Single Sign-On: A Developer’s Introduction To Active Directory Federation Services   16 Oct 2006 15:35 GMT
Use Active Directory Federation Services to allow other organizations to use your Web applications without the need for you to grant access to their users individually.
Source: MSDN

Detect Web Form Field Changes in ASP.NET   13 Oct 2006 23:17 GMT
Although .NET 2.0 has been released, many applications are still running under .NET 1.x. The technique presented in this article is based on .NET 1.x, but you can easily port it to .NET 2.0.
Source: DevX

Simplify Dependent Lists with the Microsoft AJAX CascadingDropDown Control   12 Oct 2006 18:52 GMT
In many Web applications, when a user selects an option from a dropdown list, the set of options on another list must change, a challenge known as the "dependent list problem." The CascadingDropDown control solves the problem with aplomb.
Source: DevX

Django Djumpstart: Build a To-do List in 30 Minutes   11 Oct 2006 04:00 GMT
Django started life at newspaper whose staff needed to develop full-featured web applications to meet newsroom deadlines. The result? One speedy framework! In this hands-on tutorial, James helps us build a handy to-do list manager in just 30 minutes -- perfect for your next deadline!

Source: SitePoint

Examining ASP.NET 2.0's Membership, Roles, and Profile - Part 6   11 Oct 2006 00:00 GMT

Part 1 - learn about how the membership features make providing user accounts on your website a breeze. This article covers the basics of membership, including why it is needed, along with a look at the SqlMembershipProvider and the security Web controls.

Part 2 - master how to create roles and assign users to roles. This article shows how to setup roles, using role-based authorization, and displaying output on a page depending upon the visitor's roles.

Part 3 - see how to add the membership-related schemas to an existing database using the ASP.NET SQL Server Registration Tool (aspnet_regsql.exe).

Part 4 - improve the login experience by showing more informative messages for users who log on with invalid credentials; also, see how to keep a log of invalid login attempts.

Part 5 - learn how to customize the Login control. Adjust its appearance using properties and templates; customize the authentication logic to include a CAPTCHA.

Part 6 - capture additional user-specific information using the Profile system. Learn about the built-in SqlProfileProvider.

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A Multipart Series on ASP.NET 2.0's Membership, Roles, and Profile
This article is one in a series of articles on ASP.NET 2.0's membership, roles, and profile functionality.

The Membership API in the .NET Framework provides the concept of a user account and associates with it core properties: username, passsword, email, security question and answer, whether or not the account has been approved, whether or not the user is locked out of the system, and so on. However, depending on the application's needs, chances are your application needs to store additional, user-specific fields. For example, an online messageboard site might want to also allow users to specify a signature, their homepage URL, and their IM address.

There are two ways to associate additional information with user accounts when using the Membership model. The first - which affords the greatest flexibility, but requires the most upfront effort - is to create a custom data store for this information. If you are using the SqlMembershipProvider, this would mean creating an additional database table that had as a primary key the UserId value from the aspnet_Users table and columns for each of the additional user properties. In the online messageboard example, the table might be called forums_UserProfile and have columns like UserId (a primary key and a foreign key back to aspnet_Users.UserId), HomepageUrl, Signature, and IMAddress.

Rather than using custom data stores, the ASP.NET 2.0 Profile system can be used to store user-specific information. The Profile system allows the page developer to define the properties she wants to associate with each user. Once defined, the developer can programmatically read from and assign values to these properties. The Profile system accesses or writes the property values to a backing store as needed. Like Membership and Roles, the Profile system is based on the provider model, and the particular Profile provider is responsible for serializing and deserializing the property values to some data store. The .NET Framework ships with a SqlProfileProvider class by default, which uses a SQL Server database table (aspnet_Profile) as its backing store.

In this article we will examine the Profile system - how to define the user-specific properties and interact with them programmatically from an ASP.NET page - as well as look at using the SqlProfileProvider that ships with .NET 2.0. In a future article we'll look at how to create and use a custom profile provider. Read on to learn more!
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Source: 4GuysFromRolla

An Introduction to Programming Robots with Microsoft Robotics Studio   10 Oct 2006 00:37 GMT
Earlier this year Microsoft released Microsoft Robotics Studio—an SDK that you can use to program robots ranging from small robots like the iRobot Roomba vacuum to the large robots used on assembly lines.
Source: DevX

Compilation and Deployment in ASP.NET 2.0   07 Oct 2006 03:31 GMT
Compilation and deployment are key features that ASP.NET developers should understand quite well. Find out how the process works and what options are available to compile and deploy your applications effectively.
Source: DevX

101 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Features Compared to Adobe Dreamweaver 8   06 Oct 2006 21:28 GMT
See for yourself the development strengths of Visual Studio 2005 compared to Dreamweaver 8. Browse our new video library by feature such as database support, debugging, and deployment -- an ungloved look at the functionality you depend on.
Source: MSDN

Building an Enhanced Security System with a Web Cam and a Servo   05 Oct 2006 03:45 GMT
Once you crack the surface of what's possible using .NET to control hardware devices you may find yourself quickly sucked in to this kind of programming. In this article, learn to control a Web cam mounted on a servo to create a sophisticated monitoring application.
Source: DevX

Survey Exposes the Four Web Dev Stereotypes - Which are You?   04 Oct 2006 07:14 GMT
In what may be the largest survey of web developers ever, The State of Web Development 2006/2007 exposes four key web professional stereotypes. In this review, Nick explains how the stats were collated, and what they revealed about the industry and those who work in it.

Source: SitePoint