SplendidCRM Software, Inc., a provider of Microsoft-centric Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions for open-source use, announced the launch of Version 3.0 of SplendidCRM. The release of Version 3.0 marks a milestone as it introduces the SplendidCRM Workflow Engine as a flagship feature in the new SplendidCRM Enterprise product. "For many companies, workflow is a critical feature and we are pleased to be able to tightly integrate SplendidCRM with Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation," said Paul Rony, President of SplendidCRM. 
The Community version is FREE ! http://www.splendidcrm.com/
Alachisoft has released TierDeveloper 6.1 as free software (previous version priced at $1495/developer). TierDeveloper lets you develop major chunks of your .NET applications in a matter of hours and days instead of weeks and months. TierDeveloper is one of the most feature-rich ORM code generators in the market.
It provides you the following:
- Map and generate .NET persistence and domain objects in C# and VB.NET
- Design and generate custom ASP.NET and Windows Forms GUI seamlessly
- Generate web services and WCF server layers and proxy client objects
- Powerful Template IDE to let you customize existing or write new code generation templates
- Full support for .NET 2.0/3.5 and Visual Studio 2005/2008
Download TierDeveloper 6.1 Free Software
http://www.alachisoft.com/rp.php?dest=/download.html
TierDeveloper 6.1 Information
http://www.alachisoft.com/rp.php?dest=/tdev/index.html
You KNOW I'm a Control Junkie !! ComponentArt makes some cool stuff and they have a HUGE deal right now. Click Here to Check it Out http://www.componentart.com/store/ ... And if anyone else has a HUGE sale going on forthe holiday season. EMAIL IT TO ME so I can tell my readers about it !!
I often want something between Visual Studio and NotePad :) ActivieState makes some GREAT software and I recently installed Komodo 5 (I'm a longtime Komodo user) I especially use it or Python, Perl, and various script dialects ! Some of the new stuff as described on the Komodo web page... Shared code: With new support for the Git, Mercurial (hg), and Bazaar distributed version control systems (or the already supported Subversion, Perforce, and CVS), you can share your code with whichever SCC system you choose. And smart cross-SCC system checkout wizardry makes it easier to get to work on shared repositories. Shared beauty: Consistent formatting improves code readability and maintainability in a team. Easily hook external code formatting tools (like PHP Beautifier, Perltidy, and astyle) into Komodo IDE 5.0 or add tighter integration via an extension. Shared speed: Komodo IDE 5.0 is now built on the Mozilla 1.9 codebase (the same codebase as Firefox 3) and Python 2.6, so it's speedier, prettier (particularly the more native look on OS X), and has new features to aid in stability. And more, of course: Like multiple top-level windows, slicker UIs for tabs and sidebars.... Check out the Komodo IDE 5.0 documentation for all the details. [ If you click HERE you can get a free trial. ]
If you read my blog you probably know that I'm a total tools junkie. I never blog about a tool that I haven't actually played with and I don't write about tools based on a "trial" install. Recently the guys at Artinsoft let me know about Aggiorno. I've known the Artinsoft guys for many years (and not just because some of the principals are in Coasta Rica and once sent me the best coffee on the PLANET !) The Artinsoft guys are experts at converting your applications from one technology to another. (Like convert your Java application to a .NET application.) So I was really interested in their foray into the "product" space. Even though I've only started playing with it, I'm already convinced it's impressive enough to blog about. It leverages Artinsoft's "conversion" expertise but in this case convert your web page into a BETTER web page. 
It takes your web page and fixes errors, removes the use of deprecated constructs, restructures your syntax for XHTLM compliance and more. It's even IE 8 "smart". There is even a FREE Express Version (Get it HERE) Learn all about it at http://www.aggiorno.com/ and feel free to send me your experiences !
