ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Released

Do you heard? ASP.NET MVC 1.0 is out now. You can download it from Microsoft download center.

Download.

IE Bookmark Sync

As I’s busy with my programming world, I came across a lot of articles, bookmarked a lot of pages. Formatting my PC was a real headache for me, as I’ll be losing my bookmarks. Since, I’s using IE (currently using IE8 RC1) as my default browser, I cannot think about using FF for syncing the favorites using FoxMark.

As the FoxMark download crossed 13 million, they planned to extend the service to IE & Safari. Though, the FoxMark was for IE 6 & 7; I tried it for IE8 RC1. Charmingly, it worked.

I must say, it’s a must have for fellows who bookmarks a lot.

Download it here.

Vista Ultimate Tips and Tricks PDF

Though I own a Vista Ultimate PC; I’s searching the internet looking for articles/post for exploring the features of Ultimate edition to the maximum. Now, M$FT themselves has released a PDF, for exploring the same.

Explore here.

ASP.NET vs PHP

Finally, I came across the battlefield. Which is better?

Woo….!!!

A never-ending Hot debate.

Check out these links:

http://geekswithblogs.net/vivek/archive/2008/07/02/123516.aspx

http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/columns/hull_php2.html

Things I ‘Wished’ in IE 8

Release of IE 7 forced me to migrate to Firefox, my secondary browser. Now, things are back in town. IE8 RC1 build is available, a major improvement over IE7. Now I don't have a secondary browser. IE8 is all in its way. Situations have changed a lot. The fields are spitted into battle field- FF, Chrome, IE, Opera. MSFT has got the real seriousness when they started loosing their IE market share. Anyway that's another story.

Accelerators and Visual Searches; I use them to the maximum.

But, still I missed/wished some features to be integrated with IE.

Quick Page Saving

IE consumes more time to save a page. Also, if the page is loading a frames, IE throws an error stating that "This page cannot saved". There are other reasons also for showing this error.

Download Dialogue Window

I still believe the download dialogue windows of FF is very cool. IE download windows will be there is the taskbar, consuming taskbar space. It will be too cool and useful, if they can hide the download dialogue window to the status bar of IE, just as FF is doing. Chrome has also integrated the same customized effect.

Easy Tab Switching

IE hangs for a while, if we try to switch tabs; while some other tabs are busy working in the background. Proper resource management has to be implemented for optimizing/tweaking IE performance to further extend. I still wonder at the proper resource management in FF, when switching tabs in the same situation.

‘Live’ Developer Tool

Developer tool is a long awaited feature in IE. But still has to tweak a lot when compared with Firebug. Firebug can be considered as a live developer tool. In the ‘Inspect’ mode, hovering mouse over each page element will show its corresponding HTML code. For IE, we’ve to click and select the page element to see its HTML code. Since, I’m a developer; a ‘live’ developer tool means a lot to me.

Anyway, software giant has confirmed that there will be no more beta for IE8. Everyone is quite excited to see how the final release of IE is ironed out. I’m also excited whether any new features will be integrated or not. Lets see what's they are baking out.

‘ClickJacking Protection’ in IE8 RC1

Have you heard. IE 8 RC1 (Release Candidate) is out now. Just like the previous release, this time also MSFT had included a new feature names ClickJacking Protection.

Lets here what Wikipedia has to say about this.

Clickjacking is a malicious technique of tricking web users into revealing confidential information or taking control of their computer while clicking on seemingly innocuous web pages. A vulnerability across a variety of browsers and platforms, a clickjacking takes the form of embedded code or script that can execute without the user's knowledge, such as clicking on a button that appears to perform another function.

One of the most security vulnerabilities in the web-world is called Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF). Preventing CSRF attacks is hard because there’s generally no easy fix. The browser architecture allows interaction & navigation between multiple sites simultaneously, within a page; which can be exploited by an attacker.

IE 8 Dev Team says, “ClickJacking is a term which encompasses multiple techniques that can be used to trick the user into unwittingly clicking an obscured or hidden web element, usually resulting in an unwanted transaction”. A successful ClickJacking attack could circumvent CSRF protections that attempt to confirm transactions with the user.

The simplest and most broadly-used mechanism to defeat ClickJacking attacks is called frame-busting.It works by simply preventing vulnerable pages from being framed. Since, a typical frame-busting mechanisms rely on script; it can be defeated in various ways.

The Internet Explorer 8 RC introduces a new opt-in mechanism that enables web applications to mitigate the risk of ClickJacking on vulnerable pages by declaring that those pages may not be framed.

