Search Engine Optimization in ASP.NET

by Dmitry Kirsanov 30. November 2011 09:19

ASP.NET engine is a wonderful thing. It does so much for you, that in the past could take ages and would earn you the title of demigod of Web Development. In some legacy languages, like PHP, it is still the case. For example, things like Localization and cross-browser support are very natural and automatic in ASP.NET, they don’t require any time or skills. You can add support of more languages, different output formats for date and numbers, add Ajax powered controls, caching, data access, perform various other high pilotage figures without thinking. I remember the time, when saving data between post-backs was an issue, and in ASP.NET it was solved by implementing the VIEWSTATE feature, which saves the state of page controls in one hidden field between submits - that feature alone worth a thousand words.

But ASP.NET comes to the rescue not only in obvious and direct ways - some features were introduced for one purpose, but perfectly helped in other areas. And one such area is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. More...

What’s new in ASP.NET 4.5 - Performance improvements

by Dmitry Kirsanov 29. November 2011 11:40

A long time ago, when dinosaurs were still operational,  we tried to improve performance of our HTML / CGI pages by various ways, but also having different goals for such improvements.

In the dawn of web, when U.S. Robotics 14.4kbps modem was a de-facto standard and traffic compression wasn’t widely implemented by ISP call centers, our biggest concern was the size of our files. I wouldn’t say “output”, as it was mainly static, but even when it was dynamic, like the output from CGI modules written in Visual Basic 4 or 5, it was paramount that users would not wait more than 2 seconds to get the HTML part of it.

Now even mobile phones are having unlimited data plans, home connections reach 100 Mbit/s heights and in order to decrease the size of the output we just have to tick a checkbox in IIS, so the output – be it static or dynamic, is compressed. So the era of “HTML optimizers” – tools that remove extra spaces and “unneeded” tags from your markup, is over.

Another thing that helped us to avoid traffic jams, was Ajax. It killed 2 rabbits with a single shot – decreased the traffic flow by only up/down loading the data our application needs at this time, and thus increased the response time. But this came at a cost.

Each small callback made by Ajax is no different than ordinary callback, except that it transfer smaller amount of data. But it’s a connection nevertheless. Even if keep-alive is used by browser, it still consumes a connection from server and still there are protocol issues involved. More...

Two words about employment

by Dmitry Kirsanov 27. November 2011 19:12

It appears like in some things Chinese have more sense than the rest of the world. According to the article, they are going to cancel majors (i.e. higher education programs) which don’t lead to employment. They are going to analyze the stats of employment for those, who finished their majors and how lucky they are to land a job. So, if you are teaching Turbo Pascal and call it “Computer Science”, your days are numbered. If you teach it in China, of course.

I wish the same would be implemented in EU. During my career I found out one thing – an IT specialist with higher education is less preferable than the one without it. The reason is simple – higher education in Eastern Europe works just like in “Profession” – novel by Isaac Asimov. Dumb memorizing of irrelevant data which won’t do any good for business. They are not taught creativity and open-mind behavior.

Besides, the situation with employment becomes so interesting for those mentally challenged IT administrators, that some of them become very… I almost said “creative”… In finding a new job opportunity.

According to Security Week, a 26 year-old Hungarian male called Attila Nemeth hacked into the network of American hotel network Marriot through some dumb social engineering technique, and then… Tried to extort the employment opportunity at that company, at his terms. And as if it wasn’t stupid enough, he sent them a copy of his passport, and used plane ticket paid by Marriot to come for his job interview. After he was “interviewed” by Secret Service “HR personnel”, he’s about to be employed by one of American prisons for next 15 years and during that time he will have to pay up to $ 1 million to Marriot.

This makes me think, that Hungary has problems with two things, and one of them is employment.

Talking about employment and HR, a new research shows, that there is a direct relation between intellect and the sense of humor. Apparently, the sense of mirth is a reward given by brain when you discover the logical error in statement. According to my own experience and opinion, research results looks valid and natural. Bad news for people with undeveloped sense of humor.

And one ring to rule them all

by Dmitry Kirsanov 27. November 2011 05:08

As discussed previously, there is a noticeable trend in casual IT these days – cut spending on IT infrastructure management as much as possible. Companies are using all chances to eliminate the “human factor” from systems administration, and while it’s scary for incompetent administrators, it adds to the innovation factor of modern IT management offering.

So it’s quite controversial trend. But trends of that kind are very natural for innovation. Let’s see what it’s all about. More...

Updating currency exchange rates in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

by Dmitry Kirsanov 22. November 2011 00:36

As promised earlier, I’ve created a small utility which updates currency exchange rates for currencies used by Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 server. It’s fast, reliable and can be run in unattended mode, so you can set it once and forget about it.

