ASP.NET Tips

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/pages/ASP.NET-2.0-Tips_2C00_-Tricks_2C00_-Recipes-and-Gotchas.aspx

SQL Server Certifications

SQL Server CertificationsCurrently, there are certifications for three editions of SQL Server. I recommend everybody to settle on the SQL Server 2008 certifications. Microsoft certifications for SQL Server 2008 have already been released and we will be discussing them in detail. We will also explore the upgrade path from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008.

MCTS: Technology Specialist Paths - One exam to earn each of the MCTS certifications
70-432: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance
70-433: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Database Development
70-448: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance
MCITP: IT Professional Paths – Two exams to earn an MCITP certification

70-450: PRO: Designing, Optimizing, and Maintaining a Database Server Infrastructure using Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Pre-requisite: 70-432: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance

70-451: PRO: Designing Database Solutions and Data Access Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008

70-433: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Database Development

70-452: PRO: SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance

70-448: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance

SQL2K5 to SQL2K8 Upgrade Paths – One exam to earn MCTS and MCITP certifications. If developers have MCTIP certification for SQL Server 2005, they can take only one exam to upgrade their credentials to SQL Server 2008. By taking only one exam developers can achieve two certifications.

To get: 70-432 and 70-450

70-453: Upgrade: Transition your MCITP Database Administrator Skills to MCITP Database Administrator 2008

Pre-requisite: MCITP (Database Administrator -SQL Server 2005)

To get: 70-433 and 70-451

70-454: Upgrade: Transition your MCITP Database Developer Skills to MCITP Database Developer 2008

Pre-requisite: MCITP (Database Developer -SQL Server 2005)

To get: 70-448 and 70-452

70-455: Upgrade: Transition your MCITP Business Intelligence Developer Skills to MCITP Business Intelligence Developer 2008

Pre-requisite: MCITP (Business Intelligence Developer -SQL Server 2005)

Microsoft Certified Master: Microsoft SQL Server 2008
No separate exam is conducted for Master certifications. Developers who already have MCITP (SQL Server 2008) certification can attend a three-week training program delivered by recognized experts from Microsoft and their partner organizations. On successful completion of the training and on meeting all the pre-requisites listed on MS site, developers can achieve this certification.

Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA): Microsoft SQL Server 2008
No separate exam is conducted for Master certifications. Developers who have already been awarded with all MCITP (SQL Server 2008) certifications can attend a four-week training program delivered by recognized experts from Microsoft. On successful completion of the training and on meeting all the pre-requisites the candidate has to go through an intense program interview process. Visit Microsoft official website for more details on this program.

Exam Preparation
The path to achieve a certification is not difficult, but at times, it can become perplexing. Make sure that you do not become “Certificate Happy.” It is quite common that developers start dreaming about the several paths of certifications but in reality get nowhere. It is imperative to determine the right certification for yourself. If your career goal or expertise lies in the database field, endeavor toward database certifications first rather than attempting something unusual. You must select only those certifications that will add value to your career and will provide you maximum benefits. In addition, make sure those certifications test developers on hands-on experience. If certifications’ exams are attempted without having enough hands-on experience, it will be difficult to pass the exam.

If a developer realizes that additional training can enhance the knowledge of a product, it is a good idea to get training from a professional trainer. But in this case, attend the training for the product not for passing examination. There is a huge number of online courses and local institutes that claim to provide developers with certifications. A course that just helps you learn about certifications will not help your career in the long run. Thus, selecting the right course is a very important career-related decision for you. I only trust organizations where Microsoft Certified Trainers or Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are teaching the courses. Besides, gather information on what an exam contains and also, do the trial run with a practice test. As per my personal experience, I often find it easier to pass an exam after practicing the trial exam.

Registration for Exam
Prometric, an independent testing organization with over 3,000 locations worldwide, administers all MCP exams. Each exam typically costs US$125. You can register for your exam online (http://www.register.prometric.com/DirectInput.asp?DirectInput=1&Client=132), through your local testing center or via telephone. Remember, many employers have training budgets in place for such professional growth.

Please refer to the following additional resources, which are very helpful to prepare for the exam.

View exam preparation guides (http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcpexams/prepare/findexam.mspx)
Search for Microsoft Press training kits (http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/findabook/list/subject_category_T.aspx)
Browse through the Learning Catalog (http://learning.microsoft.com/Manager/catalog.aspx)



Post Examination Benefits
There are several benefits you can gain after clearing certification exams. After passing the first exam, developers earn credential of Microsoft Certified Professional commonly known as MCP. Once credentials are achieved developers get access to an official transcript, logos and certificates, and have their own landing page on Microsoft.com! According to Microsoft’s official site, real MCPs get real benefits of Reward, Respect and Recognition.