How it works

Web developers can send a HTTP response header named X-FRAME-OPTIONS with HTML pages to restrict how the page may be framed. If the X-FRAME-OPTIONS value contains the token DENY, IE8 will prevent the page from rendering if it will be contained within a frame. If the value contains the token SAMEORIGIN, IE will block rendering only if the origin of the top level-browsing-context is different than the origin of the content containing the X-FRAME-OPTIONS directive. For instance, if http://shop.example.com/confirm.asp contains a DENY directive, that page will not render in a sub-frame, no matter where the parent frame is located. In contrast, if the X-FRAME-OPTIONS directive contains the SAMEORIGIN token, the page may be framed by any page from the exact http://shop.example.com origin.

When rendering is blocked by the X-FRAME-OPTIONS policy, a local error page is presented that explains the restriction and provides a link which opens the frame in a new window. When displayed in a new window rather than a sub-frame, content is no longer subject to ClickJacking.

ClickJacking is an alternate scriptless way of performing Frame Busting. However, this technique becomes useless if the attach involves Flash applets and other kind of plug-in embeddings.

I came across a couple of articles claiming that ‘Experts’ believe this technique is not gonna lockdown the attack. But. I’m sure of one thing. At least, websites will use this Microsoft technology to prevent attacks, for their IE users.

For time being this is a good security policy. Let see what MSFT has ironing for the final release.

Good Luck, Redmondians.

Oh! forgot to say, I started using IE 8 RC1.

Reference: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/01/27/ie8-security-part-vii-clickjacking-defenses.aspx

.NET Framework Standalone Installer Links

As the publicity for .NET Framework is increasing, most of the peoples are in search of standalone/offline .NET framework installers. Here are some of the standalone/offline download links:

a) Microsoft .NET Framework 1.0 Redistributable :-
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d7158dee-a83f-4e21-b05a-009d06457787

b) Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Redistributable :-
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=262D25E3-F589-4842-8157-034D1E7CF3A3

c) Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Redistributable :-
x86 -> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5
x64 -> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B44A0000-ACF8-4FA1-AFFB-40E78D788B00

d) Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable :-
x86 -> http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/F/0/3F0A922C-F239-4B9B-9CB0-DF53621C57D9/dotnetfx3.exe
x64 -> http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/F/0/3F0A922C-F239-4B9B-9CB0-DF53621C57D9/dotnetfx3_x64.exe

e) Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Redistributable :-
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/0/f/60fc5854-3cb8-4892-b6db-bd4f42510f28/dotnetfx35.exe


f) Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/0/e/20e90413-712f-438c-988e-fdaa79a8ac3d/dotnetfx35.exe

g) Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 (Redistributable)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/5/A/95A9616B-7A37-4AF6-BC36-D6EA96C8DAAE/dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe

Browser War reloaded, IE-Share drops to 68%.

I'm a MSFT fan boy. I’m always curious to know how much market-share MSFT holds for its products. MSFT’s main two eye-catching products are Internet Explorer and Operating System. I keep an eye on both.

I don't know at what point MSFT got lazy or at what point they started losing the game of  Browser-War. As a nightmare, IE share is dipping and Firefox share is on its phase, covering a share of 20% (on Dec 1, 2008). IE’s share dropped to 68%. Remember, IE had a solid-share of 95%, on 2002. Suddenly, IE sunk when Mozilla hit the market with its open-source browser captioned Firefox.

MSFT has got a tough time ahead with IE8. Right now I'm using IE8 Beta 2. I'm enjoying with it. Much much better than IE7. One-way-or-another, Google is struggling with its new browser Chrome, with a market-share of 1% approx. I know its not a time to judge Chrome, since its just been launched. Chrome was released with an aim to cover IE’s market share. If so, they have to cover Safari (8%) and Firefox (20%). But, I cannot understand one thing, Google has an alliance with Mozilla, due to which they had made Google as their default search-engine. One thing is sure, Chrome is not going to cover Firefox at any point. Then one thing could happen, either Google would buy Firefox or Firefox and Chrome browser-team would work together to beat IE.

One thing is very clear now. MSFT realized the seriousness when they start losing IE share & with the rise of anti-MSFT sentiments., around the globe. IE8 is a good challenge for both Google and Mozilla. I bet.

On thing that always made me laugh is that Chrome won’t make a prompt when we try to close it with multiple tabs opened or downloads are in progress. I don't and cant understand why Google team missed such a silly point when making a major move. Also they have to do much work in CSS Engine. ASP.NET site was one of my favorite site, which is cluttered in Chrome. Then how can I…

Resume Tip for Techies

Recently I found a nice article in ComputerWorld, mentioning the resume tip for Tech guys/gals.

