Dan Maharry

Links for 2009-04-23 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00:00 PDT

How to improve the performance of ASP.NET MVC web applications
Simone Chiaretta looks at easy micro-optimizations to improve the performance of your ASP.NET MVC apps
A new flag to optimize ASP.NET compilation behavior
David Ebbo outlines a new hotfix to enable the optimization of asp.net compilation on the server
13 ASP.NET MVC extensibility points you have to know
Simone Chiaretta lists the main extensibility points for an MVC application

WebDD 2009

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:49:00 +0100

Saturday morning saw the second free WebDD conference take place. Amongst the presentations, Mike Ormond and Alex Mackey spoke on things forthcoming in .NET 4.0, Sebastien Lambla spoke at a rate of knots about MVC best practices despite his computer blue-screening mid-presentation, and I introduced those interested to IIS 7.0 Extensions, the Lightweight Test Framework, the new ASP.NET Chart Control and the History State and Script Combining features of the ScriptManager. The code and slides for this presentation can be found here and via the downloads page.

Thanks to Dave and to Phil for setting up WebDD, the speakers, attendees and MS event staff for giving up their Saturday to make this a great event and finally to Janey for coming to support me while I tried not to um or ah too much through my first presentation. If you’ve any feedback for me on how I went, let me know or twitter it using the #webdd tag.

Links for 2009-04-04 [del.icio.us]

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:00:00 PDT

A better Model Binder
Jimmy Bogard on MVC custom model binders and deriving from the default
Introducing Docu - Simple doc gen for .Net
James Gregory announces his simple documentation generator for .net. An alternative to Sandcastle
ASP.NET Security Architecture Cheat Sheet For Very Busy Architects
Alike Levin shows how pictures are worth 1000 words with a set of simple diagrams illustrating all the potential security problems with asp.net websites
Extension methods: If you have a shiny new hammer
Andre Loker looks at the pros and cons of using extension methods just because you can
Visual Studio Twilight theme
Sean Biefeld produces an excellent low contrast dark theme for Windows
ViewState 101
If you're not up to the challenge of the 400-level post on Viewstate at Infinities Loop, this is a gentler run through by Tony Lombardo
First steps with Lightweight Test Automation Framework
Steve Sanderson makes baby steps with the ASP.NET TestQA team's Lightweight Test Application Framework
Some ASP.NET compiler black magic
Bertrand Leroy looks at some asp.net compilation obscura that may well come in handy one day
Beginning Mocking With Moq 3 - Part 4
Part 4 of Justin Etheridge's beginners guide to Moq'ing. This time he discusses mocking multiple interfaces and doing callbacks in Moq 3.
Ten C# Keywords That You Shouldn’t Be Using
More from Justin Etheridge
MSDN Loband Rocks
Craig Andrea notes a new beta of the low bandwidth version of MSDN Library
ASP.NET MVC Best Practices (Part 1)
Kazi Manzur Rashid presents 14 'best practices' for MVC development. YMMV
ASP.NET MVC Best Practices (Part 2)
Kazi Manzur Rashid presents a final 7 'best practices' for MVC development. YMMV
Introduction to Unobtrusive JavaScript, DOM Scripting, and the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library | 2 tablespoons
Say it all

Speaking at WebDD 09

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:48:00 +0100

Woot! I’ve been invited to give my first full presentation at WebDD ’09 on April 18. I’ll be giving the talk “ASP.NET 3.5 – Miss Something?” in which I’ll look at the out of band ASP.NET-related releases that Microsoft have made since they first dropped ASP.NET 3.5. Charts, Browser History plug-ins, IIS plug-ins, Service Pack 1 and more.

Can’t wait for the event. Hopefully I’m not speaking at the same time as Barry. I’d really like to see his talk.

