.NET News & More


Book Review: Open Source .NET Development

It's easy to think of Microsoft and open source as implacable enemies. But in fact, many people are building open source code with Microsoft tools, and others use open source tools to build proprietary software. In this book, Brian Nantz surveys some of the intersections and provides plenty of pointers to good tools and sample code.

Review: Arcadia PowerButton

Sure, your IDE includes a button control. But isn't it sort of boring? If you're looking for an inexpensive way to make your applications look more exciting, Arcadia PowerButton may be the answer.

Unit testing for .NET gets even easier

Many developers have found themselves on the unit testing bandwagon, setting up tiny tests to check all of their code whenever they make a change. In the Visual Studio .NET world, this has required running an external tool to exercise the tests. With the advent of TestDriven.NET, that's no longer true.

Review: MyGeneration

MyGeneration is an object-relational mapper and code generator for .NET. It supports a great variety of databases, handles regeneration of existing code, and it's even free.

Review: ANTS Profiler

Now in its second major release, ANTS Profiler is a super-easy to use profiler for .NET applications, letting you track speed or memory usage and drill down to a very granular level.

Using .NET to make applications play together

If your organization is like most out there, you've got a raft of disparate legacy applications that don't talk much to each other. Butch Clark's new book provides a recipe for injecting some order into this chaos. Read on to get my impressions of the book.

Java application opens secure access to sensitive court data

Providing law offices and citizens with specific data on court schedules and other judicial information without compromising security was the challenge Robert McDonald faces as chief architect of Court Services Online.

Review: DotNetBar Suite

DotNetBar offers a solid and flexible set of controls in modern visual styles for your .NET applications.

Architected RAD gets an A in Gartner study

Architected Rapid Application Development (ARAD) is a new category of tools with a proven ROI edge, according to a recently completed user survey by Gartner, Inc.

The Java Security Landscape

Architects, developers, and IT managers must take collective responsibility for creating secure solutions. Exploit Java's language- and enterprise-level security features to build a secure environment.

Longhorn debuts, but few pay attention

Software developers have only vague ideas of what Longhorn will offer, and conflicting opinions on whether those features will be valuable.

Use Managed Database Providers

DataDirect Connect for .NET's native managed database providers for Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, and Sybase improve data-access performance, reliability, and scalability.

Book club opens new chapter with conversion to Windows

There are definite pluses, including ROI savings, and productivity and performance gains, in moving legacy Cobol mainframe apps to Microsoft Windows servers, says Leo Theberge, CIO at a Canadian book club.

Review: ZaneBug

Unit-testing tools for .NET are proliferating these days. ZaneBug brings some innovative new features to the familiar NUnit base.

Sun's Kodak moment: Patent suit settled out of court

Sun Microsystems has agreed to pay Eastman Kodak $92 million to settle an intellectual property dispute between the two companies, Sun disclosed last week. The announcement came just days after a federal jury found that Sun had infringed on three of Kodak's object-oriented software patents when it created Java.

Review: Desaware Licensing System 1.1

This client-server licensing system for .NET is improved with more samples, code obfuscation, and a lower entry price.

Review: Thinstall

Thinstall lets you shrink .NET deployment sizes by only delivering the parts of the Framework that you really need - among other benefits.

Review: CodeRush 1.1.1 with Refactor!

A great tool for the keyboard-oriented Visual Studio .NET developer, now made even better with the addition of refactoring functionality.

Build Printable ASP.NET Pages

Provide printing capabilities in your ASP.NET apps using server-side controls and JavaScript automation, or by using VS.NET add-in tools such as Crystal Reports.

Leading software defines Web services

Defining what a service is, is a waste of time. The technology that dominates defines the service.