Getting Started with Master Pages and Themes

It seems that there is both excitement and confusion surrounding Master Pages and Themes. A big part of the problem is that they always seem to be mentioned in the same breath – like I just did. The reality is that they are two separate but equally important technologies. Each has its own function in ASP.NET but when you use these two technologies together, you get a site design that is amazingly versatile, easy-to-use, and easy-to-adapt. ASP.NET 2.0 provides a whole host of improvements to your web development experience but, in my opinion, these two technologies represent the single biggest reason to migrate your sites to this new platform. Let's take a look at each of these technologies in turn.

Working With SqlParameter in .NET

Interacting with SQL Server from .NET is a radical change from the old OLEDB/ODBC method. Raj Vasant brings us some easy ways to work with parameters passed in with the ADO SQLCommand.

The SQL Site Map Provider You've Been Waiting For

SqlSiteMapProvider reads site maps from SQL Server databases. And it takes advantage of the ASP.NET 2.0 provider architecture to integrate seamlessly with the site navigation subsystem. Just create the site map database and register SqlSiteMapProvider as the default provider, and then, like magic, everything else just works.

Printing in .NET

A bit of a break from the SQL Server side with this great new .NET class developed by new author Jereme Guenther. He prints a page character by character to handle control of formatting. Take a look and see if this solves any of your .NET printing problems.

The SQL Site Map Provider You've Been Waiting For

In this installment of Wicked Code, Jeff Prosise updates his original ASP.NET 2.0 SqlSiteMapProvider to add support for automatic reloading of the site map following a change to the site map database.

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Double Metaphone Phonetic Matching

That certainly is a mouthful, but it boils down to author Michael Coles implementation of a sound matching search for SQL Server 2005. Another mouthful, but if you are interested in getting close matches because your clients cannot spell, you might want to read this one.

Debugging in Visual Studio.NET 2005

Debugging is an important process for any level of programming to ensure programs function as expected. Most productive developer environments provide tools and utilities to assist with the debugging process. Visual Studio.NET 2005 is equipped with a number of debugger visualizers, but users can also create their own based on an individual project.

Asynchronous client script callbacks

There has been a lot of interest in the web-facing community lately about a new useability feature that goes by a number of different names—XMLHTTP, AJAX, out-of-band requests, and asynchronous client script callbacks, to name a few.

Regardless of the name, this feature provides a way for a standard web page to make calls back to the server, without a traditional page refresh. The user is oblivious to the fact that a server call has occurred, and is not interrupted by it.