Welcome to NED.net User Group

Getting to know ASP.NET 2.0

2005-09-05T14:38:00.000+05:00

When Microsoft released the .NET Framework 1.0 Technology in July 2000, it was immediately clear that Web development was going to change. The company’s prior technology, Active Server Pages (ASP) launched hundreds of books, articles, Web sites and components, all aiming to make the development process easier than before. However, what ASP did not have, was an application framework - it was never an enterprise development tool. Everything in ASP was code oriented - but it simply wasn't possible to avoid doing work without writing codes.
ASP.NET was designed to counter this problem. Right from its initial release as a preview technology, Microsoft ASP.NET has been a huge success. For those people developing web sites using Microsoft technologies, ASP.NET provides a rich programming model, allowing sites to be easily constructed. There has been a lot of talk since its release, but ignoring all the hype and press, .NET really is a product for developers, providing a great foundation for building all types of web applications. One of the key design goals of ASP.NET was to make programming easier and quicker by reducing the amount of code that needed to be created. This phenomenon operates when one enters the era of declarative programming model, rich server controls, large class libraries, and support for development tools from the humble Notepad to the high-end Visual Studio .NET.

Yup thats an excerpt from my latest contribution for Spider Magazine. See their September 2005 issue, page 47 if you want to read more. Visual Studio Team System, SQL Server 2005 and Smart Clients are on the list for future publications for both Spider and Dawn Sci-Tech. Feel free to share your comments and suggestions.

Design Patterns : Dependency Injections (DI)

2005-09-03T01:39:00.000+05:00

Today there is a greater focus than ever on reusing existing components and wiring together disparate components to form a cohesive architecture. But this wiring can quickly become a daunting task because as application size and complexity increase, so do dependencies. One way to mitigate the proliferation of dependencies is by using Dependency Injection (DI), which allows you to inject objects into a class, rather than relying on the class to create the object itself.

Read the rest of this article and download the source code from here.

.NET Pakistan : Where Paki Geeks Hangout!

2005-08-24T01:01:00.000+05:00

What is .NET Pakistan

.Net Pakistan will initially be a blogging site that will evolve as a .NET Portal and a discussion forum. At .NET Pakistan you will be getting daily dose of technology updates, code snippets, tutorials, best practices, and solutions for their posted problems.

Blogging at .Net Pakistan will be done by experienced .Net Professionals from around the globe. The list of bloggers will increase with time. If you are interested in blogging for us then do write us at (dotnetpakistan@yahoo.com) about your self, experience, and areas you would like to write on.

Behind .Net Pakistan

Wajahat Abbas has worked for the last three years as a Software Engineer. He is currently working as Technical Lead in Kalsoft (Pvt) Ltd, Pakistan, a software consulting firm focused on .NET development and consulting. Wajahat is an Executive committee member of INETA Pakistan. He has also worked for Microsoft Consulting Services for .NET development. He can be approached at wajahatabbas@yahoo.com. For more details visit his blog : http://www.wajahatabbas.com.

Hammad Rajjoub is a Software Engineer by profession. He is a Microsoft MVP for XML Web Services. He is also a MCP. He has been working on .Net platform since its beta release. He is also an Executive INETA committee member and member of INETA MEA speakers bureau. He is currently working as Technical Lead in Kalsoft (Pvt) Ltd, Pakistan, a software consulting firm focused on .NET development and consulting. Hammad has spoken at a number of seminars and conferences. He can be reached at hammad.rajjoub@ineta.org. For more details visit his blog : http://dotnetwizards.blogspot.com.

Where is .NET Pakistan

Right here : http://www.dotnetpakistan.com

Whats new in .NET Framework 2.0

2005-07-24T00:17:00.000+05:00

International .NET Association Pakistan Chapter and NED.net User Group invites you to attend a free seminar on Whats New In .NET Framework 2.0 by Hammad Rajjoub.

Note:
This event has been delayed. An email will be send to all those who registered for this event about the new date. Agenda and venue will remain the same as mentioned below.

Agenda:
2:00pm - 3:00pm - Talk on .NET Framework 2.0
3:00pm - 3:15pm - Q&A Session
3:15pm - 4:00pm - Refreshments

Event Registration:
Registration is closed for this event.

Venue:
Lecture Theatre - Department of Computer and Information Systems Engineering
NED University Of Engineering and Technology Karachi.

About Event:
.NET Framework 2.0 has gained quite popularity amongst the professional as well as student developers from the day of its first beta release. With the new additions to the framework like Generics, Partial Classes, support for 64 bit computing and the very famous XML classes, everyone is keen to know what the hype it all about? Your wait is over now as our presentation will cover all the details about the new framework.

About Speaker:
Hammad Rajjoub is working as Technical Lead with Meezan Bank Limited . He holds a BS Computer Science degree from Karachi University and has MCP.NET certification (as well as a number of Brain Bench Certifications). He is member of ACM( http://www.acm.org) since 2002 and was Chairman of ACM-CSKU Chapter(http://www.csku.edu.pk/acm) for the year 2002. He has been working on .Net since its Beta 1 release. His areas of interest include Distributed Computing, Service Oriented Architecture, Aspect Oriented Programming, Design Patterns and Quantum Computation.
He has developed number of enterprise scale applications using C#, ASP.Net and SQL Server. He is a .Net Evangelist and speaks frequently at knowledge sharing sessions. He has hosted number of sessions at local as well international conferences. He has written a number of articles for local as well as international publishers. He has also written a case study for Wrox Publishers (http://www.wrox.co.uk). He also trains people at software houses on .Net and helps them migrate from VB/VC to VB.Net/VC#.
He is also a user group leader of .NetWizards which is an INETA (http://www.ineta.org) chartered user group. He is a member speakers bureau INETA Pakistan, and member of INETA Pakistan Executive Committee. He teaches at Dept. Of Computer Science, Karachi University and PAF KIET as a visiting faculty member. He spends his spare time learning and evangelizing .NET. For more details visit his blog at: http://dotnetwizards.blogspot.com

Master Pages and Themes in ASP.NET 2.0

2005-07-24T00:06:00.000+05:00

I spend a wonderful time during my presentation for NED.net on "Master Pages and Themes in ASP.NET 2.0." This is the first time that I am not going to say that "the speaker was absolutely amazing and the presentation was just awesome." I am not being too modest, this is what usally happens when you are speaking for the first time. This was just the beginning and I have to walk a long way to become a good speaker.

I started by giving a very brief introduction about ASP.NET 2.0. Talked about the Visual Studio enhancements, new compilation and code-beside model, new deployment methods etc. Then I moved toward the main topic of presentation "Themes in the new version of ASP.NET." I have shown demos all along the slides to give the audience a better look at how to use these new technologies that are introduced in ASP.NET 2.0 for the first time. I really like the concept of applying themes to the sites which really ease the burden of giving "CSSClass" or "Class" refrences to all the contents of your site. You just have to include <% @ Page Theme="SmokeAndGlass" %> and thats all. All your controls will be given a consistent look to your site.

Then we moved on towards the Master Pages. Master Pages are introduced for the first time in ASP.NET 2.0 and its all about giving a consistent layout to your website yet with almost no line of code at all. You just have to define the looks of your site in the master page with <% @ Mater %> tag, define the layout of your pages in just one file and throw some contentplaceholders which will be used to pass contents from content pages <% @ Page MasterPageFile="Master.master" %>. No more usercontrols for defining the layout of the site and placing the controls in all of you pages one at a time. You can also nest 2 or more master pages together to make the figure a bit more complex yet recommended for big project and portal style websites.

It was a nice start for me today and I have learned one thing. Never throw a bad joke during your presentation, you will loose some pretty looking audiences :) . The audience were amazing, they throwed some really good questions and have rated my 3.5 out of 5 which is not bad for my first attempt. I want to thank Usman especially for working with me in the lab and helping me in setting up the machine for my ugly demos, Sir Saqib Ilyas for allowing me to use his laptop and helping me during the arrangements, Faisal Nasim, Muhammad Yahya, Sarfaraz Soomro, Fahad Majeed for doing all the nasty work behind the scene and arranging the foods and drinks and the feedbacks offcourse. Last but certainly not the least, I would like to thank Hammad and Adnan bhai for being there for my support and helping me in the Q&A session. You guys just are just awesome and this event wouldn't have been possible without your help.

Thank you once again!

You can download the slides from here. I have also included some Theme files along with the slides. You just have to copy them in the Global Themes folder which I mentioned during the presentation and you are all set to go. All previous presentations can also be download from here.

Another Free XAML Designer

2005-07-23T20:29:00.000+05:00

Aurora XAML Designer is another free designer after XAM3D available for developers to get their hands dirty with XAML for Visual Studio 2005. It can also work in a stand-alone environment) .

