Colt Kwong Blog

User Group Gathering (Revisit)

We (Hong Kong .NET User Group) organize the first member gathering last week, and our Arts director edited and uploaded the photos to our portal site yesterday:

It's really nice to gather our members in Microsoft office on that day, and we invited a software architect and a Microsoft Certified Trainer to present 2 x technical sessions as well. I believe there's no dead air on that day, but why do Andy (The guy in white polo shirt) always playing his mobile phone even he sit so near to the stage? oh wait... is it because I am speaking on the stage? :P

Undesired code insertion/modification in Web Matrix

If you were using Web Matrix for your development, you may notice that the 'codes' are not keep intact from times to times.

Hey, what's up? Why do the IDE change my code? Yes, this happen all the times even in his brother - Visual Studio .NET

There's a member of the ASP.NET Forums face this problem again today. Mike have kindly explained that the page is re-create each time when switching from Design view to HTML view.

From my personal experience, I normally will 'wait' Web Matrix to load everything well before I code on it, or use the “Source Editor” as my default setting in the IDE. Actually I will 'wait' a Web Page finish loading in Visual Studio .NET too, especially when I open a new Web form from the Solution Explorer, or switching the code by (SHIFT) + [F7]

This is stupid, but it can minimize the chance of being add some undesired code like “TBODY”, “Word Wrap”, “Line Break“ or other 'nice' code formatting feature by the IDE itself. Moreover, I always hear a sentence from the Forums: “Leave my code alone.. Please...”  :-)

Navigation in ASP.NET

Like C# VS VB, WebControls VS HTMLControls, DatabaseStorage VS FileStorage... (I can compile a list of debatable subjects if you want to see), discussion of Response.Redirect VS Server.Transfer is also a FAQ in all forums / discussion board.

I'm preparing the presentation material for my TechEd session on 2nd Sept, and one of the demo that I'll show involve the use of Server.Transfer

Why I use Server.Transfer ? What's the pro and cons compared with Response.Redirect? I'll talk about that or discuss with the attendee in TechEd (I think this open-end question can kill some times in my session :P

Today, I saw an entry by Darrell and he recommended a pretty good article in this navigation subject, and it worth reading. :)

First User Group Gathering

Just finish the first gathering day of my .NET User Group yesterday, this is a great success although the number of attendee is far less than the registered/reserved records (Yeah, the number is better than my prediction in fact , we've a registration form and 51 members click the Register button, but 35 members finally attend the gathering only.)

I met many members yesterday and all of them feel excited about this kind of gathering and looking forward to the next gathering. :-)

I've plan the activities / event for the User Group in the coming year already in the past, but I 'm going to arrange/insert a special user group event in Nov/Dec, as Thomas told me that he will have a vocation and he'll fly to Hong Kong later. I'll be his guide, and that's why I make such travel arrangement for him. :P

Access upsize to SQL Server 2000

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'Server Application Unavailable' error on Windows XP

ScottGu start a new Forum Group in the official ASP.NET Forum with the captioned subject.

Details can be found at http://www.asp.net/faq/ms03-32-issue.aspx

Discussion can be posted at http://asp.net/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?tabindex=1&PostID=317424

.NET VS Java

Don't shoot me first after reading the title of this entry...

I read different kinds and a lot of salary index, programmer population, technical/infrastrcuture comparion, sample application comparsion, performance figures, ... etc etc. about these two technology in the past.

What I want to say is that I saw an interesting post from the ASP.NET Forum tonight, and the subject is “Why still Java is so populer compared to .net?”

I'm doubt on the discussion or comparsion thing in the past as I believe the salary index of corresponding technology should vary from time to time, maybe due to the reason of geographically and politically. Tonight, however, ScottGu reply a thread in the (Free4All? Debate?) Forum and quote a couple of interesting (nice) stat:

• number of .NET developers surpassed the number of Java developers in the last 3 months
• ASP.NET usage also surpassed JSP/Servlet/J2EE usage in the same period
• *a lot* more adoption in the next 18 months

I'm still believe... I'm walking in the right way. :)

Scanning Tool to Identify Host Computers That Do Not Have the 823980 Security Patch (MS03-026) Installed

Recalling my 'experience' of the Blaster Worm 10 days ago... I receive a Kb from my co-worker today.

(I think I'm the first batch of worm eaters in 10 days ago... this Kb is too late for me but it's useful for other corporation / company)

How to Use the KB 823980 Scanning Tool to Identify Host Computers That Do Not Have the 823980 Security Patch (MS03-026) Installed

Programming Languages

Microsoft Programming Languages War:

Contents

The Benefits of Microsoft .NET
Visual Basic .NET
Visual C++ .NET
Visual C# .NET
Visual J# .NET
Summary

Mad About Developers!

I visited a bookstore last month and write an entry about what I see in the past. Apart from the book that I mentioned in my last entry, I also saw a new magazine in that bookstore actually and its name is “.NET Asia Magazine”

Anyway, I browse to the Microsoft Asia site today and found that an inaugural copy of that magazine can be downloaded for FREE. (Yee.... Yeah!)

When I walking in the bookstore last month, that magazine was attracting me not only it have the pic of Bill on the cover, but it have an attractive title “Mad About Developers”. I read the free copy this evening, and there're 2 impressive quotes :

• Asia is an exciting place for many reasons. There are a huge number of developers; in fact, there are more developers in Asia Pacific than Europe or America separately! So, Colin and the new team are there to step up and lead that charge," - by Chris Atkinson (Microsoft Vice-President for Sales and Marketing in the Asia Pacific and Greater China Region)
• “We do not hire unless we are 100 percent certain about the candidate. Not only was it expected that these guys could excel technically - that was taken as a given - but none of them came on board unless they could demonstrate complete and utter passion and commitment towards the team mission. That is, to win the hearts and minds of developers and make them wildly successful building web services and applications for the Microsoft platform. They have to be MAD about developers, MAD about creating great software and MAD about telling people how great their experiences will be when they adopt .NET tools!“ - by Colin Png (Microsoft Regional Director for Developer & Platform Evangelism)

I met Colin in the MVP Summit at Shanghai in 2002 and he's really cool. He respect our developers so much and spend almost 1 year in recruiting people in his team and interview over 100 people at the same time. If you want to know more about the developers and trends in Asia, check it out! ;-)