Check out the New features in BlogEngine.NET 1.4 New database provider
BlogEngine.NET now works with most commercial and open source databases such as MySQL, SQL Server, VistaDB and many others. This allow you to use practically any database supported by your hosting provider. You can still use XML files if you don't want to use a database. Drag 'n drop widgets
Widgets are the pieces of content most often located at the sidebar. It could be a list of recent posts, latest tweets from Twitter or anything else. You can drag and drop the widgets around in your sidebar and modify the content of them directly on the front-page. The widget works independently of the theme you are using as long as it is implemented in the theme. In BlogEngine.NET it is implemented in the Standard and Indigo themes and many more themes with widgets will be available for download very soon at the BlogEngine.NET website. Extension settings
The new settings model for extensions have been upgraded to give you a much better experience using third-party extensions. For extension developers, it has never been easier to store your settings and let the user change them from the admin section. The same settings model is used by the widgets as well. Web 3.0 improvements
BlogEngine.NET 1.4 makes full use of many semantic formats and technologies such as FOAF, SIOC and APML. It means that the content stored in your BlogEngine.NET installation will be fully portable and auto-discoverable. It is possible to filter the RSS feeds based on the visitor's interest defined in her APML file or do a site search with it as well. Read more the APML filtering in BlogEngine.NET. Author profiles
By utilizing the ASP.NET profile provider it is now possible to let all authors maintain their own profile. This is used in the FOAF document and widget/extension developers can take full advantage of the profiles to provide new exciting visualizations and functionality. Other new features - Tag selector when adding new posts
- Subcategories
- Password encryption
- Improved live comment preview
- Hierarchical pages in the control panel
- Smarter comment spam protection
- Link collection widget
- Various performance improvements
- and much more...
Check it out at http://dotnetblogengine.net/
That's there motto anyway.
It's actually a very interesting product from my friends at ArtinSoft.
- Add Alternate Text To Image
- Assign Tab Index
- Convert Text To XHTML List
- Convert Text To XHTML Paragraphs
- Extract And Merge Inline Style
- Fix Deprecated Elements For XHTML Compliance
- Replace CENTER Tag By Inline CSS
- Replace FONT Tag By Inline CSS
- Update Deprecated Attributes
- Update Other Deprecated Tags
- Fix Syntax Errors For XHTML Compliance
- Fixed Malformed Entities
- Replace Characters With Entities
- Make Tags Lowercase
- Make Attributes Values Quoted
- Use Default Attribute Values
- Fix Tag Structure For XHTML Compliance
Aggiorno is an extension to Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. Find out more about Aggiorno here
ComponentArt releases Charting 2008.1, introducing advanced AJAX interactivity, dual 3D rendering engines, and a wealth of core charting features. Grate for AJAX style data visualization ! Visit the Charting Gallery for live demos.
Microsoft has released an advisory for the recent SQL Injection attacks which points to several tools that will help identify and block these type of attacks. The goal of this blog post is to help our audience identify the best tool depending on their role (i.e. Web Developers vs IT administrators). Currently, there are three tools available which serve different purposes and they complement each other.
Web developers Recommendations
· The Microsoft ® Source Code Analyzer for SQL Injection is a static code analysis tool that identifies SQL Injection vulnerabilities in ASP code (ASP pages are the ones that have been under attacked). In order to run this tool you will need source code access and the tool will output areas vulnerable to SQL injection (i.e. the root cause and vulnerable path is identified). In our view fixing the root cause of the bug is the best way to eradicate vulnerabilities. The tool scans ASP source code and generates warnings for first order and second order SQL Injection vulnerabilities.
IT/Database administrators Recommendations (Web developers can benefit from this as well)
We are recommending two tools, one can help identify SQL injection vulnerabilities by crawling the website (for example, when access to the source code is not possible) and the other one aims to block potential SQL injection attacks.