Main tips from the article.

1. Drop the Details

2. Abolish your objective

3. Get your resume in search shape

4. Highlight the right certification.

5. Balance tech and business.

Have a look at the entire article, here.

IE8 beta 2 bug

After the release of IE8 beta 2, there were many articles posted in Internet, both praising and cursing the beta release.

In ZDNet, I saw an article about the beta release. What surprised me that, the very first comment is cursing the beta release. What he mentioned was as follows:

“Clik on the down-arrow of your vertical scroll-bar few times. Afterwards, click-and-hold the scroll-bar and move it up-down (vertically). This will give a distorted effect to the textbox(s) and the button(s), in the page”.

What he’s saying was right…!!!

Here’s the screenshot:

 

I agree with him. But, I approached this problem/bug in a different manner. After the release of IE7 and Vista, Redmondians are taking extra-care to make their product bug-free as possible. Then, how did this happened ?

The way I thought was right, there is a compatibility-view button. If you find the rendering of a page inaccurate, then you can click on that button, so that that particular page will be rendered in IE7 mode; thus fixing the bug. Also, all the pages from that domain will be rendered in IE7 mode.

I don't know, how many Linux fan-boys and Microsoft-haters enjoyed this bug; without knowing, Remondians are know as “The King of Softwares”

Windows Mail Error Code

Last week, I wrote about Windows Live Wave 3 beta review. However, you may get various error code, at time. Might during installation, or while using.

Recently I’ve  gone through a Knowledge Base article from Microsoft, which has all the error code(s), along with their reason.

Read Knowledge Base Article.

Difference between Windows and Linux

Im a Microsoft fan boy. I don't like Linux, I must say frankly. The main point I like in Windows is the ease of use and learn. Anyway, its my personal opinion and I don't want anyone to join/fight with me.

Recently, I find an article in ZDNet, titled as ‘10 difference between Windows and Linux’. It explain the top 10 difference between Windows and Linux.

Read it here.

Wave from Windows Live Wave 3

Wow has started again with Windows Live Wave 3.

I like it the best. It’s the best windows Client from Microsoft ever. Ya! Im a Microsoft fan. But, it doesn't means that I’ll accept their every dull releases. I’s weird when I first used Vista Ultimate. I feel like, it’s the worst careless product from Microsoft. But, the giants solved it, as usual via Service Pack 1.

But, its time to speak about Windows Live Wave 3. Though its a beta release, I really like it on the first half an hour use itself. The most I liked among are; of course Windows Hotmail availability @ desktop itself. Because, I got some loading delay on IE8 Beta2; which I’s able to overcome easily. Also, it supports Yahoo! mail (plus only sadly) and Gmail.

Then comes, ability to support multiple weblogs including blogger and wordpress.

Oh! the best I like is it RSS Feed support. Because, I’s actually looking for a Desktop RSS Reader. Right now, I’s using NewzCrawler. Honestly, I’s not satisfied with Google Reader. I actually don't like the interface. Very sluggish. Also, they tried to make it just like Gmail. Its true that its fast and light-weight. I don't know how many of them cares about fast and light-weight services, when they are having a fast broadband connection. At least, I care about the look and feel, of a service which MS delivered to the world with maintaining Quality in all perspectives.

I’ve also installed Photo-Gallery and Movie Maker. But, didn't worked on it, since I'm am not a Media person.

I prefer daily ready-to-use services. WLW3 gave me a WOW in all perspectives.

Wait! I'm (and I’ll be) writing this blog from Live Writer.

Desktop RSS Reader

Oops...!!!

Ive been searching a long for a Desktop RSS reader for Vista. Finally I got one. Its NewzCrawler.

Initially, I tried to use, Omea Reader. But, soon gave up, when i was unable to subscribe to ceratin feeds from http://www.asp.net site. My one of the fav site.

I's getting an error when i tried to subscribe to feeds from the asp.net site. I sent the error message along with a screenshot to e-mail id found in their website. But, I didnt get any respose from their support team.

I dont know why, enterprises behave in this way to a feedback mail. Is that so because, my mail went straight to junk folder. Might be. Couple of weeks back, I found a bug in http://forums.asp.net site & reported this in their complaint section via mail. Within an hour, I got a reply mail from the suppport team of asp.net site. See, how fast the reply is, if you really care about your bussiness.

