Jim Zimmerman - ASP.NET, MVC, Ajax and ORM

If any of you write web applications for larger clients you are probably starting to see the same issues I am.  There are too many browsers to support now!  Welcome to browser hell.  It is beginning to drive me crazy.  Here are the latest stats from w3 schools on browser usage:

Browser Statistics Month by Month

This especially becomes an issue when you are are writing bleeding edge apps using Ajax and silverlight and developing on a vista machine.  Well first you need a way to test IE 6.  I have given up on IE 5, but there is a decent solution for testing with IE 6 on vista or any other machine where you are already running IE 7.  See you can't run both browsers at the same time.  So I run virtual PC 2007 which is free.  They have a A VPC hard disk image containing a pre-activated Windows XP SP2, and either IE6 or IE7 and the IE7 Readiness Toolkit: Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image.  The VHD expires August 2007, but I bet there will be an update to the expiration date soon.

Now you have IE 6 ready to test, but what about the others.  Obviously you need firefox and might as well download safari for windows and Opera.  Now I realize that safari only says 1.3% above, but many of you may have a client that works on a mac, which I do.  So now I have to support Safari 2. whatever on the mac OS x.  Now this one is a pain to support.  I am trying to figure out how to do this currently and have come up with a couple of solutions.  First you are not allowed to create a virtual image of mac OS x using vmware or virtual PC because apple does not allow it.  I guess they want you to buy and ibook and virtualize vista. But I think I may have found a way to virtualize mac os x on vista.  I am going to try it this week and let you know how it goes.  It looks kind of painful so I may just use a paid service, browsrcamp, which offers a vnc connection to a mac.

So now we know what browsers to test and how, lets look at what libraries we should use for Ajax.  ASP.NET Ajax is one obvious answer.  It comes with built in support for all the browsers I have mentioned above and is fairly easy to use.  Now I am a little biased, but I also have worked with jQuery which is also a nice Ajax library and has a strong community also.

When you are running your tests if you regularly validate your html, you will save hours ahead of time before you run your manual tests.

Good luck and may the browser be with you!

If you read my blog and are actually one of the few who subscribe to my blog, then you may be wondering what happened to me.  In a word, "book".  Taking on a few chapters in a book and then an additional few online chapters took it's toll on my writing.  I never knew I could write that many pages about AJAX, but apparently I can.  You can check out the book, Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX, on Amazon.  I was told it was out and printed, but have not seen one yet at the book stores, but it should be there soon.  We are giving a few away and Tampa Code Camp this year on July 14th, 2007.  So if you want to learn some things from great speakers for free and win a few books, then you need to come.  These are the best events to go to as a developer.  The connections alone are worth the Saturday spent inside. 

Hope to see you at code camp.  You know, last year at code camp, I learned some new stuff and met some cool people.  Some of you may get that from the movie.  I am not going to say which one.  If you don't get it, then I'm really sorry, but you are going to have to ask me at code camp.

I guess there has been a double booking of the Microsoft room for the 20th, so we had to move it to the 21st.  I hope you all can still make it.  we will all be speaking at Tampa Code Camp also on July 14th, so try to catch us there if you can also.  I will be showing some Silverlight and Ajax stuff at Tampa Code Camp.

 When connecting to my vista laptop or my vista desktop tonight using remote desktop, I kept getting this error. "The authentication certificate received from the remote computer has expired or it not valid."  This is new and could not find anything on it except for a comment left on a random blog post I found.  Luckily this worked.  Notice how it says my certificate expired on 7/1/2002.  Very strange.  For anyone else having this problem, this is how you solve it:

1. Start mmc.exe by typing in mmc in the search bar and open Certificates snap-in for local computer account.
2. Navigate to “Certificates\Remote Desktop\Certificates”
3. Delete certificate that’s in this store.