Aurora for Visual Studio 2005 integrates seamlessly into the Visual Studio environment to provide a visual designer for XAML content. Developers no longer have to spend countless hours manually coding simple XAML content. Now the equivalent content can be created visually in minutes within the Visual Studio environment using the integrated Aurora XAML Designer. Aurora for Visual Studio 2005 improves developer workflow by allowing the developer to maintain their XAML documents visually within the Visual Studio 2005
environment; an integrated development environment that is familiar to millions of developers worldwide.

Recap of important features:

1. Aurora integrates into Visual Studio 2005
2. XAML content created visually within Visual Studio 2005
3. Content created in one environment improves developer workflow

Mobiform is the first company to provide visual designer software for maintaining XAML documents. Now Mobiform is the first company to provide a visual designer that integrates directly into the Visual Studio 2005 environment.

Downlaod the free designer from here.

Seminar on Master Pages and Themes in ASP.NET 2.0

2005-07-12T01:56:00.000+05:00

International .NET Association Pakistan Chapter and NED.net User Group invites you to attend an hour long seminar on Master Pages and Themes in ASP.NET 2.0 by Zeeshan Muhammad on July 23, 2005.

Event Registration:

Registration closed for this event.

Venue:

CIS Lecture Hall, NED University of Enigneering and Technology, Karachi.

Date and Time:

Saturday, July 23, 2005 at 2pm.

Seminar Details:

Almost all websites use a similar graphical layout for all their pages. This doesn't happen by chance, it grows out of accepted guidelines for design and usability. For some websites, the layout consists of the header, body and footer; for others, it is a more sophisticated aggregation of menus, buttons and panels that contain and render the actual content. The question is, how can you effectively build such Web sites? Both classic ASP and ASP.NET 1.x provide good workarounds for this type of issue, but neither tackles such a scenario openly and provides a definitive, optimal solution. ASP.NET 2.0 faces up to the task through a new technology "Master Pages" and basically exploits the ASP.NET Framework's ability to merge a "supertemplate" with user-defined content replacements.

In our seminar we will discuss how ASP.NET 2.0 aids in the design and consistency of sites. From the development perspective, generating a site that is consistent isn’t so hard, and there are plenty of ways it can be achieved. However, these are all custom solutions, not part of the underlying .NET Framework. ASP.NET 2.0 brings a solution that not only improves ways of providing UI reuse but also aids in maintenance of the site.

Note:

Registration is necessary for you to avoid enterance issues at our campus. Current NED Students and Faculty members do not need to register for this event.
Registration closes on July 18, 2005.
Give-aways for audience.

Looking forward to welcoming you at our event.

Code Run 2005 :: Huge Success

2005-06-07T01:37:00.000+05:00

INETA Pakistan arranged a Speed Programming Competition named "Code Run 2005" for NED Students. The competition is a huge success. Students participated from both BCIT and CIS departments of NED. In the beginning we received about 20 registrations for Code Run from which we selected senior most 15 students from both departments. Later on with the availability of more computers in our CIS Computational Lab, we selected 2 more teams, giving chance for junior students to participate and prepare for such future events.

The event started at about 11:15 AM with the introduction by Faisal Naseem on the contest. I then followed by introducing the prizes for the winning team and the runner ups. Questions papers were given to the teams and the clock start ticking. They were given 2 and a half hours to solve 5 mind juggling questions to prove their skills to be amongst the best coders in NED.
Pizzas and Sodas were served to the participants and teachers during the competition. 3 judges were assigned to moniter and approve/reject the enteries send by the teams. The competition ended at 1:45 PM. The remaining enteries were checked and the winners were declared. The team which end up in solving 4/5 questions were from Third Year CIS Department. BCIT ranked 3rd in the competition. In the ending ceremony we gave Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 and ASP.NET Web Matrix Book to the winning team. VS Beta 2 were given to the runner ups and all volunteers. It was an exciting event and I am sure everyone enjoyed whether they were writing codes, judging enteries or serving the lunch or completing their last minute assignment :) .

I would like to thank Sir Saqib Ilyas - Country Leader INETA Pakistan, Code Run volunteers, organizing committee and all participating teams for making this event a huge success. See the event pictures on the contest blog here.

An interview with Rafal Lukawiecki

2005-06-03T15:10:00.000+05:00

One of the experts invited to this year’s PDC (Pakistan Developers Conference) is Rafal Lukawiecki. As strategic consultant and director at Project Botticelli Ltd, a small consulting company based in the United Kingdom, Lukawiecki is responsible for analysing, planning and forecasting changes in the field of information technology (IT). Lukawiecki was one of the highlights at PDC 2004, and is this year expected to focus on security, study of programming models and management of large software development projects through frameworks. Spider catches up with Lukawiecki to discuss trends in security and Pakistan’s role in the IT world at large.

Read the complete interview online here, or buy June 2005 issue of Spider Magazine. And yes don't forget to read my article on Longhorn in the pipeline section.

.Net Framework Compatibility Testing

2005-05-28T16:25:00.000+05:00

Microsoft Corp. is looking for a few good men … and women, and, ultimately, applications that can help the company check for compatibility between the current version of the .Net Framework and the version coming in Visual Studio 2005.

The software giant is in recruiting mode, looking for independent software vendors, enterprise customers, developers, end users and others who would like to have their .Net applications tested for compatibility with the upcoming version of the .Net Framework.

Read complete article here.

Code Run 2005 Important Update

2005-05-22T21:00:00.000+05:00

The contest date has been resheduled and it will going to happen on Saturday, June 04, 2005 at CIS Computational Lab. The list of approved teams will be displayed on this blog on Tuesday, May 24, 2005. All the approved teams will be notified through email about the latest news and contest guidelines.

Send your queries and suggestions to coderun2005@gmail.com

Visit Code Run 2005 Blog here.

Microsoft E-Learning Course Give Away

2005-05-20T00:39:00.000+05:00

Microsoft Learning and MSDN are giving away two of MSPress's most popular ASP.NET books and a US$349 eLearning course for free. Seriously, you get the Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Web Applications Using Visual Studio .NET eLearning course and the eRef version of Microsoft ASP.NET Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 2003 Step by Step and Building Web Solutions with ASP.NET and ADO.NET for free, no strings attached. Go over to the eLearning Access site and enter the access key: 8317-MSDN-6595. Fill in some basic info, and voila, tons of great ASP.NET info.

Source : Orlando .NET User Group

Geekswithblogs.net

2005-05-07T00:14:00.000+05:00

Want to be a part of this community for bloggers "Geekswithblogs.net?" The registration process now became more easier. Interested people can now register their blogs by filling out a simple form rather then sending an email to Jeff which ocassionaly went unnoticed. You can register your blog by going to the following url:

Register your blog here.
Read INETA Pakistan blogs here.
Home of INETA Web Blogs.
Geekswithblogs.net

MSDN Forums Beta

2005-05-04T22:52:00.000+05:00

Microsoft is now offering MSDN Forums for the Geeks to hangout. Check out the forum here:

MSDN Forums Beta
MSDN Forums Welcome Message and Posting Guidance

Code Run 2005

2005-05-01T21:07:00.000+05:00

We'll be having a Speed Coding and Quiz competition for NED students on May 28, 2005. This is a joint event by INETA Pakistan, NED.net User Group and IEEE NED Student Branch. More details are on the contest blog.

Visit Code Run 2005 blog here.

Take a look at our contest poster.

Want to become an MVP?

2005-04-29T04:52:00.000+05:00

You think you have what is takes to be a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)? Been involved in any community activities? Actively participating in news group? Well if you think you have a passion of becoming an MVP then you will find this post by Robert McLaws quite handy.

How to Become a Microsoft MVP.

Learn more about MVPs here.

PC Design Competition

2005-04-25T22:04:00.000+05:00

As Microsoft Windows celebrates its 20th anniversary, Microsoft and IDSA want to envision the future with you by offering a unique challenge. Whether you're an established design team, and independent designer, or a student, here's your chance to help shape the future of the Windows-based PC experience and to win up to $125,000 USD, the recognition of the industry, and a distinction unlike any other. Download the design kit today - online submissions begin May 18, 2005!

Eligibility

Open to designs and designers worldwide in Microsoft .NET Passport-supported countries and regions.
Entering party, either individual or team representative must obtain a valid Microsoft .NET Passport.
Open to students in any industrial design program.
Student entries can be submitted in any category, even if the design is in research or corporately funded.
Employees of organizations and students at schools represented on the jury may not participate in the competition.
Entries may be sponsored by corporations. Entries already in production are ineligible.
Designs must adhere to entry kit criteria. Entrant names and the names of their consulting firms or schools may not appear anywhere in the entry kit except the Design Credit List doc. Failure to abide by this rule results in immediate disqualification.
Use of Microsoft and/or IDSA and/or ICSID branding, the Microsoft Windows flag, and/or copyrighted Microsoft elements not provided in the entry kit are strictly prohibited and may result in disqualification.

