AspAdvice

Simply Rails 2--New from SitePoint

msmith — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:42:21 GMT

The Simple and Easy Way to Build Bulletproof Web Applications -->

-->

-->Sebastopol, CA—SitePoint recently announced the release of Simply Rails 2 ($39.95)--the first beginner’s books to take advantage of all the new Rails 2 features.

Authored by Patrick Lenz, Simply Rails 2 is a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to building powerful web applications using Ruby On Rails.

Perfect for the programming novice or someone looking to move into the agile Rails framework, this book will teach readers how to build bulletproof Web 2.0 applications from scratch, with more features using less code.

This outstanding book is available to purchase right now for US $39.95.

For review copies or more information please email sitepointpr@oreilly.com. Please include your delivery address and contact information.

For other inquires, such as excerpt or interview requests, please contact Shayne.Tilley@sitepoint.com.

Patrick Lenz has been developing web applications for 10 years. As well as being the founder and lead developer of the freshmeat.net software portal, his Rails consultancy and application development company, limited overload, was responsible for a major relaunch of eins.de, which is now one of the most popular Ruby on Rails sites in Europe.

Additional Resources:
For more information about the book, see: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780980455205 9780980455205 -->

-->Simply Rails 2, Second Edition
Publisher: SitePoint
Patrick Lenz
ISBN: 9780980455205, 450 pages, $39.95 USD
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000

Simply Rails 2

-->About SitePoint
SitePoint titles are distributed to bookstores internationally by O'Reilly Media.
SitePoint specializes in publishing fun, practical, and easy-to-understand content for web professionals. Its popular online magazine, blogs, newsletters, and print books teach best practices to web developers and designers worldwide.

SitePoint also runs the #1 Marketplace on the Web for buying and selling web sites, blogs, and forums.

About O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

# # #

O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly Media, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

O'Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472 (707) 827-7000

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Book: Working Effectively With Legacy Code

ssmith — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:07:11 GMT

Working Effectively with Legacy Code (Robert C. Martin Series): Michael Feathers: Books

I've just finished the above book, which was recommended to me by Jeffrey Palermo a few months ago. It is one of the most useful software development books I've read since Code Complete. I wish I'd read it years ago, and I'm finding myself refactoring and rethinking my approach to current systems I've been working on for some time to make them more testable and easier to work with -- and I'm already seeing improvements. Seriously, if you're writing software, you should buy this book and move it to the top of your professional reading list. It's the book that Refactoring should have been, in that it is a very easy read with great examples that also serves as an excellent reference. I just bought copies for all my full time developers.

Why are you still reading this? Go! Read the book!

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Speaking in Cleveland May 13th

ssmith — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:48:47 GMT

I'll be speaking at the Cleveland .NET SIG tomorrow night. The topic is Black Belt Performance Tips for ASP.NET, which will be a dry run for a session by that same name I'll be giving next month at Tech:Ed Developers in Orlando. Some of the primary areas covered will be advanced caching techniques and asynchronous programming techniques (for ASP.NET). The user group meets at the Microsoft office in Independence, Ohio from 5:45pm to 7:30pm and usually is pretty crowded.

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VS2008 and .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta now available

joteke — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:08:00 GMT

See: http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2008/05/12/visual-studio-2008-and-net-fx-3-5-sp1-beta-available-now.aspx
Edit: ScottGu has also a post about the SP: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/05/12/visual-studio-2008-and-net-framework-3-5-service-pack-1-beta.aspx
There are lots of stuff in that SP...
Summary
Web
-ASP.NET Data Scaffolding Support (ASP.NET Dynamic Data)
-ASP.NET Routing Engine (System.Web.Routing)
-ASP.NET AJAX Back/Forward Button History Support
-ASP.NET AJAX Script Combining Support
-Visual Studio 2008 Performance Improvements HTML Designer and HTML Source Editor
-Visual Studio 2008 JavaScript Script Formatting and Code Preferences
-Better Visual Studio Javascript Intellisense for Multiple Javascript/AJAX Frameworks
-Visual Studio Refactoring Support for WCF Services in ASP.NET Projects
-Visual Studio Support for Classic ASP Intellisense and Debugging
-Visual Web Developer Express Edition support for Class Library and Web Application Projects
Client
-Application Startup and Working Set Performance Improvements
-New .NET Framework Client Profile Setup Package
-New .NET Framework Setup Bootstrapper for Client Applications
-ClickOnce Client Application Deployment Improvements
-Windows Forms Controls (Printing, DataRepeater...)
-WPF Performance Improvements
-WPF Data Improvements
-WPF Extensible Shader Effects
-WPF Interoperability with Direct3D
-VS 2008 for WPF Improvements
Data
-SQL 2008 Support
-ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ to Entities
-ADO.NET Data Services (formerly code-named "Astoria")
General
-WCF Development Improvements
-VB and C# Improvements
-TFS Improvements