Links for 2009-03-21 [del.icio.us]

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PDT

The Ultimate Small Business Twitter List

Links for 2009-03-13 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Unit Testing ASP.NET MVC Custom Model Binders
Scott Hanselman demonstrates how to build and test a custom data model binder
Client Rendering Views with Spark and ASP.NET MVC
K. Scott Allen demonstrates an alternate view engine named spark for ASP.NET MVC
Mirroring Subversion from Windows -
Christopher Bennage on how to mirror a local subversion repository to another machine
ASP.NET MVC + RSS ActionResult
Quick demonstration of how to create your own custom ActionResult class for MVC
6 Things Every ASP.NET Developer Should Know by 2010
Combine/Compress/Minify JS and CSS files in ASP.NET MVC
Codeproject article on creating a controller that will minify your static css and script files for you. MVC is the basis, but could possibly be used with ASP.NET 3.5 routing too
Free ASP.NET MVC eBook Tutorial
Scott Guthrie outlines the 185 page tutorial on ASP.NET MVC now available for free download
MVC Contrib
Codeplex complementary project for the ASP.NET MVC framework. Contains several alternate M, V and Cs as well as resharper live templates for MVC development
Identify And Fix Performance Bottlenecks In ASP.NET Web Applications
Alik Levin's 30 page PDF of ways to find and fix performance bottlenecks.
Back to Basics: Interfaces
Karl Seguin presents a simple but good guide to using interfaces in your code and why you should use them
Validation with Asp.net MVC, xVal & IDataerrorInfo
Adam Schroder demonstrates using the xVal framework for validation with MVC
ASP.NET Routing performance compare to HttpHandler
Post on how asp.net routing affects site performance compared to using a simple http handler to do the same
Debugging Attributes
Darren Fieldhouse demonstrates using attributes on classes and class members to make the debugging experience in VS easier and more informative
Beginning Mocking With Moq 3 – Part 1
Part 1 of Justin Etheridge's series on using Moq 3 for testing. This covers how to create a Mock object and use it to verify a method call.
Beginning Mocking With Moq 3 - Part 2
Part 2 of Justin Etheridge's series on using Moq 3 for testing. This covers understanding how verification lambdas works, checking the values of parameters being passed into methods and finally verifying a property value was set or read

Bring Her Home

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:00:35 +0100

Badly injured Bay Area girl, in a coma in India - kept for a while in horrid conditions, and without proper medical attention.

Though she is in a better hospital than she was previously, being home for the rest of her care would help her, and her family a lot.

Family and friends are trying to raise the money for that.

You can help bring her home by going here, and donating anything - a few dollars, a few more. Please don’t think you can’t make a difference on this one, those pennies and dollars do add up.

You can read more here: Coilhouse

Links for 2009-02-28 [del.icio.us]

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

Unit Testing The MVC JsonResult
Jeremiah Clark on unit testing part of the MVC framework
A New Look for Visual Studio 2010
Jason Zander shows off the flatter, WPF based look for VS2010
ASP.NET MVC RC Compiler Post-Build Step
Elijah Manor highlights a useful feature of ASP.NET MVC which allows you to build your views at compile time to verify that there are no compile errors in the view code, all achieved by the use of the <MvcBuildViews /> element in the project file.

Sessions for WebDD 2009

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:18:12 +0100

As Dave announced last week, a second web-only DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper day will take place at Microsoft UK in Reading on April 18 to coincide with this year's MIX event in Las Vegas. Sessions are now being proposed and I have submitted a couple for your consideration.

MVC102

There are lots of podcasts and videos online these days that introduce how the M, V and C fit together in the MVC framework. Beyond this, and the fact that it makes use of the ASP.NET core framework, there's not much more out there. In this presentation we take a look at MVC one level down, covering such topics as model data binders, validation, action attributes, error handling and more.

ASP.NET 3.5 - Miss Something?

It would be very easy to remember the period between the release of ASP.NET 3.5 and 4.0 as the time when ASP.NET MVC was made. But it’s worth remembering that ASP.NET 3.5 service pack 1 and several out of band releases for ASP.NET and IIS came out as well. This presentation will cover as many of the other additions to web development as can be fit into an hour.

There are - naturally - many other proposed sessions for WebDD09 but only your votes will determine the ones presented. And if you don't see anything you like, you can also fill out a form to request a topic for someone to present on.

Links for 2009-02-23 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:00:00 PST

MVC ModelBinder and Localization
Melvyn Harbour discusses how to incorporate localization into your MVC model binders
Using the ASP.NET MVC ModelBinder attribute
Part one of Maarten Balliauw's article on using the MVC ModelBinder
Using the ASP.NET MVC ModelBinder attribute part two
Part two of Maarten Balliauw's article on using the MVC ModelBinder

TinyMCE, .NET, UpdatePanels and DataBinding

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:22:06 +0100

(In which the question of getting TinyMCE to DataBind successfully in UpdatePanels is partially solved, but Chrome refuses to play nicely.)