· HP Scrawlr, developed by the HP Web Security Research Group, will crawl a website, simultaneously analyzing the parameters of each individual web page for SQL Injection vulnerabilities (Microsoft has worked with HP in this effort). Scrawlr uses some of the same technology found in WebInspect but has been built to focus only on SQL Injection vulnerabilities. This will allow an IT/DB admin to easily find vulnerabilities similar to the ones that have been used to compromise sites in the recent attacks. No source code is required to run this tool. From a starting URL, the tool recursively crawls that URL in order to build up a site tree that will be then analyzed for SQL injection vulnerabilities. For more information check out https://download.spidynamics.com/products/scrawlr/
· Second, in order to block and mitigate SQL injection attacks (while the root cause is being fixed), one can deploy filters using URLScan 3.0. This tool restricts the types of HTTP requests that Internet Information Services (IIS) will process. By blocking specific HTTP requests, UrlScan helps prevent potentially harmful requests from being executed on the server. Basically, it uses a set of keywords to block certain requests (i.e. the request will get drop and never processed by SQL) That said, we highly encourage fixing the root cause of the problem instead of attempting on producing a perfect filter that will block all type of attacks (since in our view this is not possible and error prone).
The following table summarizes the pros and cons of these tools.
|
Tool
|
Usage
|
Pros
|
Cons
|
Users
|
|
Microsoft Source Code Analyzer for SQL Injection
|
Identifies SQL Injection vulnerabilities in ASP code through static code analysis.
|
Identify the root cause of the bug at the source code level.
|
This version currently only works on ASP pages
|
Web developers
|
|
Scrawlr
|
Detect SQL vulnerability by crawling a website.
|
No source code is required.
|
Cannot identify the line of code responsible. |
IT/DB Administrator
Web developers
|
|
UrlScan v3.0 Beta
|
Blocks the types of HTTP requests that Internet Information Services (IIS) will process.
|
URLScan filter can be easily deployed to mitigate SQL injection attack while the root cause is being fixed.
|
Not fixing the root cause, thus the risk has not been eliminated completely.
|
IT Administrators
|
This years Reader's Choice Awards conducted by ASPnet Pro Magazine showed some great appreciation for DevExpress' recent work. Their awards included..... Product of the Year - DXperience ASP.NET Best Component Set - DXperience ASP.NET Best Grid - ASPxGridView Suite Best Add-In - CodeRush with Refactor! Pro Best Printing/Reporting Tool - XtraReports Suite Best Charting - XtraCharts Suite Best Navigation Suite - ASPxperience Suite / ASPxNavBar Best Online Editor - ASPxHTML Editor Best Scheduling/Calendar Tool - ASPxScheduler Suite Check them out at: www.devexpress.com
Today, while sitting in a discussion about the new Microsoft MVC Framework at the Microsoft MVP summit, I got an email (reading on my phone) from Kevin Karasinski, a developer at Sandcastle Interactive.
The subject line of the email was my blog password !
Kevin sure knows how to get a guys attention :)
Kevin, good guy that he is, was taking the time to let me know about a newly discovered (and already fixed) security defect in BlogEngine.net, which is the blogging engine that I use here at JoeOn.net.
Thanks Kevin, you gave me a freakin' heart attack !!!!
Needless to say, my blog has been patched to remove the defect.
Kevin pointed me to Danny Douglass' blog entry HERE.
And [ HERE ] is the official BlogEngine.net patch announcement.
Kudos to Danny, and the BlogeEngine.net guys for fixing this so quickly.
And thanks to Kevin for taking the time to let me know, though maybe next time you can just call my cell phone :)
$49
I'm a tools junkie! Anything that helps be work more efficiently is HUGE for me since every 10 minutes I can "save" in a day is 10 minutes with my Children, talking to my Wife, on my Harley, in the gym, etc.....
I've been a Visual SlickEdit user for many years, you can set it up to look/work like Visual Studio and it has syntax highlighting for EVERYTHING (even stuff I've never heard of) and there are versions for Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, etc.
Introducing SlickEdit Tools for Visual Studio.
Now they've come out with 2 tools add-ins for Visual Studio.
