____________________________________________________________ C o v e r Y o u r A S P . c o m http://CoverYourASP.com/ ____________________________________________________________ The biggest event of last month for me was of course the trip to Microsoft in Redmond, WA where I met with 40 other ASPElite and the .NET team! I cannot really express how great the week was because it's hard to describe socializing with soon-to-be-legends like Scott Guthrie, Rob Howard, Susan Warren, Eric Gunnerson and many more amazing developers. Microsoft certainly know how to treat their staff and visitors alike. Small things like free sodas of every variety and catered hot breakfasts and lunches, a room with 4 flat screen monitors connected to an X-box. They even have their own bus service to take you from place to place on campus. Campus? I should really say Town. There are 70,000 people on "campus"! Meeting Charles Carroll (the leader of the ASP Aces and ASP Elite, founder of LearnASP.com and ASPFriends.com) for the first time was a treat too. I've never met anyone with so much energy. He constantly paces around while he discusses ideas and strategies. If yu ever have a chance to get some ASP training, go to him first. No-one I've spoken to regrets taking his classes at http://ASPTraining.com/ Microsoft made everyone sign away their soul, so you won't be hearing about their latest plans for ASP.NET 2.0 from me, or what they will be releasing in the next few months, but you're going to love it! They are putting an amazing amount of energy into .NET. The project leaders and developers take it personally and want nothing more than to produce the best development environment possible. Exciting times! ____________________________________________________________ T H E C O N T E S T http://CoverYourASP.com/Contest.asp ____________________________________________________________ Bill Gowan of North Rose, NY just won the contest and the Pensaworks Spd E-Letter Developers Edition[1] and ASP.NET Unleashed book[2]! [1] http://www.pensaworks.com/prg_spd.asp?r=cya [2] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672320681/shawthingcom ______ REMEMBER - the contest is now monthly. The current contest will end on April 30th. The main prize is the Hexillion HexGadgets Suite with a value of $537!! With the awesome HexValidEmail[1] leading the pack, Hexillion's HexGadgets include HexDns, HexTcpQuery, HexIcmp and HexLookup. The Intelligence Edge for Internet Developers. [1] http://CoverYourASP.com/ValidateEmail.asp Check it out: http://www.hexillion.com/refer.asp?id=cya11&dest=/software/ ______ This contests book is still regarded as the best ASP.NET book published so far, and there are a lot! "ASP.NET Unleashed" by Stephen Walther This truly is the best ASP.NET book I've read and one that I recommend everyone buys. You won't be disappointed. Check out the reviews at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672320681/shawthingcom ______ Prize details at http://CoverYourASP.com/ContestPrizes.asp ____________________________________________________________ T H E D I A R Y The recent events at CoverYourASP http://CoverYourASP.com/ShowDiary.asp ____________________________________________________________ ______ 1 Mar ______ - Conan (a long-time CYA supporter) asked me to mention another favorite site of his: CoolHomePages.com [1]. I'd never visited before, but it's kinda cool. I'm going to spend some time browsing on there later. The site is full of links to amazing "cool" sites - a good place to start when looking for design inspiration. They have some kind of "please help support the site" going on, but get past that pop-up and it is worth a visit. [1] http://CoolHomePages.com/ ______ 10 Mar ______ - I'm at Microsoft in Redmond visiting the .NET team all this week, so please forgive me if I don't return your emails promptly! It is going to be a lot of fun chatting to the ASP.NET team, although I may not be able to pass on much of the information that I overhear... ______ 12 Mar ______ - Man, what a nightmare! I'm here at Microsoft all week and this morning the site decided to take a dump. I screenscrape ASPWire news and the scraping failed for the first time in months, crashing the front page of the site! There is no way to fix the problem from here - the firewall stops anyone uploading files! So I had to send a fixed file to my host to upload manually. Hopefully not too many of you were screwed up by this... P.S. EverPlanet[1], my host, ROCK!! They fixed the problem 3 minutes after me emailing them the file... [1] Visit http://EverPlanet.com/ for shared hosting or http://EverHosting.com/ for dedicated hosting.. ______ 26 Mar ______ - Don't forget the ASP.NET User Group meets in Atlanta tonight. I'm bringing a bunch of books kindly donated by Amy Sorokas[1] at Sams Publishing[2] to give away in the raffle... [1] http://www.aspfriends.com/aspfriends/fanclub-amysorokas.asp [2] http://samspublishing.com/ ______ 27 Mar ______ - Want to see what CoverYourASP looked like in November 2000, just 3 months after launch? I came across this cool archive site[1] this morning that will let you see it. While you're