Oh yes, two posts, one day, exciting for all you readers out there (hello Steve), so what has happened you ask? Well, Security has happened. Oh yes, Forms based, Windows based, None based. We even briefly covered Passport authentication, (when I say briefly I mean that it was mentioned that Passport auth existed).

I have to say - I'm pretty impressed with the Forms authentication we've (mostly) delved into, it seems pretty powerful - and (fortunately) pretty easy to get into...

I'll probably write about all the topics a bit later on, saying where it went right, wrong etc etc but wanted to dazzle you all (again, a quick nod to Steve), with two posts..

Put a spork in me, I'm done.

Welp, Day 3, and yes things are speeding up nicely, already done and dusted with Validation ( a nice easy topic ) we're onto Data Binding, a big'un. It's good though - these are the issues I had when I started writing my ASP.NET version of the internal Out of Office system. How to view only specific columns etc.

I managed to cope with this in my OOO page by using some controls the company had bought (XCeed UltraGrid (I think)), which gave me an easier and more intuitive (from a WinForms point of view) API. I've always found the DataGrid controls to be unwieldy, but now I'm slightly (emphasis on the slightly) coming around to them...

Next up is security - I'm interested in this a lot - hopefully it'll cover how to allow users to login and link to the Active Directory stuff... (Win authentication etc).. We'll see, fingers crossed etc..

What are my impressions of the course so far?
Well - the first two days were a bit slow to be honest, (a lot of it I had a existing knowledge of) - and our instructor has a nasty habit (though not recently) of going off on a tangent and getting 'lost'. I used to have uni lecturers like that... I didn't go to those courses on a regular basis :) As I said, it does seem to have improved today though... We'll see how tomorrow pans out!

Well, things picked up at the end of yesterday, resulting in a couple of 'lab' sessions - based on the Architecture and the Web Forms aspects. To be honest, the Web Forms is certainly the stuff that interests me the most...

I'm currently working on getting the labs stuff setup on this machine - which will give me more opportunity to practice - I have run into SQL Express issues though - just got the install - so fingers crossed I can get it working!

Anyhews, today has started with a 'review' period, (hour or so) and now we're onto 'Configuration' (Web.Config etc). Custom controls and Validation are next... Looking forwards to those - I've only tinkered with custom controls briefly...! Never validation!

So, here I am, at the essential ASP.NET 2.0 course run by developmentor. This is a course I won from the DevWeek conference I attended ooh, 4 months ago now... exciting stuff.

Why did I choose ASP.NET over say WPF, C# 3.0 etc? Well - basically I wanted to get experience in the 'other half' of .NET, the bit I feel I'm missing.

Anyhews, so far - Day 1, seems to be going ok, we're starting slowly with the architecture of ASP.NET - important I guess if you actually want to be able to code properly you gotta know the basics. It is a 'slow' bit, as there is little to no coding at the moment. Though I suspect this will increase soon!

More info later....

So, I've been teaching myself ASP.NET 2.0 in preparation for a course I'm attending in ooh, just over a week now, and it seems to have been going ok.

I used to shun ASP.NET - I'm sure there are other WinForms developers who do the same - assume that web development isn't really development at all. But I decided about a month or so ago to really try to get into it, and I have to say, I think I'm a changed man.

The problem I've always had with regard to web development is that it's never seemed proper in my eyes. WinForms leads to executables, fast code and well - compilation. It was unfair of me to be prejudiced against ASP.NET.

The last week or so I've been converting one of the internal applications used at the company (to book vacations etc) from a VB.NET - ClickOnce deployed WinForms app, to an ASP.NET site (for internal use only - obviously :)), and the experience has been pretty good, it hasn't proved to be that hard at all to get the site up and running - which I've been very pleased and excited about.

The biggest problem I currently face is trying to figure out how to layout the site. With WinForms - it's easy, anchoring, layout just a click and drag. But with WebForms, do we still use tables? I remember using tables when I did some old sites years ago. But equally I remember recently reading a site about using grids? Lines? Didn't there used to be a 'Layout' mode for VS2003 - did this get removed from VS2005? Hopefully someone can answer this, or better - the course will teach me all!