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Code Smells in C#

rbirkby — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:11:00 GMT

A lot of my development is done with Code Smells. Whether I'm working on my own code or refactoring someone elses code, if I see some code and it smells funny, then I investigate further.
Recently I've come to realize there's a code smell which we can blame Microsoft (Anders) for!

C# Code Regions.
Back in the early days of .Net (ie 2000-2003), I used to moderately region my code. But since reading Martin Fowler's seminal Refactoring book where the concept of Code Smells was introduced, I found that I didn't need C# Regions.
So why are regions a Code Smell?
There are two types of regioning I've seen in code. Regions that group methods, properties, member variables, constructors etc together, and those which collapse a block of code. I'll deal with each separately.
Using Regions to group members.
In many companies, its commonplace (and even enforced practice) to group similar class members together and place a region block around them. I've even seen this as a coding doctrine inside Microsoft. The problem is that Visual Studio already has a facility to do this automatically. And it's been around in VS since it was called VJ++ and before that in VC. It's called the Class View window, accessed with the shift-ctrl-C shortcut. So why anyone would care about building a class "DOM" into their code using Regions, rather than rely on the Class View window I have no idea. Perhaps they're using Notepad?
Using Regions to hide blocks within a method.
This is when it gets really nasty. I've seen multi-hundred line long methods containing regions, and subregions and sub-subregions. I've seen switch() statements wrapped in a region, then each individual case have a region, then subregions inside of the region inside of the case. Switch statements are already a Code Smell, but having region after region after region is a sure-fire way of telling you the method is too long.

So, please, can we all resolve to stop using Regions?
Interestingly, there are many features that Java has started copying from C# - but regions were not one of those. Perhaps in C# v4 Microsoft can right the wrong and deprecate regions?

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From Earth Day to Eugene

plitwin — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:02:00 GMT

My marathon career started when I was 14 while a freshman at Archbishop Molloy High School in NYC. I had run cross-country and indoor track and there was a bit of gap before outdoor track was to start. My brother Bill and some of his friends decided they were going to run in the Earth Day Marathon that April in 1973. Bill, 2 years older than me, was always up for a challenge and I said what the heck. Up to that point, I think the longest I had ever run was maybe 9 miles but heck 26 didn't sound too bad. I finished the race that windy, snowy April day in just under 4 hours, swearing I would never run another marathon again.
I ran Earth Day 3 more times in high school, running 3:24 as a sophmore, setting a PR of 3:09 in 1975 when I was in my junior, and DNF'ing because of a heel injury in my senior year.
Just googled "Earth Day Marathon" and found this reference to the first Earth Day race I ran in 1973 in a June 26, 2007 article in Long Island Newsday by John Hanc (http://www.hamptonsmarathon.com/Stories/Documents/Newsday%20Article%206.26.07.doc):
... staged 34 years ago, in March, 1973, at the old Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury. It was called the Earth Day Marathon.
…
The Earth Day race was a spin-off of a race staged in prior years in Central Park (and before that in the Bronx) by the New York Road Runners. Held in the very early days of what would become known as the 1970s running boom, the race evinced the spirit of that time, and not only in its celebration of the then-nascent environmental movement.

