Jeevan Murkoth

I am sure that most of you have heard about or have had a chance to use Google Maps. It's a great service and I was really impressed by the responsiveness of the application and the ease with which users could drag and zoom maps from a Web browser. It has in many ways heralded the arrival of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), which I am sure will revitalize Web development in the days to come. What makes the service even better is the availability of the Google Maps API (Application Programming Interface) as a free Beta service. The API allows developers to embed Google Maps in their custom applications. It also allows them to overlay information on the map and customize the map to their needs. As I write this article there are quite a few sites that utilize Google Maps, and more and more of them are appearing by the day. The API by itself is pretty straightfor... (more)

Master Pages in ASP.NET 2.0

Since the advent of Web development, Web developers have sought a way to provide a consistent look and feel across the Web application. This pursuit has resulted in different custom solutions. With the introduction of master pages in ASP.NET 2.0, Microsoft has finally brought the support to the framework level and has given the developers what they have been asking for. Master pages, as the name suggests, allow the developer to define the layout in a single page and easily apply the layout to multiple pages across the Web site, thereby ensuring a consistent appearance. This artic... (more)

A Primer on Microsoft Atlas

Ever since the advent of the Internet, Web applications have lagged behind desktop applications in terms of interactivity and responsiveness. One of the biggest drawbacks in the conventional Web model has been the cycle of inactivity between the user request and the server response. Reducing this period of inactivity has been the point of focus for any developer who wants to improve the responsiveness of Web applications and raise the user experience to levels offered by desktop applications. AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is one of the approaches that help Web developer... (more)

ASP.NET 1.X and ASP.NET 2.0 Compilation Models

The introduction of ASP.NET in 2002 signified a big change in Microsoft server-side technologies for building Web sites. It represented a shift from the interpreted Active Server pages (ASP) to compiled ASP.NET pages. The compiled ASP.NET Web applications were much faster than the interpreted ASP applications and presented the developer with a variety of advantages, one of them being dynamic compilation. Dynamic compilation allows ASP.NET to automatically detect changes, compile the changed files, and store them for future use. It also ensures that the applications are up to dat... (more)

XAML - The Next Step in Building Windows User Interfaces

XAML, pronounced "zammel," stands for Extensible Application Markup Language, which made its first appearance during PDC 2003, when Microsoft unveiled its next version of Windows, known as Longhorn. XAML is a part of the new Windows API, codenamed Avalon, which in turn is part of Longhorn. Avalon presents a major jump in the user interface capabilities of Windows and promises ease of use for the developer and a much richer user interaction for the end user. Avalon is said to have support for advanced 2D and 3D vector graphics. In this article, I will take a look at what XAML is, ... (more)