpCorner.

Microsoft MVPs are professionals who voluntarily offer their expertise to enhance the technical skills and experience of others in the online and offline communities. - quote from Microsoft HK Ltd

They contribute and participate in this User Group in the early of this year, and Microsoft know the whole process and really appreciate their helpful action, so they're being nominated and received this MVP award in such a short period of time! That's great! That's really a good news that Microsoft not only willing to help and push our .NET developer community, but she also recognize the people who had contributed to our user group, this will build an encouraging spirit and I hope more and more local developer (though our population is small and insignficant compared with other countries) will join and share among us here. Moreover, at least our local .NET friends know where should they go now after browsing this web page. :)

DBCS problem in Web Matrix Reloaded

What a great news that Web Matrix Reloaded was official launched!

However, I saw a thread about using languages other then English in the ASP.NET Forum recently, and I open my WM and try to stimulate it when seeing this post.

I typed some characters in WM in the Design View as:

So, I replied a "OK" message to the corresonding thread. However, I saw a reply from the same member and try to do it again, then I face some difficulty. 

After I close the WM and re-open the file again, the character in the Design and Code mode become:

Yes, it's a Known Issue for WM as stated on the Release Note of WM:

Fixed-Width DBCS characters do not display correctly   
- Support for DBCS characters is not implemented yet.

So, DBCS is not yet implement in the Matrix Reloaded and saving the file in the format of UniCode or UTF have no luck. Yes, it's not anything new as I searched that Brain have already replied it in the Bug Report Forum and a couple of posts and discussion have been raised about using non-English in the Web Matrix Forum in the past:

E.g.
- Still have problem with Chinese on WM0.6
- If you ere chinese,pls enter in
- why web matrix does not support chinese(GB2312)
- don't support the Chinese char in the code view
- Why doesn't WebMatrox support Chinese?
- Can Not write Chinese??
- missing central european characters
- ...

Personally, I believe quite a lot of Chinese and Japanese were using this FREE tool. I'm not sure it's the cultural, social or financial issue, but using non-English character seem a pretty nice feature request to the WM Project Team. :)

Anyway, WM Reloaded contain many cool feature and bug fix and I'll blog more about WM Reloaded later. :)

ASP.NET Web Matrix Reloaded!!

Just back from camping in this weekend but got a shocking news (email) in my Inbox immediately!

Subject: "Announcing ASP.NET Web Matrix Reloaded" by Brian Goldfarb.

Yes! The new version of the ASP.NET Web Matrix (Reloaded) was released!!!

I'm a big fan of the ASP.NET Web Matrix and co-author a book in the past:
Beginning Dynamic Websites : with ASP.NET Web Matrix

I love this tool and it's very handy and powerful for ASP.NET Development. Honestly, I used Web Matrix frequently and nearly as the same rate like your Visual Studio .NET in work.

Apart from reading the official features list displayed on the ASP.NET Web Matrix homepage, I'd like to highlight and credit at a few more URL:

1. Frequently Asked Questions

2. Updated Guided Tour - Unlike the previous Guided Tour, VB.NET, C# and J# End-to-End Application sample included now

3. About the Project - The Web Matrix Project Team decreased in size compared with the previous version obviosuly, but the Web Matrix v0.6 is more and more powerful oppositely, how cool (come?) !

4. Web Matrix Discussion List

Update - I think I voice out this thing in the past but now repeat again: My co-authored book: Beginning Dynamic Websites : with ASP.NET Web Matrix is NOT displayed in the book list when I click the Community Section in the new version of Web Matrix. Do you think it's a Web Matrix related book from its name? :P

User Group Support from APress

Just got a good news from APress! today, and I'd like to thanks Stephanie Parker (Marketing and Publicity Co-ordinator from Springer-Verlag London Limited) firstly.

Stephanie and me start keeping contact since May, we have a great time though she've just hand-over her jobs to a staff in my region recently, and I'm glad to meet her (albeit virtually). She is very helpful and I'm happy to see the polite response from her staff in my region too.

They provide a warm and friendly support to our local User Group and promise to send the promotion catalog, give-away products and review book to our User Group members. If any User Group leader read this blog, I'd recommend you take a look at their APress! site, register and cooperate with their User Group section, they are a friend and beneficial to the User Group community. :)