A few of us are having a Day of AJAX in Tampa, FL on June 20th, 2007 from 8:30 - 5:00.  This will be a fun day of learning ASP.NET AJAX for free put on by ASPSOFT, Microsoft and DevFish.NET. Join us for a deep dive into the intricacies of Ajax development using the Microsoft suite of tools. The agenda for the day will be:

8:30am - 9:00am : Registration and welcome
9:00am - 10:30am : Joe Healy ::  Introductions :: An overview of Microsoft Ajax
10:30am - 10:45am : BREAK
10:45am - 12:15pm : Jim Zimmerman :: Building controls and extenders
12:15pm - 1:00pm : LUNCH (pizza and soda)
1:00pm - 2:30pm : Jay Kimble :: Ajax Best Practices
2:30pm - 2:45pm : BREAK
2:45pm - 3:45pm : Joe Healy :: Ajax and JavaScript in Visual Studio "Orcas"
3:45pm - 4:00pm : Giveaways (including a Zune!)
4:00pm - 5:00pm : Open dialog with attendees

All topics are covered at a 200-level. Space is limited, so register early to get your seat at A Day of Ajax!

Go to https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=118815 to register.  I think there are only about 75 seats available, so you will want to register as soon as possible to get in.

Look forward to seeing you there.  Hopefully I will have a few copies of Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX to give away at the event.

MSDN has uploaded the Webcast I did last week.  It was my first one so there is some funny mess ups in the beginning.  I didn't know how to get back to the live meeting slides after switching to share my applications.  the host had to get on the line and tell me what to click.  Oh well.  I won't make that mistake again.

If you want to view it you can see it on-demand here, ASP.NET AJAX From Scratch MSDN Webcast.  I would love to hear any feedback you may have.

I got asked to help with a Webcast due to scheduling conflict and will be giving a Webcast on Monday May 14th at 12:00 p.m.  SDN Webcast: Russ and Joe Developer Show: ASP.NET AJAX from Scratch (Level 100) is where you can register online or download later.  I don't know when or if they will offer it as a download, but I will keep you posted when I find out.

I will be going over some basic stuff with UpdatePanel and some of the controls in the Ajax Control Toolkit.  I also will go over a cool demo using the Ajax Library to write my own class using Orcas Beta 1 and showing off intellisense with JavaScript.  It is truly amazing to reference my own JavaScript class and then see the properties and methods using intellisense when calling the class in the aspx page.

My favorite ASP.NET code gen framework has just been officially released to its 2.0 version.  It is really more than a code gen tool and provides an excellent framework for getting websites done much quicker.  Really good stuff.  You can check it out here at codeplex.  They have also released Subsonic Tools for Visual Studio which is great for generating dal's outside of you website projects and can be used much easier with Web Application Projects along with WinForm applications.

For those few that actually subscribe to my blog and were wondering if i fell from the face of the earth, well I did.  I have just returned from planet AJAX and am still having dreams of intellisense for JavaScript.  The lead author is having a hard time deciding on which cover to choose and is wondering what you think over at his blog. :) If you go to that post, it is the only real proof that i have that i have been working on a book with five other AJAX gurus as we think we are.  It also looks like Wally has been working on some other books in his WTF series that i was unaware of.

Writing a bok has been one  of the biggest challenges of my career.  At first I thought, "How hard could this be?"  Well it is very challenging and takes about 2-3 times more work than you would think.  With all the revisions that you must go through and the research into things that you thought you knew, it takes a toll. 

 I must commend my wife for being as patient as she has been with all the late nights i had been wirting.  The first official printed copy will be signed by me and given to her.  Although she will not understand a thing i said in the chapters i wrote, she will at least see that is is real and i wasn't just typing in my MSN instant messenging client.

I will be blogging much more often in the weeks to come.  Hopefully you haven't all deleted your subscription in your RSS reader yet. :)

If you like to laugh at geeky stuff, you need to check out David Silverlight's new creation called Real Technology Heroes.  This site is pretty funny.  Listen to the two audio commercials he has recorded.  Great voice, sounds just like the guy in the budwesier commercials that we all find amusing while we are driving in the car.

Oh and if you think you are smart and want to win stupid stuff, check out his community site called Community Credit.  His slogan is perfect, "stupid prizes for smart people".