New Version of Expression Web SuperPreview for Internet Explorer Available
There is a new version available for Microsoft Expression SuperPreview for Windows Internet Explorer. Expression Web SuperPreview for Internet Explorer is a visual debugging tool that makes it easier to migrate your web sites from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 7 or 8.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Results of AJAX Statistic for .NET Development
Simone [1] has created another survey [2] concerning AJAX usage with ASP.NET. The results are available, now, and it is really interesting to see that there are only small changes in the use of AJAX libraries for ASP.NET developers.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Microsoft Live Labs - Deepfish Project Canceled
Some of you have heard about the Deepfish project at Microsoft Research. In March 2007 Microsoft announced [1] a new mobile Web browser to bring desktop-like browsing to mobile devices. Since some days the Deepfish project Web site has been removed, you'll get an http 404 (file not found) or get redirected to the new Live Labs overview [2] (there is only one page a Microsoft New Zealand talking still about Deepfish [3]). Deepfish is canceled, and there is no other news about a better Web experience on Windows Mobile devices.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, September 10, 2008
How to... move from AjaxPro to ASP.NET AJAX PageMethods
In one of my last posts I blogged about the future [1] of Ajax.NET Professional [2] (AjaxPro) and that I'm not able to do further development on that project. A lot of my readers feeling sad about this but I had to concentrate more on new technologies that will revolutionize web application development.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Future of Ajax.NET Professional
I'm happy to see that Ajax.NET Professional is used about 13.3% when using .NET related web applications [1]. Starting with my first post Using a HttpHandler and Attributes to call C# methods in JavaScript [2] in February 2005 the AJAX hype started around the world. Two months later I renamed the project to Ajax.NET [3] and added nearly all features that are the most used until today. In May 2005 Windows Mobile support [4] has been added and Ajax.NET was the only .NET framework that was able to run AJAX requests on mobile devices. In the end of 2005 I was invited to the PDC 05 in Los Angeles where I could meet Brian Goldfarb [5] and Jonathan Hawkins [6] to see how Microsoft is working on AJAX in ASP.NET (Atlas) [7]. I meet some other .NET developers and had great ideas on how AJAX will change web applications. In October I published a new product called Ajax.NET Professional [8] which was doing the same but contains several other security features. Because of a change in the JavaScript source I changed the name from Ajax.NET.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Friday, January 4, 2008
Volta - Microsoft Live Labs
On December 5th last year Microsoft Live Labs announced the Volta technology preview [1], a developer toolset for building multi-tier web applications using existing and familiar tools, techniques and patterns. You architect and built your application as a .NET client application, assigning the portions of the application that run on the server tier and client tier late in the development process. You can target either web browsers or the CLR as clients and Volta handles the complexities of tier-splitting. The compiler creates cross-browser JavaScript for the client tier, web services for the server tier, and all communication, serialization, synchronization, security, and other boilerplate code to tie the tiers together. In effect, Volta offers a best-effort experience i n multiple environments without requiring tailoring of the application.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, January 3, 2008
Microsoft Download Center using Silverlight 1.0
Some weeks ago Microsoft already published a preview version of the Microsoft Download Center. Now, there is a new URL for the preview version (which is now called beta): http://www.microsoft.com/beta/downloads/ [1].
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Sunday, December 23, 2007
Ajax View: Remotely Monitoring Web 2.0 Applications
I'm using Ajax View [1] more and more and find it very useful.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, December 20, 2007
[de] Silverlight Get Together
(English: I will start new workshops about Ajax, ASP.NET and Silverlight in the next months, first will start on Thursday about Silverlight.)
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, July 23, 2007
Silverlight .NET Support
The Silverlight team has released a new version [1] today at the MIX with .NET support. Since Mike announced [2] this Web developers are waiting for this new feature.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, April 30, 2007
webinale 07
I will be available for Microsoft Silverlight discussions at the [webinale 07 [1] conference in Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart to talk and discuss about the latest version of Silverlight presented at the Mix07 in Las Vegas. Of course, you can talk with me about Ajax.NET Professional, too.]
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Saturday, April 28, 2007
Rich Media Platform Comparison
I found a nice table which will show a comparison between Microsoft products and Flash/Flex:
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, April 19, 2007
Microsoft Live Labs - DeepFish Experience
Some weeks ago I installed the DeepFish Technology Preview [1] which will enhance existing mobile browsing technologies by displaying content in a view that is closer to the desktop experience. After installation was finished I was very anxious to see how it is working. I have several Windows mobile devices I can test. The first was a Qtek 9100 using a GSM Internet connection (9.600 baud, is my modem at home which I can use at no cost). Oh, what will the benefit be when using Deepfish compared with the built-in Internet Explorer?
