Here is a good link from JoeOn.net which is a series of tutorials on Windows Workflow Foundation


http://joeon.net/post/2008/02/Windows-Workflow-Foundation-Tutorial-Series.aspx

Another good link is (always from ) ScottGu’s Blog:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/08/31/Windows-Workflow-Foundation.aspx

Microsoft project code named “Velocity” is a distributed in-memory caching platform that provides .NET applications with high-speed access, scaling, and high availability to application data.

“Velocity” is a distributed in-memory application cache platform for developing scalable, available, and high-performance applications. Using “Velocity,” applications can store any serializable CLR object without concern for where the object gets stored because data is cached across multiple computers. “Velocity” allows copies of data to be stored across the cache cluster, protecting data against failures. It can be configured to run as a service accessed over the network or can be run embedded with the distributed application. “Velocity” includes an ASP.NET session provider object enabling storage of ASP.NET session objects in the distributed cache without having to write to databases, which increases the performance and scalability of ASP.NET applications.

More information here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/velocity
You can download the CTP - Community Technology Preview 1 here

Here is a useful link on “C# 3.0 New Features” - by Dhaval Faria (Microsoft MVP).


URL: http://www.learnitonweb.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?contId=4&page=1

Following is the list of new features that he explained in this article:

1 - Automatic Properties
2 - Object Initializers
3 - Collection Initializers
4 - Implicitly Typed Local Variables and Implicitly Typed Arrays
5 - Extension Methods
6 - Lambda Expressions and Expression Trees
7 - Query Expressions
8 - Anonymous Types

Enterprise Library is a collection of application blocks intended for use by developers who build complex, enterprise-level applications. Enterprise Library is used when building applications that are typically to be deployed widely and to interoperate with other applications and systems. In addition, they generally have strict security, reliability, and performance requirements. The goals of Enterprise Library are the following:

Consistency. All Enterprise Library application blocks feature consistent design patterns and implementation approaches.

Extensibility. All application blocks include defined extensibility points that allow developers to customize the behavior of the application blocks by adding their own code.

Ease of use. Enterprise Library offers numerous usability improvements, including a graphical configuration tool, a simpler installation procedure, and clearer and more complete documentation and samples.

Integration. Enterprise Library application blocks are designed to work well together or individually.

Enterprise Library is a collection of reusable software components (application blocks) designed to assist software developers with common enterprise development challenges (such as logging, validation, caching, exception handling, and many others). Application blocks are a type of guidance encapsulating Microsoft recommended development practices; they are provided as source code plus documentation that can be used “as is,” extended, or modified by developers to use on complex, enterprise-level line-of-business development projects.

Get more information about Enterprise Libray from these links:

* MSDN site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/entlib
* Community Forum: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=119312
* Community Extensions: http://codeplex.com/entlibcontrib

Here is a sample code in c# to convert a file with UTF-7 encoding to ISO-8859-1 encoding. You can change these values to make any to any converter.

 
            Encoding FromEnc =  Encoding.UTF7; // from
            Encoding ToEnc = Encoding.GetEncoding(“ISO-8859-1″); //to
            TextReader tr = new StreamReader(@“C:\from.html”, FromEnc);
            TextWriter tw = new StreamWriter(@“C:\to.html”,false, ToEnc);
            tw.Write(tr.ReadToEnd());
            tr.Close();
            tw.Close();

Make sure you imported System.IO.

The .NET Framework 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the .NET 3.5 Enhancement features including: ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, ASP.NET AJAX History, ASP.NET Silverlight controls, ADO.NET Data Services and ADO.NET Entity Framework.

The .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training kit builds on the success of the Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit which resulted in 70,000 completed downloads since being released in November. These training kits provide a way for developers to grasp the breadth of the entire release, as well as dive deep into a specific technology.

The .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit covers the technologies in the .NET 3.5 SP1 release and the out of band releases that are a part of the same wave, namely ASP.NET MVC and the ASP.NET Silverlight controls. Currently, the training kit contains six hands-on labs, made up of the following technologies:

1) ADO.NET Data Services
2) ADO.NET Entity Framework
3) ASP.NET AJAX History
4) ASP.NET Dynamic Data
5) ASP.NET MVC
6) ASP.NET Silverlight controls


All six labs contained within the kit have been tested and validated by customers during two .NET 3.5 SP1 training workshops held in Redmond. We will continue to receive customer and field feedback on the labs and incorporate the feedback into future iterations. There will also be new versions of the training kit with additional content, including presentations, demo scripts and screencasts.


You can download the training kit at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8719735

My “Beginner’s WPF Animation Tutorial” articke on CodeProject available at http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/WPFAnimation.aspx



(I reported this here earlier with another link which was under - non-edited contributions of codeproject)

There is a good article on DataSets vs. Collections by Dino Esposito

If you read this article, you will start using (Generics) Collections instead of DataSet/DataTable for database access.


Here is the URL: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163751.aspx

C# 3.0 Language Specification Word Document can be downloaded at http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/5/0/9503e33e-fde6-4aed-b5d0-ffe749822f1b/csharp%203.0%20specification.doc

Same way, you can download Visual Basic 9.0 Language Specification at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=102846