Judging Criteria

The Judge's Award, Chairman's Award, and Public's Choice Award* judgments are based on the following five criteria:

Innovation: is the design new and unique?
User Experience/Interaction: does the design make the PC easier to use?
Aesthetics: does the appearance enhance the emotional appeal of the product?
Technical ability: is the design enhanced with new technologies?
Ecology: is the design environmentally responsible?

Consideration given to the challenges of manufacturability including thermal cooling and noise reduction may also be considered as a part of the general judging criteria.

Peripheral component design concepts (e.g. Cell Phone, Digital Media Receiver, Printer, Portable Media Player, etc.) are not required, but may be included with concept designs to help aid in answering the challenge statement.

Submission Process and Deadline

Submission will take place in two parts:

Online Submission
Supplemental Mailing

Online submissions will be open between May 18th 2005 and 5:00pm EST, October 3, 2005. Details on online submission criteria can be found in the Entry Kit.
Once a submission is approved, a confirmation email will be provided with an entry ID number and a postal address to send supplemental material including essay question responses in English, CD/DVD submission of print-ready images (300 dpi or higher) and/or videos supplemental information must be received within a week of submission. Please see Entry Kit for complete details.

Please do not send your entry to IDSA's office or Microsoft. You must submit your entry online between May 18th 2005 and October 3, 2005 5:00 pm EST, followed up with print and supplemental materials mailed to Microsoft office within one (1) week.

By submitting your entry, you agree that any or all of the material may be published and utilized by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), Microsoft, and any other party authorized by IDSA and/or Microsoft in connection with the awards.

All decisions by the jury and/or Microsoft in conjunction with IDSA are final.

VS 2005 Beta with Free Books

2005-04-21T19:29:00.000+05:00

Register Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2, get a free online book from MS Press

Microsoft Learning has partnered with the Visual Studio team to provide developers with additional incentive for registering Beta 2. Developers who register their copy of Beta 2 will have access to a free developer title from Microsoft Press. After downloading the Beta they receive an email telling them about the benefit, and encouraging them to register their Beta. When a user completes the registration process they will receive an email with a link to the online books, and an access code. Each user will have access to one book per code. Developers who register multiple SKUs of the Beta will receive additional access codes, giving them access to more books. The offer is available worldwide, books are English-only.

Detailed breakdown of free online books available for each VS Beta SKU:

VWD Express and VB Express

Introducing ASP.NET 2.0, English
Introducing Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2005, English
Writing Secure Code, 2nd Edition, English

J# Express, C# Express, C++ Express and SQL Express

Writing Secure Code, 2nd Edition, English

Visual Studio Standard, Visual Studio Professional, Visual Studio Team Suite and VS Premier Partner Edition

Introducing ASP.NET 2.0, English
Introducing Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2005, English
Writing Secure Code, 2nd Edition, English

Distributed Computing with XML

2005-03-30T23:04:00.000+05:00

International .NET Association Pakistan Chapter, IEEE NED Student Branch and NED.net User Group invites you to attend an hour long seminar on Distributed Computing with XML Web Services using .NET by Muhammad Saqib Ilyas on Saturday April 9, 2005 at 2 pm. Registration closed.

Venue:

Lecture Theatre, Department of Computer and Information Systems Engineering, NED University Karachi

Seminar details:

This seminar will provide a realistic, hands-on, comprehensive coverage of developing Web services using ASP.NET and C#. Web services are an evolving series of standards that enable programs on various computers to communicate with other programs on similar or disparate computers transparently over the Internet. The speaker will talk in detail the skills needed to program Web services using ASP.NET. It also examines the fundamentals of SOAP and WSDL essential for creating interoperable Web services. The discussion will include the various security issues and technologies in Web services such as Basic HTTP, HTTPS, (SSL 3.0), XML Signature, XML Encryption, XML Key Management Specification (XKMS), Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and WS-Security. Click here to become a member of our .NET user group community at NED.

MapPoint with C#

2005-03-23T03:43:00.000+05:00

This guide is to kick start your work with Microsoft MapPoint.

Download it from here.
File Size : 2.27 MB

Run MonoDevelop on Monoppix

2005-03-15T00:47:00.000+05:00

In order to run MonoDevelop in Monoppix you need to do the following. Goto Start Applications, Quick Broweser, Root Directory, KNOPPIX, usr, bin and choose /KNOPPIX/usr/bin and select "Open In Terminal". In the console window write "monodevelop" without quotes to start the IDE.

I really like the IDE, still exploring it, but according to me its my Mono VS :). However I am still unable to compile and run applications, but will give it another try sometime later.

Country Leader Speaks at NED.net

2005-03-14T14:00:00.000+05:00

I would like to take this moment to thank the attendants of our user group event which ws held on March 12, 2005 on Open Source Implementations of .NET where we discussed the various open source implementations of the CLI(Common Language Infrastructure), namely,
OCL from Intel, Mono from Ximian, DotGNU from the GNU project and SSCLI from Microsoft.

We also took a look at the components of the Mono project, namely, the mono runtime and JIT compiler, the mono documentation, and the XSP ASP.NET clone web server. In this event, I
showed the audience the RPMs for the project, and the source tarballs and gave a brief demo of how to install an rpm. I also displayed how to build and install mono-1.0.2 from source. Due to the complex nature of the system, I couldnt build the entire system from either RPM or source, which is fact of life when you are working on Linux, so some people were not very clear about it.

I also mentioned the Monoppix product, which is a free tool that has an ISO image which you can burn on a CD-R and boot your machine off it. It would boot into a gnome X-Window session with mono and XSP running. Due to the varied Linux skill level of the audience, I believe that the session was not universally equally useful. I once again thank you for your presence during the session and your feedback (both positive and negative). I am going to make sure that I
incorporate your useful suggestions in my future sessions and if you would like to make any other suggestions or criticism on email, please feel free to do so on our mailing list or directly to me here.

Unfortunately, I have had a nagging cough for the last week or so, so I was unable to quite effectively deliver the content as effectively as I usually do. I hope to get over that in the next session. I would also like to inform you at this time that I am planning a full-blown workshop on Linux basics in April. The workshop will be for beginners. It will not be free, it will have a very small token fee. The participants will be provided with a certificate of attendance. Those who are not so comfortable with Linux should watch out for that. The registration for that workshop will be on first come first served basis.

By,
Muhammad Saqib Ilyas.
INETA Pakistan Country Leader.

Open Source with .NET

2005-03-02T01:56:00.000+05:00

International .NET Association Pakistan Chapter, IEEE NED Student Branch and NED.net User Group wants to invite you to attend a free seminar on Working with Open Source Implementations of .NET by Muhammad Saqib Ilyas on Saturday March 12, 2005 at 2 pm. Registration has been closed for this event.

Venue

Lecture Theatre, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems.
NED University.

Description

The Mono open-source .NET project is led by Linux and UNIX software firm Ximian. The group is working on an open source implementation of the .NET framework that you can use on UNIX and Linux machines, as well as Windows. Mono includes a compiler for the C# language, a Common Language Runtime (CLR) for the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and a set of class libraries. It also has implementations for both ADO.NET and ASP.NET. The goal is to provide a rich set of class libraries which are not only compatible to Microsoft .NET implementation but also provide much more functionality for the end user.

About Speaker

Muhammad Saqib Ilyas graduated from NED University with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Systems Engineering in 1997. He holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, USA, with majors in computer networks. He has served as a Lecturer and then Assistant Professor at Department of Computer and Information Systems Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi from October 1998 to July 2000 and from Dec 2002 to date respectively. He has also done freelance software development in Microsoft Visual C++ 6 for a company based in the USA developing drivers for database migration without code recompilation or affecting the front-end. He has taught courses in Fault Diagnosis and Reliable System Design, Object Oriented Programming, Internet Computing, Routing and Switching, and Computer Network Security. He is a member of IEEE and IEEE Communications Society. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of IEEE Karachi Section and has held the position of Chair, Student Activities Committee since 1998. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of Graduates Of the Last Decade (GOLD) affinity group of the IEEE Karachi Section. He has been instrumental in organizing various international conferences and seminars under the umbrella of IEEE. He is also serving as the IEEE Student Branch Counselor at NED University of Engineering and Technology. He is now serving as a country leader for INETA Pakistan. For more information visit his blog: http://msaqib.blogspot.com/

Hoping to see your there!!

