Though I'm already quite familiar with ASP.NET I'm just now starting to experiment with ASP.NET AJAX for real. I did some testing with the early alpha's about a year ago.

After installing the Extensions (RC1) and the December CTP I also downloaded and installed the samples to get a look at how it could work. I started with the SimpleList application and after copying the assemblies Microsoft.Web.Preview.dll and System.Web.Extensions.dll I soon found out that the webform 2_SimpleList_AutoComplete_DragandDrop.aspx doesn't really behave that great. So I did some digging around and I soon found out that the web.config wasn't entirely correct. I added the following parts:

because this part's used by the DragOverlayExtender control in the page of which it's the content of the ProfileProperty attribute. After that was done the page could be opened but after dragging the "Notes" around I got a javascript error. It seemed that the <profileService> in the web.config was still commented out and that the properties weren't set properly. I uncommented the part and filled in the properties like this in order to get it to work properly:

And now the application works like a charm. 

Now I hope to find something in ASP.NET AJAX like drag & drop and auto updating of where an element was. Just like the demo of script.aculo.us' shopping cart. Hmm, guess I still have quite some learning to do.

Grz, Kris.

Hi,

since I'm a contributing member of the Visug site, a Belgian user group, I was asked to create a custom module for DNN. Since I never before played around with DNN I found this site to quite interesting for beginners: DNNWiki.NET. Especially the video tutorials were very interesting to get started with building your own custom modules for the platform.

Update: I just noticed my buddy Gill Cleeren wrote an article about How-to: DotNetNuke: Installation. Check it out if you're interested on setting it up on Vista with IIS7.

Grz, Kris.

Hi,

I always like to recommend these tutorials to people who are taking their first steps with ASP.NET 2.0. Since I have a couple days off I thought, why not take the lessons myself? The first tutorial shows how to use TableAdapters, which was something I never used before, so it also turned out to be very interesting for me too.

You can find the data tutorials here.

The next weekend and weeks I hope to spend some time on ASP.NET AJAX as well.

Grz, Kris.

May this year be the one where your dreams/wishes come true and that you can share them with the ones you love. May you find happiness in your jobs and if you don't have a job that you may find one that makes you happy. I hope that the politicians will finally have the guts to see that they're not doing so great as they say they are and will do something about it. I also hope that 2007 won't be dominated by bad news: war, sickness, murder, hate, racism and that the news will bring some more positive news like science found a cure against cancer, coldfusion will become a fact, new plants that can survive in the desert and produce a lot of fruit so people don't have to starve anymore from hunger.

For myself: I hope I may find a nice house/appartment that I can buy and go live on my own and that I may become better at playing badminton.

Happy 2007!!

Grz, Kris.

Yes, I finally installed Office 2007. It looks great and the new ribbon does need some "getting used to" but I'll manage. The only thing that drove me a bit crazy was that first it didn't want to install. Seemed that the installed conflicted with the installation of Expression Web Designer Beta. After uninstalling that everything went just fine. Pity though that the installer couldn't immediately tell me which program was causing the conflicts.

Anyway: Merry Christmas to all!!

Grz, Kris.

Ok, if you like the new Vista Aero cursors but don't have Vista installed yet you can download them here. Just unzip the file in the c:\windows\cursors\ location. I noticed that I had to move the cursors still to that location before I let the .reg file run in order to get them installed as being the current cursor set to use on Windows XP.

Grz, Kris.

Yesterday evening VISUG, a .NET related Belgian user group in which I participate, organised a geek dinner in Antwerp. 12 participants showed up and we had a blast. Talking about work, tech stuff, .NET (of course), comics, movies, ... There were some people I haven't met before so it was also great to socialize with those as well. The food, spare ribs à volonté, was also delicious and if you visit Antwerp on an occasion I can recommend the Amadeus restaurant.

Grz, Kris.

Yesterday evening I attended with several of my friends the concert of Clouseau, a famous Flemish band. The concert itself was great with a terrific atmosphere in the Antwerp Sportspalace. After that we went further celebrating the 30th anniversary of one of the gang. I was the designated Bob of the evening, driving everyone home safely. Luckely I don't need alcohol to enjoy a good time so I didn't mind.

Grz, Kris.

Yesterday I attended the meeting of Visug, a Belgian user group of which I'm a member, with as meetings subject Exception handling and logging. It wasn't a traditional way of presenting but was more like an open discussion which became quite lively at moments. Especially when we reached the stage of discussing the differences between logging and auditing.

It was very interesting to hear different oppinions because of the mixed audiance: architects, developers and even an IT pro who wanted to learn more about .NET and see what the impact could be to the servers he maintains.

I'm already looking forward to the Geek Dinner next week in Antwerp with the fellow members of Visug. If you want more information you can take a look at the site.

Grz, Kris.

Yesterday evening I attended an MSDN Technical Evening about VSTO 2005 Second Edition presented by Patrick Tisseghem of the company U2U. Although it's been a very long time since I developed some small things with VSTO it was an interesting meeting to attend. Especially when you look at what's available with the latest VSTO, although for the real cool stuff it seems we have to wait for the Orcas Release of Visual Studio. We saw several techniques, the good and the bad, of creating a simple add in for Office 2007 and how to make one for Outlook. One of my collegues, one that almost whole the time spends his development time with Office, was glad to hear that VBA isn't the big thing anymore but .NET languages like C# and VB.NET are the way to go.

Grz, Kris.