I was scheduled to do a talk today called "Building Great UX with .NET" today at the SouthCT .NET UG.  Well, mother nature had other plans, and I had to reschedule for 8 April.  So I have this wonderful presentation all prepared and nowhere to do it (yet). :)  I'm sure it will surface more than once throughout the year.

As I was collecting my thoughts and research for the presentation, I got sucked into a related…

Here are a few more links of interest I thought I'd share with you all.

M-V-Poo on WPF

Josh Smith, resident Infragistics guidisan, has posted yet another awesome article to Code Project detailing how you can do what has now been dubbed "M-V-Poo" (great name!) on WPF, which covers using a flavor of the MVC pattern and how to use that to unit test WPF.

RSS Bandit on Infragistics

Torsten Rendelmann kindly informed…

Scott just announced the availability of the .NET Framework source with the ability to debug (e.g., step into) the code inside of VS 2008.  Those of us who have spent hours digging in via Reflector using imagination debugging (i.e., I imagine that it calls in here, then here, then here) will greatly benefit from this.  Cool stuff!  Go check it out!

Just wanted to post a quick pointer to some great links on the net related to Infragistics. 

• WPF Podcatcher "Podder" - IG Guidisan Josh Smith published his WPF podcatcher app, named "Podder" over on Code Project.  It's pretty snifty; here are some interesting features:
  • Uses VS 2008, .NET 3.5, WPF, XLinq, and C# 3.0.
  • Keeps podcast feed list and view all available episodes.
  • Favorites list.
  • And lots…

I just published a sample Blog Notes Live Writer plug-in on dotNetTemplar.  The full source code is available for learning/tweaking/extending.  The plug-in just helps with using superscript notes (endnotes/footnotes) in blog posts as I am wont to do.  Merry Christmas! :)

Far be it from me to put words in Phil's mouth, but I hope that folks recognize that his post about favoring composition over inheritance is not specifically about that one best practice (the comments seem to indicate this is being missed).  It's pretty clear to me that the thrust of that post is around a philosophical approach that he thinks the ALT.NET community should make.

Two things stand out from Phil's post…

This one bit me again last night.  The problem is that something mysteriously adds <assembly /> elements to the <compilation /> section of the web.config file.  I had previously attributed the problem to the ASP.NET compiler, but it seems it was not the compiler.  I ran this problem by some friends a while ago, and they said they'd seen it with Visual Studio, but I was assured the compiler couldn't be it.…

I can't take credit for the metaphor (that goes to our VP of Product Development & Marketing, Jonathan Cohen), but I thought it was apt.  Why do I say this?  Well, in addition to Jason Beres (VB MVP), Tony Lombardo (ASP.NET MVP), myself (Solutions Architect MVP), and of course our C# MVP Emeritus, Andrew Flick, we're honored to have two new MVPs and all around great guys joining us: Craig Shoemaker (ASP.NET…

Anybody keeping an eye on the prominent Silverlight blogs knows that Microsoft just published guidelines for good installation experience.  I took this as an invitation to update our Infragistics Silverlight prototype demo on Infragistics Labs.  Oddly enough, about the same time, it was brought to our attention that our demo was not working in Firefox, but it turns out that updating the demo to follow the new installer…

Previously, I mentioned I was working on an example of using Visual Studio to create a concrete domain model using object thinking, and here it is.  The domain I ended up modeling was that of a shared event calendar, including event registration and agenda planning.  This is something that's been kind of rolling in and out of my mind for quite a while now because it seems that we need a good system for this for all the code…

I finally got around to finishing The Timeless Way of Building, by Christopher Alexander (most well known in software for being the source of the patterns movement).&#xA0; The last part of the book is called "The Way" to build things.&#xA0; His focus is physical architecture, but it is interesting how closely it resembles agile software development.

There are a few similarities that I see.&#xA0; First…

[Those who follow my personal blog can ignore this.]

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the SD Best Practices conference in Boston.  I learned a lot and met some good folks.  While I was there, I published a series of daily summaries/reports about my experiences both for my own sake and also in case others might find something of value in my recaps and thoughts. 