Pretty good features are: it has an Outlook like 3-pane inerface and flagging. The best I like is the ability to download a webpage into the NewzCrawler itself. It will be automatically saved can be viewed at any time, by selecting the respective feed.

So, download and enjoy the feeds.

Oh! forgot to say one thing. I know everyone uses Google Reader. But, the tedious interface forced me to switch to Desktop RSS Readers. Ive tried almost 10 Desktop RSS Readers. The most I liked was Omea Reader & NewzCrawler.

Happy subscribing...

Is 'Cuil' cool ?

August 1, 2008 - A milestone was laid my installing Cuil into the Internet Search Industry. Though Google rules the search-industry, lets here what Cuil has to say.

"We'd indexed 12billion web-pages, which is larger than any existing search engine (including Google)"

This was how Google came to the internet search industry, years back. They made a large set of indexes (via distributed servres) globally. And with the help of their powerful search algorithm, they clipped the web-pages, faster than anyone.

The exact idea was implemented the Cuil team. Oh! forgot to introduce the Cuil team- consisting of former Google engineers and others who worked at eBay, Altavista & IBM.

Holding 12billion index is not a bad thing.

First time when i used Cuil, i's doubted whether I'm using Wikipedia. Because no spelling suggestion is available. Later only I came to know that their searching mechanism is quite new. A new approach, but partially similar to Wikipedia.

I tried searching 'ASP.NET Official Forum'. My expectation was to get http://forums.asp.net, but I got some other search links. What I noticed here ia that, each search result is embedded in a box along with a screenshot.

Then, I tried another way searching the same thing, by making a small mistake, like this 'ASP.NET Oficial Forum'. Wow! to my surprise, I got the official asp.net forums link as the first result, along with a screenshot.

I dont know why that spelling-mistake has pushed-up the original link & why the original search-term hides the original link.

If you know the exact search-term, you'll have the exact result. But, what I felt was that the results are based on contents & relevance, rather than popularity and audience traffice.

That's why I mentioned, that I felt like Wikipedia. I've thought a long time, that if the wikipedia's search is powered by google, then how easy it will be to find an article in Wikipedia. Also, this would have prevented Google from releasing Knol, to beat Wikipedia. Anyway, its a monopoly, i justed mentioned my doubt, thats all.

The search result in Cuil is limited to few pages, as comapired with Google.

There I stopped & loaded Google. I dont find any better search engine than Google.

Might Cuil have some different approach than google. But, all it lies on how the end-user understands it, how they suits it.

Will the black background of Cuil, can corrupt Google ?

How far will Cuil be in our browser.

Will Cuil strike at the right Chord ?

Lets show continues...!!!

My Best Sites & Forums

The best sites, forums, blog that I like the most.

Official

MSDN (C#)

ASP.NET Forum

MSDN (ASP.NET Developer Center)

MSDN (C# Developer Center)

MSDN Developer Center

Other Links

DotNETSlackers

EggHeadCafe

CodeProject

Certification

CertRead

The Wow has started

Hi,

Since the release of Windows Vista, everyone believed there is a Wow! in Windows Vista Family.
Everyone stopped searching for Wow! as soon as Vista's first release is buggy, slow & a headache. Wow of Vista changed into How. Yes! How to uninstall Vista.

But, Microsoft continually boasted that their Operating System is Wow.

All the Linux fan-boys, Microsoft-hater's, Apple fruit's struggled their best to pull down Vista from everyone's mind. As usual, everyone stopped searching for Wow. Even I know peoples, who hates Vista, still having only 256MB of RAM in their PC.

On March 2008, Redmondian's released Vista SP1, shutting everyone's rotten mouth. Those who'd downgraded to XP, start upgrading to Vista.

From my personal experience, I've upgraded from Windows XP Sp3 to Vista Ultimate, after the release of Vista SP1. SP1 had made Vista a lot stable, than its first release. Till now, I've never encountered any compatibility issue. I could install & use apps, just like XP.

I start enjoying Vista. What about those who shout at Vista ? Let them shout, without realizing the Wow inside Vista.

The Wow has started for me.

Oh! I forget to say onething, Im not dual-booting Vista & XP. Only Vista Ultimate.

Is Windows Defender WoW!

I's wondering when Redmondians released Windows Defender. What they are going to do when Symantec, McAfee, Grisoft rules the PC & Internet Security world. But, Good News come on the other side.

Atlast, Microsoft prooved that Windows Defender has something to do with your PC security. A massive amount of Password Stealing have been detected and removed by Redmindians Defender. A 2 Million pasword stealing have been clobbered by Defender.

Read original article, here