Track Your Rank Using the Google API   12 Apr 2006 00:32 GMT
Tracking your site's search ranking can be a real pain ... unless you have Bernard's script, which uses the Google API to track your rank quickly and effortlessly. Here he explains, step by step, how to implement the code that will save you hours and keep you informed of your site's Google rank.
Source: SitePoint

Efficiently Paging Through Large Result Sets in SQL Server 2000   12 Apr 2006 00:00 GMT

When displaying large amounts of data to a user, it's important that the information be presented in digestible chunks rather than slamming it all down their throats at once. For example, searching for "Microsoft" on Google returns approximately 2,190,000,000 results, but thankfully Google only shows me ten of those at a time. When providing paging access to particularly large result sets - tables with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of records - care must be taken in querying the data such that only the particular page of data requested is returned.

Both the DataGrid in ASP.NET 1.x and GridView in ASP.NET 2.0 providing two paging flavors:

• Default paging - easy to implement but naively retrieves all records from the database and then trims the results to show only those for the requested page
• Custom paging - requires the developer to correctly retrieve only the precise subset of records to show for the current page; requires more effort to implement

While default paging is quick and easy to implement, for sufficiently-sized result sets custom paging is a must. In March 2006 I authored a couple of articles here on 4Guys on how to efficiently page through large result sets using custom paging in the GridView with the ObjectDataSource and SQL Server 2005's new ROW_NUMBER() keyword. This new keyword simplifies efficiently retrieving a particular subset of data ordered by row number. After authoring these articles, I received many requests from readers for a look at how to implement this type of efficient custom paging using SQL Server 2000 (which lacks the ROW_NUMBER() keyword).

A previous article on 4Guys, Paging through Records using a Stored Procedure by Daniel Anderson, provides one approach that far outperforms the default paging implementation. However, it has a few areas that can be updated to improve the performance. This article looks at updating Daniel's stored procedure to provide an even-more efficient approach. The stored procedure presented at the end of this article can be used for classic ASP applications, custom paging with the DataGrid in ASP.NET 1.x, or used by the ObjectDataSource to provide custom paging for the GridView in ASP.NET 2.0 applications. Read on to learn more!
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Source: 4GuysFromRolla

Creating and Migrating Smart Device Custom Controls by Using Visual Studio 2005   11 Apr 2006 01:48 GMT
Learn how to use Visual Studio .NET 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 to create custom controls and upgrade existing custom controls that are targeted at smart devices and the .NET Compact Framework.
Source: MSDN

Create Setup Files for your Windows Mobile Applications Using Visual Studio 2005   11 Apr 2006 00:03 GMT
Learning a simple series of steps in Visual Studio 2005 will make deploying applications to mobile devices a no-brainer from here on out. Follow along with this project, which includes step-by-step instructions, code, and a sample .ini file.
Source: DevX

Security Briefs: A deeper look at InfoCard   10 Apr 2006 18:26 GMT
In this Security Briefs, Keith Brown drills into InfoCard and demonstrates how to create a relying party and a client.
Source: MSDN

Extreme ASP.NET: Keeping secrets in ASP.NET 2.0   10 Apr 2006 18:19 GMT
Storing configuration data securely was always difficult. But it’s a whole lot easier now with a powerful new set of APIs in ASP.NET 2.0 that allow you to manage the ASP.NET configuration file programmatically.
Source: MSDN

Test Run: Stress Testing   10 Apr 2006 18:06 GMT
Stress testing involves running tests under conditions of reduced machine or system resources. To reduce these resources for testing, you can run a tool called a stressor. This month we cover such a tool: EatMem.
Source: MSDN

Cutting Edge: Extending the GridView control   10 Apr 2006 18:03 GMT
This marks Dino’s 100th installment of Cutting Edge. So how does he celebrate? By extending the GridView control, of course.
Source: MSDN

CLR Inside Out: The performance benefits of NGen   10 Apr 2006 17:55 GMT
JIT compilation has its advantages, but it has its drawbacks, too. NGen may help to improve the performance of your applications. Surupa Biswas shows you why and when.
Source: MSDN

Basic Instincts: Resources and localization   10 Apr 2006 17:50 GMT
This month: everything you wanted to know about how to handle resource localization efficiently.
Source: MSDN