The Earth Day Marathon, a loop course around the raceway (note: the author is wrong with this bit of history; the race started and finished at the raceway but then moved to 3 loops around Eisenhower Park), was tough and so were the competitors, as suggested by the words of founding race director Paul Fetscher: "Whatever kind of day it is, the weather will be a challenge," he told reporters, "and veteran die-hard runners will not shrink away from it, but fight it."

He was right. In conditions that the winner, Larry Frederick, would describe as "horrid," biting March winds reached 30 miles per hour, while temperatures sank to the freezing mark. Yet 400 runners battled through it, displaying determination if not great fashion sense.
… The marathon world, however, seems to be getting more and more crowded. When the Earth Day Marathon began, it was probably one of only 10 26.2-mile road races in the entire country...
Fast forward 28 years to 2003. After many years of off again, on again running, I finally got serious about doing another marathon, having joined a local running group (ChuckIt) run by Chuck Barlett in 2002. Unfortunately, my first adult effort at Capitol City in Olympia blew up on me. I was cruising in 3:22 pace through mile 17 when it all started to unravel; suffice it to say I hit the wall (I prefer that metaphor to the more trendy "bonk") hard but still managed to walk away (literally for several miles) with a 3:37. In 2004, I ran a bit more conservatively but still managed a visit with the wall and came in somewhere between 3:50 and 4:00. Two bad experiences in a row. Damn.
Right after that I started having severe pain in the ball of my left foot right below the pinky toe. This continued to bother me for some time so I laid of of running for a long while after getting an MRI, various other tests, therapies, orthotics, and treatment from various podiatrists, doctors, physical therapists, and massage therapists. I continued to lay off of running, eventually taking up biking. At one point late in 2005 I started running again, but was quickly sidelined with a similar injury in my right foot after a couple of months. At this point, I decided to learn to swim and took up training for sprint triathlons in early 2006, running two in the summer of 2006 and three in the summer of 2007. (I can't say enough good things about Mary Meyer Life Fitness in teaching me to swim and getting me in great triathlon shape.)
So after a successful triathlon summer and remaining injury free, I decided to set my signts on the Seattle Half Marathon. I started training again with ChuckIt. Training went pretty well and I ended up running a respectable 1:37 on the grueling Seattle Half-Marathon course. The weather was great in 2007 but I have to say that the course is a killer. There's just way too many hills but I ran well, managing to hold a pretty steady 7:30 pace pretty much the whole race.
At that point, Peter (my younger brother) said he was doing the Eugene marathon in May. I felt good coming off of Seattle, so I decided to start training for Eugene.
Training over the next four months went well. I did my second 20 miler 5 weeks prior to the race and was planning to do another one 3 weeks out but at 4 weeks before the race my left foot started hurting again after a 13 miler. Same pain at same location as before. My physiscal therapist, Bruk at Real Rehab (highly recommended) fashioned a quick orthotic to try and take some pressure off the foot and I took a full week off, substituting hard workouts on the eliptical trainer for running. Meanwhile, my confidence took a dive; still I managed to stay smart and combined running with eliptical work so that I didn't lose too much fitness for the race. After all, this happened during the last month which was always the month of the taper.
I took the Friday before the race off and Suzanne, Anna, Matthew, and I drove down to Eugene--technically I did all the driving but you get the point. Saturday, we went to the expo and I got my number, went to Eugene's version of the farmer's market and generally had a relaxing day. We hooked up with Peter (my brother), Gerry (his friend), and Cassandra (Gerry's friend) for dinner at the Oregon Electric Station. I had vegetable lasagna and lots of bread but no beer to cap off a sucessful week of carbo loading.
After dinner, Gerry, Cassandra, Peter, and I visited Hayward field (the exulted center of the running universe where Steve Prefontaine, et al trained and raced) at the U of O. When we were done checking out the course and discussing the finer points of running and having to go potty during the race they dropped me off at my hotel.
Before going to sleep, I mapped out 3 points on the course (at miles 7, 17, and the finish) with approximate times for Suzanne and the kids to meet me. I went to bed and after a half hour or so of tossing and turning managed to get a good 6 hours of sleep.
More details on the race to come in a separate post...

