.NET 4 - Whats new?

.NET 4 contains new functionality and improvements throughout the framework.

1. Code Contracts
System.Diagnostics.Contracts provides a language-agnostic way to express coding assumptions in .NET programs


2. Parallel Extensions
The Parallel Computing Platform team worked with us to add the Task Parallel Library (TPL), Coordination Data Structures, and Parallel LINQ (PLINQ) to the BCL in .NET 4.

3. BigInteger
System.Numerics.BigInteger is an arbitrary-precision integer data type.

4.Variance annotations
C# and VB now support safe co- and contra-variance for generic interface and delegate types.

5.Tuples (new in Beta 1)
We’ve added common Tuple types in the BCL to facilitate language interoperability and to reduce duplication in the framework.

6.SortedSet
We’ve added a SortedSet collection along with a new ISet interface. SortedSet uses a self-balancing tree which maintains data in sorted order for performance guarantees with insertion, deletion, and searches. Both the new SortedSet and the existing HashSet implement ISet.


7.File System Enumeration Improvements
System.IO.Directory and System.IO.DirectoryInfo have new APIs for enumerating the file system that return IEnumerables instead of arrays.

8.MemoryMappedFiles
System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles exposes the memory mapping functionality provided by Windows as first-class managed APIs.

9.Registry Improvements


10 Globalization data updated to Unicode 5.1 and ResourceManager Improvements

Test your web page on multiple browsers

Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.

Learn more... http://browsershots.org/

Build Ajax-enabled Web 2.0 Apps in Minutes!

Iron Speed Designer is a .NET code generator that creates visually stunning, feature-rich Web 2.0 applications that are easy to customize and ready to deploy. Turbocharge your Web application development today!

Speed Web application development
Dramatically reduce development costs
Impress customers and clients
Boost application ROI
Learn more... http://www.ironspeed.com/

Color Picker

Its one of frequent task for web developer is to change the web page color. Here ar some tool which simplyfy the life of developer.

ColorPic
========
1. Easily pick any color from the screen
2. Colors shown in hex and decimal
3. Adjust Hue, Saturation, Value, Red, Green and Blue values
4. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black percentages shown

5. Easy to use with any other program
6. Resizable magnification area
7. Overlay a grid for quick colorpicker alignment
8. Use arrow keys to nudge mouse pointer
9. Save multiple palettes of colors automatically
10. WebSafe Colors and names displayed
11. Snap to nearest WebSafe color
12. Point sample, 3x3 or 5x5 pixel color sampling
13. Adjust color with four advanced color mixers
14. Edit colorpicker values after selection easily
15. Easy to use collapsible sections
16 Works with Firefox, Internet Explorer

Further refer the url
http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/

Online tool for color picker.
http://www.colorpicker.com/

Convert VB.NET to C#

Conver your .NET CODE through this tool

http://www.developerfusion.com/tools/convert/vb-to-csharp/

Developing Parallel Programs in .net

Parallel programming is becoming the mainstream paradigm in day-to-day information processing . Its an extension of sequential programming. It build to produce the fastest programs on parallel computers. The methodologies for developing a parallel program can be put into integrated frameworks. Development focuses on algorithm, languages, and how the program is deployed on the parallel computer.

For further on Parallel in .net, refer below link

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/aa699426.aspx

ANTS Profiler - Performance profiling

ANTS Profiler is a code profiling tool designed for .NET developers who want to get to the bottom of these and other related issues. Technical testers also use ANTS Profiler to pin bugs down to a specific line of code or to determine scope for optimization.


What ANTS Profiler does
ANTS Profiler allows you to identify slow lines of code in .NET applications within 5 minutes of installation, allowing you to get on with what you do best � writing code. The program can also be used to measure line-level timings and method execution times, and to understand how your application performs.

TO DO list with gubb

gubb allow you to create and maintain to do list. It has the facility to archive the completed items.

http://www.gubb.net/home

Web Developer Tool List

Web Developer Tool List

•Photoshop 5.5 (our full review) - Latest version of the classic graphics program. It's a challenge for beginners, but once you've got your head around it you can do anything you like to an image.

•Dreamweaver 3 (our full review) - Latest version of the most popular professional editor. Download a 30 day trial or go for some of Macromedia's recommended plug-ins.

•1st Page 2000 - A free HTML editor including many JavaScript and Perl scripts. The interface is similar to HomeSite.

•Adobe Golive - An excellent professional editor for Macs. There's a Windows version too.