WCF Links

How to Host WCF Services Tutorial

Benefits of WCF over Web services

about benefits of WCF over Web services. Here they are
1.WCF supports more of WS-* standards than web services
2.As I mentioned in the article WCF supports multiple bindings HTTP,TCP,MSMQ,WS-HTTP etc where as web service supports only HTTP.
3.WCF can maintain transactions like COM+
4.It has JSON integration
5.It can be hosted on IIS,WAS, Self hosting and windows services
6.Web services have no instance management ie you can not have a singleton web service or session full webservice

WCF vs ASP.NET Web services

Introduction

In this post I will explain the Difference between ASP.NET web service and programming WCF services like ASP.NET web services. It also discusses how we use the both technologies for developing the web services.

The development of web service with ASP.NET relies on defining data and relies on the XmlSerializer to transform data to or from a service.

Key issues with XmlSerializer to serialize .NET types to XML

■Only Public fields or Properties of .NET types can be translated into XML.
■Only the classes which implement IEnumerable interface.
■Classes that implement the IDictionary interface, such as Hash table can not be serialized.
The WCF uses the DataContractAttribute and DataMemeberAttribute to translate .NET FW types in to XML.

[DataContract]
public class Item
{
[DataMember]
public string ItemID;
[DataMember]
public decimal ItemQuantity;
[DataMember]
public decimal ItemPrice;

}

The DataContractAttribute can be applied to the class or a strcture. DataMemberAttribute can be applied to field or a property and theses fields or properties can be either public or private.


Important difference between DataContractSerializer and XMLSerializer.

■A practical benefit of the design of the DataContractSerializer is better performance over XMLserialization.
■XMLSerialization does not indicate the which fields or properties of the type are serialized into XML where as DataCotratSerializer Explicitly shows the which fields or properties are serialized into XML.
■The DataContractSerializer can translate the HashTable into XML.
Developing Service

To develop a service using ASP.NET we must add the WebService attribute to the class and WebMethodAttribute to any of the class methods.

Example

[WebService]
public class Service : System.Web.Services.WebService
{
[WebMethod]
public string Test(string strMsg)
{
return strMsg;
}
}

To develop a service in WCF we will write the following code

[ServiceContract]
public interface ITest
{
[OperationContract]
string ShowMessage(string strMsg);
}
public class Service : ITest
{
public string ShowMessage(string strMsg)
{
return strMsg;
}
}

The ServiceContractAttribute specifies that a interface defines a WCF service contract, OperationContract Attribute indicates which of the methods of the interface defines the operations of the service contract.

A class that implements the service contract is referred to as a service type in WCF.

Hosting the Service

ASP.NET web services are compiled into a class library assembly and a service file with an extension .asmx will have the code for the service. The service file is copied into the root of the ASP.NET application and Assembly will be copied to the bin directory. The application is accessible using url of the service file.

WCF Service can be hosted within IIS or WindowsActivationService.

■Compile the service type into a class library
■Copy the service file with an extension .SVC into a virtual directory and assembly into bin sub directory of the virtual directory.
■Copy the web.config file into the virtual directory.
Client Development

Clients for the ASP.NET Web services are generated using the command-line tool WSDL.EXE.

WCF uses the ServiceMetadata tool(svcutil.exe) to generate the client for the service.

Message Representation

The Header of the SOAP Message can be customized in ASP.NET Web service.

WCF provides attributes MessageContractAttribute , MessageHeaderAttribute and MessageBodyMemberAttribute to describe the structure of the SOAP Message.

Service Description

Issuing a HTTP GET Request with query WSDL causes ASP.NET to generate WSDL to describe the service. It returns the WSDL as response to the request.

The generated WSDL can be customized by deriving the class of ServiceDescriptionFormatExtension.

Issuing a Request with the query WSDL for the .svc file generates the WSDL. The WSDL that generated by WCF can customized by using ServiceMetadataBehavior class.

Exception Handling

In ASP.NET Web services, Unhandled exceptions are returned to the client as SOAP faults.

In WCF Services, unhandled exceptions are not returned to clients as SOAP faults. A configuration setting is provided to have the unhandled exceptions returned to clients for the purpose of debugging.

