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• New Log Reporting, Database Management, and other cool admin modules for IIS 7

  One of the core priorities we focused on when building IIS 7 was to enable a rich .NET extensibility model that provides developers with the hooks to easily plug-in and extend the web server.  These extensibility hooks are provided in the web-server pipeline (enabling scenarios like the new IIS7 Bit Rate Throttler ), within the configuration system (enabling developers to create new web.config schema settings), within the health monitoring system (enabling developers to add custom trace events), and within the admin tool (enabling developers to plug-in new admin UI modules). We added these extensibility hooks so that anyone can easily extend and enhance the web server using .NET.  We also selfishly wanted them so that we can ship regular feature packs that add additional features to the core web server. IIS 7 Admin Pack Preview 1 Released Last week the IIS team shipped the first technical preview of some really cool administration modules that I think web developers will find super useful.  This preview adds several new features to the IIS7 Admin Tool: Database Manager : Built-in SQL Server database management, including the ability to create, delete, and edit tables and indexes, create/edit SPROCs and execute custom queries.  Because it is integrated in the IIS administration tool it all works over HTTP/SSL - which means you can use the module to remotely manage your hosted applications (even with low-cost shared hosting accounts), without having to expose your database directly on the Internet. Log Reports : Built-in report visualization with charting support for log files data.  Full range selection and custom chart creation is supported, as well as the ability to print or save reports.  Like the database manager you can use this module remotely over HTTP/SSL - which means it works in remote shared hosting scenarios. Configuration Editor: This is a power module that provides complete control over editing all web.config settings within the admin tool.  You can configure it to track the changes you make using the UI and have it auto-generate configuration change scripts that you can then save and tweak to re-run later in an automated way. Request Filtering UI: This admin module provides more control over the new request filtering feature in IIS7.  Check out Carlos' blog post here for details on how to use it. .NET Authorization: This admin module provides a custom authorization rules editor which allows you to more... Posted Mar 26 2008, 01:47 AM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, .NET, Community News, IIS7

• IIS 7.0 Bit Rate Throttling Module Released

  Video on the web is now one of those common scenarios that every user takes for granted, and increasingly every major site is incorporating in some form (product videos, training videos, richer advertising scenarios, user generated content, customer testimonials, etc). One of the challenges when adding video to a site, though, is delivering it in a way that doesn't cost a fortune.  Network bandwidth costs a lot of money, and the cost of high quality video usage can quickly add up. The blog post below provides a quick overview of some of the options you can use to reduce the cost of delivering video, and discusses a new free download - the IIS 7.0 Bit Rate Throttling Module - that was released a few days ago and which enables you to easily save money when serving video from an IIS web server using any video technology (including Silverlight, Windows Media Player and even Flash). Option 1: Using a Video Hosting Service One approach you can take to reduce video bandwidth costs is to use a video hosting service like YouTube or the free Microsoft Silverlight Streaming Service .  This allows you to use someone else's network to deliver the video content, and avoid having to pay the bandwidth costs yourself. If you aren't familiar with the Silverlight Streaming service, it allows you to upload up to 10GB of videos and download 5 Terabytes/year of video content (at up to a 1.4 Mbps bit-rate) for free.  You can build any custom Silverlight client player application you want to embed the video within it.  This means it doesn't require a specific video player look and feel, nor a service logo/watermark to play the video.  This allows you to fully integrate the video into your site and use whatever UI you want to host it. Option 2: Hosting Video on Your Own Servers Sometimes using a video hosting service doesn't make sense (for example: you want to use custom authentication to grant/deny user's access, you want to play really long video segments, or you want to serve up custom ads in your videos).  Instead you might want to serve the video up from your own servers and have complete control over it.  There are typically two options you can use to deliver the video from your servers: using a streaming approach or a progressive video download approach: Streaming Server Scenario In a streaming scenario a client (like Silverlight, Windows Media Player, Flash or Real Networks) connects to a streaming server.  The... Posted Mar 18 2008, 12:43 AM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: Silverlight, .NET, Community News, IIS7

• MIX08

  MIX is a Microsoft web development conference we hold in Las Vegas each year.  MIX tends to be a pretty fun event, both because it covers cutting edge content (we used MIX07 to announce our Silverlight plans), and also because it tends to attract a really diverse set of attendees (including both those who use Microsoft technology today, and a large % of attendees who don't).  The conference structure includes a healthy blend of sessions and interactive panels, and the layout and organization is designed to facilitate great conversations. This year's MIX is being held March 5th-7th in Las Vegas.  Ray Ozzie and I are both giving keynotes the first day of the event, and Steve Ballmer and Guy Kawasaki will be doing a keynote the second day of the event. The conference (and especially my keynote) is going to cover a lot of new web technology.  Attendees will be able to attend sessions covering: IE 8 IIS 7.0 ASP.NET (including ASP.NET 3.5, ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC, and ASP.NET Dynamic Data)  VS 2008 and Expression Studio WPF Silverlight 2 And much more.... Channel 9 recently did an interview with me where I talked about some of these new technologies.  In Part 1 of the interview I talked about IIS7, and in Part 2 of the interview I talked about ASP.NET, WPF and Silverlight 2. Register Soon Or You'll Miss Your Chance MIX is held at a smaller venue then some of our larger events like TechEd and PDC.  This gives the conference a more intimate feel (which is fun).  It also means that it sells out each year, and once it is sold out it is really sold out.  Last year I received about 50 emails from people begging for tickets after it was full, and many people even flew to the event hoping to somehow be let in at the door (only to be unfortunately told they couldn't get in).  Unfortunately because of size constraints (and fire marshal restrictions) once it is sold out there really are no more tickets to be had.  Even my own team members get turned away if they haven't registered in time. This year's registration is filling up faster than any of the previous MIX conferences.  If you want to attend I highly recommend registering really soon to ensure you can go.  You can learn more about the event and register online here . Hope to see some of you there - it is going to be fun.... Scott Posted Jan 31 2008, 09:38 PM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight, .NET, Visual Studio, Community News, MVC, IIS7