•Media Cleaner - If you want to mess about converting and compressing movies, you'll
find it hard to beat Media Cleaner Pro. It accepts most formats and works on many platforms. It's probably the Web movie industry standard software. There are lots of other downloadable goodies on the Terran site too.

•RealSystem G2 Beta Server - Streaming media from the experts. The RealSystem G2 Full Beta Server, which the company describes as open-standard, is available for evaluation.

•Shoutcast server - Broadcast streaming MP3s from your server to Winamp users around the world. Runs on Windows, Unix, Linux and other platforms.

•Flash 4 - If Macromedia gets its way, future developers won't even bother to learn HTML, because Web sites will be Flash from top to bottom. It's the Web animation standard. Here's your chance to get Flashed-up on a 30 day free trial.

•Livestage - Makes the most of the QuickTime format. Other movie formats can be incorporated within a QuickTime video.

•MovieWorks - Create QuickTime movies on a Mac. Trial software on 30 day approval.

•Analog logfile analyser - Around 25% of the world's logfiles are analysed using Analog. It's not as sophisticated as some of the other logfile programs out there, but it compensates in one very special way - it's free.

•Canoma - Take your regular photos of a building and glue them to a wireframe model. Hey Presto! A 3D graphic. The user interface is a joy.

•FreeHand - Illustration program famed and revered for its WYSIWYG output. Now in version 8. The trial is 30 day and fully functional.

•Image Optimizer - Excellent file size reduction system allows some parts of a graphic to be heavily compressed while other parts retain their detail.

•Illustrator - Major-league illustration software from Adobe. Unfortunately the tryout version doesn’t allow saves, exports or printouts.

•Topstyle - A popular CSS editor for simple creation of cross-browser style sheets.

•Actinic Catalog - Well-known eCommerce software with over 1300 licensees - and that’s just in the UK!

•WebSpeed Optimizer - A great little utility that throttles back the data transfer within your computer. Just set the controls for 56kbps and watch your site download from your hard drive to your screen at the same speed most of your visitors will receive it.

•Drumbeat 2000 - Macromedia ASP software for sophisticated database management. The eCommerce edition goes all the way to the shopfront. A JSP (JavaServer Pages) edition is also available.

•Homesite - Homesite wins coveted Web Developer's Journal Product of the Year, 1998 award with a total of five propheads. Read the review or download the trial version. You can also get the 4.5 beta here.

•Style Master 1.2 - Style Master is just the thing for anyone unfamiliar with the syntax and rules of CSS and for anyone wanting to get CSS to really rock and roll.

•WS_FTP Pro - New and Improved FTP Client. This is the one we've been waiting for!

•Transit Central and HTML Transit - Template-based automated Web publishing.

•CheckOut - Shopping cart with Java, enhanced CGI and simple browser modes, plus a variety of other eCommerce tools.

•Spirit - "Spirit can build almost any kind of GUI and deal with interactions. You can build components, vector graphics, spinners, databases, etc."

•Writing Proposals that Work - Combines instructions on Web proposal writing along with a template that the writer can use to develop the actual proposal.

•Ozzino Studio - "Let your web pages come alive with exciting animated interactive java applets. Easy to use interface and no programming required.Tons of functionality:- instant animated 3D objects from static images; rotating applets in same location; add interactivity to animated objects and animated gifs; spectacular drop-down menu bars; and much more."

•Texter - Create dazzling text animation Java applets in seconds with Ozzino's award winning Texter. Easy to use interface and no programming required.

•Calendars for the Web - "The software creates HTML Table and/or Image Map calendars. I've downloaded many competing calendar programs and I think this software is much, much better."

•Advanced Template Package - If you do CGI programming in Perl, then this is something you may have been waiting for -- using templates in Perl scripts.

•Web Hotspots 4.0 - Imagemap editors for static and animated imagemaps.

•Webber - A little known editor called Webber. It is simple to use, validates, and has an excellent help system. It is not a WYSISYG but you can type or import your text, mark and code that way.

•ECware Pro Version 4.0 - Comprehensive eCommerce solution (registration required for download).

•MODPlug Software - A different sort of program for background music and jukeboxes on Web pages.

•Paint Shop Pro - Version 6.01 of this great value for money graphics program.

•Hit List 4.0 - Features point and click DataLink for web mining.

XenoCode Browser Sandbox

Browser testing is one of the most tedious and frustrating parts of web development. What designer or programmer hasn’t screamed bloody murder at broken alignments in Internet ExplorerInternet Explorer 6? One of the difficult parts of browser testing is that no developer can have every browser type on a single computer for proper testing.

