I wanted to have good short start overview on WCF. My first pick was from Microsoft E-Learning, Clinic 6264: Introducing Windows Communication Foundation using .Net Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008. For me, it was a great choice, exactly what I need to start my learning steps on WCF.

Here I'm going to write my review about this Free E-Learning Course which is part of a Free E-Learning Collection, Collection 6261: Developing Rich Experiences using Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008.

Course Objectives:

• Describe WCF and provide scenarios for building WCF applications.
• Describe WCF features for developers of service-oriented applications.
• Describe how to create a WCF service.
• Describe how to create and invoke a WCF client.
• Describe how to customize WCF with behaviors.
• Describe bindings in WCF.
• Explain the main features of WCF security.
• Describe reliability in WCF applications.

More...

This collection of 3 2-hour premium clinics teaches about the new capabilities provided by the .NET Framework 3.5. These clinics are for experienced Developers and Software Architects who are looking to adopt Microsoft's next generation technology within their solutions.

Collection 6261: Developing Rich Experiences using Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008:

• Clinic 6262: Introducing Windows Workflow Foundation using .Net Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008
• Clinic 6263: Introducing Windows Presentation Foundation using .Net Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008
• Clinic 6264: Introducing Windows Communication Foundation using .Net Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008

This is a one year subscription offer for free. I've already take Clinic 6262 and started with Clinic 6264. I must say I am ignorant about these new technology and I decided to start from scratch and have an overview over them before starting reading more detailed materials. And it needs total of 2 hours for each clinic.

The WPF team at Microsoft is going give us “WPF Application Quality Guide”. They plan to release the Guide in stages, updating and fine-tuning the content, based on feedback provided by audiences.

Current version is 0.2, this version contains -as specified in the link above- more examples that illustrate how to find the AutomationElement object by using UI Automation; introduction to the WPF programming stack and software testing; high level overview of test methodology, planning, and strategies; visual verification testing; media testing; verification of animations and other transitions; performance best practices resources; security testing considerations; a list of tools for creating, debugging, and testing WPF applications; and additional topics in the Appendix about resources for WPF data binding and debugging, and about WPF interoperability with Win32 and Windows Forms.

In Introducing SQL Server 2008by Peter DeBetta (ISBN: 9780735625587), you’ll learn about major new features in SQL Server 2008, including security, administration, and performance. Downloading the book require registration.

This initial installment of the book is very small; it is devided into 11 chapters and about 33 PDF pages. I guess it is a good focused book on the new features of SQL Server 2008. Myself didn't read it yet.

I also recommend to visit SQL Server 2008 Learning Portalthere you'll find free e-learning offers such as  Collection 6187: What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (includes three free clinics).

2 years ago, I wrote 3 parts ASP.NET WebParts tutorial. Bellow are summary of each parts and links to original tutorial on www.C-ShareCorner.com

1. Creating a Simple WebPart Page and use WebServer controls as WebParts
   Introduction:
   Portal web sites such as MY MSN and MSN Spaces, often organize their data into discrete units that support a degree of personalization. Information is organized into standalone parts [WebParts], and users can rearrange those parts to suit their individual working styles. Such personalization also lets users hide parts that contain information in which they have no interest. What's more, users can save their settings so that the site will remember their preferences the next time they visit the site. In ASP.NET 2.0, you can now build web portals that offer this kind of modularization of information and personalization using the new Web Parts Framework.
   Scope of this Tutorial:
   Here we will see how to add web parts to a web part page. Developing advanced WebParts from scratch is out of this tutorial scope. This tutorial also may has subsequent tutorial that explains more about Web Parts Framework.
   Assumptions:
   This tutorial assumes you are familiar with Data Access Controls and Data Binding Controls such as SqlDataSource and GridView. Also it requires SQL Sever 2005 Express Edition and Visual Web Developer. If you don't have SQL Server Express 2005, install ASPNETDB in your SQL Server instance using aspnet_regsql tool. and configure your application to use this instance as your personalization provider.
   
   How to create WebParts Page:
   To create a WebParts Page, you need to work with a specific ASP.Net 2.0 Controls:
   • WebPartManager Control, which manages all Web Parts controls on a WebParts Page and must be the first control that you add to the page.
   • WebPartZone Control, which contains and provides overall layout for the Web Part controls that compose the main UI of a page. This control serves as an anchor for Web Part controls. Multiple controls of this control forms the WebParts Page. Read more....
2. Working with WebParts Page, WebPart Zones & WebParts
   Introduction:
   This tutorial considered to be the second part of the first tutorial Creating a Simple WebPart Page and use WebServer controls as WebParts. Here we will see how can we remove and add WebParts during run time, adding personalizable properties to your WebParts and modifying there values also in run time.

