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Music services?
OK, the bug is getting to me, I'm tempted to subscribe to a music
service. I'm leaning towards Yahoo Music Unlimited, as I love
Launchcast, but I'd like to find out people's experiences with these
services in general, and any thoughts for/against:
Yahoo Music Unlimited
iTunes
MSN Music
Napster
Rhapsody
Sony Connect
any others I'm missing
Looking for something with a good selection of bad music, and that works with my Rio Karma.
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Enter Atlas
As those who read Scott Guthrie's blog already know, the ASP.NET team will be adding support for AJAX functionality in ASP.NET 2.0, codenamed, "Atlas". Here's an excerpt from his post:
All of the pieces of AJAX – DHTML, JScript, and XMLHTTP – have been available in Internet Explorer for some time, and Outlook Web Access has used these techniques to deliver a great browser experience since 1998. In ASP.NET 2.0, we have also made it easier to write AJAX-style applications for any browser using asynchronous callbacks, and we use them in several...
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ASP.NET Mobile Controls XHTML Adapter released (with source)
Source code for the XHTML adapter is now available for download. Mobile application developers may modify this source code in order to modify the way the ASP.NET 1.1 mobile controls are rendered to XHTML devices.
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I refuse to use that acronym
As it was a feature that people thought was, "Nice, but give us a good example." way back when.
However, there is a nice Javascript RPC spell checker for your Web apps.
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Respect yourself, protect yourself (Input Validation Edition)
From JD:
Input is one of the most common attack vectors and input validation is a tough topic. There's lots of mistakes you can make. For example, don't rely on ASP.NET's request validation (you should use it, but you should not rely on it as your sole means of defense -- only YOU can define what good input for your application is). Also, don't assume you can figure out what "bad" input looks like and use a "deny" approach … opt for an "allow" approach and define good input up front. Assuming you get the right approach, using regular expressions effectively...
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Small updates
Other than the two excellent articles on the Club Web Site Starter Kit from Bill Evjen (which has nothing to do with Club Med and much to do with soccer/football), there were a few other changes to the ASP.NET Dev Center today:
Posted Scott Guthrie's walkthrough presentation and samples on ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 for those who hadn't seen it on his blog.
Posted Rob's demos from TechEd on the TechEd 2005 page
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This is a fabulous idea
I have to build a house now, just so I can add this to the stairs:
http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/drawers_in_the_stairs.php
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I hate to move
This is a fact I have known about myself for a long time — I hate to move. Not the, "physically causing my limbs to work in an organized manner to cause my body to change position" type of move, but the, "let's take all of our stuff from one house, and cause it to be in another house through our efforts" type of move. I have discovered lately, that there is something I mislike more — moving oneself (and ones' spouse/significant other). Especially when done in a number of truckloads. Even more especially when said move requires ferry connections.
Over...
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Pet peeves, exposed
OK, I have a little favour to ask. If you're sending me an email, and ESPECIALLY if you're sending me an email with one line of text in it, please, please, please turn off your 15 line footer saying, "This message is for the intended recipient, blah, blah, blah." What exactly are those supposed to do? Could you sue someone for accidentally receiving your email? Is your one line question or remark that valuable?
Gah.
There, I feel better now.
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Pigeon-holing, for fun and profit
I tried to explain my music tastes to someone today. I suppose I could have just added the usual pigeon-holes I use to identify the music I listen to when no one else is around: Industrial, Celtic, and other stuff. However, I was feeling somewhat overly precise, and it came out, "Industrial, that is somewhat between metal and techno; Celtic, heavy drum electronica... And Nina."We all pigeon-hole music, it's how we define our tastes. Is it Country? Rock? Pop? Jazz? etc. Then, those who look deeper into a genre see all sorts of minor variations, for example, Yahoo Music breaks...
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Another change today that I forgot
For those who didn't make it to TechEd (and even for those who were), I've created a new TechEd 2005 (US) page with all of the ASP.NET, VWD and IIS talks from TechEd. I'll also be including sample code as the speakers give it to me.
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Assorted Dev Center updates today
Apart from my first headlines in weeks (sorry about that), there are a few more "hidden" changes made to the ASP.NET Dev Center today:
A new shiny ASP.NET 2.0 Beta 2 FAQ
An important roadmap discussing the future of what's going to happen to the Mobile Controls. This is particularly interesting to me, as I love gadgets and having ASP.NET pages hit my various phones.
A new offer -- Brian has built up a Visual Web Developer Resource Kit, and those of us in the US & Canada (the rest of the world can email Brian to get themselves added) can now order it.
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Beta 2 install feedback wanted
For those who have installed Beta 2 (especially those who had already Beta 1 or a CTP installed), the Setup team is looking for feedback:
http://blogs.msdn.com/hgao/archive/2005/06/13/428472.aspx
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TechEd 2005 Trip Report
YAMT is to provide a trip report when coming back from a conference or other road trip. This does two things -- it informs those who didn't go just how much fun conferences are, and secondly, it tells everyone what you remember from the conference between alcoholic fogs. This year, my gracious grand-manager has said that we can blog our trip reports, saving me from having to cross-post, cleanse and otherwise write stuff twice.
Unlike many others, my trip to TechEd was delightfully painless. I was there to work the Visual Studio 2003 booth and the DEV cabana. I've also included...
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Meet the Finalizer
People who were at the day 2 keynote at TechEd got a chance to see The Finalizer -- a blade wielding battlebot powered by .NET Compact Framework. See the details (and more carnage) here.
UPDATED: Fixed the URL
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Security best practices, read and participate...
A while back I mentioned that JD had shown me my first example of a useful Wiki (I never include Wikipedia, despite the fact I use it all the time, as my brain doesn't recognize it as a Wiki), and now you can see it too. JD has moved most of his Security Wiki onto Channel9. Now you can read, and participate in, the amazing volume of guidance JD and his team have synthesized over the years by talking with hundreds of developers and architects. Here's the ASP.NET section, with information on code reviews, security checklists and more.
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The customer is always... confusing
The budget is gone for this fiscal year, product teams have been busy with TechEd, so it's time for me to figure out what to do for the next fiscal year for the four Dev Centers I have to watch over. Basically, this figuring boils down to me digging through the stats for the various Dev Centers, and trying to glean just what you all need and/or want.
We don't keep many stats, certainly nothing personal (although, Paul in New York - shame on you!), and nothing that any /.er would (should) be upset with -- page views, unique users, clicks...
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Coding4Fun article over at LockerGnome
The guys over at LockerGnome just posted a nice writeup of Coding4Fun including some statistics about why college students should learn programming. Thanks for the great article, Greg!
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Write your own Task Manager
You may occasionally need to know all of the apps running on your
machine (and maybe even be able to kill them), programmatically, or without something like
ProcExp handy. Calvin Hsia comes to your rescue with a tidy snippet
showing how to list the running processes.
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too funny, and too correct
Scott Swigart takes a page from Ambrose Bierce and gives us definitions of Microsoft release version names.
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... send ... more ... content strategists...
Our glorious manager, Matt (after the last guy took off to get a Powerbook) is looking for people to expand his empire. If you love Visual Studio, and want to contribute to the ongoing ... glory ... that are the Developer Centers, drop him your resume and apply. Follow in the majestic footprints of that guy, or this guy, or even the other one.