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Two New Podcasts Uploaded on HighOnCoding

I have to agree that I have not written a new blog post for a while now. I have a long TODO post list which I would like to finish some day. Anyway, I was fortunate enough to record a couple of podcasts which are hosted on HighOnCoding.

ASP.NET MVC Framework with Ben Scheirman

Elijah Manor Tweets Knowledge

If you have not yet subscribed to the HighOnCoding Podcasts then I highly recommend that you do it right now. The subscription link is given below:

HighOnCoding Podcast RSS

Enjoy!

DownloadHelper Firefox Plugin Rules!!

Most of you already know about this but I think this is too cool to blog. I believe that majority of the people own a Zune or an IPod. Most of them wish that they are able to download videos from different websites specially YouTube. Well, now you can easily download YouTube or any website videos straight to your IPod or Zune using a FireFox extension called DownloadHelper.

DownloadHelper allows easily downloading and converting the files to the targeted device. I frequently visit InfoQ for their high quality content but am quite frustrated to see that there is no download link. Using DownloadHelper I was able to download the video files directly to my Zune and watch it at my leisure.

Go check out DownloadHelper right now!

Presenting I Love IronRuby at Houston .NET User Group on July 9th 2009

I am honored to be presenting for Houston .NET User Group on July 9th 2009. The topic of interest will be IronRuby. If you have been to one of my previous sessions then you already know that my PowerPoint skills are quite rusty. For that reason I will not be using any PowerPoint slides. The session will focus on how to download, install and develop using IronRuby.

The session will also look into how to use .NET libraries from the IronRuby runtime as well as how to run IronRuby from a statically typed language (C#).

Finally, I will explain how to leverage the power of IronRuby framework to the web and create ASP.NET MVC application using IronRuby.

HighOnCoding Podcasts Now Available!!

After almost 1 year of starting HighOnCoding Podcast I finally decided to create IPOD, Zune compatible RSS feeds. The RSS feed for podcast is live now which can easily be hooked up to the device of your choice.

You can subscribe to the podcast using the link below:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/highoncoding/HighOnCodingPodcasts

Review: ASP.NET MVC in Action

There is a saying that the real weight of the book is the information it contains and not the pages it carries. At merely 300 pages ASP.NET MVC in Action is a true masterpiece. This book clearly shows that authors who have real world experience can write practical books which are more effective than others who have spent their exile in the glass chambers of the theoretical world. The authors, Jeffery Palermo, Ben Scheirman Jimmy Bogard are considered rock stars in ASP.NET community and they have opened up the doors to their concert with ASP.NET MVC in Action.

The book starts by pointing out the current problems in web development and how ASP.NET MVC addresses each of them. Then it explores the M in Model, the V in View and the C in controller. After setting the initial stage the book explores the CodeCampServer project which serves as the sample for the book. The book is targeted to all level of developers. The flow of the book carries on to next chapter seamlessly.

One of my favorite chapters was chapter 5, Routing. The authors discussed how a better URL and hackable URLs can increase the SEO of the website. I also found the chapter on Ajax quite exciting. The book used JQuery as their primary JavaScript library and showed some of the magic that is created when JQuery and ASP.NET MVC are combined.

The book ends with a chapter on best practices using the ASP.NET MVC Framework in which the authors share their words of wisdom. The chapter clearly shows that the authors have spent considerable amount of time dealing with different problems that may rise in a web application.

All in all ASP.NET MVC in Action should be on the top of the stack when picking up ASP.NET MVC book.