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A word of warning related to Session variables

joteke — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:18:00 GMT

I see a lot on forums and newsgroups that Session variables are constantly recommended to pass state between ASP.NET pages. Yes, it is simple mechanism, reliable with out-of-process modes and really nice to customize with the providers. Session is very familiar for developers working with various web technologies (not just Microsoft ones), and one could say that Session is one of the (few) true friends of the web developer.
But have you ever thought that Session variables can also be dangerous if you aren't careful? That's because Session variables are global in users context - the very same feature you usually take advantage of - and if you have small bug or something which allows the same page to be opened twice, you can overwrite variables in manner that you didn't really expect.
Consider this simple ASP.NET page:
<%@ Page Language="C#" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<script runat="server">
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        //This type of line (IsPostback check and setting to Session) is already a warning sign!
        if (!Page.IsPostBack)
            Session["demonstrationvalue"] = Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
    }
</script>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
    <a href="sessiondemo.aspx" target="_blank">Open this same page to a new window</a><br />
    Session["demonstrationvalue"] = <%=Session["demonstrationvalue"].ToString() %>.<br />
     <asp:Button ID="btnShowWhatsOnSession" runat="server" Text="Update the view." />
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>
That's a simple page. Now follow these steps:
1. Run the page in your VS2005 or VS2008 so that it opens in your favorite browser and shows you something like:
Open this same page to a new window
Session["demonstrationvalue"] = 9cefe013-59b8-4273-abc5-6ef4ae591a67.
2. Click the link which opens the same page in a new window, you'll see that the session variable now has another value, for example
Session["demonstrationvalue"] = a00de96a-0417-48bd-b8df-9ed26f2d955c.
3. Now switch to the browser window you opened in step 1 and click the "Update the View" button, you'll see that page too now shows
Session["demonstrationvalue"] = a00de96a-0417-48bd-b8df-9ed26f2d955c.
Ok, so what? Well, think if your page would do something like that but having temporary ids whatever in session variables. Yeah, if you haven't thought it out, maybe not your fault but having some legacy code given to you by the boss as previous employee just left, that *is* dangerous. And if your page would have logic to update something to database directly based on that session id, you could be in trouble, updating something that you didn't expect that could happen.
I just want to mention that that one of the worst bugs in my early career was caused by missing this type of little thing (not getting all the possible execution paths of the page clear to myself) :-). A page just got bit complicated eventually, and it was legacy code with lousy structure - which I got for modification - , which made it really, really difficult to spot. Nevertheless, it was 100% my fault, as I should have noticed it (well, I *really* should have done the full rewrite of the application instead of letting it be as it was, but that's another story...).
Now, I hope you don't make the same mistake as I did by then.

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Update on Parking Lot

elandes — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:58:00 GMT

It's been a while. I wanted to give some more insight on how we are proceeding putting constraints in our parking lot. For some change management processes, your customers might be able to submit as many change tickets as they want. In most scenarios, at least some of those change tickets should never be done, they are waste. As mentioned in previous blogs, we are now limiting our change tickets.
Our customers accepted this limitation without a lot of pushback. I believe the way we implemented it explains the lack of resistance. There are stakeholder meetings weekly. Each week, the stakeholders can select new "stories" or changes. This is based on points. Once we complete a story, that frees up points. But our Kanban can only hold a certain amount of points. Based on that point system, the customers prioritize the stories.
In this manner, the waste should flow to the bottom, or never be done. I'd say the key to getting customer buy-in is to have scheduled communication, and updates.

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Working with Dual Monitors in .Net

Yougotiger — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:06:55 GMT

Prologue

It's been a while since I posted becuase until recently I haven't had the opportunity to do much coding lately. All the website updates I was working on got suspended and then outsourced so I haven't been doing much coding, mostly other projects. Recently though, I had reason to do some work with creating a web service and some other interesting things that I may do some articles on. One of those is today's article.

We recently purchased access to an XML data feed that gives us live data that we'd like to redisplay in a number of ways and a number of locations here. So I was tasked with the coding. I'll probably talk more about our re-purposing of the feed later in a subsequent article, but today I want to talk about something different, supporting dual monitors. The data we retrieve from the feed, we will be displaying in a number of locations. This is done quite often with a dual monitor computer. One display shows at the computer, and the other at a remote monitor, usually a flat panel TV.

