I love free things, especially books. If you are developer, then you will be interested in these. A few are ebooks from Microsoft, but at least a the others are from other good trustworthy sources, notably Karl Seguin and The DZone RefCards.

Have a look. Download at your leisure. Definitely read them

7 Freely available E-Books/Guides I found essential for .NET Programmers and Architects : Amazedsaint's .net journal

I love free stuff. And as a developer, I love free stuff from my favorites companies... So here is a collection of 60 free controls from DevExpress. All you need to do is register on their site.

Once you register, you will be forwarded a confirmation email with instructions on how to access your user account. With this information in hand, you will be able to download, install, and use all the controls and tools listed above free of charge. The applications you create with these controls can be distributed royalty free (see the EULA that accompanies the products for more information).

Good stuff. get them while they are hot

Sketchflow is a wonderful tool from Microsoft for prototyping websites and web applications. It is built on top of Expression Blend, part of the Microsoft Expression Studio. From the article:

…SketchFlow is part of Microsoft’s Expression Studio range of design tools. After a lackluster history with design tools, Microsoft seems to be finally getting their act together with Expression Studio (disclaimer: I’ve previously worked at Microsoft). Expression Studio is up to its third release and comprises four or five products depending on how you count them:

• Expression Blend: For building user interfaces for Silverlight, Windows, and Surface.

• Expression Blend SketchFlow (part of Blend): For prototyping user interfaces.

• Expression Web: For building user interfaces for web standards.

• Expression Design: For creating graphic assets for the Web or Silverlight, Windows, and Surface.

• Expression Encoder: For preparing video assets for the Web or Silverlight, Windows, and Surface.

This article walks the reader through how to rapidly prototype a web application using SketchFlow. I suggest heading over to the site and reading the full article. And be sure to read to the bottom of page 2 for some great links to other SketchFlow resources… Now to fire up Blend and give this one a try!

Rapid Prototyping with SketchFlow

I found this posted over on TheServerSide.NET. Yes, it’s a couple of years old now, but it's still a good resource if you are not up to speed on LINQ (like me). It consists of a series of links (no pun intended) to a variety of resources, including word docs, webcasts, code samples, etc.

From the site:

Language changes are a two-edged sword, as learning cuts into your time but sharpens and future-proofs your skills. Some new features are minor and can be gradually integrated into your routine, while others quickly impact your approach to coding.

LINQ (Language Integrated Query) is a set of .NET framework extensions that will definitely impact how C# and VB developers work with data in the future. These extensions provide a way to natively query any type of data without having to resort to other languages such as SQL or XQuery.

This learning guide provides a quick look at the LINQ extensions and the upcoming release of C# 3.0 in general.

Table of Contents

• General information
• Articles
• Webcasts
• Downloads
• Code Samples
• Community

Click on over to the original article for all the LINQ goodness!

Enterprise .NET Community: C# 3.0/LINQ Learning Guide

What a great idea! A lot of companies create custom error pages so that you don’t see the ugly, default error page that comes with the web server that runs their site. When I say ugly, I mean… UGLY.

Many of them style it to look like their site so that there is consistency in the site.

I stumbled upon this awesome idea from Scott Hanselman that is not only a good idea, but easy to implement. Click on through to the article to learn how to put your error pages to work for good. And always, if you need help getting this into YOUR website, give Dash Technical Solutions a call and we’ll do our best to help you out!

Put Missing Kids on your 404 Page - Entirely Client-Side Solution with YQL, jQuery, and MSAjax

I’m not going to repeat the whole list here, but I thought it would be beneficial to my customers and peers to have this information, if they don’t already.

This is a great list of small things you can do to to :

1. Effectively market to your target audience (Copywriting)
2. Make your site easier to use (Usability)
3. Make  your site easier to find (Search Engine Optimization)
4. Make your site easier to use for visitors with disabilities (Accessibility)
5. Make your site attractive (Design)
6. Keep your site safe and protect its content (Legal)

It’s a good read. I just bookmarked it (well I also blogged about it, so I know exactly where to find it in the future…)

101 Five-Minute Fixes to Incrementally Improve Your Web Site - Inside CRM

Below is a list of galleries to get inspiration from. I’m a recent convert from the “use HTML and spacer gifs as a way to control layout” way of thinking to the CSS way of thinking.

Have a look. There’s some good stuff here. If you are a dyed-in-the-wool old-school tables kind of person, then it may take a bit to get you to see the beauty of CSS and get your head around how it all works. There is still room for tables but tables WITH CSS, is a thing of beauty.

Take a look at this link as well, which describes some of the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches: http://www.mardiros.net/css-layout.html