Hello, I'm   Jason

Microsoft purchased Creature House awhile back. Yes it has taken them a long time, but they have finally released a public beta of the new Expression “4” called Acrylic. You can download it by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression.

Teemu K (joteke) has posted a great tutorial on initiating a postback on a main page of a website from a popup window. This can be used for allowing users to choose settings, login, and more!

Be sure to download the new podcast off of Wally McLure’s website. It includes an ASP.NET interview with Scott Guthrie. Check it out here.

Mayor Tom Leighton announced earlier this week that he had an “unbelievable” announcement for Wilkes-Barre. It turns out that it was more of an “unbelievable” disappointment. Here is the blurb from the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader:

Mayor Tom Leighton’s much awaited announcement of something “UNBELIEVABLE” coming to Wilkes-Barre turned out to be not a new business or industry for the city but instead a new marketing plan that Leighton hopes will foster a more optimistic attitude. The program centers on the phrase “I Believe…” and will seek to get people more involved and more positive about the city’s future.

Paul Flessner, senior vice president of Server Applications at Microsoft, announced that SQL Server™ 2005, Visual Studio® 2005 and BizTalk® Server 2006 will be formally launched during the week of November 7. This information has been made public on the Microsoft website at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/jun05/TechEd2005Day2PR.mspx.

I needed to give a friend some info about replacing tables with CSS. I googled and found a really good site. The site discusses the benefits of using CSS over tables and other HTML properties. After reviewing it, I realized maybe I should start designing the correct way. ;)

Here’s the link: http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/

Which device would you choose? Let me know at http://www.windowsadvice.com/forums/958/ShowPost.aspx.

I saw a preview of IIS 7.0 today. IIS 7.0 has many new features that will send IT Professionals and Developers into a “tailspin.” Unfortunately, the first public beta of IIS 7.0 won’t be until Longhorn Beta 2. IIS 6.0 will be part of Longhorn Beta 1.

Configuration and Admin Tool The Configuration and Admin Tool is not similar to the existing IIS 4, 5, or 6 admin tools. Rather, it is in a control-panel format. IIS 7 can be managed completely through an admin website that runs on port 80. The tool can also be exposed to additional users in a limited fashion by the admin setting up rules. So, web hosters can now offer a managed solution with doing minimal work.

Core Server The server now allows features and functionality to work as a “plug-in-play” format. What I mean is that all of the functionality for IIS 7.0 is setup in what they now call modules. So, third-party companies can now write add-in modules for the system. Also, the ASP.NET configuration tool is now integrated in IIS.

Diagnostics Administrators can now diagnose issues happening with their IIS box by establishing traces and performance monitoring within the Admin tool. They can even see if multiple processes or a single process is tying up the server. Administrators can define traces to be as granular as a particular page, type of document, and error type.

Security The security options now include supporting non-Windows authenticated models. Since the server now uses a component-based model, there is now a reduced risk for attacks.

According to a press release from earlier, eWeek has learned that ASP.NET 2.0 breaks existing 1.1 applications. I’ve done my part to test my apps in 2.0 and they all seem to work just fine. Some of the namespaces and classes will eventually go away because of enhanced functionality. So, when building your applications, you should take note of any warnings listed. You can find out more about compatibility at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/netfxcompat.asp.

I have published an article on ASPAlliance.com about the MultiView and View controls that can be found in ASP.NET 2.0. In ASP.NET 1.x, developers often used Panel controls to hide or show a grouping of other web controls and content. In ASP.NET 2.x, coding time is reduced with the new MultiView and View controls.

To read the article, visit http://aspalliance.com/675.