Colt Kwong Blog

The First MSDN Video in Hong Kong

I'm on TV! Back to the July/Augest 2003, the MS HK Developer Evangelist (PeterTy) and my HK .NET User Group were discussing how to influnce the local developer community and deliver the message of ".NET", then.. he had a crazy interesting brainstorm idea after attending the PDC03... create a video and broadcast .NET!

Obviously, I'm not a good looking guy as Reeves, but we're tire of the "classic" channels to influnce the community and the "idea" of MSDN TV is cool. Therefore, we used an abnormal approach to show the power of ASP.NET to the audience, and I hope we can entertain the developers and also draw their attention (from the content.. not me).

MSDN Video Empower Web Development—ASP.NET, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, and Web Matrix Exploring technologies can be fun – not just from a technical perspective, but from an entertainment perspective. We are trying to introduce ASP.NET to you in a new and interesting way, enjoy! (Special thanks to Hong Kong .NET User group and Mr. Colt Kwong, for the big contribution to the filming of this video!) Demo code download My First ASPNET application Localize Application Please read first - Readme.txt

In this video, we show the use of "Localization" and "Fast Programming" in VS.NET, it's technically simple but (I hope) real entertaining.

Making this video is $$$$$ hard, I'd like to give a big thanks to my brothers and sisters of my HK .NET User Group and the handsome DE, all of us give up our personal time and go to rural area and record this video together. Before recording this video, we spend quite a lot of time in casting, meeting, rehearsal, prepare the script, clothing, equipment...etc etc (The process of making this movie is exhausing, I now understand the status of the Hollywood star... and I'd prefer to write 1000000 lines of code instead... :S 

BTW, Thanks to Jason as his last blog is extremely useful for me... See? I love to get/set the local & global community :-D

Wizard / Step-wise Control in ASP.NET

In order to complete a long and complex process on the web, e.g. user registration, profile maintenance, we don't like to show it in a single long page, while we will create a series of step-by-step screens for users so that users can complete it and verify the dependent data easily.

In ASP.NET Whidbey, there's a brand new server control named "Wizard", which allow us to complete this kind of task easily from a developer point of view. Comparing the technique that we always use in ASP.NET v1.* like:

• Create pages and redirect user accordingly
• Hack the TabStrip/MultiPage control
• Store info into ViewState and toggle the visibility of <asp:Panel/>
• Dynamically load different user controls
• ...
• ...

Is it complicate or involve lots of (hard)coding? Hand up, go and take a look at the lastest article written by Michele, and we can see how to add Wizard-like functionality to Web application, create a FSMWizardEngine and taste the new (templated) Wizard control in ASP.NET Whidbey.

Rich Content in .NET Asia Magazine

Just receive the latest .NET Asia Magazine yesterday, and there're lots of informative articles/columns in this magazine focus on .NET. However, there's a abnormal content/arrangement in this issue, that is, there're _so_ many articles about "ASP.NET" in this issue, well, good read!

When I was skimming the magazine, I found an interesting article which is written by my fellow forum moderator - Don Kiely. I'm not sure why Don write an article on this "Asian" magazine, maybe it is relate to his recent tour in Asian countries - New Zealand and Korea. ;)

Anyway, Welcome back Don. :)

ASP.NET Resource Kit is available

Thanks to John Mandia, the ASP.NET Resource Kit is available now.

The ASP.NET Resource Kit is an essential resource for any web developer whether youre already using ASP.NET today, or looking to learn ASP.NET. The kit contains step-by-step instructions for getting started with ASP.NET, free controls from third party vendors, access to great ASP.NET hosting deals and more.

DevAdivce Family and Server Control Blogs

A few of new blogging family/community:

• DevAdvice Family
  
  
  • Weblogs @ ASP.NET Advice
    
  • Weblogs @ XML Advice
    
  • Weblogs @ SQL Advice
    
  • Weblogs @ Regex Advice
    
• Server Control Blogs

• Coming...* [via Nikhilk]

[*Update: The HyperLink to the Server Control Blogs will be updated once it go live]

Hosting ASP.NET in Web Matrix Server and IIS

Scenario:

One of the common practices for Web Matrix users is that they write code / develop / test / debug ASP.NET Web form by using Web Matrix locally, and then ready to upload the files to IIS for real deployment.

However, one of the common problem occur at this moment is that the IIS server can't host any ASP.NET pages, it may display nothing on screen or 404 error.

E.g. They may have a <asp:TextBox /> or <asp:Label /> with some HTML text on a page, but the page turn out display the HTML Text only?!

Cause & Resolution:

This problem is due to the mis-configuration of ASP.NET on the IIS, that is, ASP.NET is not register properly on the IIS. In order to solve this problem, aspnet_regiis.exe has to be used and re-install the ASP.NET

More Info:

• http://asp.net/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?tabindex=1&PostID=467288
• http://asp.net/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?tabindex=1&PostID=385750
• http://asp.net/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?tabindex=1&PostID=384245

Large File Upload in ASP.NET

Just saw a message in AspAdvice list and noticed that useful component - Flesk.Uploader

Flesk.Uploader is a free tool that allows users with a WebBrowser to upload files to a webserver via HTTP and save them to a directory or database. Works only on .NET FrameWork 1.1

We can save (over 300Mb?) file into Web server in ASP.NET (That's obviously save the time of a lot of people who are looking for something like that base on the discussion on various forums).

Well, it's FREE and FULL source code available too. Cool! :)

SQL Server Reporting Services Now Available