Colt Kwong Blog

Introducing BulletedList Control in ASP.NET v2.0

I saw a blog by Juliet in my local blogging site 2 days ago, and she wrote an article about creating a custom control inheriting from Repeater class and then generate a data-bindable list of data in bullet format.

This kind task, I mean create a (un)ordered list, is pretty common in data presentation on the web, it may / may not releated to a data source though. Thomas wrote a receipt (source code) in this subject for the title “ASP.NET Developer's Cookbook” as well.

Moreover, this encourage me to write an article on ASPAlliance yesterday:
ASP.NET v2.0: Introducing BulletedList Control 

This article introduce one of the >45 new server control in ASP.NET v2.0 - BulletedList Control. This control inherits from ListControl class and it work very similar to his brother: CheckBoxList, DropDownList, ListBox and RadioButtonList.

Therefore, no more looping, avoid the “overkill” Repeater control, or even write code to create a custom control for this issue, as ASP.NET v2.0 do it for you now. :-)

Smell ... ASP.NET V2.0

I was moderating the ASP.NET Forum tonight and found that Sreedhar just post a message about ASP.NET v2.0!

That's an exciting moment as the ASP.NET team is going to announce the next version of ASP.NET in PDC these days. In addition to the presentation in PDC, a couple of articles are going to published very soon.

Moreover, it look like a bunch of ASP.NET v2 preview books are going to publish shortly and a publishing war competition will kick off soon...

Are you ready? Get set?

	ASP.NET 2.0 Revealed - By Patrick Lorenz
	A First Look at ASP.NET v2.0 - by Alex Homer (Author), Dave Sussman (Author), Rob Howard (Author)
	Introducing Asp.Net 2.0 - by Dino Esposito

PHP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant Alpha

PHP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant Alpha 

The PHP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant Alpha is designed to help you convert PHP pages and applications to ASP.NET. It does not make the conversion process completely automatic, but it will speed up your project by automating some of the steps required for migration.

This is a very early release (Alpha) of the PHP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant and we need your feedback to make it a great tool. Please use this PHP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant forum to report any bugs or suggestions.

Once it’s finished, we plan to make the migration assistant available as a free download, similar to the Java Language Conversion Assistant that is available today.

Thanks for your help!

The ASP.NET Team

[by Shawn Nandi]

Recalling the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant Alpha that I blog last week, I saw quite a lot of threads complainting that the assistant CAN'T do that and that... blah. So I think I should bold one of the sentence here. :)

A New Microsoft Asia Developer Community Program

It's live (finally)... the MSDN Connection Program!

Overview
The MSDN Connection Program is an initiative aimed at increasing the satisfaction of software developers. It is a card-carrying membership program that provides developers with unique benefits. It has 3 Tiers - Silver, Gold and Platinum. MSDN Connection will deliver tailored content and benefits to it's members.

Microsoft's MSDN Connection Program will provide developers with a fast track registration experience to developer events, opportunities to access information for developers in Asia-Pacific region in an easy and convenient way, and the opportunity to access personalized benefits and various discounts to Microsoft organized events. Read below for more information on tiers and benefits.

Country Specific Programs
MSDN Connection has been launched first in Singapore (October 1, 2003) and will be rolled out in 12 countries across the region over the coming year. Other participating countries include Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

.NET Magazine in Asia

The second issue of the .NET Asia Magazine just released, and it's available online as the first issue. :)

ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant Alpha

The ASP.NET team announcing the “ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant Alpha” a few days ago (A few of related forums created but disappeared immediately and appear again today ?!)

ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant Alpha

The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant is designed to help you convert ASP pages and applications to ASP.NET. It does not make the conversion process completely automatic, but it will speed up your project by automating some of the steps required for migration.

Click here to learn what the Migration Assistant can do.

This is a very early release of the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant and we need your feedback to make it a great tool. Please visit the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant Forum and report any bugs or suggestions.

A utility to transfer database - DbDataTransfer

I came across with this thread in the ASP.NET Forum today and notice that Vicenc created a tool for transferring database to a remote location, and it looks promising!

DbDataTransfer 

DbDataTransfer is a utility to transfer a database from server to server. It can be used as a replacement for the Export/Import feature on Sql Server Enterprise Manager (well...not ready now...)

If you are using a provider who doesn't allow you to do backups (for example webmatrixhosting) you can use it to download you database to a local server and then automate backups on local server.

Use

Just start the program, inform source and destination connection strings to connect to both databases and hit Go!.
Both databases need to be identic, so you first need a correct database on the destination server. By now it doesn't CREATE/DROP anything, it expects all objects were created previouslly.
There is a configuration file with two entries (one for each database)  where you can configure source and destination Connection Strings, so you don't have to write it every time (this will be used too on the future batch mode).

What it does

Reads one table, transfers to destination and moves to next table. As you can see there is no magic in it.
At every execution it disables all triggers and all constraints for all tables in destination database before inserting rows. Then deletes all data on destination tables and transfers source rows. If the table has an identity column it preserves the column values.
After the work is done, triggers and constraints are reenabled.

Future work

• Save log
• Transfer only selected tables
• Work in batch mode. Start from command line with parameters and do all the work without user intervention (usefull to schedule)
• Improve speed
• Recreate objects instead of deleting data (in this way there is no need to have identical database structures)
• ...

Yes, that's really cool and I love that ASP.NET community!

How to pass authentication credentials in System.Web.Mail class

I believe this is a FAQ on the ASP.NET Forum and other newsgroup as well, and the answers/replies are normally be - “No, you can't! You have to use other third party control in order to do so if your mail server require you to logon.“

This's not always true... and I learn something new from Mike (more info can be found at my previous blog - FAQ for Email Sending in ASP.NET) today, he show us how to write 3 lines of code so as to send a authentication required MailMessage object in ASP.NET.

Awesome!

ASP.NET 2.0 Resources Consolidation

ASP.NET 2.0 Interview with Scott Guthrie

Scott Guthrie is on .NET Rocks to talk about ASP.NET 2.0.

Edgar Sánchez gives a summary about this interview, and lists many new ASP.NET 2.0 features. [Christian]

I know ScottGu, Christian and many others blog about the information of ASP.NET 2.0, that's very good and informative. I also noticed that there's a new Yahoo group created when I were moderating the ASP.NET Forum tonight: view post

Yes, many people are now trying to prepare, consolidate and organize the information of ASP.NET 2.0 from different channels now, many people are waiting for the presentation in PDC too, well, maybe a new unofficial domain name / portal displaying these kind of consolidated information will appear soon.

RSS to WML Converter

Learn something new today

RSS to WML Converter

Oct 6 2003

If your web site has an RSS feed, you can make it available to mobile phones and PDA's by converting it to WML (Wireless Markup Language) format. MetaClient.com is providing a free web-based tool for this purpose. Our RSS to WML coverter will convert your RSS document into a WML site, and all you have to do is put it on your web site.