- Editing Tools
- Versioning Tools
Each is priced at $49
You can read full feature lists here.
The versioning stuff is interesting but for me the Editing Toolbox ROCKS.
Here are the highlights from their site - download the trial, if you decide to keep it, it's only %40
Aliases and Acronyms:
Use directory aliases to save keystrokes and mouse usage when opening files. Use acronym expansion to save keystrokes when typing class, namespace, or function names in your code.
Auto Code Doc Viewer
Extract header comments into MSDN-like documentation, fully linked HTML help that can be browsed in Visual Studio as a tool window and exported for sharing with others.
Code Annotations
Insert comments and notes about code without actually modifying the source file.
Comment Wrapping
Enable automatic wrapping of any type of multi-line comment as you type. You can also reflow existing comments in the current file.
Icon Extractor
Simplify the task of finding quality icons and applying them to your applications.
Quick Profiling
Fine-tune your profiling to get information about a specific section of code. This feature allows you to time many cases that are not possible with standard profilers, such as timing complex loops, recursive functions, and the time between an object’s creation and disposal.
Regex Evaluator ( *** a must FOR all web developers)
Interactively create and test regular expressions, which are used to express text patterns for searching.
Code Navigation
Use keyboard shortcuts to jump from a symbol to its definition and to list all references for the current symbol.
Word Completion
Use commands to search for and insert additional text from a matching string.
With more code to write than time to write it, I'm a huge fan of anything that helps me code.
Someone recently sent me a link to Home Tomato's Visual AssistX for Visual Studio.
This is a great example of how the 3rd party ecosystem makes the .NET platform great for developers.
I'd type a list of features here but the list is HUGE.
Instead, check it out here http://www.wholetomato.com/products/default.asp
Personal Licence is $99
I love CMS applications!
I've played with more than a hundred free and commercial CMSs written in VB, C#, PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, you name it !
It's taken me a while to put Graffiti through it's paces, but I did so last weekend.
Here is a quick list of my first impressions.
PROS
- Install is a SNAP.
- The BlogML import facility imported my hundreds of posts flawlessly.
- The administrative user interface is intuitive.
- It's FAST
- The FREE version is not crippled (just limited authors and a couple advanced features off.)
- Widgets are EASY !
CONS
- Some of the downloadable themes I found were not "seamless" (community provided code varies in quality.)
- I missed the ability to create a completely standalone .aspx page that inherits nothing but the theme, (Plan to try this manually.)
All in all, this has been one of the best "first impression" experiences I've had with a 3rd part ASP.NET application.
Since the free version is REAL and doesn't even require registration to download and install, CLICK HERE and give it a try !
Please joind me for these 2 webcasts this Thursday and Friday. VWG is a cool FREE set of tools to accelerate your ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight Web Development. Guy Peled, CTO of Visual WebGui is joining me and he will build applications live during the webcats.
Click below to register - attendance is FREE !
Live From Redmond: Visual WebGui: An Enterprise AJAX application in 20 minutes.
It is all about simplicity: Simplicity in programming next generation complex AJAX application that makes the productivity difference. In this Webcast we will demystify Visual WebGui. We will build a fully blown application in less than 20 minutes, and strip off the covers, showing you how you can cut your development cycle by as much as 90% . Visual WebGui is open source, so you can dive into the code. Throughout the webcast we will demonstrate that while VWG enables rapid application development (RAD) , the developer is free to create custom controls, wrap third party controls , invoke HTML resources and interop with standard ASP.NET applications like DNN and others, all in a matter of minutes.
3/27/2008 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)| Duration:60 Minutes
Live From Redmond: Visual WebGui: Silverlight for line-of-business application.
In this webcast we will "light up", in minutes, the fully blown line-of-business application that we built in our previous webcast adding the rich look and feel of Silverlight as well as its enhanced performance. You will see how we accomplish this by a "push of a button". We will demonstrate how to make WinForms controls available to your web application and how you can style your UI by using fully enabled Expression Blend. The outcome is a very light footprint client, unaffected by application size and weight, and as a bonus, secured by design. You will be shown how you can, extend, invoke, interop and customize your application using Visual WebGui.