Enter the 2005 Windows Mobile Application Contest

2005-02-26T20:06:00.000+05:00

Contest details

Compete against participants around the world in a contest to find the best applications for Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs and Smartphones. Entries will be judged on usability, innovation, marketability, and platform optimization. Submissions must be sent to a Mobile2Market logo-testing partner by May 31, 2005.

Prizes

2 Grand Prize Winners receive $25,000 USD and application distribution.
4 Category Prize Winners will receive a $5,000 USD developer prize package and featured application promotions.
20 Finalists receive featured promotions through Mobile2Market.

* Enter by March 31, 2005, and receive free logo-testing (a $500 value).

For more information on this Contest, visit:
http://www.mobile2marketcontest.com/index.asp?s=M2MSK

ASP.NET 2.0 Online (Multimedia) Training

2005-02-20T15:50:00.000+05:00

If you are interested in learning ASP.NET 2.0, then this MSDN page is an excellent starting point. It compiles a lot of ASP.NET 2.0 resources - including a series of presentations by Jeff Prosise of Wintellect.

Want more on Building Speech Applications in .NET

2005-02-14T20:28:00.000+05:00

In our last event on Building Speech Applications in .NET we get to learn that people want more in depth seminar on the same topic. Well if you are one of them and want to learn more, then please join our mailing list and cast your vote in the polling section. Here's the link to our poll.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neddotnet/surveys?id=1000820

The SASDK resource CD's will be available soon.

Another success story

2005-02-12T19:23:00.000+05:00

Another successful seminar by NED.net and Core.Net on Building Speech Applications using SASDK. Our speaker was Mr. Adnan Farooq Hashmi. The event was excellent and the demos shown were outstanding. We had around 50+ participants from NED, SSUET, FAST, SZABIST, JUW and other universities. I want to thank all our participants for showing overwhelming response at our events. In the end we distributed some Codezone magazines in the Q&A session. Our next event is line up for March 12.

Building Speech Applications in .NET

2005-02-06T15:38:00.000+05:00

International .NET Association Pakistan Chapter, IEEE NED Student Branch and NED.net User Group wants to invite you to a Free Seminar on Building Speech Applications by Mr. Adnan Farooq Hashmi on Saturday February 12, 2005 at 2 pm at CIS Lecture Theatre, NED University. Registration is closed for this seminar, so those who haven't registered are advised to bring their NIC with them to avoid enterence issues.

Agenda

2 :00 - 2:15 pm - Introduction to Imagine Cup by Hammad Rajjoub
2:15 - 3:30 - Talk on Speech Applications by Adnan Farooq Hashmi

About Imagine Cup

Imagine Cup is a technology contest that provides an outlet for students to explore their technological and artistic interests outside the classroom. Throughout this year Imagine Cup will recognize and celebrate student achievement in technology and art. There are nine very different categories that will give every student a change to participate. The finals are in Yokohama, Japan, an intriguing and stimulating destination for the top student minds from around the world to engage in conversation, debate and competition at the Imagine Cup finals. For more information visit Imagine Cup or INETA MEA website.

About The Topic

Speech is one of the most natural way to interact. When it comes to computers it is no different. If an application can be controlled solely by way of voice commands then the opportunity that lies is unlimited. Even though the idea of using speech as an input mechanism for an application is not new there are not a lot of applications that use speech as in input. In other words speech is still an big opportunity that is yet to be explored. Microsoft speech SDK is one of the many tools that enable a developer to add speech capability in to a applications. Speech SDK can be used in either C#, C++, VB or any COM compliant language. Broadly, speech can be divided in to two paradigms. Text to speech conversion and speech recognition.

This Seminar will showcase the benefits of building and deploying Multimodal Speech Applications, and explain the concepts behind the Microsoft Speech Application SDK (SASDK) and SALT (Speech Application Language Tags). The Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) enables multimodal and telephony-enabled access to information, applications, and Web services from PCs, telephones, tablet PCs, and wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs). The Speech Application Language Tags extend existing mark-up languages such as HTML, XHTML, and XML. Multimodal access will enable users to interact with an application in a variety of ways: they will be able to input data using speech, a keyboard, keypad, mouse and/or stylus, and produce data as synthesized speech, audio, plain text, motion video, and/or graphics. Each of these modes will be able to be used independently or concurrently.

Who should attend

Individuals who want to get a fair idea about the new concepts in speech applications
Students/Individuals working on Speech-enabled web applications

About the Speaker

Adnan Farooq Hashmi did his MS (Software Engineering) from SZABIST in 1999, and was awarded the Gold Medal for his batch. He was co-founder of Lynx & Connexions Inc. in October 1999, and was the application architect for an Internet based utility bill payment system that involved SSGC, PTCL, and KESC in 2000. He also founded Core IT Education Centre in 2001, which has been functioning as an Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) Approved Study Centre for the past 2.5 years, and working to build E-Learning tools and next-generation Learning Management Systems (LMS). He has mainly been involved in the development of Enterprise applications using Oracle, SQL Server, ASP, and ASP.NET, and has also conducted Training for Government organizations in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. His focus is Academics, although he remains an avid Internet application developer.

Click here to become a member of our .NET user group.
For further inquiries contact Zeeshan at zeeshan.muhammad@ineta.org

Hoping to see you there !!

Face Recognition

2005-02-01T16:58:00.000+05:00

FACE RECOGNITION software does a poor job of capturing human skin tones and expressions. Microsoft Corp., in Redmond, Wash., with its eye on three-dimensional computer gaming applications, claims in U.S. application 20040210427 that by exploiting recent discoveries in measuring skin reflectance, it can improve images by scanning a face using multiple light sources. These sources include infrared, polarized-light, and narrow-wave-band beams.

FLASH MEMORY, which is ubiquitous in portable devices and digital cameras, requires careful memory management, especially as storage capacity grows. It's also prone to failure if the same memory blocks are repeatedly used. Samsung Electronics Co., in Seoul, South Korea, says it can not only lengthen memory life but also reduce the time it takes to alter data, in U.S. application 20040210706. The job is done by moving data that is being changed to a separate memory block—and its mapping information to another sector. The process is similar to the way in which a disk drive organizes data on a hard disk so as to avoid unreliable sectors and optimize the data for speed of access.

EXISTING CRYPTOGRAPHIC methods may not be equal to the task of securely handling patients' medical records because the entire file must be decrypted for any part of it to be read, says Systems Research & Development, in Las Vegas, in U.S. application 20040210763. The company proposes splitting data into separate streams prior to encryption so that, for example, a public health researcher could look for case histories related to a specific condition without having unlimited access to a patient's files.

Source IEEE Spectrum Magazine January 2005 Issue

Another successful event by NED.net

2005-02-01T16:52:00.000+05:00

Another successful event by NED.net on Flash Remoting. About 70 people attended our event which is a real boost for us. ASP.NET resource CD's were given to the hardworking volunteers. Another event is lined up on Feb 12. Thank you for your support and appreciations.

Seminar on Macromedia Flash Remoting MX

2005-01-21T01:17:00.000+05:00

International .NET Association Pakistan Chapter, IEEE NED Student Branch and NED.net User Group wants to invite you to a Free Seminar on Macromedia Flash Remoting MX by Mr. Adnan Farooq Hashmi on Saturday January 29, 2005 at 2 pm at CIS Lecture Theatre, NED University.

About The Topic :

Macromedia Flash Remoting MX provides the connection between Macromedia Flash and your web application server, making it fast and easy to create Rich Internet Applications. With its powerful yet simple programming model, you can easily integrate rich Macromedia Flash content with applications built using Macromedia ColdFusion MX, Microsoft .NET, Java, and SOAP-based web services. The result is complex client/server applications that more closely resemble desktop applications than traditional web pages. Gone is the click/wait/reload approach of HTML. Your web application uses Flash as the front end while Flash Remoting handles the communication behind the scenes with the application server. All the end user knows is that it's fast and flexible.

The potential uses for Flash Remoting are endless. This Seminar will help you understand this breakthrough technology and use it to build your own Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Build applications that connect to a database, file system, or other server-side technologies. Or, use Flash Remoting to create:

Online stores that feature catalogs and shopping cart systems
Sound and video clip libraries
Banner ads with built-in shopping carts, click-through tracking, and site search capabilities
New controls that can be used in place of HTML
Extensions to Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and more
Front-ends to databases for administrators

About the Speaker :

Adnan Farooq Hashmi did his MS (Software Engineering) from SZABIST in 1999, and was awarded the Gold Medal for his batch. He was co-founder of Lynx & Connexions Inc. in October 1999, and was the application architect for an Internet based utility bill payment system that involved SSGC, PTCL, and KESC in 2000. He also founded Core IT Education Centre in 2001, which has been functioning as an Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) Approved Study Centre for the past 2.5 years, and working to build E-Learning tools and next-generation Learning Management Systems (LMS). He has mainly been involved in the development of Enterprise applications using Oracle, SQL Server, ASP, and ASP.NET, and has also conducted Training for Government organizations in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. His focus is Academics, although he remains an avid Internet application developer.

