Check out the list of free upcoming webcasts by the ASP.NET team. You can see a full list of webcasts by visiting Scott Guthrie’s post.

I’m not saying I approve this, and usually I wouldn’t post this stuff, but this is funny. I live about 30 minutes from Hazleton, home of Lou Barletta. In Hazleton they have new laws regulating illegal aliens and immigrants. If you’ll be offended by this I’m really sorry. Please don’t read any further if this is the case. http://www.casadice.com/signs/index.htm

In this show, Wally interview John Papa. You can download this latest podcast at aspnetpodcast.com.

Also, be on the lookout for a future ASP.NET Podcast show where I interview Julie Lerman. I did the interview last night. Every time I meet up with Julie somewhere I find out something new and interesting.

Are you an avid reader of Scott Guthrie’s blog? Do you look to Scott first for answers? If so, check out his blog search. It can be found at http://cookbook.scottgu.com/

Tonight’s .NET Valley event will feature Julie Lerman. Julie will talk about 5 things that don’t have to be scary with .NET. If you’re new or have experience with .NET, it’s still a treat to see Julie present. More details can be found on the .NET Valley website at www.dotnetvalley.com.

In this article Jason examines how to create a simple configuration section handler using ASP.NET 2.0 with the help of code samples. You can read the new article at http://aspalliance.com/924.

Teemu “Joteke” Keiski has helped me solve a very trivial task. I had the simple request of accessing a GridView row data by checking a checkbox within that row. Based on the row data, I’d perform a particular task.

My GridView had a few bound columns with a few template columns. One of the template columns contained a checkbox. When the checkbox was clicked, I wanted to run the Checked event and pull information from the row that it was clicked. So, using the Checked event, I can then take that information and based on that information, I can perform a task. The example I have provided below does just that. It is a simple example where the first field in the GridView is a username from the Membership.GetUsers collection. The second and third fields are two roles that the user may or may not be part of. I want the administrator to click the checkbox to add or remove the user from a particular role. Here’s the example:

I was reading an article earlier by Jim Rapoza of eWeek. In the eWeek labs, eWeek setup “stack packs”. Each pack had their own server OS, web server, database, scripting/development language, and test portal.

The Windows JBoss had Server 2k3, Apache, MySQL, JSP, and JBoss Portal. The Windows Python had Server 2k3, Zope, ZODB, Python, and Plone. The WAMP had Server 2k3, Apache, MySQL, PHP, XOOPS. The Linux Python had SUSE Linux, Zope, ZODB, Python, and Plone. The LAMP had Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and XOOPS. The Linux JBoss had CentOS, Apache, MySQL, JSP, JBoss Portal. The Linux J2EE had CentOS, Apache, Hypersonic SQL, JSP, and Liferay. The .NET solution had Server 2k3, IIS, Sql 2k5, ASP, and SharePoint 2003.

According to their tests, the Windows JBoss, Python, and WAMP solutions all were between 14 and 18 transactions per second. The .NET solution was around 6 transactions per second. The rest were all below 3 transactions per second. However, The Linux J2EE solution averaged 240 hits per second with .NET behind around 165 hits per second. The others were all below 25. .NET also performed the best or near the top in the average throughput per second, average page download time, and average document download time. All stacks used Borland’s SilkPerformer to gauge performance.

The issue I have with these results is that I believe they are not accurate. Easily said without proving it, but if you are going to take the time to test these IT “stack packs”, why wouldn’t use use additional software for measuring purposes? Also, why wouldn’t you include the specs of the hardware? Is the hardware the same throughout? What kind of application is being executed? Is it the portal? In my opinion, I think this article proved nothing. It was nice to see .NET at the top or near the top through all the tests, but the results mean very little without answering these questions.

I was reading a post by Richard Dudley earlier regarding membership management on remote websites. He mentioned a tool that seems to be pretty useful and costs $59. That’s not bad at all for users who don’t have the time or desire to whip up a membership console themselves. However, minus the AJAX enabled interface, it’s not that difficult. During my talk at Philly.net back in May, I discussed different ways to manage roles and membership. You can download my talk with examples here.

On one of the email lists earlier in the week, someone struggled with moving the Membership portion of their website from a staging environment to production environment. I’ve seen this many times before and have a solution. Scott Guthrie has posted about this awhile ago. Many developers use the built-in providers without specifying the properties of each section. It is important that the applicationName be set in the web.config. If not, you’ll run into the same struggles. Scott’s post detailing what I’m talking about can be found here.