Track 1 – Monday, September 17

Beyond Web 2.0: Web Scale Computing - Building Low-cost Scalable Apps With Web Services, Intermediate
Mike Culver
10:30 a.m.
What’s possible in a post Web 2.0 world? Innovation continues at a mind-bending pace, and this presentation will start with some thought-provoking new directions that Web Services are headed in, before diving into a code session that shows how to extend an ASP.NET website in order to integrate cloud-based storage via a Web service. The code will show you how to extend a base ASP.NET photo-sharing site so that uploaded content is securely stored in (and delivered from) the cloud, while appearing to be part of your domain.

Amazon spent ten years and over $2 billion developing a world-class technology and content platform that powers Amazon web sites for millions of customers every day. Most people think “Amazon.com” when they hear the word; however developers are excited to learn that there is a separate technology arm of the company, known as Amazon Web Services or AWS. Using AWS, developers can build software applications leveraging the same robust, scalable, and reliable technology that powers Amazon’s retail business. AWS has now launched ten services with open API’s for developers to build applications, with the result that over 210,000 developers have registered on Amazon’s developer site to create applications based on these services.

IIS 7 for Web Developers, Intermediate
Robert Boedigheimer
11:45 a.m.
Effective web developers understand not only how pages are created but how they are executed. IIS 7 provides many new features that will be critical for ASP.NET developers. IIS 7 has been modularized so functions can be removed or extended as needed. Learn how extend IIS with ASP.NET, and how the pipelines have been integrated which allows Forms Authentication to be applied to all files including images, documents, and HTML files. Use failed request tracing to not only troubleshoot problems but to also learn how requests are executed. Find detailed information about how web sites are processing requests, such as which requests are currently executing.

Exploring the AJAX Control Toolkit, Intermediate
Robert Boedigheimer
2:00 p.m.
Discover how to add great new functionality to ASP.NET web sites using the AJAX Control Toolkit. Review the masked edit extender which allows the developer to specify a specific pattern that the input must match. This extends the TextBox control to display the mask to the user for better feedback about what is required for entry. See how the AlwaysVisibleControl extender can keep a control pinned to a specific area of the browser so that even when the user scrolls the content will be visible. Learn how the Accordian control can allow multiple areas with content with only one displayed at a particular time. These are just a handful of the controls available from the toolkit. Why live with dated user experiences in your ASP.NET web sites when these can enhance the site experience so easily?

Data-Driven ASP.NET Ajax, Intermediate
Jeffrey McManus
3:15 p.m.
Performing asynchronous postbacks using ASP.NET Ajax UpdatePanels is simple, but how do you go beyond the basics to provide sophisticated data visualization and user experience idioms? In this session we'll take a look at some common data-driven user experiences and demonstrate how to implement them using ASP.NET Ajax.

Inside MS Wikis with ASP.NET AJAX
Mark D'Urso
4:30 p.m.
Coverage of our implementation of Wiki using ASP.NET AJAX technologies across the massive technical libraries for MSND and TechNet. We will cover how we did it, what we learned and the impact we are seeing moving writing and submission of content to the edge of the network on one of the largest developer sites in the world.

Track 2 – Monday, September 17

ASP.NET 2 Repeater, Datalist, Panel, Master-Page Deep Dive, Intermediate
Renato Haddad
10:30 a.m.
ASP.NET 2.0 provides flexible controls to bind data from the database. In this session, Renato will show you How to explore the Repeater, Datalist and Panel controls and How to build an intelligent Master-Page with ContentPlaceHolder and expose a property to be used in nested pages. If you have a lot of image to build a menu, know the best way to switch the image in runtime with only two lines.

Understanding Themes & Skins, Introductory
Miguel A. Castro
11:45 a.m.
You may not know this, but if you're programming ASP.NET 2.0 applications, you should be using Themes -- even if you think you don't need to. Let me explain what I mean. I’ll show you how to properly use themes and skins in conjunction with style sheets, and throw in some tips and practices for making them easy to use.

CSS Control Adapters for ASP.NET 2.0, Intermediate
Fritz Onion
2:00 p.m.
ASP.NET 2.0 has a flexible architecture for controlling exactly how controls render their content called 'Control Adapters'. By creating a control adapter and registering it in a .browser file in your site, you can completely alter the output of a control without making any modifications to the pages that use that control. You can also specify which browsers should see which rendering of a control if you want to customize it further. To show the power of these adapters, the ASP.NET team has released a set of CSS control adapters that change the output of controls like the Menu, TreeView, FormView, and others to render with pure CSS styling instead of using tables. This session will present how to use these adapters to create CSS styled pages, as well as how to build your own control adapters for controls whose rendering you want to change.

Writing ASP.NET Membership Providers, Intermediate
Miguel A. Castro
3:15 p.m.
ASP.NET 2.0 breaths, eats, and sleeps the provider model. And it’s a good thing too, because you get to take advantage of great code-saving features without being locked into the out-of-the-box Microsoft solutions. In this session, I’ll show you what I mean in the context of membership. I’ll show you how to leverage the Membership object as well as all the cool security controls using your own custom back-end – and it doesn’t even have to be SQL Server.