Join us at neddotnet@yahoogroups.com to become a member of our .NET user group.
For further inquiries contact Zeeshan at zeeshan.muhammad@ineta.org
More information on the topic can be found in the Files section of our mailing list.

Hoping to see you there !!

INETA LATAM Newsletter

2005-01-20T14:29:00.000+05:00

INETA LATAM put out a great newsletter this month. Here is the English version:

http://www.willydev.net/ineta/boletines/en_200407.aspx

ASP.NET Learning Resource List

2005-01-20T14:12:00.000+05:00

There is a huge collection of the resources out there on the Internet to help you learn ASP.NET in Bill Evjen's Blog. He has plans on expanding this list considerably - especially in the ASP.NET Whitepaper section and the Tools section. Also, he had left comments turned on for this so people can feel free to add things that they deem as top-notch as well. Hope this helps.

Here's the link to the article:
Bill Evjen's Blog

Seminar on Data Access Patterns

2005-01-11T15:44:00.000+05:00

We would like to invite you to an hour and a half long Seminar by NED.net on Data Access Patterns on Saturday January 15, 2005 at 2 PM. Click here to download the program brochure. You are requested to bring along your NIC to enter our university premesis.

Venue:

Lecture Theatre, Department of Computer and Information Systems Engineering, NED University.

Agenda:

2:00 - 2:15 PM - "Introduction to Imagine Cup" by Hammad Rajjoub
2:15 - 3:30 PM - "Seminar on Data Access Patterns" by Adnan Farooq Hashmi and Hammad Rajjoub

About Speakers:

Adnan Farooq Hashmi:

Adnan Farooq Hashmi did his MS (Software Engineering) from SZABIST in 1999, and was awarded the Gold Medal for his batch. He was co-founder of Lynx & Connexions Inc. in October 1999, and was the application architect for an Internet based utility bill payment system that involved SSGC, PTCL, and KESC in 2000. He also founded Core IT Education Centre in 2001, which has been functioning as an Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) Approved Study Centre for the past 2.5 years, and working to build E-Learning tools and next-generation Learning Management Systems (LMS). He has mainly been involved in the development of Enterprise applications using Oracle, SQL Server, ASP, and ASP.NET, and has also conducted Training for Government organizations in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. His focus is Academics, although he remains an avid Internet application developer. For more information visit his blog at: http://coredotnet.blogspot.com

Hammad Rajjoub:

Hammad Rajjoub is working as Technical Lead with Meezan Bank Limited . He holds a BS Computer Science degree from Karachi University and has MCP.NET certification (as well as a number of Brain Bench Certifications). He is member of ACM( http://www.acm.org) since 2002 and was Chairman of ACM-CSKU Chapter(http://www.csku.edu.pk/acm) for the year 2002. He has been working on .Net since its Beta 1 release. His areas of interest include Distributed Computing, Service Oriented Architecture, Aspect Oriented Programming, Design Patterns and Quantum Computation. He has developed number of enterprise scale applications using C#, ASP.Net and SQL Server. He is a .Net Evangelist and speaks frequently at knowledge sharing sessions. He has hosted number of sessions at local as well international conferences. He has written a number of articles for local as well as international publishers. He has also written a case study for Wrox Publishers (http://www.wrox.co.uk). He also trains people at software houses on .Net and helps them migrate from VB/VC to VB.Net/VC#. He is also a user group leader of .NetWizards which is an INETA (http://www.ineta.org) chartered user group. He is a member speakers bureau INETA Pakistan, and member of INETA Pakistan Executive Committee. He teaches at Dept. Of Computer Science, Karachi University and PAF KIET as a visiting faculty member. He spends his spare time learning and evangelizing .NET. For more details visit his blog at: http://dotnetwizards.blogspot.com

Imagine Cup Introduced!

2004-12-31T01:19:00.000+05:00

Event at CSKU INETA went fine. We introduced Imagine Cup to the audience and received a positive response from them. The presentation can be found in the Content Repository section of this website. We are also able to distribute goodies (PDC KIT bags, CodeZone magazines and couple of Content rich CDs) to the audience (thanks to Microsoft Pakistan and DotNetWizards).

Hammad Rajjoub.

http://dotnetwizards.blogspot.com

The Code Room – Pilot Episode

2004-12-31T01:18:00.000+05:00

Must watch episode at MSDN TV!

In this new reality show, three MSDN event attendees are taken to an inner-city warehouse, equipped with a partially-charged laptop, and tasked with designing and developing an e-commerce Web site

Hammad Rajjoub.
http://dotnetwizards.blogspot.com

.NET Security Presentation @ PakCon 2004

2004-12-31T01:16:00.000+05:00

On December 23rd I was invited to speak at PakCon2004 (www.pakcon.org). They defined PakCon as
Pak Con – where security matters!

Pak Con is an exclusive cyber security convention, the first initiative of its kind in the history of Pakistan IT scene. Pak Con is the brainchild of a group of capable security professionals who have employed their genius and aptitude to provide an overall extensive and comprehensive experience of information security in the form of a wide-ranging convention on information security. We at Pak Con aim to highlight all the issues related with information security and the problems faced by IT professionals, accurately and in depth. Our objective is to examine flaws with new and current technologies, finding their solutions, covering unique and interesting developments. We are well aware of the fact that there is a high probability to the level of certainty that technology can be converted from a tool of progression into a tool for repression. We intend to curb all the threats of such a nature by developing a sound and effective information security defense system that in turns daunts all hazardous actions. Our strategy is of a bold nature, instead of hiding our face from the reality of the situation, we are willing to confront all the dangers facing the IT community and provide them definite resolutions.

I was there to speak on .NET Security and How to develop enterprise scale secure applications. I had 50 minute time slot followed by 10 mins Q/A, the session went well and I belive audience enjoyed it. I focused on some of the core functionalities in .NET Security API, like Authentication/Authorization and CAS. I also showed a sample code snippet using IIdentity interface. Code and presentation are made available at PakCon web Site

Hammad Rajjoub.

http://dotnetwizards.blogspot.com

Microsoft Event at NED

2004-12-15T23:39:00.000+05:00

We had really nice sessions today at our Seminar by Microsoft at NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi. The event started with a Qiraat by our user group member followed by the first presentation by Mr. Vaqar Khamisani who is a Developer Evangelist (DE) and Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Manager for Microsoft Pakistan. He talked about various activities by Microsoft in Pakistan. Some of the upcoming event are ISV Community days and MSDN Week. He also gave the audience a brief review on the past activities especially Pakistan Developers Conference (PDC). After his presentation Mr. Ali Pasha started his talk on Designing for Deployment. Mr. Pasha has been working for Microsoft as a Program Manager in the Visual Studio division on the modeling tools (codenamed Whitehorse) scheduled to be released as a part of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System – Architect Edition. Audience get to know about the Visual Studio Team System, how it works and what benefits it can give to the developers. In the end he showed an excellent demo which is also available to download on MSDN TV. We will post the link after sometime on our site so stay tuned.

After this Mr. Saad Syed started his speech on Windows XP Embedded. Mr. Syed is a Development Lead in the Windows Deployment Team and joined Microsoft Corporation in October 2000 as a Software Test Engineer. He gave a very interesting talk about various Embedded devices and their use in our daily life. He showed a small video on different Embedded devices which are utilizing Microsoft Embedded features and making our lives easier.

In the end we distributed some gifts brought by Microsoft to the audiences by a lucky draw. Congratulations to all the winners. I want to thank all the speakers for doing excellent sessions today, NED.net volunteers for working so hard in making a successful event, faculty of CIS department and the all the audiences for their overwhelming participation. The whole event is covered by our volunteer in the form of a video and will soon be available on CDs or DVDs.

Zeeshan Muhammad.
User Group Leader - NED.net
http://mea.ineta.org

Microsoft Seminar at NED Lecture Theatre

2004-12-10T02:31:00.000+05:00

You are invited to attend a Microsoft Seminar at NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi on Wednesday December 15, 2004 at 4pm. Click here to download invitation for this event.

Venue:
Lecture Theatre, Department of Computer and Information Systems Engineering, NED University Karachi.

Agenda
4:00 - 4:05 pm "Recitation from Holy Quran"
4:05 - 4:20 pm "Microsoft Pakistan Activities” by Vaqar Khamisani
4:20 - 5:00 pm "Designing for Deployment" by Ali Pasha
5:00 - 5:40 pm "Windows XP Embedded" by Saad Syed
5:40 - 6:00 pm Raffle to distribute some gifts brought by MS Pakistan

- Join us at neddotnet@yahoogroups.com to become a member of our .NET user group.
- Send an email to zeeshan.muhammad@ineta.org for your free registration for this event.
- Registration will be closed on December 13, 2004 at 12 pm.
- For further inquiries call Zeeshan at 0300-2368597

Hoping to see you all there!!!