Using jQuery Validation in ASP.NET Master Pages

Using jQuery Validation in ASP.NET Master Pages http://www.dotnetcurry.com/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=310&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
Delete row from GridView and Database using JQuery in asp.net
http://www.dotnetspark.com/kb/1535-delete-row-from-gridview-and-database-using.aspx
GridView and JQuery In ASP.Net Tutorial
http://www.dotnetspark.com/kb/1532-gridview-and-jquery-asp-net-tutorial.aspx
Using jQuery to Insert a New Database Record http://stephenwalther.com/blog/archive/2010/03/26/using-jquery-to-insert-a-new-database-record.aspx


Why ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanels are dangerous
http://encosia.com/2007/06/19/the-easiest-way-to-break-aspnet-ajax-pages/

c# 3.0 New Features

Introduction:

Microsoft has introduced the C# 3.0 with many key features. It reduces the work of the developers to write many lines of code to achieve the target. It will decrease the code size as well as the additional overhead of the servers.

There are many features like Auto implemented property. Anonymous types, Partial methods, object initializes, implicitly typed local variables.

New Features

1. Auto Implemented Property
The property plays significant role to set and get the values. In the previous versions we were doing like need to set the values to the temporarily local variable. Now that work exactly reduced in the C# 3.0 version. Because it will be implicitly handled by the .Net compiler.

Let's see the new version, Auto implemented property.

[Access-modifier] data type [Name of the property]
{
get;
set;
}

For example we are going to create one property for send email.

public string FromID {get; set ;}
public string ToID {get; set ;}
public string Subject {get; set ;}
public string Message {get; set ;}

In previous version we have done like this.

private string _FirstName;
public string FirstName
{
get
{
return _FirstName;
}
set
{
_FirstName = value;
}
}

Here in C# 3.0, it became auto implemented property, that means in the runtime it will put one temp variable for assign the values by the compiler.

2. Implicit Typed local variable
The new data type introduced in the C# 3.0. Normally when you store the elements in the string with the integer value we need to do the type casting. The variable that will be declared with the var keyword and it will be inferred by the compiler at the time of execution.

var Total = 10 + 10;
var iTotal = 10 + 15.5;
var Name = "Vijay" + "Anand";
var Name = "Anand" + 10;

Here what happens when you declare the var Total = 10 + 10, it will do the addition.

On the other hand, when we declare this variable in the string what happens? Let's see

string name = 10 + 10;

The result will be 1010. Because it will do the concatenation, until unless do the type casting. Here the expression will be inferred by the compiler.

It can be used to create the array in the similar way.

There are some restrictions to use this feature.

We cannot do the increment and decrement operation like i++ or ++i
We cannot declare the NULL value to the var variable.
It use be declare and initialize on the same statement in the local scope.
We cannot initialize the multiple var variables like others. Int I, j, k;


Implicitly Typed Arrays

In the previous section, you have seen how to use the var keyword for implicitly typing variables. In addition to implicitly declaring variables, you can also use the var keyword for declaring arrays as well. For example, consider the following lines of code:

int[] numbers = new int[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
string[] names = new string[] { "Dave", "Doug", "Jim" };

By using the var keyword, you can rewrite the preceding lines of code as follows:

var numbers = new[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
var names = new[] { "Dave", Doug, "Jim" };

The compiler infers the type of the array elements at compile-time by examining the values from the initialization expression.


3. Anonymous Types
An anonymous type is one of the new features introduced in the C# 3.0 version. It is a read only property and can be used to assign the set of names constants with the values. These values cannot be changed the outside Anonymous type.

var Names = new
{
FirstName = "Vijay",
LastName = "Anand",
Age = "32"
};

It can be accessed with the following:

string _FirstName = Names.FirstName;

Normally when we define in the enum, there we cannot assign any values.

It will take the order from 0 and will be incremented by one for the every constants in the enum list.

Here the value can be assigned.

CSS Box Model

CSS Box Model

The box model represents how elements are interpreted and displayed in an HTML document. Each element is seen as a box which contains certain properties that describes how it is viewed within that document.

Common properties for elements include margin, border, and padding. The margin of a box represents the outside area of a box or the area between its border and other elements. The border is simply the boxes border. Its optional and can have different styles such as grooved, dotted, or just plain solid. Between the border and the actual content the box contains is the padding. It is like a margin for the content and the border.

When sizing boxes with styles, width and height represent the content's width and height. It does not include the dimensions of the margin, border, or padding. The top, right, bottom, and left properties of a box, however, measure from the extents of a boxes margin, not its contents.

Note: IE5 incorrectly includes margin, border, and padding in the width and height of an element.

There is another aspect of the box model that is not so intuitive, margin collapsing. This is when margins of elements above and below each other collapse into one size.