Protecting your Files from Unauthorized Downloads Using IIS & HttpHandlers, Intermediate
Miguel A. Castro
4:30 p.m.
Ever wish you can track what people download from your site? Or even worse, prevent people from downloading files for which they need to first pay. Well once someone figures out the web folder where you store files for download, they may just be able to browse to them. Let's put a stop to this now! While I give away a lot of software, I also make you pay for some of it, and by golly you're not breaking through the techniques for file protection that I'll teach you here.

Track 1 – Tuesday, September 18

More Best Kept Secrets in .NET, Intermediate
Deborah Kurata
10:30 a.m.
Deborah Kurata has been sharing her Visual Studio and .NET Framework secrets with developers for the past several years. In this new installment, she covers more lesser-known features to help you become more productive with your development tools.

This session covers how to improve your productivity by building your own project and project item templates. It covers lesser known code navigation features and keywords such as Using and IsNullOrEmpty. It provides details on using nullable types, and on building queries from within Visual Studio. Finally, it covers how to perform unit testing directly from within Visual Studio.

Using XML Binding in Web Pages, Intermediate
Deborah Kurata
11:45 a.m.
This session covers the many different ways you can use XML binding in your Web pages. It covers binding to grids and to forms. It also covers directly using XPath and using XSL for preparing your XML for display.

Design for Operations, Introductory
Keith Pleas
2:00 p.m.
This session illustrates the new “patterns & practices” process for building highly manageable applications. Starting with the “best practices” for doing instrumentation, this process uses a custom DSL (Domain Specific Language) for building health models for managed entities within Visual Studio, and using guidance automation recipes to generate custom instrumentation helpers. The process also supports configuring information technologies appropriate for given infrastructure trust levels.

Web Services Software Factory, Intermediate
Chris Kinsman
3:15 p.m.
This session will explore the Web Service Software Factory, which provides you with a set of proven practices for building distributed applications including an architectural overview, use of design patterns, application blocks and automated guidance packages, and reference implementations.

Programming MySQL for .NET Developers, Intermediate
Jeffrey McManus
4:30 p.m.
MySQL is the relational database behind some of the largest web sites in the world. Today, MySQL provides .NET developers with an easy, open and inexpensive interface to powerful data storage. In this session, I'll provide a technical introduction to MySQL specifically for .NET developers, with demonstrations of the native MySQL ADO.NET provider, Visual Studio integration, real-world code examples, and tips and tricks.

Track 2 – Tuesday, September 18

Creating a Custom ASP.NET DataSource Control, Advanced
Rockford Lhotka
10:30 a.m.
The new data binding in ASP.NET 2.0 is very powerful. Unfortunately the pre-built data source controls may not always meet your needs. Learn how to create a fully functional ASP.NET DataSource control, including complete support for both runtime and design time behaviors.

Introduction to ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts, Intermediate
Russ Nemhauser
11:45 a.m.
Web Parts offer ASP.NET 2.0 applications the ability to provide powerful personalization functionality. In this session, you'll learn how Web Parts are implemented in ASP.NET 2.0, how to get up and running with Web Parts quickly, and how to extend the Web Parts framework. You will also learn how Web Parts functionality ties into the built-in membership features.

Serious WebPart Customization, Intermediate
Benjamin Day
2:00 p.m.
Ever tried to customize how your ASP.NET WebParts look? Sure, you can change colors and fonts, but what if you want to change the layout? What if you need to put the WebPartVerb menu in a different place? That goes beyond simple tweaking; now you need custom WebPartChrome. In this session, Ben will do a deep-dive on the ASP.NET WebParts architecture and show you how to seriously customize your WebParts by creating your own WebPartChrome and WebPartZone, all without losing the benefits of personalization.

SharePoint 2007 Forms and Workflow, Intermediate
Bill Wolff
3:15 p.m.
Forms drive business processes through workflows. This session presents best practices for connecting list views and InfoPath forms to SharePoint 2007 hosted workflows. Forms are deployed to document libraries, specific content types are configured, and properties are promoted and demoted. Forms are filled out in the client and browser interface including mobile devices. Windows Workflow Foundation logic is created using SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio 2005. Data connections to Excel Services, the Business Data Catalog, and SQL 2005, and Word import, digital signatures, IRM, and archiving are also covered.

Enhance SharePoint 2007 with AJAX and WPF/e, Intermediate
Bill Wolff
4:30 p.m.
SharePoint 2007 relies on standard ASP.NET 2.0 web page technology. Sites and pages are authored using Master Pages, ASPX pages, and Web Parts. The new Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX libraries can integrate with custom pages and web parts to create a more dynamic user experience. Windows Presentation Foundation can enrich the user interface with interactive graphics and media. See how these products can work together to build a rich Web 2.0 style site.