Book on Real World XML Web Services

2004-11-25T01:06:00.000+05:00

Visit http://www.learnxmlws.com/book/ for free online book on XML Web Services.NET

.NET Solutions for DB2

2004-11-24T23:57:00.001+05:00

IBM's site hold many articles on .NET Solutions. Click here to read the articles.

URL Rewriting in ASP.NET

2004-11-19T02:28:00.000+05:00

URL rewriting is the process of intercepting an incoming Web request and redirecting the request to a different resource. When performing URL rewriting, typically the URL being requested is checked and, based on its value, the request is redirected to a different URL. For example, in the case where a website restructuring caused all of the Web pages in the /people/ directory to be moved to a /info/employees/ directory, you would want to use URL rewriting to check if a Web request was intended for a file in the /people/ directory. If the request was for a file in the /people/ directory, you'd want to automatically redirect the request to the same file, but in the /info/employees/ directory instead.

With classic ASP, the only way to utilize URL rewriting was to write an ISAPI filter or to buy a third-party product that offered URL rewriting capabilities. With Microsoft® ASP.NET, however, you can easily create your own URL rewriting software in a number of ways. In this article we'll examine the techniques available to ASP.NET developers for implementing URL rewriting, and then turn to some real-world uses of URL rewriting. Before we delve into the technological specifics of URL rewriting, let's first take a look at some everyday scenarios where URL rewriting can be employed.

Find rest of the article here.

October 2004 Express Editions Community Technical Preview Releases

2004-11-13T01:15:00.000+05:00

The October 2004 Community Technical Preview (CTP) releases are now available for download. These downloads contain a more recent version of the Express Editions than the Beta, however, CTP builds do not go through the same rigourous testing that Beta builds undergo. Therefore, do not install these builds on machines you depend on.

Visit here for more details.

ASP.NET features postponed

2004-11-07T16:24:00.000+05:00

In order to ensure high quality for ASP.NET 2.0, the team has decided they need to remove a small set of features that are in Beta 1. Here are all the details.
For those with click-a-phobia, here's the list:

Mobile Device Adapters for ASP.NET Server Controls
PhoneLink and ContentPager Controls
Site counters, DynamicImage Control, and the Image Generation Service
WebPartPageMenu Control
Access Data Providers
DataSetDataSource
Built-in Global Themes
Web Administration Tool Profile/Reports Tab

Pakistan Now a Hot Spot for IT Outsourcing

2004-11-05T01:04:00.000+05:00

The biggest boost to Pakistan's efforts to break into the global IT marketplace came on September 28, when India's finance ministry announced an income tax of more than 36 percent on foreign firms with software, R&D and customer service operations in India. This tax proposal had been in the works since the beginning of the year and is expected to prompt U.S. firms to follow GE's lead in selling off assets in India.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/37750.html

Code Converters

2004-10-27T02:14:00.000+05:00

Below are a few converters that can convert codes from C# to VB

1) Converter.zip - an VS.NET Add-In that converts code blocks or entire projects from C# to VB.NET

2) Reflector - a standalone app that will decompile from any langauge to another language (http://www.aisto.com/roeder/frontier/).

3) http://authors.aspalliance.com/aldotnet/examples/translate.aspx. Online converter form Alex Lowe, a Microsoft DE out of the great state of Michigan.

Portable.NET

2004-10-22T01:54:00.000+05:00

Portable.NET is a free implementation of .NET. It is a complete suite of compilers, libraries and tools for running and developing .NET applications.

Download it from here: http://getdotgnu.com/downloads

By:
Sohaib Khan.
User Group Leader - SSUETdotNet

Firefox beats Internet Explorer

2004-10-22T01:53:00.000+05:00

Just when you thought nobody could beat IE... well... think again!Check out: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/This thing is blazing fast! Beats IE all the way!

By:
Faisal Nasim

Some cool MONO applications

2004-10-22T01:50:00.000+05:00

The Mono development environment allows programmers to be more productive than they would be with conventional C programming. The C# language and the Mono APIs together provide a great platform to build applications on. The article provides a tour through some Mono programs, along with details about how you can start experimenting with them yourself. Not all of the programs featured here are finished products, but they're all exciting and show off interesting aspects of Mono.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2004/10/18/mono.html

Reported Vulnerability in Microsoft ASP.NET

2004-10-07T03:03:00.000+05:00

No fix at the moment, but Microsoft reported an ASP.NET vulnerability yesterday:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/aspnet.mspx

It deals with the canonicalization of files and a hacker's ability to play with the URL to get at files they shouldn't. There are safeguards to protect yourself in the meantime. Check out KB article 887459:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=887459

Questions/discussion of the vulnerability can be directed here:

http://www.asp.net/Forums/ShowForum.aspx?tabindex=1&ForumID=25

NED.net User Group Leader Won The Best Volunteer Award in Middle East / Africa Region by INETA

2004-10-05T01:13:00.000+05:00

It was a good day for me as well as for our NED.net User Group after being declared as the best volunteer in the Middle East / Africa Region. I have been awarded with a ViewSonic Pocket PC V35.

I am proud to be a volunteer for International .NET Association (INETA). I want to thank all NED.net and other user group members who are always so supportive, INETA Pakistan team members, my friends and colleagues, my family and above all Allah.

Here’s what the Regional Manager INETA MEA wrote in his email.

Hey All,

The winner of the Viewsonic PDA
is Mr Zeeshan Muhammad from NED.NET, Pakistan. He has been active on all
of the categories. I would like to thank him for all his efforts. The decision
has been made based upon the monthly reporting that all of you have made. We are
trying to devise a new reporting mechanism for all user groups on the internet,
until that time please keep up sending your monthly reports and/or any INETA
related activities.

I also would like to thank all of you for
making INETA MEA grow almost twice in the last 6 months, yes, our growth rate is
%86, You guys Rock!!

The PDA goes to Zeeshan, but there is still
one more Viewsonic PDA, That one will be given out to another hard working
volunteer by the end of December.

Thank you
all,

Goksin
Regional Manager – INETA MEA

Microsoft released Messenger 7 Beta

2004-10-03T19:58:00.000+05:00

According to Microsoft-watch.com and reliable sources, MSN released Messenger 7 into beta testing on BetaPlace. MSN were due to encorporate some added features into MSN Messenger 7 but it seems like these are delayed until a later "wave". For those wondering, a "wave" is a release (be it .1 or major).

MSN Spaces integration: Blogging straight from MSN Messenger Window

Personal Information Management: Intergration with MSN Explorer to truely manage your contacts and build lots of information about them.

Since MSN Messenger 7 is now due to beta next week, the public preview will follow in November and an earlier final release is now expected.

The latest build is 207 and we'll keep you updated as always ;)
Read full article at Microsoft-watch.com

DOWNLOAD MSN Messenger 7.0.0.0250 BETA

Pop Open Image and Resize Window in ASP.net

2004-10-03T01:40:00.000+05:00

This demo will demonstrate how to create a pop open image window that will resize the window to the fit the image.
Release: August 05, 2004
Revised: August 15, 2004
Code: VB.net
Dowload: PopOpenImageDemo ASP.net 1.1
Dowload: PopOpenImageDemo ASP.net 2.0

Try it here:
Click the thumbnail to pop open the image window. It will be re-sized to fit the picture.

Codezone Magazines

2004-10-02T02:39:00.000+05:00

NED.net is proud to distribute free copies of the Codezone Magazine at SSUETdotNet event on September 30, 2004. There are more copies of the magazine which will be distributed in the CSKU.Net upcoming event. So make sure you have your hand on the awesome magazine before someone else do.

For the latest news on our events visit our website:
http://mea.ineta.org

VB.Net School

2004-10-01T13:40:00.000+05:00

My VB.Net School has just started on the Programmers Heaven website (http://www.programmersheaven.com/). The link of the school is:
http://www.programmersheaven.com/2/Les_VBNET_1_p1

VB.Net School consists of 15 lessons on various topics related to VB.Net in particular and .Net in general. Each week, there will be a release of one of the lessons. There is also an attached message board, where users can post their queries.

VB.Net School is similar to my C# School released earlier and can be found here:
http://www.programmersheaven.com/2/Les_CSharp_0

C# school has been a great success with average rating above 9.0/10.0

We are also working on the .Net FAQs for the same site. Some of them (around 150-300) has been released here:
http://www.programmersheaven.com/2/FAQ

While others will be added soon. I will update it when there would be some progress. Soon, we will start a series of lessons on the 'VS.Net 2005 and .Net 2.0 - How to start guide'.