   WebPart Zones:
   There are 4 types of WebPart Zones. Zones is used to host (anchor or dock) WebParts. In the previous tutorial we had a look at WebPartZone. At this tutorial we will have a look at the other another two WebPart Zones, CatalogZone & EditorZone. Read more...

3. WebParts Communication: How WebParts on a page communicate with each other
   Introduction:
   In this tutorial we will describe how to make WebParts on a WebParts Page communicate with each other. So will see how to use ConnectionsZone and how to enable WebParts to talk to each other by connecting them.
   Assumptions:
   This tutorial assumes that you know how to work with web forms, creating user controls and connecting to data sources using SqlDataSource Control. Also you should know how to use WebPartZone control and to know what are WebParts and WebParts Pages. Read more...

These days many applications are being developed using ASP.NET, I suggest you find an asp hosting provider suitable for your web development projects.

Last year (2007) on March I joind CSharp-Online community. It is Wiki Media based community web site. Actually that was the first time to use Wiki. I was always watching Wikies but never touch them. I liked that Wiki. It is easy and smart or may be I'm a dump.

Anyway, I had finalized my first contribution on there and it is about Creating Custom ASP.NET AJAX Client Controls. I've built this article on top of this tutorial
"Adding Client Capability to a Web Server Control Using ASP.NET AJAX Extensions".

Hope it will be useful for someone.

Last year I wrote an article about how to build multi-languange web sites with ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio.Net 2005. This is a bookmark to the articles (C#,VB.NET) [poste migrated from old blog]

Introduction: In order to reach international markets through the Internet, supporting different cultures through our applications is essential for being successful. The .NET Framework 2.0 as well as 1.x comes with an integrated infrastructure for creating international applications. Basically, the CLR supports a mechanism for packaging and deploying resources with any type of application. The CLR and the base class library of the .NET Framework come with several classes for managing and accessing resources in applications. These classes are located in the System.Resources and System.Globalization namespaces. Here we will explore the necessary details for working with resources in ASP.NET applications and for creating international ASP.NET applications based on embedded resources and the integrated localization support.

Assumptions: This article assumes that you already know how to build web forms and to use controls and validation controls.

Localization and resource files: Localization support in .Net Framework 2.0 in general and in ASP.Net 2.0 specifically become much more easier and brings fun during localization process. Usually resources are created for every culture the application should support. More specifically, each Web Form -Page- in your web site should have a resources for every culture -language- it should support. For example:If you have a web form with name default.aspx and your web site support English, German and Arabic, then you should have 3 resource files for each culture. The CLR defines a behavior for finding culture-specific resources. With that said, every set of resources has to define a base name that is specified through the first part of the name of the resource file. The second part of the name defines the culture. If the culture portion in the name is not specified, the resources defined in the resource file are used as default resources. For example:Your page name is default.aspx., you have 3 resource files as mentioned earlier, each one resource file should be named as:default.aspx.en-US.resx, default.aspx.de-DE.resx and default.aspx.ar-EG.resx. Not here that we are using United States English, German's Gemran, and Egyptian's Arabic. You can use general English or general German or general Arabic like this:default.aspx.en.resx, default.aspx.de.resx and default.aspx.ar.resx. Also you can use another specific culture like using Switzerland German culture this way: default.aspx.de-CH.resx. For list of supported cultures in .Net Framework return to MSDN.

Read the complete article at C-SharpCorner.com
Read the VB.Net version as VBDotNetHeaven.com

Dino Esposito wrote a serious about ASP.NET AJAX on MSDN Magazine Cutting Edge section.
I would like to share these good links with you so here they are:

• AJAX Application Architecture, Part 1
• AJAX Application Architecture, Part 2
• Managing the User Experience in AJAX

Have fun!

Yesterday DotNetSlackers.com posted a new article authored by Ahmad Mosa. It is about How to Expose Stored Procedures to ASP.NET through HTTP Endpoints. The article shows how to use HTTP endpoints of SQL Server 2005 to publish internal reports to your organization without using IIS Web Server and regardless of heterogeneous systems. Hope you'll like the article.

Ahmad Mosa is an MCT since 2005. He has MCSD.NET for both C# & VB.NET, MCDBA for SQL Server 2000 and MCPD for Enterprise application development (chartered member). Ahmad has been working in the training field for about 5 years and he has attended several overseas training in deferent locations.

Just published my artilce about getting started with WSE 3.0 on DotNetSlackers.com. In this article I'm walking through to build simple document transfer web service using ASP.NET 2.0 and make this web serice WSE 3.0 enabled. The article is covering the following topics:

• How to configure a web service to use WSE 3.0
• How to configure a client application to use WSE 3.0
• How to configure a web service to use MTOM messaging mechanism
• How to enable a client application to use MTOM while communicating with a MTOM enabled web service

As an extension to this article, currently I'm studying how to build WSS 3.0 Web Service to upload documents to document libraries and enable WSE 3.0 on this web service. Hope I could finalize this soon.

Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.