A bit about Microsoft Dynamics CRM first

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is the most advanced CRM system created so far. It allows you to keep track on your customers, partners and rivals and monitor relations in real time. So you can create marketing campaign for all your customers in Denmark with turnover higher than 200 000 euro and who’s main industry is Finance. And send them personalized proposal. And each of that customers will reply to manager, assigned to that customer. And you will track the success of that action in real time, being able to test your genius as CEO. Well, not only that. More...

Team Foundation Server 2010 for Developers - part 1

by Dmitry Kirsanov 20. November 2011 18:50

As I finished the series of presentations for Quality Assurance specialists on Team Foundation Server 2010 Test Manager, it was obvious to continue with TFS and now do it for the biggest audience of it’s users – for .NET developers.

Microsoft Visual Studio is the most advanced RAD platform made so far. We could argue about the languages and platforms, like .NET vs. J2EE or ASP.NET vs. Ruby, but one thing is for sure – when you are software developer, no matter what language you are using, the Visual Studio is the most advanced and friendly platform  for any level.

Saying that, Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 (that’s the official name of the product) is a very advanced and sophisticated part of Visual Studio, arguably the most advanced product Microsoft created, apart from operating systems.

Systems administrators having hard hours installing it, developers spend hours learning it’s concepts, but then it starts working and software development becomes a pleasant and highly productive process.

Once you’ve started working with TFS, you can’t imagine working without it on any more or less complex team project. It takes the burden of source and version control, the whole agile workflow, sophisticated automated testing, control over policies and a lot more.  That’s definitely a product which costs every penny of it’s price.

All right, enough praises. You should make your own conclusions and for that you should see it in action. While the previous demonstration for QA specialists was convincing enough to use TFS as the platform for automated testing and main environment for testers, now we are going to talk about the main, biggest and greatest part of Team Foundation Server 2010 – the one meant for software developers.

In this first demonstration we are exploring the source control, but as everything is linked in TFS, we also touch working with code and some best practices. In the next part we will explore the source control deeper, before moving further to more complex and wonderful parts of Team Foundation Server 2010.

Team Foundation Server for Software Developers part 1

Introduction to scripting for systems administrators - Windows Scripting Host, part 1

by Dmitry Kirsanov 20. November 2011 00:42

Some time ago, which seems like yesterday, I made an attempt to introduce Windows Systems Administrators to PowerShell. Even before doing that, I realized that professional Windows scripting is still impossible without using of VBScript, or Visual Basic Scripting Edition. And teaching someone PowerShell without at least showing the main concepts of VBScript is not right.

While I am trying to show the work with VBScript from more like practical point of view, I am also not trying to substitute the training course on the subject, so if VBScript or Windows Scripting in general is about to become your main responsibility at your company, please get yourself a reference on it, preferably something as good as VBScript bible.

However, we’ll get closer to VBScript during later sessions and cover even so exotic topics as using VBScript custom actions in Microsoft Installer packages (MSI).

Introduction to scripting for systems administrators - Windows Scripting Host, part 1

This is about self-esteem

by Dmitry Kirsanov 19. November 2011 13:37

“People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and you see the road, and when you see it, don’t sit looking at it – walk!” (Ayn Rand)

Imagine being approached by a wide array of individuals from different walks of life, all frequently asking you the same question: "What is the most valuable quality one needs to excel in [name the profession]?" Regardless of the profession you substitute there, this question seems to reflect a universal quest for the elusive key to success. Over time, I have delved deep into various facets of this topic, discussing how to broaden one's knowledge, boost creativity and many elements that pave the path to professional excellence. However, one area that I believe wasn't profoundly addressed, and indeed requires our attention, is our intrinsic quality of self-esteem. More...

Introduction to scripting for Systems Administrators - PowerShell

by Dmitry Kirsanov 19. November 2011 13:28

There was a time, when IT specialists were mainly either systems administrators or developers. There was a time, when being Database Administrator would also mean having perfect knowledge of SQL. New generation of IT specialists don’t remember that time, and that only because technology evolved so greatly, it is considerably harder to possess the whole range of features offered by a monster product such as SQL Server 2008.

But this post is not about databases at all. It’s about how we can manage the growing complexities of enormous range of technologies that we have to use in business. More...

Changing base currency in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

by Dmitry Kirsanov 17. November 2011 17:18

DynamicsCRM2011_logoAccording to Microsoft, you are not able to change your base currency in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, the same as it wasn’t possible in version CRM 4.

However, that’s not true.

Imagine, that during the installation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 server, you’ve set your currency to EEK (Estonian Krona). However, then your country adopted Euro and there is no EEK anymore. According to Microsoft, you have to delete your organization and export it’s data to new one.

It is considered a big no-no to hack into the CRM database, yet in order to change the base currency you will have to do it. Here is how:
More...