There seems to be a common cry of agony when you try to stick a TinyMCE-adorned textarea in an UpdatePanel. Partial page updates strip the iFrame that TinyMCE’s init script lays onto the textarea. The UpdatePanel also seems to prevent TinyMCE’s built-in trigger from updating the underlying textarea in non-IE browsers (oh the irony) which means that if you try and update values to a database, the FormCollection at the back of the page never gets the new value and the database doesn't get updated.

TinyMCE's download page has an alpha .NET wrapper for TinyMCE which I’m using here by the way. Chris de Vos has used some of the solution described below to implement an AJAX extender control which applies TinyMCE to a designated control. My own version of ‘TinyMCE.NET’ which doesn’t use gzip compression but which does embed the TinyMCE scripts into the DLL can be downloaded here as a .NET 3.5 solution. If you have any improvements on it, please let me know. Download it here.

Textarea loses TinyMCE wrapper in Partial Postbacks

There are two approaches that .NET has for fixing this issue. The first is to use the page’s ScriptManager to re-run the call to TinyMCE.Init whenever the UpdatePanel containing the textarea is posted back asynchronously. So then, if we have a function which generates a call to TinyMCE.init (called GenerateInitCall), then we can just make this call.

ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(
   this, this.GetType(), this.ClientID + "_ajax", GenerateInitCall(), true);

The alternate approach comes from Stefan (steho706), who figured out how to use the MS AJAX javascript library to remove and then re-add the TinyMCE skin to the textarea. The original thread is here on forums.asp.net. His solution has three parts. It works best if your page contains a button that causes the partial postback.

1. When the partial postback is triggered, save the tinyMCE value back to the textarea associated with it. If you’re using a button of some sort to initiate the postback, that means associating the following function to its onClick (onClientClick if you’re doing it in .NET) event.

function UpdateTextArea()
{ 
    tinyMCE.triggerSave(false, true); 
}

If you’re using something other than a button - for example, a command link in a DataGrid, you’ll need to attach the function to the initializeRequest event that the MS AJAX javascript library makes available for partial postbacks via its client-side PageRequestManager.

Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.
   getInstance().add_initializeRequest(UpdateTextArea);

If you’re not familiar with this, it works pretty much the same as the asp.net page lifecycle but is completely client-side. MSDN has a good introduction to it here.

2. As the partial postback request begins, unload the TinyMCE editor from the page. Note that the function tests whether the button clicked to cause the postback is the one associated with the TinyMCE textarea. As noted earlier this makes it more awkward if buttons aren't what is causing the postback. Use the PageRequestManager's BeginRequest event to trigger the function.

Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.
   getInstance().add_beginRequest(BeginRequestHandler); 

function BeginRequestHandler(sender, args)
{
   // Fix to make tinyMCE work with UpdatePanel 
   var elem = args.get_postBackElement();
   if (elem.id == '<%= btnSave.ClientID %>') // Only the button unloads the editor
   { 
      // Check that there is an instance to remove
      if (tinyMCE.getInstanceById('<%= txtContent.ClientID %>') != null && 
         tinyMCE.getInstanceById('<%= txtContent.ClientID %>') != "undefined")
      {
         tinyMCE.execCommand('mceFocus', false, '<%= txtContent.ClientID %>');    
         tinyMCE.execCommand('mceRemoveControl',false,'<%= txtContent.ClientID %>');
      }
   }
}

3. At this point, the value in the TextArea is saved back into the form and posted back to the server. When the page is posted back, TinyMCE must be loaded back onto the textarea. To achieve this, we attach one more function, this time to the PageRequestManager’s endRequest event.

Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.
   getInstance().add_endRequest(EndRequestHandler); 

function EndRequestHandler(sender, args)
{ 
   // Ensure that the editor is not already loaded 
   if (tinyMCE.getInstanceById('<%= txtContent.ClientID %>') == null || 
      tinyMCE.getInstanceById('<%= txtContent.ClientID %>') == "undefined")
   {
      tinyMCE.execCommand('mceAddControl',false,'<%= txtContent.ClientID %>');
   }
}

Both solutions work well. The former is simpler, but relies on the .NET ScriptManager to inject the code. The latter doesn’t rely on server-side code, but needs an identifiable trigger for the postback so that each event fires only against the desired TinyMCE area and not all the ones on the page. If you are using .NET, the latter needs to be registered as a StartupScript.