By:
Faraz of CSKU.Net

MIT Free Online Courses

2004-09-21T13:59:00.000+05:00

Around 900 courses from MIT are now available for free. Materials include syllabus, readings, lecture notes, recitations, labs, exams and projects. Follow the link for details. Courses of Electronics are found in “Electrical Engineering and Computer Science” section.

Please visit the following website:
http://ocw.mit.edu/

Nose-steered mouse could save aching arms

2004-09-16T23:42:00.000+05:00

Tired of using a mouse to control your PC? Perhaps there is another option for when your arm starts to ache: your nose. A novel PC control system lets users nudge a cursor around the screen with gentle movements of their nose. Blinking the left or right eye twice takes the place of left or right mouse clicks. The inventor, Dmitry Gorodnichy of the Institute of Information Technology in Ottawa, Canada, calls his nose-steered mouse a "nouse". In addition to giving people a change from the keyboard and mouse, he hopes it will make using a PC easier for people who have a disability.

Click to see the complete article

Microsoft to release fingerprint reader keyboards and mice

2004-09-11T21:28:00.000+05:00

Biometrics (using biological "keys" for authentication, like fingerprints) has been gathering storm as an authentication technique. As a result, Microsoft is readying a release of new keyboards and mice that will also double as fingerprint scanners.
This will, in many respects, address one of the key problems with biometrics, that of the ubiquity of putting biometric-aware equipment in the hands of casual users. (Asking users outside of your company to buy a new piece of equipment just to use your website is generally not well-received.) Microsoft selling this as part of their stable of products has a real chance of making this ubiquitous--remember what happened when Microsoft introduced the mouse wheel?
Of course, there's also the Big Brother scenario questions, such as "can my fingerprint be intercepted during transmission and captured off for later reply by an attacker?" and "what happens if somebody does capture my fingerprint, how do I change it?" that are still being wrestled with. So the question has to be asked--is this a good development, or a dangerous one?

For more, read Microsoft under your thumb.

Top Ten New and Exciting Features in ASP.NET 2.0

2004-09-10T13:53:00.000+05:00

ASP.NET 1.0 was a revolutionary advance in developing Web Applications. With its fully complied, highly extensible Server-Side control model, it was one of the best applications of Microsoft’s .NET runtime. It solved many of the issues plaguing ASP developers, and kept the development-centric philosophy that made ASP such a huge hit amongst the web-client community.
With ASP.NET 2.0, the ASP.NET team has continued to lead the way in making developer’s daily lives more enjoyable. The main theme of ASP.NET 2.0 seems to be “write less code”. In this article, with homage to David Letterman, we will count down my top ten favorite features of this new runtime. (Feel free to imagine the top ten list being enthusiastically read by Bill Gates, but of course, in your imagination he will only be reading the topics themselves—I will be reading the actual explanations.)

For the rest of the article please follow:
http://www.theserverside.net/articles/showarticle.tss?id=WhatsNewASPNET

Google Code Jam 2004

2004-09-07T21:20:00.000+05:00

When: Registration will begin September 1, 2004
Where: http://www.topcoder.com/googlecodejam
What: Solve increasingly difficult coding problems within a set time period
Who: Sponsored by Google, powered by TopCoder

Sure, great code is its own reward...
...but a little spare cash never hurt, either.
1st Place $10,000
2nd Place $7,000
3rd Place $5,000
4th Place $3,000

Top 50 finalists will have an all-expense-paid trip to Google headquarters in Mountain View CA! where the finals will be held on October 15, 2004. See website for official contest rules and registration.

http://www.google.com/codejam/

What's New in WSDL 2.0

2004-09-07T13:44:00.000+05:00

The W3C's Web Services Description Working Group, part of the Web Services Activity, has defined a language for describing web services and the possible ways to interact with them. The WG published its WSDL 2.0 working drafts on 26 March 2004. This is a significant milestone in the progress of WSDL. In this article, the author discussed the changes that were made to the WSDL 1.1 specification and other major improvements to the service description language.

Point your browser to the following location for the details:
http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2004/05/19/wsdl2.html

Adding a touch of style by Dave Raggett.

2004-09-07T13:36:00.000+05:00

This is a short guide to styling your Web pages. It will show you how to use W3C's Cascading Style Sheets language (CSS) as well as alternatives using HTML itself. The route will steer you clear of most of the problems caused by differences between different brands and versions of browsers. For style sheets to work, it is important that your markup be free of errors. A convenient way to automatically fix markup errors is to use the HTML Tidy utility. This also tidies the markup making it easier to read and easier to edit. I recommend you regularly run Tidy over any markup you are editing. Tidy is very effective at cleaning up markup created by authoring tools with sloppy habits……

For the rest of the article please visit:
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style.html

Second Generation Validation

2004-09-07T13:25:00.000+05:00

Professional Validation and More:

VAM is the second generation of ASP.NET web page validation, greatly expanding upon the concept. Microsoft's ASP.NET Validation controls are very limited, causing you to write custom code and hacks. In many cases, there is no way to enhance it to get the features you want. VAM overcomes these limitations, saving you development time and allowing you to build the best UI for your sites.

Validation involves the rules to evaluate data entry fields and a user interface that communicates errors clearly with the user. VAM handles both with great attention to detail and completeness.

Here are the advantages of using VAM:
22 validator controls. (Microsoft has 5.) Details Client-side validation on IE, IE/Mac, Netscape 6+, Mozilla, Opera 7 and Safari. (Microsoft only supports IE and IE/Mac.) Validation groups for when there are separate "forms" on the page, each with their own submit button. Details and Demo The ability to combine the rules of several validators under one error message using the MultiConditionValidator. Details Validators can intelligently disable themselves when the associated field is not in use on the page. Details and Demo Multiple formats for error messages including images with tooltips and alert boxes. No more encoding HTML into the ErrorMessage property. Details and Demo Standardize common error messages throughout the site so that page developers simply select the error message. Error messages can also be localized. Error messages can have tokens to show design time properties and runtime values. Details and Demo Validation is all about getting the user's attention. VAM can blink the error message, set focus to the field with the error, change that field's colors, and put up an alert. Details and Demo Greatly enhanced ValidationSummary control. Details and Demo Built in Required Field Marker support. Details and Demo Support for more data entry controls and page submission controls. Details Support for controls in most DataGrid types including Infragistics ASP.NET Grid (UltraWebGrid). With the Visual Input Security™ add-on (sold separately), you have a formidable defense against hackers who use SQL Injection, Script Injection (XSS), Input Tampering and Brute Force attacks. It's easy to switch to VAM on existing web applications.

C# Course Lectures

2004-08-26T13:01:00.000+05:00

Whole C# Course Lectures Available here:

- Introduction
- What is .NET?
- C#
- Case Study
- Interfaces
- Windows.Forms
- GDI+
- Multithreading and Asynshronous Events
- Petri Nets
- Basic Remoting (SAO, CAO)
- Remoting Events
- A chat Room
- Design Patterns

All topics stated above are available here at:
http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cs430x/Lectures.html

Code Guru

2004-08-21T20:53:00.000+05:00

Try the site for a huge collection of codes and examples. A must see for developers:

http://www.codeguru.com/

ADO.Net (Introduction and Best Practices) with C#

2004-08-20T00:38:00.000+05:00

We at CSKU user group want to invite you to attend a free seminar at our university campus on 21 of August, 2004. This is our first user group event. The speaker for this event will be non other then Mr. Hammad Rajjoub who has been actively involved in INETA activities in Pakistan and also run his own user group 'Dot Net Wizards'.

Venue:

Lecture Hall.
Department of Computer Science, University of Karachi.

Agenda:

1- Introduction to ADO.Net (Programming Model).
2- Common Scenarios
3- Best Practices

Program Details:

1- Tilawat (3:30 PM)
2- Introduction to INETA (3:35 PM)
3- Discussion on "ADO.Net (Introduction and Best Practices" (3:45 PM)
4- Q/A Session (5:15 PM)
5- Closing Note (5:30 PM)

A Survey by LUMS

2004-08-18T13:12:00.000+05:00

The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) is conducting an IT compensation survey. The goal of this survey is to collect data that will be published along with other research to build a case for IT outsourcing to Pakistan.
Please only complete this survey if you are an IT Professional currently working in Pakistan and encourage other IT professionals to participate in this survey as well.

Follow the link to complete the survey:
http://www.rozee.com.pk/salary-survey.php?src=lums&action=new

Free Web hosting for INETA member groups.