Enter XenoCode Browser Sandbox, a series of virtual applications that can run all popular browsers simultaneously. It does not even require the installation of software.

CLR Profiler -Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability

CLR Profiler enables you to look at the managed heap of a process and investigate the behavior of the garbage collector. Using the various views in the tool, you can obtain useful information about the execution, allocation, and memory consumption of your application.

CLR Profiler is not a starting point for analyzing problems. Rather, it helps you identify and isolate problematic code and track down memory leaks. Using CLR Profiler, you can identify code that allocates too much memory, causes too many garbage collections, and holds on to memory for too long.

Note CLR Profiler is an intrusive tool that causes your application's performance to be significantly slower than normal (somewhere between 10 to 100 times slower). The tool is not designed for use in production environments.


Download CLR Profiler
CLR Profiler is available as an Internet download from Microsoft Download Center at http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/4/2/442d67c7-a1c1-4884-9715-803a7b485b82/clr%20profiler.exe.

Google Webmaster Tools Crawl Stats

You want to use Google Webmaster Tools and look at statistics for your website, such as its performance with GZIP and the number of bytes downloaded per day. Look at some data in Google Webmaster Tools and interpret it. Solution. Here we look at some data from Google Webmaster tools and make observations about it.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Fiddler Tool for HTTP Debugging

You want to see how can Fiddler help you solve caching problems in ASP.NET. For example, enable private caching on your ASP.NET website for performance benefits. Solution. Here we use Microsoft's Fiddler tool for debugging.


1. HTTP and Fiddler
For the example, I will examine private caching in ASP.NET. I required a private cache in ASP.NET, meaning one that only the browser would keep. Then I use Fiddler to see what happens. [Fiddler Web Debugger - A free web debugging tool - fiddlertool.com]

2. Getting started
You don't need to change any code to use Fiddler, but here I show the ASP.NET code so we can see what it does. We enable ASP.NET caching and use Fiddler to make sure it works right.

3. How can I force client-side caching?
You can't. But you can allow it. You can use HttpCachePolicy in ASP.NET to indicate to the browsers that they don't need to re-download pages every time.

4. Add client caching in ASP.NET
Here we tell browsers to cache pages in their memory. This saves network accesses, and makes everything faster. Use HttpCachePolicy in ASP.NET.

Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.Private);
Response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(5));5. How can I use Fiddler?
Open it alongside Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or Safari. Fiddler is a HTTP debugging proxy, and we use it to see HTTP connections. It is not only for ASP.NET or IIS. Similar tools are available in Firebug and Safari.

•The left side shows connections.
These connections are made. The first column shows the Result, which is 200 for HTTP success. Other codes are the famous 404, and 302.
•It uses special icons.
In the left side, blue indicates requests and green indicates downloads. You see when a page wasn't in the client-side cache.
6. Server-side caching
Servers can also cache HTML on their end, but Fiddler can't distinguish these loads. Server-cached pages will still be sent even if they haven't changed.

7. Use Fidder to check caching
You should make it so when the user clicks back, your page loads from the browser cache. Visitors click the site icon multiple times. Test this with Fiddler.

8. Use Fiddler with GZIP compression
You can use Fiddler to see how much GZIP compression would help your website. Click the radio button on the Transformer tab to count bytes.

Use HexView. You can read the raw binary in GZIP files using HexView. I used this to see the original file names in my GZIP files. This is useful for low-level server bugs.

9. Use Fiddler's ImageView
On the ImageView tab, you can see the images that are sent through HTTP. This is useful for dynamic images, such as those in ASHX handlers. [ASP.NET ASHX Handler Tutorial - dotnetperls.com]

10. Use Fiddler to examine headers
On the right side of Fiddler (which you can open by double clicking on an item in the left pane), click on Inspectors -> Headers. These are the raw HTTP headers.

The Yahoo! Developer Network

The Yahoo! Developer Network offers Web Services and APIs to make it easy for developers to build applications and mashups.

http://developer.yahoo.com/

Flex

Flex is a highly productive, free open source framework for building and maintaining expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/?view=samples

Switch Tools

These two tools are rather simple, but can be extremely useful. The first is the ASP.NET Version Switcher, which can be used to switch the version of ASP.NET that a virtual directory is running under. The second tool is the Visual Studio Converter, which can be used to switch a project file from Visual Studio .NET 2002 to Visual Studio .NET 2003.

http://www.denisbauer.com/NETTools/ASPNETVersionSwitcher.aspx.