there, take a look at the early (1996) Yahoo or Microsoft.com... [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20001109225300/http://coveryourasp.com/ ______ 28 Mar ______ - In partnership with FindSP.com I have added a new section to the site - Find yourself a host![1] If you're unhappy with the company that hosts your web site here is an excellent place to find a replacement... [1] http://www.findsp.com/hosting/?cobid=1 ______ 29 Mar ______ - I just took a peek to see who has been collecting the most points in the latest contest (which ends on Sunday). A couple of people stood out, for various reasons! First, 3 of the past winners are still coming back: Per Schulze, Innes Borkwood and Clint Clark!. Shukie is there of course - I don't remember ever talking to him(her?) but it's a memorable and easy-to-remember email address ;-) Then there was Big Shane with an unusual password(!) and Don with the simplest password ever. I'm intrigued to know how easily Aaron-the-llama can type his too (I couldn't). Steve, are you really from that town? ICU2 Robert. Fellow ASP Ace Scott Watermasysk is even a member and regular visitor (didn't know that Scott!). Some good URL's too: http://StickyWicketDesigns.com/, http://crabtree-evelyn.com/ (my favorite after-shave ever), http://Mmmagic.com/ to name a few.. ______ 2 Apr ______ - The March contest was won by Bill Gowan of North Rose, NY - he will soon be the proud owner of the awesome Pensaworks Spd E-Letter Developers Edition[1] and the best ASP.NET book so far: ASP.NET Unleashed[2] by Stephen Walther. Congratulations Bill! [1] http://www.pensaworks.com/prg_spd.asp?r=cya [2] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672320681/shawthingcom The April contest again features a favorite component of mine: Hexillion's HexGadgets[1] - an amazingly useful collection of components including the famed HexValidEmail[2] that I personally use on CoverYourASP [1] http://coveryourasp.com/ContestPrizes.asp [2] http://coveryourasp.com/ValidateEmail.asp - Read The unsung heroes[1]. Absolutely! [1] http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/04/01/020401opconnection.xml ___________________________________________________________ T O O L S I U S E ProposalKit 5.0 http://www.proposalkit.com/affdir/1461.htm ____________________________________________________________ If you are a web site designer, and you want to steer clear of the pitfalls out there, come armed with professional looking proposals and "close the deal", then this product is for you. It's guaranteed for 30 days, so that means you don't even have to make a decision. Just download the product and start using these tools in your web design business, and you'll be playing in the big leagues, without the learning curve that's normally associated with setting up a design business. You get $800-worth of free legal documents too, including: US, Canadian and English law web contracts Subcontractor agreement document Web hosting agreement document Short form web development contract CD-ROM/Flash development contract 28 different contracts and agreements ___________________________________________________________ L A T E S T D E V E L O P M E N T S http://CoverYourASP.com/ ____________________________________________________________ A new bug was found by Gary Kuznitz last week - I don't remember the last time I fixed some code! If you're using my DBEditTable.asp page on your site then you'll want to use the following code instead. case 8: // BSTR case 129: // string case 130: // unicode string case 200: // string case 201: // long string case 202: // unicode string case 203: // long string sLink += '\'' + Server.URLEncode ( oRecordSet ( 0 ) ) + '\''; break; default: sLink += Server.URLEncode ( oRecordSet ( 0 ) ); break; I haven't updated the download yet, but will soon. ______ Just two new snippets were added after being prompted by email questions from users: Use the latest scripting engine... http://coveryourasp.com/Snippet.asp?snip=52 What is this "pad=1" I keep seeing? http://coveryourasp.com/Snippet.asp?snip=53 ______ Do you work in Atlanta and want some of this energy and enthusiasm working for your company? I'm still looking for a new position! Anything from straight C++ through Classic ASP to C#/VB.NET in ASP.NET. I still have an offer to continue working with my current employer in Colorado, but that's not an option I want to take right now. Ok, so I would still have a job, but what about my family? They're the ones that would suffer with starting new schools, finding new friends and all that stuff. So, keep me in Atlanta - I love it here! Thanks Guys! Speak to you later. Warmest Regards, James Shaw james@CoverYourASP.com 885 Woodstock Road, Suite 430, #108 Roswell, GA 30075-2247, U.S.A. http://CoverYourASP.com/ Download it. Run it. Learn it. http://ASPRSS.com/ Publish ASP with RSS XML http://ShawThing.com/Consult.asp Doing it right the first time ____________________________________________________________ S U B S C R I P T I O N S Do you want to subscribe or unsubscribe? http://CoverYourASP.com/Subscribe.asp ____________________________________________________________