• Building Silverlight Applications using .NET
• Visual Studio “Orcas” and AJAX
• Microsoft Expression Studio
• SDLC the Team System way

and lots more. Here is the full agenda.

The conference is organised by MTUG (Microsoft Technology User Groups of Ireland) and IrishDev.com in association with Microsoft Ireland.

The price of the conference is only EUR50 including lunch. You can’t really beat that!

The second session was entitled “Introducing your Database Objects to the Agile Process Using Microsoft Visual Team System” presented by Alan Crowley. Alan explained how with the emergence of Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals that the database has really been integrated into the software development process. Database scripts and schemas are now treated as a standard artifact and can be subject to the same processes as regular code, including source control, refactoring and unit testing. It really showed that Microsoft have put some thought into how to bring in the work of the DBA or SQL Developer into the software development process.

Overall time well spent with two very interesting sessions. Looking forward to more MTUG Cork sessions in the near future. Thanks to Joe Gill as ever for organising everything.

In order to make your web application more secure then you should take a look at the Microsoft Anti-Cross Site Scripting Library

Also, to learn more about preventing Cross Site Scripting in general there is a good MSDN Patterns and Practices article available at How To: Prevent Cross-Site Scripting in ASP.NET

Source Control Provider (SCP) Selector

http://www.kilic.net/weblog/archives/000183.html

Update: You will need to restart Visual Studio once you change your source control provider, it isn’t sufficient to just close and open the new solution.

using System; 

public class ReverseArraySort
{
   public static void Main()
   {
      string[] strings = {"beta", "alpha", "gamma"};
      Console.WriteLine ("Array elements: ");
      DisplayArray  (strings);
      Array.Sort    (strings); // Sort elements
      DisplayArray  (strings);
   }

   public static void DisplayArray (Array array)
   {
      foreach (object o in array)
      {
         Console.Write ("{0} ", o);
      }
      Console.WriteLine();
   }
}

From IEBlog:

IEBlog : IE6 VPC Refresh Now Available
IE6 VPC Refresh Now Available

In my original blog post about releasing the IE6 Virtual PC Image, we mentioned that it would expire on April 1st, 2007 (no, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke), and that we’d be releasing a new VPC image to replace it sometime in March. Well, I’m happy to report that I propped the new VHD up on Monday morning. You can download the image here. Take note that a free download of Virtual PC 2007 is now available, replacing VPC2004.

I didn’t make any major changes to the image other than adding the latest security updates. I also managed to reduce the download size to just under 400 megs, shaving off almost 100 megs from the previous image size. This image is time-bombed to July 23rd , but we will continue to release these images as long as they are needed. They are time-bombed because you get them for free. If you want images without time-bombs, an MSDN subscription is the way to go.

Clare Dillon’s Blog : Jeff Prosise coming to Cork!

On March 23rd, he will be focusing on ASP.NET AJAX, his latest expert topic. Rob will also be heading down for the occasion giving an update on some of Microsoft’s other web technologies and where they are being used today.

Tickets are 30 euro for IT@Cork members or 75 euro for non-members. You can find more information and register here:

http://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=86

The Visual Studio Code Analysis Team Blog : Announcing Visual Studio Code Metrics!

The Orcas release of Visual Studio is available for download as a Virtual PC image but beware the download is pretty large. Download Visual Studio Code Name “Orcas”

Now this blog uses PHP on Apache and the URL Rewriting is achieved using mod_rewrite rules. Some of the benefits of the URLs after the URL rewriting are:

• More human friendly URLS
• More search engine friendly URLs – before search engine bots used to hate URLs with ?param= in them probably not so much an issue any more.
• Since the keywords are mentioned in the URL this helps increase your Google pagerank

I did some URL rewriting in ASP.NET 1.1 using a custom http handler. Scott writes about how to achieve URL rewriting in ASP.NET and goes on to say that in IIS7 it will be much easier to achieve full extensionless URL rewriting using a HttpModule. This will make it quite straight forward to have extension less URLs like http://www.seandeasy.com/5-podcasts-that-every-net-developer-should-be-listening-to/ under IIS.

In appears that on URL Rewriting, IIS is playing catch up with Apache.

Check out Scott’s post
Url Rewriting with ASP.NET

Here is my list of top five .net related podcasts that every .net developer should be listening to in order to keep up to date:

HanselMinutes
This is my favorite .net podcast of all. It is presented by Scott Hanselman and Carl Franklin and they discuss .net related topics. Some shows are about the latest .net tools and other shows are interviews with .net experts. The shows are produced very professionally and the quality is top notch. Each show is only around 20-30 minutes so there is no waffle just great info!

Hanselminutes is a weekly audio talk show with noted web developer and technologist Scott Hanselman and hosted by Carl Franklin. Scott discusses utilities and tools, gives practical how-to advice, and discusses ASP.NET or Windows issues and workarounds.

http://www.hanselminutes.com/

Dot Net Rocks
Dot Net Rocks has been around for many years with their first show produced in 2002. It is a weekly talk show for anyone interested in programming on the Microsoft .NET platform. The show is hosted by Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell and most of the shows are interviews with .NET experts. The shows are typically slightly over 1 hour and have very good content.
http://www.dotnetrocks.com

ArCast
Arcast is a podcast about design and software architecture. If you are a team lead/architect or just generally interested in system design in the .NET space then you should tune in. It is hosted by Ron Jacobs and since 2005 he has been interviewing architects around the globe for the show.
http://www.skyscrapr.net/blogs/arcasts/

Polymorphic Podcast
Polymorphic Podcast is hosted by Craig Shoemaker and deals with a wide range of .NET topics and interviews with .NET experts from around the globe.
http://www.polymorphicpodcast.com/

ASP.NET Podcast
The ASP.NET podcast (as the name suggests) is more focused on the ASP.NET and is hosted by Wally McClure. So if you are interested in ASP.NET, Ajax, JSON, etc. then this is the show for you.
http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/

If you haven’t caught on to the great benefits of podcasts I seriously suggest that you subscribe to the podcasts and start listening. At a time when there is a huge amount of new technologies / products being released this is a great way to say up to date.

Let me know what you think!
Do you listen to these podcasts already ? Are there other great .NET podcasts that I missed?