ASP.NET has done an exceptional job of evolving the 3 and n-tier web model, in particular the business logic layer. .NET server controls such as DataGrids, DataLists, and Calendar controls provide adequate presentation- tier elements, but their reliance on outdated Web technologies lim...

ASP.NET version 1.0 and 1.1 were giant leaps forward in making data-driven Web sites easier to create. With only a few lines of code you can create Web sites that dynamically query and update databases, XML files, and more.

Building security into intranet Web applications was always easy: just turn on Windows authentication in IIS. But considering the size of the user base for Internet Web applications, custom form-based authentication is the only scalable solution.

The deep permeation of the World Wide Web into the life of the common man has lent itself to a variety of uses, most notably as a backbone for business-to-consumer (B2C) communication, creating a new business model called e-commerce. This article traces the lifetime of an HTTP request ...

In the early days of .NET Web services, using a Web service to accept binary data required converting the data to something that could be represented in XML. Surely you remember those days - back before December 2002. With the release of Web Service Enhancements (WSE) 1.0, followed sho...

You have probably not escaped seeing the latest commercials for Microsoft Windows Server 2003, which urge listeners to 'do more with less'; this has been an aim of software engineering since the very beginning.

Web Parts are building blocks for creating modular Web sites. Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services utilize Web Parts as the key component to add modular functionality and provide configurable user interfaces. As a developer, you know it's impossible t...

Like many features available in Microsoft's products, page ViewState in ASP.NET works behind the scenes by default. However, unlike most other features, ViewState can impact the pages we develop dramatically. The impact may not only be in page size but also in server-side performance. ...

In large Web sites, there are generally just a couple of unique page layouts. In the past, developers had to duplicate large chunks of code on each page. Doing so made the site hard to maintain and difficult to change on a global scale. This tended to be an issue even when using includ...

One of the biggest advantages of ASP.NET Server Controls is that you can package a lot of functionality into a Server Control and reuse it in the UI layer. The .NET Framework ships with a wide range of .NET Server Controls that come in handy for almost everything that you usually do in...