if (IsInUpdatePanel)
{
   Page.ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(this.GetType(), 
      this.ClientID + "_ajax", GenerateMceAjaxFixScript(), true);
}

Two-way Binding To TinyMCE in an UpdatePanel

One further problem I discovered after making the changes noted above to TinyMCE’s alpha .NET wrapper was that while I could mark its text contents as [Bindable] in code, that two-way binding did not always work. Specifically when the TinyMCE control was in an UpdatePanel and changes were being made by a browser that wasn’t Internet Explorer (ironically). It seems that even if a call to TinyMCE.triggerSave is made as the request for a partial postback is initialized to update the textarea with the new value given by the user, that is still too late to have that new value saved to the FormValueCollection that is actually posted back to the server for binding to the server (as part of the page’s ViewState). The save is made in time by Internet Explorer but is not by Firefox or Chrome.

Fortunately, there is an easy partial solution to this problem for Firefox users. TinyMCE’s editor exposes a number of events including onChange which fires when a user has changed the text on the page. Adding a setup call in TinyMCE.init that handles onChange and also copies the new value to the textarea seems to do the trick.

tinyMCE.init({
   relative_urls:false,
   elements:'<% = elm.ClientID %>',
   ...,
   setup : function(ed) { 
      ed.onChange.add(function(ed, l) { 
         var hidden = document.getElementById('<% = elm.ClientID %>');
         hidden.value = l.content; }); }
});

So now we have two-way data binding working in IE and Firefox. Unfortunately it doesn’t work in Chrome, but hey - it’s a start. Download this code here.

Links for 2009-02-16 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 PST

CSS Drive: Image to Colors Palette Generator
Good online tool for generating a CSS palette based on any image you upload to the site.

First Impressions of MVC

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:22:38 +0100

[In which ASP.NET MVC is initially judged by its beta 1 cover, reappraised after the first few weeks on development, and pigeon-holed for now post-RC1. Or rather, here are my thoughts on using ASP.NET MVC to build a web site.]

Just before Christmas, I was asked to build a web site using the nascent ASP.NET MVC framework, which was in beta at the time. Two months later, it’s now at release candidate level and the final build is expected to go gold in March, so there’ll be the inevitable tweaking here and there, but for now, here are my general thoughts and impressions of using MVC as the ASP templating system rather than Webforms.

“Oooh shiny” turns quickly to “developer inertia”

It’s noticeable that of the two new ASP.NET packages, with the dynamic data stuff being the other, MVC has had by far the most hype. The alt.net crowd is very vocal when it wants to be and as webforms does not always play nicely, they were very happy to see MVC appear. The large amount of good will made me keen to use it to see what all the fuss was about: it produces clean code, is lightweight, creates SEO-friendly URLs, and stackoverflow runs happily on it, so those are quite good reasons. My jackdaw tendencies to grab anything shiny came to the fore. Then I started using it and developer inertia took hold.

One of the side-effects of MVC is that it also forces you to relearn foundation level knowledge - HTTP verbs, proper semantic, standards-compliant HTML (ok, not that tricky, but go with it), javascript (JQuery, Moo, MS AJAX or whatever flavour of library you care to learn on top of that too), file streaming and the rest - which WebForms shields you from. MVC currently (RC1) does you no favours on that line. Want to enable uploading a file to the site? Better get out your best file streaming code. Want to implement a tab panel or a wizard? Start searching for javascript libraries. Find yourself trying to implement the SelectedIndexChanged event on a dropdownlist? Can’t do it - there’s no server-side event model with MVC. I’ve mused on developer inertia before at a time of upgrading systems but not really experienced it when trying something new. It’s an odd feeling to relearn how to code things that a simple webform control would have done for me in seconds. I also know I’m coding quite naïvely again while I find my mental feet with the new way of thinking about site construction that MVC forces you to have.

Documentation

And some of that is due the lack of documentation around. Or, rather, the abundance of out of date blog posts detailing ways of accomplishing tasks in some CTP that have since become obsolete in more recent builds. Of course, the wealth of accurate MVC knowledge will only get better with time. For my part, I got the most value from the Walther\Litwin pair programming vids on asp.net, Phil Haack’s talk from PDC ’08 and the early access PDF of ASP.NET MVC in Action available from Manning Publications. The latter in particular pulled together several facts about the basic conventions for MVC development that I hadn’t really seen anywhere else, so I’ll definitely buy that when it’s in print. Props to Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman and Jimmy Bogard for that. Secondary thanks to the people on stackoverflow for coming across the problems I was having before I did and presenting solutions. Again, some of the answers are pitted against previous builds but if the solutions there didn’t work, the SO folks answered very promptly any requests for an update. They would be my first port of call now if there is an MVC problem that I can’t solve myself.