Since it was first and foremost my personal mental…

When searching recently so as to provide further reading for "domain model" in a recent post, I was quite surprised to find that there seemed to be no good definition readily available (at least not by Googling "domain model").  Since I tend to use this term a lot, I figured I'd try to fill this gap and, at the very least, provide a reference for me to use when I talk about it.

So What is a Domain…

As I sit here on my deck, enjoying the cool autumn breeze¹, I thought, what better thing to write about than Web services!  Well, no, actually I am just recalling some stuff that's happened lately.  On the MSDN Architecture forums and in some coding and design discussions we had this week, both of which involve the question of best practices for Web services.

Before we talk about Web services best practices, it seems…

I wasn't going to post about it, but after reading Don's post, I realized that I should so that I can thank those involved in presenting me with this honor.  I was surprised when I was contacted about being nominated to be an INETA speaker, and I was even more surprised when I heard that I'd been voted in.  Looking over the folks on the list, I feel hardly qualified to be named among them.

So without further ado…

Thanks to a sharp co-worker of mine, I was recently introduced to "Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical Interface," by Bret Victor.  It was quite an interesting read; Victor makes a lot of good points.  For instance, he suggests that we should view information software as graphic design, i.e., taking the concerns of traditional graphic design as paramount and then taking it to the next level by availing…

Are you passionate about software development?  Do you love to share your knowledge with others?  Do you like working in a vibrant, fun culture working on the latest and greatest technologies with other smart and passionate people?  If so, I think I may have your dream job right here.

We're looking for another guidisan to help craft guidance using best practices for .NET development.  The word guidisan ('gId-&-z&n)…

A while back, Steve Smith brought up a recurring problem I think most of us have bumped into, which is having things like HttpHandlers and HttpModules that are setup in a root web.config being loaded in child/sub-applications (a.k.a., virtual directories).  I recall that in 1.x, you had to copy the related assemblies into the sub-apps and then specify the <remove /> or <clear /> attribute to remove them, which was…

Just a friendly reminder.  Infragistics will be out in force at the pre-TechEd 2007 Party with Palermo.  If you're getting into town on Sunday or before, you should definitely come by for some free food, drink, and fun!

We'll also, naturally, have a booth at the event itself, so come by Booth 1008 for a little chit-chat and get to know us.  We'd love to talk to you.

If you haven't heard about it yet, Jeffrey Palermo is throwing another Party with Palermo, one of his pre-conference bashes, at TechEd 2007.  These are always a lot of fun--free food, stuff, and fun people. 

This year, Infragistics is sponsoring, which means you get free food and drink on us, we'll be there to chit-chat, and of course, we'll be giving away some really cool swag.

So if you'll be in town Sunday…

Hi everybody!  I hope you are all going to have a great weekend.  The weather is absolutely beautiful here in central New Jersey (Infragistics HQ).

I just thought I'd take a second to point out a relatively new feature on the Infragistics Web site(s)--RSS Feeds.  We've added them where they seem to make sense, at least the obvious ones: Events, News, and Community Content.  But you never know when a feed might be useful…

In an effort to improve your install experience, we'd like to get some opinions on the following question.

Microsoft just announced their official name for WPF/e--Silverlight.  Of course, Infragistics has a demonstrated commitment to WPF, and we're actively exploring how we can best complement this awesome new technology.  It promises to provide a great answer to the rich vs. reach dilemma, building on top of the outstanding Microsoft dev and designer tooling in Visual Studio and Expression Studio.

If you have any ideas on…

Last night, we hosted the first of our newly rennovated NJDOTNET user group meetings.  The organization that Ed Blankenship has brought to our group is just great.  Tony Lombardo did a great job speaking on AJAX and web security, and Jess Chadwick was a big help handling some of the logistics.  All in all, I think it was a big success, and it was great to see so many people show up.

The thing about it that makes me so happy…

Today marks the latest release of our comprehensive .NET suite, NetAdvantage for .NET.  There's a ton of juicy goodness packed into this release.  Some of the new features have already been blogged about (AppStylist for ASP.NET, Excel Copy & Paste, Conditional Formatting), and those just scratch the surface.  You can get an overview of the new features in the .NET suite, and from there you can drill into the details…