CLINQ v1.1 has been released. Some of you may have already downloaded some of the new builds, but here's a rundown of what the new release includes: Support for Continuous Aggregation. Now, in addition to being able to have your result sets automatically update themselves in response to changes in the source set as well as changes to items in the source set, you can have aggregate scalar values that continuously update in the same fashion. The following is a list of the supported aggregation types that can now be done continuously:

Microsoft recently released the Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0 in order to allow 'developers to incorporate VB.NET Forms and Controls into their VB6 applications' (www.mi crosoft.com/downloads/det ails.aspx?FamilyID=934de3 c5-dc85-4065-9327-96801e5 7b81d&DisplayLang=en).

Adobe Flex Builder has many convenient keyboard commands and hints that make your programming faster. But this is a list of Flex Builder shortcuts that I use on a regular basis

It's been a few months since Visual Studio 2005 was released. In that time you've probably seen and read quite a bit about generics. Unfortunately all those articles and presentations can leave you with the impression that generics are useful only in the context of collections (List, Dictionary, Queue, and so on).

If you work in a .NET environment you have probably come across Base64 encoded data. For example, Base64 encoding is used in ASP.NET for a Web application's ViewState value, as shown in Figure 1. Base64 encoding is also used to transmit binary data over e-mail. However, if you are like most of my colleagues (and me until recently) you do not have a thorough understanding of precisely what Base64 encoding is and when Base64 encoding should be used. In the this article I will explain exactly what Base64 encoding is, show you how to use the two primary .NET Framework methods that support Base64 encoding and decoding, and present a lightweight, custom C# implementation of Base64 encoding and decoding methods. This article assumes you are a .NET developer, tester, or manager and have intermediate level C# coding skill. After reading the article you'll have a solid grasp of Base64 encoding as well as the ability to write your own custom encoding methods. I think you'll find the ability to use Base64 encoded data is a valuable addition to your skill set.

In this article, we're going to look at how DataWindow.NET technology is a simpler but more powerful way of formatting data in the presentation layer. We'll be taking a sample application provided by Microsoft for .NET and implementing it using DataWindow.NET technology.

Here's a question: If you write your application's code in an OO language - such as C#, VB.NET, or managed C++ - why not write database query and update code in the same language? It would certainly make life simpler, wouldn't it? At the very least, you'd only have to hold one language in your head - not your programming language and SQL.

I've tried to make it a point to learn different programming languages throughout my career. It's not that I'm fluent in multiple languages (for example, I wouldn't call myself an Eiffel expert by any stretch of the imagination), but by learning about a language's features and ideas I've been able to broaden my perspective. This has its benefits when I'm designing or implementing a piece of code, because I've able to add different ideas into the code base that don't exist in the feature set of the language.

Writing code that runs quickly is sometimes at odds with writing code quickly. C.A.R. Hoare, computer science luminary and discoverer of the QuickSort algorithm, famously proclaimed, 'Premature optimization is the root of all evil.' The extreme programming design principle of 'You Aren't Gonna Need It' (YAGNI) argues against implementing any features, including performance optimizations, until they're needed.

Imagine you are coding a .NET application that must perform some logic when a CD is inserted into the drive. Unfortunately, there is no standard event visible to your application that gets fired when a CD is inserted. Windows knows when a user puts a CD in the drive, but how can it notify your application?

Here are some tips on how to improve the performance of your .NET applications. In the old Visual Basic 6 world, string manipulation was a performance issue that many developers spent time dealing with.