Intellisense

A by-product of doc-light frameworks is a heavier reliance on intellisense. We all know that javascript and latterly JQuery intellisense has been introduced into Visual Studio which is good, but currently the MVC intellisense seems to have been gazumped first by the need to recompile your site each time you need it to work in a new view, and by anonymous initializers. A lot of parameters are simply of type object which, unless you spot a matching blog post or some code in a video, you probably don’t realise means using an anonymous object initialiser and strings.

Case in point, Html.ActionLink is one of the more useful HTML helper functions in MVC, referencing the routing table for the site and generating the correct URLs for controller\action\parameter combinations on your site. Want to switch from extensionless URLs to .mvc or .aspx or back again? ActionLink notes the change and renders URLs appropriately. (v.g.) However, it has ten overloads.

Based on the intellisense caption pictured above, how would you complete the call to ActionLink? As it turns out, it looks like this

<%= Html.ActionLink(
   "Development", "development", "about", new{}, 
   new { accesskey="5", Class="darkredcaps", 
      tabindex="7", title="About our development work"})

Once you see it, you go ‘ah!’ (Apart from the fact that the HTML class attribute must begin with a capital C else C# throws an error but as there is no standards checking inside server markup that’s OK.) but here’s hoping that Microsoft improves intellisense somehow to make it more obvious.

On the bright side

If this all seems a bit negative, I must also emphasize that there are definitely many bright sides to MVC. Full control on what a site presents to a browser is an obvious highlight but you have to like the fact that LINQ (to SQL or to Entities) is such a quick and easy way to create the data access layer, or ‘Model’ in the lingo. (Using some variant of the ‘repository pattern’ in your code is also a time saver looking forward. Ta to Rob Conery for that one.) And if you don’t like LINQ, then it’s easy to switch it out later on or right away as you prefer.

Another great and welcome addition for newcomers is the sample site created in the sample MVC. It does a great job of presenting sample code and, more importantly, includes the account controller with the code needed to implement a site using the ASP.NET membership provider - truly a gift. No roles, profiles or use of other providers, but those are much more straightforward. Just run aspnet_regsql to create a membership database, add the [Authorize] attribute to action methods you want to protect from anonymous users and you are good to go.

And, of course, there’s the backing of everything else in the (ASP).NET framework. The familiar providers, validation, exception handling, configuration files and deployment perks are all there along with several other ‘features’ of MVC I didn’t try but plan to use soon - the ability to write tests against each controller\action pair and partial views, the MVC equivalent of user controls.

Oh, and there’s no view state to double the size of your page to worry about. Did I mention this before? No? OK. No view state.

To MVC or not to MVC?

So would I use MVC again if I had the choice for a commercial application? For the time being, no. Apart from it still being in beta for the time being, I think it’s unfair on the client to produce code which is naively written without some experience to back it up. Unless a job had a very exacting set of instructions \ workflow that meant testing was a pre-requisite, I don’t think I would use it again for another six months until I’ve got more comfortable with it all. The release of the MVC source code on codeplex has meant that debugging problems has produced far more accurate and immediate diagnoses than would otherwise occur (Steve Sanderson details how to hook the source code up to your own efforts here) but despite that, I want to practice with this more and get a grip on things like Html.DropDownList and its SelectList ‘model counterpart’ (my term), [HandleError], partial views, ModelState, the pros and cons of alternate controller classes such as those in MvcContrib and likewise of alternate view engines such as NVelocity and nHaml. And read a few more books of course.

Upgrading to MVC RC1

I was going to write this the day that the RC1 build of ASP.NET MVC was released, so it seemed only natural to postpone that and make a few notes. It would seem that actually upgrading to the RC1 DLL is very straightforward, as are losing the code-behind files for your view classes. However it does appear that several features have been switched on in RC1 that weren’t before. Case in point - input validation (for dangerous values in text such as <html or script tags>) seems to have been switched on. For those curious, the answer is to switch it off at the controller level and not wonder why the site is ignoring web.config. (full details here).