Problem

Our problem, we found was that the application I wrote to display the information would maximize to the primary monitor, usually we want it to be displayed on the secondary monitor instead (the flat panel TV). Our challenge in this excercise is to get the application to run maximized on the secondary monitor. Additionally, not all locations that the application will be used at should necessarily go directly to the secondary monitor, so we want to let the user who launches the application select which monitor to display on.

Solution

Ok, let's begin by creating an application that exhibits the old, undesirable primary monitor oonly behavior first and then begin modifying the application to do what we need it to do. We don't need much for an application, so it'll be pretty simple. Begin by creating a new application. Modify the form so it maximizes by default, by changing the WindowState property of the form to Maximized. Also, we wanted to NOT have any window controls showing so also set the FormBorderStyle property to none. One last thing, we want to add one line of code to the form's click event handler as follows:

Application.Exit()

This will allow us to exit the program, otherwise since we don't have a title bar at the top, it would be rather difficult. Run the application and your form should fill the primary monitor. But how do we get it to go to the secondary monitor? We can't drag it there (no title bar remember?), moving the .exe file to the second monitor doesn't help either. We'll have to do it through code. So, add to your form a button and a checkbox, name the button btnDoIt, and the checkbox chkSecondMonitor. Change the checkbox's visible property to false. Now we're ready to start adding some code to move to the 2nd monitor. I found a post on Microsoft forums that walked me through some of the code to do what we want, you can read their information here.

First we want to make the checkbox show only if there are dual monitors. If not, then we don't want to show it. So we'll add some code to detect if there are multiple monitors. Let's create a new function that returns if there are dual monitors as follows:

Public Function DualMonitors() As Boolean
   Dim myScreens() As Screen = Screen.AllScreens
   If myScreens.Length > 1 Then Return True Else Return False
End Function

Basically, this retrieves an array of all the screens (monitors) available, checks if the array has more than one element (or more than one screen) and returns true if there are multiple. Now we need to add some code to the form_load event to make visible the checkbox if there are dual monitors. Add the following to form_load:

chkSecondMonitor.Visible = DualMonitors()

Now if you run your application, you'll see that our checkbox will display depending on availability of a 2nd monitor. However, we still need to make the form move when the button is clicked (if the checkbox is checked). To our btnDoIt_clicked event, add the following:

If chkSecondMonitor.Checked = True Then
   Dim theScreen As Screen = Screen.AllScreens(1)
   Me.Location = theScreen.Bounds.Location
End If

Basically, we're retrieving the specifics of the second screen (element 1 in the AllScreens array) and using its location to set our form's location. This in effect should move our form to the starting point of the 2nd monitor, the upper-left location will become our form's upper-left location.

Run your application, check the checkbox, click the button and see what happens. That's right, big fat nothing. Why? You can't move a form that is maximized. We need to either launch the application NOT maximized, or restore (un-maximize) the form, move it and then re-maximize it. So we'll modify our code to restore, move and maximize. Add the following BEFORE the Me.Location = line in our btnDoIt_Clicked event handler:

Me.WindowState = FormWindowState.Normal

and add it's corresponding maximize call after the Me.Location line:

Me.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized

Now run your application and observe it functioning. Check the box, click the button, the form restores, moves and the maximizes. Just as it should.

Epilogue
Realistically speaking, moving the application to the second monitor is very easy. There are other things that we could do using the screen object that we haven't touched on (centering the form on the second monitor etc). A point of distinction that may help if you want to do further development, the Bounds encompasss the entire screen (including the task bar), if you want working area (not including the task bar) you'll need to get the WorkingArea property instead of Bounds property.

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ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX Pocket Guide

msmith — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:14:14 GMT

Magma Interactive, LLC is extremely excited to announce that our latest publication, ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX Pocket Guide by Matthew Ellis has been released and is available from the Magma Interactive online store, as well Amazon.com. What this book offers that no other book does, is a comprehensive, straight to the point, detailed guide on developing applications with the ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX Framework. You'd be amazed at what we've crammed into this pocket guide! ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX Pocket Guide includes as few pages as possible, but no fewer than required! With all of the large books available, you'll find ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX Pocket Guide to be an unbeatable guide both in content and price!