2004-08-14T23:45:00.000+05:00

Are you looking for Free Web Hosting account to advertise you .NET user group? If your group is a member of INETA, then just enter your information here and select from any one of our participating vendors to receive a free web hosting account for your user group.

Follow the link for details

MSN Web Messenger Service

2004-08-14T21:22:00.000+05:00

Check this cool new service by MSN. Great for those moments when you can’t install Messenger on the machine you are on.

http://webmessenger.msn.com

Web Matrix vs Visual Studio.NET

2004-08-12T23:58:00.000+05:00

We at NED.NET user group want to invite you to attend an hour long seminar on Web Matrix vs Visual Studio.NET at our university campus on August, 28, 2004. This is our fourth user group meeting after our 3 successful events. The speaker for this event will be non other then Mr. Hammad Rajjoub.

Venue:
CIS Lecture Hall.
NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi.

Agenda:
1- Tilawat (2:00 PM)
2- Introduction to INETA by Mr. Saqib Ilyas (2:05 PM)
3- Discussion on "Webmatrix Vs Visual Studio.NET" (2:20 PM)
4- Q/A Session (3:45 PM)
5- Road Ahead (4:00 PM)

Please email me to confirm your participation and also join our NED.NET mailing list for future updates and events news.

Hope to see you all there.

ITCN Asia 2004

2004-08-12T22:38:00.000+05:00

ITCN Asia , the biggest IT event of the country , was a major success in promoting the image of NED University, it's students and their accomplishments. The departments participating in the event included Department of Computer and Information Systems , Department of Computer Science and Department of Electronic.
The students had their projects on display and the visitors really showed great interest in them. Representing the CIS department , we displayed our final year project .IT was about LOOM Monitoring System titled LOMOS. Many professionals from the textile industry were impressed and were keen to rollout this system in their production environment .

.

ASP.NET Quick Start Tutorials

2004-08-11T19:50:00.000+05:00

The ASP.NET QuickStart is a series of ASP.NET samples and supporting commentary designed to quickly acquaint developers with the syntax, architecture, and power of the ASP.NET Web programming framework. The QuickStart samples are designed to be short, easy-to-understand illustrations of ASP.NET features. By the time you have completed the QuickStart tutorial, you will be familiar with:

ASP.NET Syntax. While some of the ASP.NET syntax elements will be familiar to veteran ASP developers, several are unique to the new framework. The QuickStart samples cover each element in detail.
ASP.NET Architecture and Features. The QuickStart introduces the features of ASP.NET that enable developers to build interactive, world-class applications with much less time and effort than ever before.
Best Practices. The QuickStart samples demonstrate the best ways to exercise the power of ASP.NET while avoiding potential pitfalls along the way.

Click here for furthur details

ASML (Abstract State Machine Langugae)

2004-08-10T22:07:00.000+05:00

I was browsing Microsoft/research site today and came across this cool language. I liked it becaused i always my-self draw/design a state machine before solving a complex problem. I am yet to downlaod it but specifications were good enough to make me write a blog entry on it. If you would like to read more about it then follow this link.

By: Hammad Rajjoub

Our INETA Pakistan blog.

2004-08-05T21:19:00.000+05:00

Please visit our INETA Pakistan blog for the details and update regarding our activity in the country.

http://blogs.ineta.org/pakistan

Learn 247.NET

2004-08-01T22:23:00.000+05:00

Looking to get up to speed with .NET development but don't know where to start? Or you're an existing .NET developer looking to get your hands on real life source code for applications? Or maybe you are the active type and want to get involved and help us shape our Visual Studio 2005 (Whidbey) content by writing applications that will be seen by thousands of people?
At Learn247.net we have put together real life solutions to help you learn what you need to be successful as a developer. Rather than find your normal training material based on short snippets of code, here you will find code based around real life solutions. If you're new to .NET or to a particular technology then that's great, we have audio presentations and PowerPoint’s to help you understand each of the technologies that we use in our end-2-end solutions. If you just want to get your hands dirty with the code then that's fine to as you can just download the entire solution and work your way through the code at your own pace...
http://www.learn247.net/

Our new country leader

2004-07-29T23:15:00.000+05:00

Today we had a INETA Pakistan all user group leaerds meeting at Avary Towers. Mr. Arsalan Minhas has hosted the meeting and there were around 10 attendies. Mr. Saqib Ilyas is selected as our new country leader for INETA's branch in Pakistan. Its quite exciting for us "Nedians" to have a country leader from our own university. I wish him best of luck for his great work as a part of NED.NET user group faculty representative and INETA Pakistan country leader.
http://www.ineta.org/mea

Seminar on ADO.NET, our next user group meeting.

2004-07-26T23:46:00.000+05:00

I would like to announce that we will be having our 4th event on ADO.NET sometime next month. I will let you know about the date and time for this event as soon as I confirm it from the faculty. I would appreciate if you spread the word among all your fellow students of your deparment and persuade them to join this mailing list for future updates. I will be distributing free 'codezone' quarterly magazines to the subscribed members of this mailing list as soon as I get them. The members will also get some more benefits as being the member of NED.NET mailing list within a few months.

http://www.ineta.org/mea

Microsoft Pakistan Developers Conference 2004

2004-07-25T19:38:00.000+05:00

You can download all the presentations that were delivered on Microsoft PDC 2004 by the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/southgulf/events/PDC/presentations.asp

Seminar on Introduction to .NET Framework

2004-07-24T21:08:00.000+05:00

SSUET.NET User Group will held a seminar on Introduction to .NET Framework at Sir Syed University Auditorium on 7 August, 2004. The event will start at around 3:30pm. For free subscription please send an email to muhammadzeeshan@ieee.org before 6 August, 2004.
See the link below for full details.
http://www.ineta.org/mea/

Suggestions for Lectures

2004-07-22T20:34:00.000+05:00

I'd like to suggest following topics for seminars:

1. ASP.NET using C#
the seminar should be aimed at proving that C# works for web technologies and should give a very simple and straight-forward method for designing and implementing something useful on the web. The details should also tell how the students can get started with free ASP.NET hosting... exactly what they need to do to get their dynamic websites up! NED students are brilliant and the idea is that you just expose them to the wonders and they'll take it to next level themselves. The target should be that 80% of the attendees should try it out and get their website up.

2. Windows Application designing using C#
In our OOP course, we've been taught about console development only. We need a basic lecture on Windows Form desinging and tools that available. Most students would not know how easy it is to make good and working Windows applications. Sure they've done some VB... but if they can see that they can do everything in C# that they could do in VB, they'll have more interest towards learning the language (don't forget .NET have had great publicity, so people know its BIG!). I think the seminar should demonstrate the design of a simple real-life application and demonstrate ListView/TreeView/Toolbars/CommonDialog and other basic things.

3. ADO.NET using C#
This should begin with introductory SQL as most of the students from CIS SE/FE are unaware of SQL. The lecture should have two demos, one which demonstrate the backend connections for Windows Applications and one for the web. Care must be taken to make it as simple as possible.

We have ASP programming in our curriculum this year. I think relevant people should be persuaded to upgrade ASP course into ASP.NET using C#. There is no point in learning a deprecated technology.

I'm available for any help you might need. I can help prepare lecture slides and maybe do one or two small lectures too, if possible.

International .NET Association

2004-07-16T23:39:00.000+05:00

The International .NET Association (INETA) provides structured, peer-based organizational, educational, and promotional support to the growing worldwide community of Microsoft® .NET user groups. Our mission is to offer assistance and resources to community groups that promote and educate their membership in Microsoft's .NET technologies. INETA welcomes all facets of the .NET user community, from developers and architects to project managers and IT professionals. Members can be user groups or special interest groups that:

1. Focus on a single aspect of .NET, such as C#
2. Target the entire .NET platform
3. Concentrate on other development technologies but are also interested in .NET

INETA is the next evolution in user group communities – a non-profit, independent organization, chartered with supporting all user groups interested in the Microsoft .NET platform. INETA is run by a board of user group leaders, elected by their peers, and supported by Microsoft Corporation and other sponsors.

Our Seminar on Java VS .NET

2004-07-16T22:01:00.000+05:00

We had our 2nd successful event on Java VS .NET on 28th of April 2004 at our university auditorium. Around 250 users attended this lecture by Mr. Adnan Farooq Hashmi. I am really thankful to our Faculty of CIS department who are very much helpful in arranging the event for us and equally thankful to the students who attended this seminar.
You can visit http://www.ineta.org/mea/events.htm for the event snaps.

About NED.NET

2004-07-16T06:50:00.000+05:00

NED.NET is a registered INETA User Group. NED.NET was founded by Zeeshan Muhammad and the faculty of NED CIS Department in June 2003. The main idea behind this group is to provide significant .NET knowledge to the students and to build a strong community.