Use ASP.NET 2.0's TreeView to Display Hierarchical Data

Here's a control I've been waiting for.

Really needed: Tree Control in .NET 2.0

Read full article here.

IT Readings, Software Articles, .NET, Controls

Report: Tech Jobs Tracking Up

Good news ?

IT Jobs market getting better.

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/50071.html

IT Readings, Software Articles, Jobs

Rock Solid CSS Layouts

Great tutorial on CSS and Layouts built based on CSS. 8 pages of details and samples.

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/rock-solid-css-layouts

IT Readings, Software Articles, CSS, Web Design

User-Defined Functions: Powerful Alternatives to Views and Stored

Again on SQL and its features.

Sample code and details on SQL Functions and how to replace views or stored procedures by using functions

http://www.codeguru.com/columns/experts/article.php/c11769

IT Readings, Software Articles, SQL

Other News: W3C standardize AJAX and Google patent on Speech Search

W3C works to standardize XMLHttpRequest
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/04/10/w3c-works-to-standardize-xmlhttprequest/

Google Patent Drives Speech-Search Speculation
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/49934.html

IT Readings, Software Articles, IT News

Implementing File Compression and Encryption in Visual Basic 6 Using the Microsoft .NET Framework, Part I: Cryptography

MSDN just released article. I find it interesting for a VB / .NET developer. Junior developer.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/VBCompPI.asp

IT Readings, Software Articles, VB

ASP.NET Does AJAX

Movie with Visual Studio .NET showing how to build an application that does AJAX. It is about ATLAS (This new Web development technology from Microsoft integrates client script libraries with the ASP.NET 2.0 server-based development framework.)

Movie URL:

http://www.codeguru.com/video/article.php/c11501

IT Readings, Software Articles, AJAX, Microsoft, Visual Studio .NET, Atlas

Russian students win programming contest

The new offshore location. Russia:

Read full article here.

IT Readings, Software Articles, Programming

Joel on Software - The Development Abstraction Layer

Amazing article. I enjoyed every word of it.

A programmer is most productive with a quiet private office, a great computer,
unlimited beverages, an ambient temperature between 68 and 72 degrees (F), no
glare on the screen, a chair that's so comfortable you don't feel it, an
administrator that brings them their mail and orders manuals and books, a system
administrator who makes the Internet as available as oxygen, a tester to find
the bugs they just can't see, a graphic designer to make their screens
beautiful, a team of marketing people to make the masses want their products, a
team of sales people to make sure the masses can get these products, some
patient tech support saints who help customers get the product working and help
the programmers understand what problems are generating the tech support calls,
and about a dozen other support and administrative functions which, in a typical
company, add up to about 80% of the payroll. It is not a coincidence that the
Roman army had a ratio of four servants for every soldier. This was not
decadence.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/DevelopmentAbstraction.html

I want more well written stuff like this.

IT Readings, Software Articles, Joel On Software

Google Calendar just launched

Google Calendar: All Your Appointments Are Belong To Us
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/04/13/google-calendar-all-your-appointments-belong-to-us/

Is Google Challenging Outlook With New Calendar App?
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/49939.html

Yes :)

IT Readings, Software Articles, Google

Into the Future

I was pending if to read or not this article since it seems another "how wonderful and inventive Microsoft is" and I was right.

BUT, the article was indeed interesting presenting stuff like Tablet PCs, Writting recognition, gesture recognition, XAML - really interesting stuff... if you are a geek :)

Read it anyway.

http://www.devx.com/codemag/Article/30367?trk=DXRSS_XML

IT Readings, Software Articles, Vista, XAML, Ink Recognition

Enterprise Data Management

If you are interested in MS SQL Server 2005, here's a chapter out of a book describing it. It presents some of the features and some of the functionality.

Read full article here.

IT Readings, Software Articles, SQL Server

Google Acquires Orion Search Algorithm

Google buys whatever algorithm shows up on the market. Even the ones that only seem to be an algorithm.
Maybe they get something interesting out of it, maybe they kill competition, who knows.

Do you have any idea about some new search algorithm? Google will more likely buy it.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/49851.html

IT Readings, Software Articles, Google

Automatically Hyperlink URLs and E-Mail Addresses in ASP.NET Pages with C#

Nice trick to determine email or URL out of some text and underline it, using C# code.

Read full article here.

IT Readings, Software Articles, C#

Google Earth Adds Discovery Videos

Great stuff. You can check out Discovery Videos related to locations presented by Google Maps.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/49829.html

IT Readings, Software Articles, Google

Database stuff

Two articles on database issues. One for MySQL one for MS SQL Server.

MySQL:
Optimizing Queries with Operators, Branching and Functions
Not an advanced article, just a list fo some standard MySQL functions with details for each, some samples... nice to know the functions are there.

http://www.devshed.com/c/a/MySQL/Optimizing-Queries-with-Operators-Branching-and-Functions-continued/


MS SQL Server
Replacing Cursors and While Loops
This is an old issue, problem that keeps on showing up especially on junior / trainee code. SQL Server has lots of features and functions ... and so on, but if not used properly you can end up having performance issues. One of the most effective performance-killer is inappropriate usage of cursors or while loops. Following article just gives a few examples, but look out for more like these on the internet, it really makes a difference.

Read full article here.

IT Readings, Software Articles, SQL, MySQL, Performance

Fire your Boss! The Successful Home Freelancer's Guide

Now, this type of article started to show up more an more. We have all over the internet articles saying "you can do it". Feels like a women magazine saying: follow this diet and you'll get skinny...

If it would just be that easy! There it is no "Starting up on your own - For Dummies"... An article addressing this idea can only share some of the "lessons learned"

This is what the following does, in a more organized manner:

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/fire-your-boss-home-freelance

IT Readings, Software Articles, FreeLancing

Enterprise Data Management with SQL

Great review of SQL Server 2005.
More like a feature review, with details, screenshots and everything you need in order to have an opinion on this.

http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/sample_chapter/article.php/c11699

IT Readings, Software Articles, Product Review, SQL

Stored Procedure vs Triggers

I was actually looking not for a comparison between them, because it is hard to find a place where you can chose one of them, I was looking for "pros & cons" related to each one of them, but the article here seems interesting enough to be published.

Read full article here.

IT Readings, Software Articles, SQL Server, Performance

Build Your Own Web 2.0 Application Using Fluff and Hot Air

The Seven Elements of a Successful Web 2.0 Application

Idea about using available tools / API / Open Source /Web 2.0 / Libraries in order to create an outstanding product and sell it.

Inspiration, code reused, less work and great results. I like some of the advices in this article, the funniest being the last phrase in the article:

Set it up and sell it off -- implementation is for losers!

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/application-fluff-hot-air

IT Readings, Software Articles, Web 2.0