Month: January 2005

Last night I presented Windows Media Center Edition 2005 at the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group.   I demo’d many of the features of MCE- including Live TV, Recorded TV, Music, Pictures, and More Programs (including the MCE version of Solitaire!).  There seemed to be quite a bit of interest in the product- I think I got the most questions I’ve ever had for a presentation! We talked about building an MCE PC for $400 or less.  Many of the attendees were already working on ways to justify an MCE purchase to their wives by the end of the meeting so … Continue reading Media Center Presentation at NWNUG

HTML Add-ins for Media Center are really quite easy to develop once you get the hang of it.  I would like to post a few helpful tips for getting up and running quickly. First, some information on developing HTML Add-ins- 1. The user interface options are limited only to what you can do in IE! 2. In an HTML add-in, you have full access to the Media Center API’s through the browser.  Just about anything you can do with a web application can be done in Media Center!     This includes calling web services (directly from the browser) using the DHTML webservice … Continue reading Tips for HTML Add Ins in XP Media Center Edition 2005

Members of the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group are currently redoing our site in Dot Net Nuke.  Patrick Santry came and presented at our group last year, and we got a good overview of DNN and decided we wanted to implement it for our user group. (By the way, Patrick will be back again this year …) I am really impressed with the level of quality and robustness in DNN so far.  We are currently running the user group site on the original IBuySpy portal, and it is great to see where DNN has taken it.   There seems to be … Continue reading Setting up DotNetNuke Portal for User Group Site

I will be presenting Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 in less than a week at the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group and again in a few months at the Findlay Area .NET User Group.   Getting ready for this presentation has been a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. Overall I am very pleased with MCE 2005.  Here are a few observations- consider it a “sneak preview“ for the presentation. Some of my favorite things about MCE 2005- First, a little background. I originally wanted to buy a TIVO.  I was appalled by the fact that they charged … Continue reading Getting ready for a presentation on MCE 2005

Article Introduction: Have you ever developed a Web application that requires extensive processing? Ever had long running Web pages that often time out in the browser? Most Web developers run into these kinds of issues at some point. As Web application requirements evolve, processing and business logic tend to get more complex. Consequently, it is no surprise that Web applications can lead to frustrating Web experiences. On the other hand, there may also be processes that simply take time no matter how simple or complex the application. At times, there is processing that typically does not lend itself to occur … Continue reading Leveraging MSMQ in ASP.NET