I'm one of those developers that likes to build things myself mainly because the challenge is fun.  However, lately I've been taking time to look at some of the 3rd party controls out there mainly because some of the things I've needed to do are already done (and done well) and I'd save time and money by using them.  I'm not against re-inventing the wheel if I think I can do it better, but that's impossible for many things especially when companies are throwing multiple developers at a single control or framework.  So, here are a few of the 3rd party controls and/or sample applications that I've come across recently that were interesting.

Speedy Grid Controls

Tonight I came across a nice set of controls from DevExpress that support a "server mode" so that only the data used by a grid is loaded into it as opposed to loading all of the records that may need to be paged and then filtering them on the Web server.  They provide a nice option to bind to any LINQ provider which makes it really cool.  You can of course write this type of thing yourself (with some effort), but with their solution you can get the "server mode" feature out of the box with no coding on your part.  They have two screencasts available including one for ASP.NET and one for Windows Forms if you're interested in more details.

Validation Controls

Awhile back I blogged about Peter Blum's nice suite of validator and security controls and how they could be used to secure Web forms and validate data entered by end users.  They're definitely something you'll want to check out if you want to ensure your pages are locked down as much as possible and that data is getting thoroughly scrubbed and validated before going into your database.

Silverlight 2 Demos

Infragistics released a really nice Silverlight 2 demo called FaceOut that leverages many of the new features in Silverlight 2.  All of the source code is available for free and it's a great way to learn from experts like J. Ambrose Little who does this cool stuff everyday (in between naps of course :-)).

OrgChart Controls

OK...I'll admit that this one is a shameless plug for my Smart Web Controls company (I could pretend I'm not associated with it but too many of my buddies know what I'm up to and would call me out :-)).  If you're interested in displaying OrgCharts, product hierarchies, site maps, etc. check out the SmartChartLite and SmartChartPro controls for ASP.NET. 

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.....