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Microsoft Silverlight
For all of you didn't noticed the name change of code name WPF/E, it is now Microsft Silverlight. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the Web. Silverlight integrates with existing Web applications and, of course, almost all Web technologies you are already using like Ajax.NET Professional [1] or ASP.NET in common.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, April 16, 2007
WPF/E VS2005 Template (ASP.NET Version)
I found a post [1] on Paul Glavichs [2] blog about the WPF/E Visual Studio .NET 2005 template:
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, December 7, 2006
The idea of UpdatePanels combined with JavaScript
I come across more and more web sites where JavaScript is used to get great user experience on the client-side. There are a couple of JavaScript frameworks written only to add animation effects to static html web pages. My favorite is the Yahoo! UI Library [1] and the great library yui-ext [2] (written by Jack Slocum [3]) that will extend the Yahoo! UI with common form elements like a dialog [4], a grid or layout panels.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Why some of my AJAX mistakes are nothing new
On my last post [1] I wrote about some common mistakes when upgrading your web application to an AJAX enabled one. I got a great feedback on this post... and a couple of developers wrote something like "Don't use Microsoft products!" or "Use JSP instead of ASPX and you are fine...!".
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, November 21, 2006
.NET Developers Group München - Web 2.0 für Webentwickler
Ich bin morgen Abend (20. November 2006) bei der .NET Developers Group München [1] und spreche über Web 2.0. In meinem Vortrag möchte ich verschiedene Frameworks (Yahoo! UI, Dojo, AjaxPro [2], Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX) kurz vorstellen, und auch Funktionen zeigen, die viele bis jetzt wohl noch nicht kennen (wie z.B. das lokale Cachen von Daten oder eine Offline AJAX Anwendung). Außerdem habt ihr die Chance Bücher zum Thema AJAX zu gewinnen, es lohnt sich also auf jeden Fall vorbeizuschauen.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, November 20, 2006
What's next with AjaxPro?
That's a good questions: what's next with AjaxPro [1]? I'm still working on the Java port of AjaxPro, working already very good. During the port I found several new ideas on how to improve AjaxPro.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Where thumboo is already used?
My new started service for creating screenshots of any web page is used more and more. http://www.sharepointkicks.com/, http://www.dotnetkicks.com/ (those two sides only used it while WebSnapr was not working) and http://www.worldwidirectory.com/ [1] are using the thumbnail service to visualize outgoing links on their web site.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Friday, October 27, 2006
How to create screenshots from web sites? thumboo.com is the answer!
From the idea of Juan Xavier of websnapr [1] I started yesterday to write my own screenshot capture engine, and it is working already very nice. I registered a new domain called thumboo [2] (thumbnails and a cool "oo" as it is in Google or whatever).
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, October 24, 2006
More MS Ajax Pain
Rick Strahl is writing about his experience about the new Atlas files:
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Who is linking me?
I added a new page where urls are listed that are linking to http://www.ajaxpro.info [1]. The web page is updated frequently and will show small captured screenshots. This service will be available for your web site and blog end of this week.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, October 23, 2006
Yahoo! JavaScript Library and AjaxPro
There are a lot of great JavaScript libraries available that are used be developers to add Ajax and Web 2.0 to their web sites. While AjaxPro [1] is optimized to run on all web browsers including Windows Mobile devices I got some requests on supporting the Yahoo! JavaScript libraries [2]. I have done some internal changes that will allow you do use the Yahoo! JavaScript files instead of the generated files from AjaxPro. Because there is no JSON parser in the Yahoo! lib I'm using the json.js written by Douglas Crockford [3]. But first have a look at the ASP.NET page (C#):
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Friday, October 6, 2006
AjaxPro Release include VS Template now
As I mentioned already that new AjaxPro [1] releases will include a simple Visual Studio .NET 2005 template for C# and VB.NET. You can download the latest version 6.9.22.2 [2] including this file at the CodePlex project site [2].
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Friday, September 22, 2006
AjaxPro at Google Groups with more than 4.000 members
Today the Ajax.NET Professional Google group [1] has reach the 4.000 member border. I did a search for AJAX [2] for all the Google groups available and was very happy to see my group at the second top position. Only Google with the Google Web Toolkit hits this group with additional 500 more members.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, September 21, 2006
Books: Ajax with ASP.NET
I read a nice post here [1] from Long Zheng who got two copies of the new book Ajax with ASP.NET [2] you can win, read his blog.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, September 20, 2006
C# and VB.NET Visual Studio .NET 2005 Template
I will add the VS.NET 2005 project templates for C# and VB.NET to the next releases, too. A current version is available at Google Groups - AjaxPro [1].