RC1 also includes the MVC dlls for inclusion in your source control tree as bin deployment is still enabled for MVC rather than needing to install it into the GAC as the MVC installer does. It also includes an IIS script to map the .mvc file extension to the aspnet_isapi handler for those IIS6 admins who would rather not use a wildcard script map to allow extension-less URLs to work. Note however that Steve Sanderson and Duncan Smart demonstrated how to add the wildcard script map to an MVC site as a while and then remove it from those directories containing only static content (images, scripts etc) which was the main source of contention in this regard.

Going forward

As you can tell, my opinion of ASP.NET MVC thus far is mixed. I can appreciate its worth but am not so advanced an ASP.NET programmer that I’ve really hit a wall with webforms to hate it. Nor am I previously familiar with the MVC pattern enough to want instantly to use it to the exclusion of all else. I do know that it isn’t going away though and while webforms will continue to be my first choice of templating engine for ASP.NET, it’s only sensible to grok MVC as well. And Dynamic Data too - although that’s for another day.

Another film finished

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:16:00 +0100

From time to time, I am invited to help out with some film-making by my friends Dan and James. Indeed, early last year I spent a couple of days with them manning the camera for their current project Iniquity. Dan let me know last night that he and James have just finished editing Iniquity and have submitted it for inclusion at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June this year. So I’m crossing my fingers for them and hoping that one day soon I’ll get my own legitimate IMDB entry.

From the film’s website:

For Detective Jack Thompson, the system is failing around him. His decision - play by the book, or take the law into his own hands.

Plagued by the continuing media profile of a past case, Jack is trying to move on - make a difference. Then he meets Dennison Tophet - a man seemingly without a past, without a motive - but a man most definitely with an agenda...

You can also download a number of behind the scenes clips and the trailers from the film’s podcast page. Here's the trailer.

Where I Am On The Internet

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:00:00 +0100

For those of you subscribed to this blog via Feedburner, you may not have noticed, but a few things have changed around here. For a start, the homepage for this blog is now http://blog.hmobius.com. It runs BlogEngine 1.4.5 and currently sports a rather fetching Dark Neon variant of Mads’ original standard theme. I also took the time to collate all the entries from 2000 onwards into the one place and do a spot of housekeeping as well, so there’s most likely some stuff you’ve not read here if you’re interested.

Feedburner has also moved their feed for this blog to http://feeds2.feedburner.com/dansarchive so update your feed readers if you don’t want the delay of being redirected there each time you ping the feed.

Finally, I’ve been running an audio\video blog on tumblr for several months now. You can find it at http://tumblr.hmobius.com.

Cheers all, hope you keep reading.

A Playlist for 2008

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:46:12 +0100

A couple of days late but there were a few CDs in Santa’s sack so here’s my track list of highlights from 2008. Not all from 2008 but I bought them then, so hey.

Guns and Roses - Chinese Democracy
It has to be said that if even one track from the unicorn that was the new GnR album was any good, then Axl Rose was going to exceed expectations. Then lo and behold, two tracks turned out to be OK. Don’t think I’ll be holding my breath for the next album though.

Gutter Twins - Bete Noire
The Gutter Twins’ Saturnalia is probably my album of 2008 - a gleaming, polished piece of melancholia from the lead men of the Afghan Whigs and the Screaming Trees. The arrangements are simple yet heartfelt and their voices aged old from years of abuse. Bete Noire in this case showcases Mark Lanegan’s almost sub bass vocals brilliantly. The link above is to a live performance in Helsinki, but you can find the album track here if you prefer.

Alps - Hallucinations
It would be easy to pull a tracklist just from the output of Type Records 2008 releases but for me, this is the highlight, a seven minute aural spliff. Dry and desert-like, the rolling bass figure is a calm anchor for the shimmering sounds the trio put over the top.

Portishead - Machine Gun
We didn’t wait quite as long for the new Portishead album as we did for “Chinese Democracy”, but the Bristolians delivered a much bigger punch than did those from Los Angeles. Ten years later, Third is a different, angrier beast from Dummy or the eponymous album but the quality control is just as high. The highly sample drum machine and pure John Carpenter breakdown towards the end (80s synth soundtracks ahoy) are a joy.

Ihsahn - Threnody
The second solo album, AngL, from Emperor’s front man was a revelation. While The Awakening was an obvious attempt to move himself away from the black metal sounds of his former band, AngL saw him not afraid to tread wheresoever he broke a path, albeit not mix-and-matching styles within individual tracks as Opeth would. Threnody comes late in the album; a calmer moment amidst a tightly focused storm.