3/28/2008 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)| Duration:60 Minutes
-----
About the Live From Redmond series. This series of Live Meeting presentations are designed specifically for the community by members of the Microsoft product teams. The presentations are all done by actual team members working on the specific technology, and are a great way to hear from and ask your questions directly to the product team.
AJAX opens many interesting new doors in terms of how we can tailor the user experience to the customers needs and how we can display content based on any number of state context.
This sometimes means fetching and manipulating HTML or XML in our server side code and sending it to the browser as execution time via an AJAX request.
Earlier today I was "sprucing up" a demo on implementing the "Partial Page Update Pattern" in preparation for a talk on AJAX Patterns that I'm giving at AJAX World next week in New York.
I always try to minimize my demo application dependencies and isolate the concept that I'm talking about as much as possible and I wanted to return some markup to my web page and dynamically update the DOM, but I didn't want to add a file or database dependency so I decided to just store HTML in a VB string.
I wanted more than trivial markup and HTML is time consuming to convert to a programming friendly string, what with all those quotes and all.
I decided to write a little quickie utility to do string conversion of cut-and-paste HTML when a little searching produced a free utility to do just what I wanted.
It's great for testing, demos, or if you have a manual cut-and-paste editing process. (But don't REALLY store HTML in your source code !)
Try it out.
[Just Click Here to get your copy - it's free.]
Please joind me for these 2 webcasts this Thursday and Friday. VWG is a cool FREE set of tools to accelerate your ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight Web Development. Guy Peled, CTO of Visual WebGui is joining me and he will build applications live during the webcats.
Click below to register - attendance is FREE !
Live From Redmond: Visual WebGui: An Enterprise AJAX application in 20 minutes.
It is all about simplicity: Simplicity in programming next generation complex AJAX application that makes the productivity difference. In this Webcast we will demystify Visual WebGui. We will build a fully blown application in less than 20 minutes, and strip off the covers, showing you how you can cut your development cycle by as much as 90% . Visual WebGui is open source, so you can dive into the code. Throughout the webcast we will demonstrate that while VWG enables rapid application development (RAD) , the developer is free to create custom controls, wrap third party controls , invoke HTML resources and interop with standard ASP.NET applications like DNN and others, all in a matter of minutes.
3/27/2008 11:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 3/13/2008 2:00 PM | Duration:60 Minutes
Live From Redmond: Visual WebGui: Silverlight for line-of-business application.
In this webcast we will "light up", in minutes, the fully blown line-of-business application that we built in our previous webcast adding the rich look and feel of Silverlight as well as its enhanced performance. You will see how we accomplish this by a "push of a button". We will demonstrate how to make WinForms controls available to your web application and how you can style your UI by using fully enabled Expression Blend. The outcome is a very light footprint client, unaffected by application size and weight, and as a bonus, secured by design. You will be shown how you can, extend, invoke, interop and customize your application using Visual WebGui.
3/28/2008 11:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 3/14/2008 2:00 PM | Duration:60 Minutes
-----
About the Live From Redmond series. This series of Live Meeting presentations are designed specifically for the community by members of the Microsoft product teams. The presentations are all done by actual team members working on the specific technology, and are a great way to hear from and ask your questions directly to the product team.
SplendidCRM was written in C# using the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000.
Overview
SplendidCRM supports the following features:
- Account Relationships
- Contact Management
- Case Management
- Project Management
- Lead Tracking
- Bug Tracking
- Activities and Tasks
- Employee Directory
There is a free ASP.NET Open Source Version and a "Pro" version for ISVs, etc.
Check it out at http://www.splendidcrm.com/
The NEW 2.0 version is in Beta and will probably be released by the end of next month.
|