Mischa Kroon

Free visual basic refactoring:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/downloads/2005/tools/refactor/

The free version of Refactor for Visual Basic supports the following refactoring operations:

• Reorder Parameters
• Extract Method
• Extract Property
• Create Overload
• Surrounds With
• Encapsulate field
• Reverse Conditional
• Simplify expression
• Introduce Local
• Introduce constant
• Inline Temp
• Replace Temp with Query
• Split Temporary Variable
• Move initialization to declaration
• Split initialization from declaration
• Move declaration near reference

Ok fast overview, you want to go from:

www.bla.com/bla.aspx?id=12&year=1999&month=2

to:
www.bla.com/123.aspx
or
www.bla.com/123
or
www.bla.com/123/id/12/year/1999/month/2

Here are your options:

URL Rewriting engines:

Simple + Regex through httphandlers: (Article)
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/030522.htm

SES: aka no more ? and &
http://weblogs.asp.net/skillet/archive/2004/05/04/125523.aspx

HTTP Module: ( recommended if your not going for mapping all extensions to asp.net)
http://weblogs.asp.net/fmarguerie/archive/2004/11/18/265719.aspx

The following problems arise when you want to remove the .aspx part:
http://scottonwriting.net/sowblog/posts/943.aspx
and:
http://scottwater.com/blog/archive/2004/09/08/IIS6_HttpCompress_NotSoFast

The solution seems to be to use ISAPI filters.

Free ISAPI Filter:
http://cheeso.members.winisp.net/dl/IonicIsapiRewriter.zip

This uses PCRE (http://www.pcre.org) for the regular expression support.

Commercial ISAPI filter:
http://www.isapirewrite.com/

Main advantage of this solution, are high class docs.
http://www.isapirewrite.com/docs/

After reading this post I figured I'd write down my take on things so here goes...

For me why it beats the rest:

- You can write your own forms / form code
- Ability to generate to multiple files
- dOOdads
- No need to use XML (Xpath) / XSL
- Very fast support on forums
- Good quality of the community ( and templates )
- Very active development
- Commandline support with XML input files ( means you can automate it all )

Whats missing:

- VS.Net integration in the form of select the template hit generate and done.
- Startup speed going to slower databases ( either large access databases / overseas sql server )
- Intelliscence in Object Model

A while back I did some research in moving the viewstate from the page and into some other storage medium.
I found the following article about moving the viewstate into Session / Cache / Application Objects:

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/20040613.asp

Today I came across a link to store the thing a bit more efficiently (about 50%) by zipping the viewstate:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,febce059-7e7c-439e-af3d-c53d250b3e9c.aspx

http://www.arianna.net/roman/download/TableInfo.zip

First there was a Mac OS X, then there was a Linux version... and now a windows version:

http://blog.yumdap.net/archives/20-GIMPshop-for-Windows.html

“Because Microsoft has ended support for Visual Basic 6, REAL Software is offering Visual Basic users a new home-REALbasic. From now through April 15, 2005, Visual Basic users can get REALbasic 5.5 for Windows Standard Edition, completely free of charge.

Simply submit your valid email address and country in the form below. Your
REALbasic license key will be sent to the email address you provide below. “

http://www.realsoftware.com/Realbasic/vb6/

To log into Console 0 (the real desktop) of a Windows 2003 Server, run the Remote Desktop Connection client with the following command:

mstsc /console

Now I can totally remove VNC.

Go and download the book in a full pdf here:

http://codingslave.blogspot.com/2005/03/q-wheres-it-going.html

I can only say one word ... ARGH !!!

(60+ comment spams over 4 days)