Ensuring Compatibility for Obfuscated Assemblies   20 Jul 2005 20:37 GMT
Applications obfuscated with earlier versions of Dotfuscator may not run on systems that do not also have older .NET Framework versions installed. Read about how you can ensure .NET Framework 2.0 compatibility for assemblies obfuscated using Dotfuscator.
Source: MSDN

Dissecting Forms Authentication   20 Jul 2005 00:00 GMT

If you've ever used ASP.NET to create a website that requires that users login to view certain pages or to have access to particular features, then you've no doubt examined ASP.NET's forms-based authentication scheme. ASP.NET's forms-based authentication allows you to quickly and easily build a website that authenticates users through a forms-based approach. Namely, to identify themselves, a user will enter their credentials in a Web Form. (Credentials could be anything, really, but for websites they are typically just a username and password. However, some websites require more involved credentials, such as a username, password, and PIN.) After a user enters their credentials, they are "logged in" to the site.

There have been plenty of articles here on 4Guys as well as across the Web that discuss forms-based authentication in ASP.NET. For more information see Darren Neimke's articles Using Forms Authentication in ASP.NET and Role-Based Authorization with Forms Authentication. However, most of these articles focus simply on how to implement forms-based authentication, topics such as what settings are required in Web.config and the code necessary for the forms-based login page.

With this article we will not be looking at how to implement forms-based authentication; rather, we will peel back the layers of forms-based authentication and examine what's really happening when a user is "authenticated." If you've ever wondered how, exactly, a user's authentication status is remembered as they visit various pages on the site, or how ASP.NET protects against nefarious users from circumventing the authentication process and "faking" a successful login without valid credentials, read on to learn more!
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Source: 4GuysFromRolla

CodeSnip: Building a Site Map with ASP.NET 2.0   19 Jul 2005 00:00 GMT
With the evolution of ASP.NET 2.0, creating a site map for your website is easier than ever. In this article, Anand Narayanaswamy provides a step-by-step demonstration of using the new SiteMapDataSource and TreeView controls.
Source: AspAlliance

Unit Testing with Visual Studio 2005   18 Jul 2005 04:00 GMT
Now is a pretty exciting time for unit testing in .NET. Tremendous progress is being made on several fronts: IDE integration, process integration, and new test fixtures. Jay Flowers and Andrew Stopford explain how to use Visual Studio's new integrated unit testing, as well as the NUnit and MbUnit testing frameworks.
Source: O'Reilly

Code Documentation in .NET   18 Jul 2005 00:00 GMT
Documenting your code in .NET is much easier than you might expect. In this article, Steven Swafford discusses the XML documentation tags recommended by Microsoft, and shows how to put these tags to use. By taking the time to document your code, not only will you and others be able to clearly understand the code and utilize features such as IntelliSense, you will also be able to employ third-party tools such as NDoc to generate professional-looking MSDN-style documentation. This article also looks at the value of well-documented code.
Source: AspAlliance

Precise .NET Server Content Caching   15 Jul 2005 23:40 GMT
Caching in .NET allows you to maintain high-performance pages and scalable applications. Simple Page output caching for just three seconds can dramatically boost page speed. NET is already up to 3x faster than legacy ASP.
Source: .NET Monster

Visual Basic .NET 2003 - A .NET Framework Tour   15 Jul 2005 20:02 GMT
Bill Sempf takes you on a guided tour of the .NET Framework via Visual Basic .NET 2003 and shows you how to do numerous common tasks.
Source: MSDN

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 and Reporting Services   15 Jul 2005 00:00 GMT
Reporting Services in Visual Studio 2005 has a major new feature: the ability to run a report locally from your appplication. Terry Voss examines local versus remote reporting.
Source: AspAlliance

Building XML Applications with the .NET Framework 2.0   14 Jul 2005 20:44 GMT
XML is the most popular technology for structuring data. .NET 2.0 provides much needed functionality to enable one to build XML-based applications. The enhanced DataTable now supports reading and writing XML data, which is crucial in creating XML-enabled applications.
Source: DevX

Custom Bitmap Button Using C#   14 Jul 2005 17:03 GMT
An article on creating a bitmap button. The motivation behind the custom bitmap control was to allow different bitmap images to be displayed for each of the button states. This includes disabled, normal, mouse over, and button pressed. In addition to the button graphics, it was important to include button text and control the alignment of the text with regards to the button image. It follows an XP style look and feel with some embellishments that are unique to it.
Source: .NET Monster