Steve Sharrock's
AspAlliance Contributions

ASPAlliance has been a big part of my success as a .NET developer. I hope my contributions are helpful to those who are participating in these early days of this fantastic new platform. I'm trying to share some of the tips I've picked up, and pass on all of the valuable information that I've found from both ASPAlliance, and the other numerous .NET resources.

If you have questions or comments about anything I'm presenting here, please contact me-- steve@sharkcode.com. And please visit my consulting web site www.SharkCode.com

Pivot a DataTable with Horizontal Scrolled DataGrid  - A method to pivot a DataTable producing rows for each column and a column for each row. The pivoted DataTable is then displayed in a DataGrid using horizontal paging to view a limited number of Columns in each page. This is a common display technique used to compare, for instance, product features, where the product names appear across the top of the DataGrid with the Features listed down the side.

Start a Long Process from a Web Page Using XML Web Services - Once again, XML Web Services come to the rescue with a solution for the common problem of web pages that want to do some background processing on the server and yet still return to the client without waiting for completion of the process.

Book Review: Debugging Strategies for .NET Developers by Darin Dillon - More than just .NET Debugging tips--a complete approach that will help you develop a mind set for debugging.

Book Review: Debugging Strategies for .NET Developers by Darin Dillon - More than just .NET Debugging tips--a complete approach that will help you develop a mind set for debugging.

Synchronizing Shared Resources - Synchronize Web Service access to a legacy single user database.

Book Review: .NET Multithreading by Alan L. Dennis - An excellent presentation of this advanced topic.  

Book Review: XML and ASP.NET by Kirk Allen Evans, Ashwin Kamanna and Joel Mueller - Explaining XML within the Framework --this is a great book for developers.

TreeView - Programming an Explorer-style Site View - Still a popular article about how to program the TreeView control -- now with a new Visual Basic sample application.

Amazon.com Web Service Details - Use the Amazon.com Web Service and explore techniques for creating DataSets from XML and DataGrid binding.

Consume User Controls in non-ASP.NET Sites - A simple technique to publish dynamic content, including User Controls in non-ASP.NET sites and across ASP.NET web application boundaries.

Book Review: Distributed .NET Programming in C# by Tom Barnaby - Explaining an aspect of the Framework that is not yet widely understood--this book is one of my top picks. 

Setting Web Service References Dynamically - A simple method of redirecting references to a Web Service dynamically. Choose "localhost" or any other test or production server by setting a web.config value.

User Controls for Page Templates    - Many new ASP.NET developers miss their old familiar "include" files and other page template techniques. Try using ASP.NET User Controls to create site-wide page templates.

Book Review: SQL Server 2000 Programming by Example by Fernando G. Guerrero and Carlos Eduardo Rojas   - This book is a great tutortial and reference for database programmers who want in-depth information on using SQL Server 2000.

Book Review: A Programmer's Guide to ADO.NET in C# by Mahesh Chand   - The beginning and intermediate programmer gets a solid foundation in ADO.NET programming and the use of Data Components in Visual Studio .NET.

Book Review: Database Programming with C# by Carsten Thomsen   - My growing stack of .NET books includes several that I've read on the subject of ADO.NET. This book stands out as one of the best I can recommend for intermediate and advanced .NET programmers.

Body Fat Percentage Calculator Written in C#   - The current economic condition has provided some of us consultants with more free time to pursue other activities. Here is an online tool for my new health-nut friends trying to reclaim their youthful fitness.

Many Domains - One Site   - When you're in a development mode, cut the cost of .NET hosting by handling several domains with just one hosting account.

Confessions of an Inmate   - Take a brief look at the new Bionic Programmer - faster, stronger, more powerful than ever. A revealing Cooper-esque self-examination.

Downloading Files and Forcing the Download File Dialog.  - Ever try to force the "Download File" dialog in a clients's browser window when you download files that may be supported with a MIME type?

FTP Access with WebRequest - Use the WebRequest class to access FTP sites. For anyone who has used the WebClient classes for HTTP and FILE protocols, you'll appreciate the extended access to the FTP protocol.

Hex Dump any URL - I remember reading an old Petzold book where he said the first program he wrote for any new platform was a "file hex dump" utility to help learn the platform and provide a basic debugging tool. I've updated this to dump pages from the internet using basic "screen-scraping". This example shows some screen-scrape basics and how to use of the StringBuilder class for creating the actual hexadecimal output.

DBAdmin Tool - If you use a database on the internet, this offering illustrates how to write a one page database administrative tool with only 20 lines of C# code.