NAnt

NAnt is a .NET-based build tool that, unlike the current version of Visual Studio .NET, makes it easy to create a build process for your project. When you have a large number of developers working on a single project, you can't rely on the build from a single user's box. You also do not want to have to build the project manually on a regular basis. Instead, you create an automated build process that runs every night. NAnt allows you to build your solution, copy files, run NUnit tests, send e-mail, and much more. Unfortunately, NAnt is lacking a nice looking graphical interface, but it does have a console application and XML files that specify which tasks should be completed during the build process. Note that MSBuild, the new build platform that's part of Visual Studio 2005, provides for very robust build scenarios and is similarly driven by XML-based project files.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/nant.

NDoc

Code documentation is almost always a dreaded task. I am not talking about the early design documents, or even the more detailed design documents; I am talking about documenting individual methods and properties on classes. The NDoc tool will automatically generate documentation for your code using reflection to examine the assembly and using the XML generated from your C# XML comments. XML comments are only available for C#, but there is a Visual Studio .NET Power Toy called VBCommenter which will do something similar for Visual Basic .NET. In addition, the next release of Visual Studio will support XML comments for more languages.

http://ndoc.sourceforge.net.

FxCop

The .NET Framework is very powerful, which means there is great potential to create excellent applications, but there is equal opportunity to create poor programs. FxCop is one of the tools that can be used to help create better applications by enabling you to examine an assembly and check it for compliance using a number of different rules. FxCop comes with a set number of rules created by Microsoft, but you can also create and include your own rules. For instance, if you decided that all classes should have a default constructor that takes no arguments, you could write a rule that checks for a constructor on each class of an assembly. This way, no matter who writes the code, you will have a certain level of consistency.

http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/fxcop.

NUnit

NUnit is an open source unit testing framework built for the .NET Framework. NUnit allows you to write tests in the language of your choice to test a specific function of your application. Unit tests are an excellent way to test the functionality of your code when you first write it, and also to provide a method for regression testing of your application. The NUnit application provides a framework for writing unit tests, as well as a graphical interface to run these tests and view the results.

http://www.nunit.org

CodeSmith

CodeSmith is a template-based code-generation tool that uses a syntax similar to ASP.NET to generate any type of code or text. Unlike many other code-generation tools, CodeSmith does not require you to subscribe to a particular application design or architecture. Using CodeSmith, you can generate anything from a simple, strongly typed collection to an entire application.

When you are building an application, you will often find yourself repeating certain tasks, whether it's writing data access code or building custom collections. CodeSmith is particularly useful at such times because you can write templates to automate those tasks and not only improve your productivity but also automate the tasks that are the most tedious to perform.

CodeSmith ships with a number of templates, including ones for all the .NET collection types as well as ones to generate stored procedures, but the real power of this tool comes from being able to create custom templates. To get you started, I'll provide a quick introduction to building a custom template.

http://www.ericjsmith.net/codesmith.

Script#

Script# brings productivity to Ajax and JavaScript development. Script# is a free tool that enables developers to author C# source code and subsequently compile it into regular script that works across all modern browsers, and in doing so, leverage the productivity and power of existing .NET tools as well as the Visual Studio IDE. Script# empowers you with a development methodology and approach that brings software engineering, long term maintainability and scalable development approaches for your Ajax applications, components and frameworks.

Script# is used extensively by developers within Microsoft building Ajax experiences in Windows Live, Office to name just a couple, as well as by a external developers and companies including Facebook. If you’re building Ajax-based RIA applications, you owe it to yourself to try Script# today and see if it can help improve your own Ajax development!

http://projects.nikhilk.net/ScriptSharp/

JSON

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language, Standard ECMA-262 3rd Edition - December 1999. JSON is a text format that is completely language independent but uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and many others. These properties make JSON an ideal data-interchange language.

http://www.json.org/

jQuery

jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.

• Lightweight Footprint

  About 19KB in size (Minified and Gzipped)

• CSS3 Compliant

  Supports CSS 1-3 selectors and more!

• Cross-browser

  IE 6.0+, FF 2+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.0+, Chrome

http://jquery.com/

Firebug

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Just the way you like it

Firebug is always just a keystroke away, but it never gets in your way. You can open Firebug in a separate window, or as a bar at the bottom of your browser. Firebug also gives you fine-grained control over which websites you want to enable it for.

YSlow

Yahoo! YSlow

YSlow analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. YSlow is a Firefox add-on integrated with the Firebug web development tool. YSlow grades web page based on one of three predefined ruleset or a user-defined ruleset. It offers suggestions for improving the page's performance, summarizes the page's components, displays statistics about the page, and provides tools for performance analysis, including Smush.it™ and JSLint.