Just got chance to look at a link I was sent a week or so ago … Microsoft UK commissioned Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant of “The Office” to do a spoof training video. The film is viewable on the page via Google Videos … very funny!! Hopefully the link sticks around for a long while!

SpiralFrog, a free music download service, is due to be launched this December. The interesting part is that they believe they can support their venture by advertising alone, and by the fact that they have signed up with Universal Music Group, must mean that the numbers sound good!

The deal is that music and video downloads are free to use for 6 months from the download. The catch is that before the download starts, the user has to watch 90 seconds of advertising.

90 seconds is a long time to be forced to wait for a download to start for each song/video … how many people will just set it going and walk away? Mind you, it’s a novel concept that I’m pretty sure will see them become a popular site … everyone loves “free”!

The answer is that in ASP.NET, static variables should be used instead of the Application object. It's something that I had never considered in terms of best practice, until I was asked this week. After a little digging on MSDN I came across the guidelines which state:

• Use static properties instead of the Application object to store application state.
• Use application state to share static, read-only data.
• Do not store STA COM objects in application state.

It comes down to the fact that the Application object is included for compatibility with classic ASP which had no application runtime like .NET.

You learn something new every day! More info can be found in the Knowledge Base article 312607.

I came across a great web site today, www.mapmyrun.com. Using Google Maps, you can plot your run on the map and then get distance and speed calculations based on the route. The geocoding support from Google isn’t there for NZ, so you can’t search by address, but there is nothing stopping you from searching for the city and moving around manually. The bit I love best, is that you can view by satellite and also via Google Earth …

If you want to see the runs that I do most often, go here

Ever wanted to know the different revenue structures used on the web? Brian Oberkirch has a great post entitled "Beyond AdSense: A Business Model Checklist". From the different options listed, it seems "Freemium" (love that term!) combined with Subscriptions is the overall favourite.

I always thought it was strange that the “Build Code Comments” feature was missing from VS2005. What with the alternative comment generators being unable to cope too well with .NET 2.0 code, we were left with little option. NDoc was the best of the lot, but still had a couple of problems with generics and it was difficult to find a good working version to tweak.

Good news however. The first CTP of Sandcastle (which I assume is just the codename) will be released by Microsoft later this month or early next.

It’s what they use internally for their MSDN content so it can’t be at all bad, although why couldn’t it have been released sooner with the launch of VS2005 I don’t know?

Interestingly too, Kevin Downs, the developer behind NDoc, has apparently announced that he is no longer going to be working on NDoc.

Update:
You can now download it from here.

It took me a while to decide on which ASP.NET hosting company to go with to host this (and future) sites. It was often difficult to make fair comparisons between company's plans being especially careful of all those hidden costs lurking in the small print! In the end, after lots of deliberation, I chose CrystalTech based in Arizona, US. CrystalTech simply provided an ASP.NET 2.0 plan and service that couldn't be matched here in NZ (a 25Mb Sql2005 database will almost double your plan cost!).

The inspiration for writing this 'recommendation' however, is that I had a problem with one of my email accounts not functioning and so I emailed support. Two minutes later I received an email response with my tracking number and a message saying that "… Our average response time for the last eight hours is 15 minutes". Sure enough, 5 minutes later I had an explanation and resolution.

Now that's service! I wouldn't have minded if it took 2, 4 or 8 hours to fix … it's the fact that I got an answer from a human being that made sense! Compare that to talking to Telecom NZ when Jetstream (broadband) goes down (which is often!), whereby after 20 minutes on hold you get some guy trying to tell you that "… maybe the wiring in your house is faulty!?!".

This is something I always forget how to do. When you use the Response stream to output a file or image, you often want the name of the stream to make sense. That way, if the user tries to save the file or image, the suggested name is what you specified.

Before ending the Response stream, add something like the following:

context.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline;filename=" + _filename + ".png");

I came across the Microsoft Office Live site today, which marks Microsoft's new drive towards an ASP (Application Service Provider) model. The emphasis is on getting small business sites up and running, complete with domain name and email registration, which will be free even after the beta period. This is great news for those businesses that don't know where to start with regards to the web, especially when the domain name registered through Office Live can be transferred if/when they outgrow it!

On top of the basics there are other paid services, based on the Office suite, to aid your business to function. I was particularly keen to try the project and sales lead tools, but unfortunately for myself and other Kiwi's, it's not available this side of the world. Hopefully soon.