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, September 18, 2006
AjaxPro, GPS, Windows Mobile 5 and Google Maps
While I was on a busines trip I started to write a small application that is using the Windows Mobile 5 GPS API to get the current location. After this I build a small web server that was running on the Windows Mobile device to offer a small web application that will show the current position on the Google Map, very funny application. I hope I can fix some bugs when there is no signal. The next step was to get a list of available wireless networks at the current location, added some pushpins to the Google map and... the result is a own map of wireless access points.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Albert Weinert will talk about Ajax.NET Professional in Cologne, Germany
Alber Weinert [1] is talking [2] about Ajax.NET Professional [3] (and details on JSON [4]) in Cologne, Germany:
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Why addNamespace(...) is removed?
I removed addNamespace because of the missing support on older web browsers or mobile devices. The problem is that addNamespace will add a new property to the window object. This is working great on all common web browsers. See the next lines to see how you can change addNamespace usage to get your JavaScript working on all web browsers.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Yahoo! Web Services Request and AjaxPro JSON Parser - I love it!
Yesterday night I build an example on how to use Yahoo! Web Services [1] with the AjaxPro JSON parser [2]. The example will call a Yahoo! Web Service with output type set to JSON (see http://developer.yahoo.com/common/json.html [3]). The response will be deserialized to an .NET structure using the AjaxPro JSON parser (from the stand-alone version or the build-in parser in Ajax.NET Professional).
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Serializing Objects as JSON using Atlas, JSON.NET and AjaxPro [Part 2]
As there was a little discussion [1] about serialization of .NET types and deserialization of these genereted JSON strings I have updated Ajax.NET Professional [2] (version 6.7.9.1) to allow parsing of new Date statements, too. You can use the JSON generated string to do a deserialization right after, now.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, July 10, 2006
AJAX Web Applications and Time Zones
Because I'm currently playing with a lot of AJAX frameworks I'm searching for the correct use of dates and times in web applications. Ajax.NET Professional [1] is using time zone indentifier to know from which time zone the request is comming from. See following server-side C# code:
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Friday, July 7, 2006
Why Ajax.NET Professional is using the __type property?
Ajax.NET Professional [1] is using attributes, there is no need to inherit from special pages or include dummy web controls to do all the job, there is no need to write special source code. Any .NET assembly can include classes with AjaxMethods that can be used in your ASP.NET web application.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Friday, July 7, 2006
Work off-line with Ajax
In Internet Explorer (and all other common web browsers) you have an menu item File -> Work off-line. What does this do with you web application? Of course, it is working offline, no communication possible to the web server. When connected with a dial-up connection it can happen that this is done automatically if you disconnect from your internet service provider.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, July 3, 2006
IE7 and no native XMLHttpRequest support
This weekend I had a deep look on the native XMLHttpRequest support with the new Internet Explorer version 7 which is still in beta. If you do a Google search for "native xmlhttp support ie [1]" you will read that everyone is happy with this native support. Yes, it is the first step to have XMLHttpRequest on every PC. Ajax developers have changed their JavaScript source code to support this new object, this is great!
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, July 3, 2006
[DE] Dodned .NET Franken Usergroup Treffen
Dieter Föttinger schreibt auf seinem Blog [1] folgendes zu dem Usergroup Treffen [2] (INETA Usergroup Franken) gestern Abend:
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, June 29, 2006
RSS feed available for Ajax.NET Professional Releases
I will start to publish new releases with an RSS feed in the next days. The URL for the RSS feed is http://www.ajaxpro.info/changes.xml [1] where you can see a first version of the latest changes already. The links for each release (post) is currently the same for each release. I will add links for each release to the Ajax.NET Professional Google group [2] threads that are talking about the changes for each version.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, June 29, 2006
Ajax and latency problems
I tried to get more information about the speed of AjaxPro calls on my web site. First of all I did a research on how the latency of internet connection will change the duration. For this I run a test for my web server at http://just-ping.com/ [1]. You will see that Nürnberg, Germany will be always the fastest because it is located near to my web servers location.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, June 29, 2006
Autcompletion Issues with Yahoo, Scriptaculous Libraries
Cheng Guangnan reports on a potential issue [1] with the autocompletion/suggestion [2] support offered by both Yahoo UI and Scriptaculous libraries. The problem involves parallel calls - there’s the potential for an initial list of suggestions to be displayed after a subequent list. His screencasts show what’s going on.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, June 22, 2006
Why I hate Web 2.0/AJAX?
