The 2nd presentation at next week's AJAX World is on AJAX Security.

After just coming back from MI 08 last week where Silverlight 2.0 was the hot topic, I've been thinking about the Silverlight security model. After all, anytime you install a binary extension to the browser there is a security consideration.

ActiveX was sort of all or nothing, Adobe Flash has had security challenges, Java Applets, Windows Forms browser controls, etc.

Shawn Farkas, who keeps a .NET Security log HERE has written several interesting entries on Silverlight security.

Here is a list for your enlightenment.

The Silverlight Security Model

Silverlight Security II: What Makes a Method Critical

Silverlight Security III: Inheritance

Silverlight Security Cheat Sheet

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.]

I Love SQL Server Express. I write demos. Lots of them. SQL Express is great because it's free and works with .MDF files so that I can just bundle up the database with my demo and folks can download a demo, run, and experiment.

I'm "learning" to love Windows Vista.

My only real complaint is that we OVER DID security. I want a switch that says.....

1. Use Vista's Maximum Security (I never would.)
2. Lighten Up a Bit (You know, turn of UAC and such.)
3. Make security on this vista box just like Windows XP
4. Make me a GOD on this box (Super Grand Admin - I accept the responsibility.)
5. Windows 98 Mode (TURN IT ALL OFF.)

Life's been very busy these days and I'm working on some new illustrative demos for my AJAX World Talks next week.

Trying to connect to my SQL Express database from my ASP.NET code yields the following message.

"Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to a failure in starting the process for the user instance. The connection will be closed."

... "a failure."

CAN YOU BE A BIT MORE SPECIFIC ????????

I know, I know, this is a typical Microsoft error message.

I know SQL Express installers locked down to some extend so I thought maybe the issue was disabled protocols as I was carrying forward some code, but alas - nothing seamed to help. I tried all the configuration tools, used the surface area tool and added everyone to the SQL admin's groups. NOTHING

After searching and playing for some time I got things working again and wanted to share the solution.

If you're running from the IDE then you are running as yourself so:

Delete C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server Data\SQLEXPRESS.

If you're running via IIS the user is usually ASPNET so....

Delete C:\Documents and Settings\COMPUTERNAME\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server Data\SQLEXPRESS

Hope you found this and it saves you some time.

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.

Scott Galloway, PM Extraordinaire on the UI team, compiled this cool list of resources concerning the cool stuff for Web Developers at MIX08.

You can also posthumously attend MIX08 here http://visitmix.com/

Downloads:

- MVC Preview 2 is live at:

o English - United States

o http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/9/a/79a7153c-4cb4-4898-a984-6f01d565cba9/AspNetMVCPreview2-setup.msi

- Silverlight tools (includes the ASP.NET server controls for Silverlight) is live at:

o http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E0BAE58E-9C0B-4090-A1DB-F134D9F095FD&displaylang=en

- ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview (December) Download page is updated and live at:

o http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a9c6bc06-b894-4b11-8300-35bd2f8fc908&displaylang=en

ASP.NET Updates:

- ASP.NET home page announcement:

o http://www.asp.net/

- ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions download “page” is updated and live at:

o http://www.asp.net/downloads/3.5-extensions/

- ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions quickstarts is live at:

o http://quickstarts.asp.net/3-5-extensions/default.aspx

- ASP.NET MIX readme is live at:

o http://www.asp.net/downloads/3.5-extensions/readme/Preview2.aspx

- Forums Updates are live:

o http://forums.asp.net/default.aspx?GroupID=7. New ASP.NET server controls for Silverlight forum added.

o http://forums.asp.net/1147.aspx

- Videos are new and live at:

o http://www.asp.net/learn/3.5-extensions-videos/default.aspx#mvc

We've added a new comments feature to all the Videos posted at www.ASP.net .

Complete with a RSS feed for the comments.

Check it out and tell us what you think !

Microsoft announces the CTP release of SQL Server 2005 Drivers for PHP

This opens up some very cool possibility for heterogeneous environment developers.

My first project ? A PHP Class library to integrate with ASP.NET's Membership & Profile System.

Click HERE to get the SQL Driver CTP

Click HERE to get the FREE Express Versions of SQL 2005 & Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express for ASP.NET

Here is the latest in my AJAX How-Do-I Video Series

Hope you like them !

How Do I: Retrieve Values From Server Side AJAX Controls

How Do I: The AJAX Toolkit Reorder Control

Microsoft and Telligent go way back. Rob Howard (the owner of Telligent) wrote the original ASP.NET forums code way back wen he worked at Microsoft with Scott Guthrie.

 Telligent makes Community Server, and all of my Team's web properties (www.asp.net, www.iis.net, www.windowsclient.net, www.silverlight.net) are built on top of Community Server code base.

Telligent just released GraffitiCMS - there is a free version for non-commercial use and commercial use versions start at $399.

Check it out at : http://graffiticms.com/

My blog posts on Visual WebGui have generated allot of interest so I thought we'd have a couple of webcasts and dive into the VWG experience.

Live from Redmond: March 13th 01:00PM Pacific

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.

Click HERE to attend !

Live from Redmond: March 14th 01:00PM Pacific

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.  

Click HERE to Attend !