You'll discover the detailed intricacies of the server-side and client-side library, as well as advanced AJAX topics, such as, Windows Communication Foundation web services, resource localization, how to build extender controls, how to use and install the AJAX Control Toolkit, how to use the application services (authentication, role, and profile) and last, but hardly least, the book wraps up the discussion with an advanced mashup utilizing Microsoft Virtual Earth, Yahoo Geocode and Flickr to build a complete application named My Adventures.

For more information check out the Amazon.com product information page (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0970372035), Magma Interactive product information page (http://magmainteractive.net/Store/product/2c1800b8-0be2-411e-9acd-a5cc9a7f50ac.aspx) and the table of contents (http://downloads.magmainteractive.net/0970372035/0970372035_TOC.pdf) (Adobe PDF file).

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DevExpress Sweeps Nine asp.netPRO 2008 Reader’s Choice Awards

msmith — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:13:00 GMT

DevExpress technologies for Visual Studio help you build your best, reduce the amount of code you write, increase your productivity, and create stunning applications for Windows and the Web in the shortest possible time.

April 24, 2008 – For the second year in a row, DevExpress has swept all award categories in which it was nominated in the asp.netPRO Magazine Reader’s Choice Awards...a total of 15 ASP.NET awards in 2 short years. This year’s awards include:

ASP.NET Product of the Year – DXperience for ASP.NET

Best Component Set – DXperience for ASP.NET

Best Grid – ASPxGridView Suite

Best Add-in – CodeRush/Refactor

Best Charting – XtraCharts Suite

Best Printing/Reporting Tool – XtraReports Suite

Best Navigation Control - ASPxNavBar

Best Online Editor – ASPxHTML Editor

Best Scheduling/Calendar Tool – ASPxScheduler Suite

To learn more about DevExpress and our award winning ASP.NET product line or to download your free evaluation copy, visit us online at www.devexpress.com/2008awards.

About Developer Express

Developer Express has been Improving the Developer Experience™ since 1998 by engineering feature-complete components and developer tools for Windows® and the Web. For more information, contact Kevin White by email at kevinw@devexpress.com or by phone at (888) Go-DevEx.

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System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException in WAP VS 2008 Project

robertb — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:37:00 GMT

I had a Visual Studio 2008 Web Application Project working on one my machines, and when I tried to open it on another Vista machine I got a dialog with simply "System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException" and the project would not load.
I found the following known bug already posted about it (http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=317124), but I checked and the URL used for the project to open in IIS was correct. While reading I noticed it also talked about the metabase. I went and installed the metabase compatibility, and it solved my problem:

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Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide--New from O'Reilly

msmith — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:51:53 GMT

All You Need to Manage and Administer Windows Server 2008 -->

-->

-->Sebastopol, CA—Administering Microsoft's server-oriented Windows operating systems can sometimes seem like living on the edge of river that's prone to flooding. You ford the effluvia after each new flood, picking through the detritus for what's worth keeping, and leaving the useless bits lying in the muck. Then, when you have everything shipshape again, the next new release comes along. System administrators find themselves grappling with new concepts and just when they've mastered one set of changes, another comes along and suddenly they're scrambling once again to get up to speed.

One source of help for the beleaguered system administrator has always been the technical book market; each major operating system release has always been accompanied by books written to support it. But Jonathan Hassell, author Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly, US $54.99), reflects on an interesting phenomenon: "Over the years, many of these books have become as complex, and have accumulated as much detritus, as the operating systems they explain," he says. Bookstores are filled with 1200-plus page volumes that lead you through how things worked in the last four versions of the operating system. And Hassell's belief is that you don't need all that information to get your work done effectively.

"It was in this spirit that I set out to write Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide, he says. "I have trimmed the content of this volume to include just enough background on a subject for you to understand how different features and systems work in this version of Windows. I want you to come away from reading sections with a firm understanding of what's happening under the hood of the system, but without the sense that you're taking a graduate course in OS theory." Most of all, he has written the book to be a practical guide that helps sys admins get their jobs done: "here's how it works; here's how to do it."