• Jan 24th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, Visual Studio, .NET, IIS

  I just arrived back from my trip from Asia, and decided to celebrate (since I'm jet-lagged and can't sleep) with a new post in my link-listing series .  You can check out my ASP.NET Tips, Tricks and Tutorials page for links to popular articles I've done myself in the past. ASP.NET Extending the GridView to Include Sort Arrows : Scott Mitchell has a nice article that describes how to add a visual indicator to the GridView control to indicate the current sort order on columns. Using ASP.NET 3.5's ListView and DataPager Controls: Sorting Data : Scott Mitchell continues his ListView control series with a good article on enabling sorting scenarios with the new ListView control. Building a Grouping Grid with the ListView and LinqDataSource Controls : Matt Berseth has an awesome post that shows off using the new ListView control and LinqDataSource controls to build a hierarchical grouping grid.  A post to bookmark. Using the ListView, DataPager and LinqDataSource Controls : Matt Berseth has a good tutorial post that shows off using these new controls to join data from two database tables using LINQ. Some ASP.NET 3.5 ListView Control Examples : Mike Ormond has a nice post that provides a number of samples that show how to use the new ASP.NET ListView control.  For even more ListView articles, check out my last link-listing post which pointed to a bunch of them. Large File Uploads in ASP.NET : Jon Galloway has a nice post that provides some good details on handing large file uploads using ASP.NET. ASP.NET AJAX Four ASP.NET AJAX JavaScript UI Methods You Should Learn : Dave Ward has another great post in his series about ASP.NET AJAX's client-side JavaScript Helper Methods . Five Tab Themes Created for the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit : Matt Berseth posts some really cool themes created for the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit's Tab control. Very slick! CNN Style Scrolling Ticker with the Marquee Toolkit Control : Matt Berseth posts another great one that shows how to implement a scrolling marquee UI using the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. Visual Studio Did You Know?: Lisa Feigenbaum from the VB team has posted a really cool series of blog posts that talk about some of the new VS 2008 editor and IDE features.  Read Part 1: Intellisense Everywhere , Part 2: IntelliSense is now Transparent , Part 3: Ctrl+Tab to Navigate Windows , Part 4: What You Can Do with Debugger DataTips , and Part 5: VB IntelliSense now filters as you type... Posted Jan 24 2008, 11:08 PM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, .NET, Visual Studio, Link Listing, LINQ, IIS7

• Jan 4th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC, Visual Studio, IIS7

  Here is the latest in my link-listing series .  Also check out my ASP.NET Tips, Tricks and Tutorials page for links to popular articles I've done myself in the past. ASP.NET Using ASP.NET 3.5's ListView and DataPager Controls - Displaying Data with the ListView : Scott Mitchell from www.4guysfromrolla.com (and also the author of the excellent ASP.NET Data Tutorials ) is starting a new series that covers using the new ASP.NET ListView control.  This is the first in the series and discuses how to display data. Using ASP.NET 3.5's ListView and DataPager Controls - Grouping Data with the ListView : This is the second article in Scott Mitchell's series.  In this article he discusses how to use the grouping feature of the ListView to separate rendered items into different grouping containers. Using the ListView Control in ASP.NET 3.5 : Mustafa Basgun has also written some great articles that drill into the new ListView control further.  Read Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , and his Locking ListView's Header and Footer Columns with CSS to learn more about it. BlogEngine.NET 1.3 Released : Mads Kristensen blogs about the new release of BlogEngine.NET.  This excellent ASP.NET open source blog engine keeps getting richer and richer. Gallery Server Pro - ASP.NET Open Source Media Application: Roger Martin writes about the features and architecture of his new Gallery Server Pro project.  It is an open source ASP.NET application that provides a rich way to share and manage photos, videos, and audio files over the web. Web Hosters Offering ASP.NET 3.5 : Brad Abrams has a nice post that lists some great web hosting providers that are already offering ASP.NET and .NET 3.5 offerings. ASP.NET AJAX Creating a Google Suggest Style Filter with the ASP.NET AJAX AutoComplete Control : Matt Berseth has another fantastic post that covers how to use the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit's AutoComplete control to get auto filtering support within a textbox. A Slider DataPager with Dynamic Tooltips : Matt Berseth posts yet another great post on how to enable a sweet AJAX tooltip navigation UI using ASP.NET AJAX. Using the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions History Support : Dino Esposito has a nice article that demonstrates how you can use the new "EnableHistory" feature on the <asp:scriptmanager> control to add named history points to the browser.  This enables browser forward/back button integration with ASP.NET AJAX applications... Posted Jan 04 2008, 01:28 AM by ScottGu's Blog Filed under: ASP.NET, .NET, Visual Studio, Atlas, Link Listing, IIS7