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, June 21, 2006
XML -> JSON Serialization
With the next release of Ajax.NET Professional you will be able to transform any XmlDocument or XmlNode into a JSON object. This is really cool because we have already a lot of xml documents in our web applications. Currently you have to write a custom class or struct where you have to fill the properties or public fields. Now, you simply call the JavaScriptUtil.GetIJavaScriptObjectFromXmlNode method to return a JavaScript object. At http://munich.schwarz-interactive.de/datatype.aspx [1] I have added a new test (Test 32) which will read the RSS from the Google group and display the title and last 10 posts.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Monday, June 19, 2006
AJAX on I-Mate JASJAR, Smartphones and Opera Mini for Pocket PC
See following web browser user agents accessed my web site at http://www.ajaxpro.info/ [1], all are working with Ajax.NET Professional:
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Pocket PC 2003 Support
The new version 6.6.13.2 will support Pocket PC 2003 and Windows Mobile 5 devices including Smart Phones, too.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Tuesday, June 13, 2006
AJAX books promotion code: 25% off!
I have a promotion code that will give you 25% off for the two books Professional Ajax and Ajax For Dummies. Use the promotion code FCE on the online shop at http://www.wiley.com/go /computing [1].
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Friday, June 9, 2006
Windows Mobile 5 and Ajax.NET Professional
I put an example online that will show the current beta version of Ajax.NET Professional. Try the page http://munich.schwarz-interactive.de/default.aspx [1] with your Windows Mobile 5 device. You will see two alerts, one showing the current time of the web server, the second one will return two properties of an PersonX object in a List<PersonX>. Would be nice to see if we get it running on older Pocket PCs, too.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Friday, June 9, 2006
Ajax.NET Professional 6.6.2.2 with new Converters
I put the new version online, download the latest DLL at http://www.ajaxpro.info/ [1]. There are a lot of performance changes done, and the lib is now working perfect with the script.aculo.us effects. A not yet finished updated version of the Starter Kit is online, see http://munich.schwarz-interactive.de/ [2]. See the changes here:
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Friday, June 2, 2006
The Bitmap is back...!
Today I added the BitmapConverter.cs which will support returning a Bitmap directly from Ajax.NET Professional [1]. Attached to the Google groups thread [2] you will see what is working today (the Bitmap example is the method Test27). Of course, I didn't add all data types... ;)
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, June 1, 2006
Wiki Example using ProntoWiki
I have found a great wiki project on SourceForge called ProntoWiki [1]. The next days I will see where Ajax.NET Professional would fit best in this wiki project. You will find an updated version here: http://munich.schwarz-interactive.de/wiki.aspx?wiki=default [2]
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Sunday, May 21, 2006
Beta Starter Kit available online
I've started a new url where I put the beta Starter Kit online. It includes the AutoComplete [1], Security [2], Feedback [3] and Wiki [4] example (editor/p@ssw0rd). The default.aspx [5] is testing several data types. The next Starter Kit update will be available end of this month. During this time period I will collect feedback and new ideas to be added to the kit. The download will be available at http://www.ajaxpro.info/ [6].
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, May 18, 2006
AutoComplete or Suggest Control for Ajax.NET
I have a new demo at http://munich.schwarz-interactive.de/autocomplete.aspx [1] which will use a textbox and Ajax.NET Professional [2] to search for customer names (1st textbox) and then for the orders of this selected customer (2nd textbox).
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, May 18, 2006
Google vs Ajax.NET Professional
Today Google put the GWT (Google Web Toolkit [1]) online which includes several UI controls, but also the possibility to exchange data between server and client and back. While downloading the framework and watching the examples I found following page: Sharing objects between Java source and JavaScript [2]. Hm, if I compare the data types that are supported with Ajax.NET Professional [3] I feel happy. Since I added more .NET 2.0 support like generic Dictionary or Nullable types... I can use any code that I'm currently using, great. In the last weeks I removed a lot of old common ASP.NET postbacks to AJAX requests. Most features could easily replaced by adding only the AjaxMethod attribute, no other C# code had to be changed. On the client-side, of course, I had to write some JavaScript, but this you have to do everytime you are talking about Web 2.0 or AJAX.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Web 2.0 Effects with Ajax.NET Professional
I have modified an example form the script.aculo.us [1] web site that is showing some effects for a shopping cart web application. The example is using a generic dictionary (Dictionary<string,int>) to store the article and count in a session variable. Note: you must use the latest version of Ajax.NET Professional [2] (6.5.17.1 or higher).
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Google Trends, very interessting...
Without any comment, have a look at these images from Google Trends LABS:
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Thursday, May 11, 2006
More controls for Ajax.NET Professional
I get a lot of requests for new controls that are using Ajax.NET Professional [1]. Some don't want to use other controls, they are searching for the best (or right) way to develop such controls. I have added some examples already to my web site at http://www.schwarz-interactive.de/ [2]. Because AJAX controls and web sites have to be developed different to current web applications I will create some more examples.
Posted by Michael Schwarz on Saturday, November 5, 2005