The book offers step-by-step procedures for using all of the major components of Windows Server 2008, along with discussions on complex concepts such as Active Directory replication, DFS namespaces and replication, network access protection, the Server Core edition, Windows PowerShell, server clustering, and more. Simply put, this is the most thorough reference available for Windows Server 2008, with complete guides to:

Installing the server in a variety of different environments
File services and the Windows permission structure
How the domain name system (DNS) works
Active Directory, including its logical and physical structure, hierarchical components, scalability, and replication
Group Policy's structure and operation
Managing security policy with predefined templates and customized policy plans
Architectural improvements, new features, and daily administration of IIS 7
Terminal Services from both the administrator's user's point of view
Networking architecture including DNS, DHCP, VPN, RADIUS server, IAS, and IPSec
Windows clustering services--applications, grouping machines, capacity and network planning, user account management
Windows PowerShell scripting and command-line technology

For a review copy or more information please email kathrynb@oreilly.com. Please include your delivery address and contact information.

Jonathan Hassell is a system administrator, IT consultant, and industry author residing in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Additional Resources:
For more information about the book, including table of contents, index, author bios, and cover graphic, see: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514112 9780596514112 -->

-->Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide
Jonathan Hassell
ISBN: 9780596514112, 492 pages, $54.99 USD, £34.50 GBP
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000

Book Price: "; } elsif ($DATA{'format'} eq "edoc") { print "PDF Price: "; } else { print ""; } **-> print qq~~; print $currency . $price . " " . $code **-> . ""; } elsif (($DATA{'format'} =~ /edoc/) && ($DATA{'series'} !~ /pocketref/)) { -->

Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide

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Don't Miss the Savings for VSLive Orlando 2008

robertb — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:54:00 GMT

Enjoy a $300 savings on the Gold Passport for VSLive Orlando 2008 with the discount code SOBOE!
The Gold Passport entitles you to not only the great development content around Visual Studio 2008, ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight, and much more but also allows you full access to the co-located TechMentor conference. Its a great opportunity to cover both development and infrastructure sessions and workshops. Top it off with a vacation in a great location! Act quickly as the conference starts next week!

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School of Dev 2008

robertb — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:49:00 GMT

I will be giving 3 presentations at the School of Dev:
Things Every ASP.NET Developer Should Know
Improving ASP.NET User Interfaces with the AJAX Control Toolkit
Extending IIS 7 with HttpModules and HttpHandlers

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15 Seconds Off

plitwin — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:58:00 GMT

I finished my sixth marathon yesterday, the Eugene Marathon, and missed qualifying for the next Boston marathon by a mere 15 seconds. My time: 3:36:14. The qualifying cutoff time for my age/gender group: 3:35:59. Bummer.
Overall, a great race. Perfect weather. Cool, not cold. No precipitation. A little wind in places but nothing too bad. One thing of note: while it was not a "hilly" course, there were enough rolling hills in the last seven or eight miles to make it tough. I would not call it a "flat" course.
My pace was pretty constant around 8:00 most of the race until the last 4 miles where I slowed down to about 9:00 a mile. The average pace was 8:16. The difference was that I took a 2 minute potty break around mile 7. In retrospect that made the difference.
Oh well.
Stay tuned for more complete posts on the race and leading up to the race to come...

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I have Framework 3.5 installed, why does my IIS show only ASP.NET 1.1/2.0?

joteke — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:03:00 GMT

I've replied a lot to these questions lately.
I'm not going to go to very deep with this, Scott Hanselman has excellent post covering this, see that:
How to set an IIS Application or AppPool to use ASP.NET 3.5 rather than 2.0
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/HowToSetAnIISApplicationOrAppPoolToUseASPNET35RatherThan20.aspx
Simple way is also to think that 3.0 and 3.5 bring "a few more" dlls to 2.0 runtime (which is 2.0 SP 1 in practise). So basically 3.5 is not really that big upgrade to vanilla ASP.NET 2.0, although it certainly isn't any minor upgrade.

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