Joe Satriani - Andalusia
I am an unashamed Joe Satriani fan and will probably remain so for a good while to come. Unlike the previous album however, the “Professor Satchafunkilus” album that appeared last year hadn’t the immediate appeal and bright songs of Super Colossal in 2006. This one required more listening to get past the standard issue with his songs that intro, verse and solo often jarred rather than flowing into each other. The final track however doesn’t have that problem. A homage to Spain in his own inimitable style, it begins with flighty flamenco guitars laying down theme and variations until his electric enters with a longform solo and more variations on a par with classics such as ‘Echo’ and ‘Slow Down Blues’.

Vangelis \ Scott Bolton - Launch Approval
Besides Ridley Scott’s Final Cut of the film and various HD box sets to accompany it, the 25th anniversary also saw the release of a 3-disc issue of the Blade Runner soundtrack comprising the original 1994 release, a second disc of more inserts from the film and a final disc comprising original music composed by Vangelis and collaborators taking inspiration from the sounds in recognition of the anniversary. For me, Launch Approval recaptures the spirit of the film the best. You can hear the police cars flying through neon-drenched snow between pillars of flame.

Slipknot - Danger Keep Away
A revelation for me this one. While they had their moments, the first two Slipknot albums were in general a bit Meh! for me and so I ignored them for a few years. Then All Hope Is Gone came out last year and by chance I saw the previous album, ‘The Subliminal Verses’ in a bargain bin and bought it for a laugh. And then got blown away by it. In a reversal of happenstance, there was but one bad track here and 13 solid tunes with the nonet confident enough not to rage through every track. Danger Keep Away closes the album, a brooding warning to be heeded.

Kingdom of Sorrow - Hear This Prayer For Her
Side projects have a tendency to imitate marmite - you either love ’em or you hate ’em. The Kingdom of Sorrow album has been a long time in gestation and while Kirk Windstein (Crowbar, Down) and Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed) have obviously been busy, this debut album is a bit of a one track pony. Listen to it from track 1, Hear This Prayer For Her, and you’re drawn into a rhythm and groove for the rest of the album but join at any other point in time and the hook is lost. Hear The Prayer then - either five or fifty minutes long. Linked is the (better) five.

Joseph Arthur - Morning Cup
By far the best find on the KEXP Song of the Day podcast, Morning Cup is a gentle greeting for a fine, warm spring day. From Arthur’s Could We Survive EP, one of four he released in 2008, for this we can forgive the facial hair borrowed from Liam Gallagher.

Fatboy Slim - Wonderful Night
The man Norm doesn’t often put a foot wrong in the Big Beat department and this three minute wonder from his Greatest Hits album is just one of many I could have chosen. Right Here Right Now is probably the best single dance track in history, but Wonderful Night is pure joy.

Mark Ronson - God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
I’m a bit late to the Mark Ronson party - the smarmy grin on Buzzcocks spoiled him for me and Lily Allen collaborations didn’t help, but I’m happy to admit that cockney girl and one other track aside (Yes, please do “Stop”) it is genuinely good. And this big band cover of Coldplay’s only upbeat tune in three albums is a great way to start the morning.

Meshuggah - Combustion
Meshuggah have been due a good album for a couple of years and ObZen delivered in spades for the Swedish math-metallers. Harsh angular riffs, uncomfortable time signatures and drill sharp vocals characterize the sound they have delivered over several albums - like Tool but with extra hatred.

Clint Mansell - Together We Will Live Forever
Whether you know it or not, soundtracks are a true treasure trove for great music and Clint Mansell has composed several blinders since Pop Will Eat Itself broke up. This is from The Fountain.

Happy new year everyone!!

What Would You Add To Programming ASP.NET 4.0?

danmaharry.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk (DanM) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:44:53 +0100

With the .NET 3.5 cycle out of the way and ASP.NET 4.0 on the horizon, it’s time to try and figure out a way to incorporate the many new features and techniques that have emerged or been released into the next editions of ASP.NET books.

So then, what would you put in ‘Programming ASP.NET 4.0’ and what would you NOT put in it? Books are supposed to be for the programming community so here’s your chance to have your say.

Feel free to add comments here or in the thread I’ve started on Stack Overflow about the same topic.