AJAX Extensions (code named Atlas, hence the book’s title) is Microsoft’s soon to be released AJAX solution. AJAX Extensions is a set of JavaScript extensions that provide partial page rendering, asynchronous callbacks and cross browser compatibility. The AJAX Extensions Control Toolkit is a library of AJAX controls that add a wide array of client-side functionality to AJAX enabled applications. All in all Microsoft’s AJAX Extensions is very impressive.

Programming Atlas by Christian Wenz is one of two books (at the time of this review) that covers this new technology and it covers it well. The author writes clearly and authoritatively and includes a wealth of background knowledge around the subject. The book is well laid out and flows well. I get the feeling that the book had to be rushed to print quickly (probably due to the need to get the information out before it became obsolete by subsequent betas and CTPs) as there are many typos throughout the book. Personally I find this forgivable because the book is well written and I would rather have the information now than without typos later. There are also a number of omissions from the book. There is no discussion of client-side exception handling, adding debugging support, logging or using alternative asynchronous postbacks routes such as the IFrameExecutor. I would also liked the section on Data Binding to have included information on creating AJAX Extension controls that support data binding (as opposed to binding to existing AJAX Extension controls). There is also no discussion on localization of AJAX Controls but this can’t be levelled as a criticism of the book because at the time of writing AJAX Extensions doesn’t have a localization model. The book also shows the nature of writing before the technology is released because the book can’t possibly be up to date with the most recent releases: the name Atlas has been replaced by AJAX Extensions, namespaces have changed and several controls have changed.

Don’t let these deficiencies put you off though. If you’re into AJAX Extensions then this is a well written and authorative book that is well worth having.

Final call for Wednesday’s 10 Things To Know Before Internationalizing Your Application presentation at VBUG in Reading (there’s a map here).

The slides for the presentation are here. The source code for all of the demos is available on the .NET Internationalization site here. Note that this is the complete source code for the book (you can build the complete source for the book with the buildall.proj msbuild file in the download). The source code for the demo program that drives the demos is here.

If you follow the demos point by point then here is a quick guide to get you to the relevant source quickly:-

Point	Source Code Folder
1. The Schizophrenic User Interface	WindowsFormsSpecifics\SchizophrenicUI
1. The Schizophrenic User Interface	ASPNETSpecifics\SchizophrenicUI
2. Localizing ASP.NET 2 Controls	ASPNETSpecifics\ASPNETControlLocalizer
3. Windows Forms Layout	BestPractices\TableLayoutPanelDemo
4. Strongly Typed Resources	See Slides
5. Localizing Exception Messages	BestPractices\ExceptionMessages
6. Extending The CultureInfo Class	Globalization\CultureInfoExExample
7. Uses For Custom Cultures	CustomCultures\CustomCultureExamples
8. Pseudo Translation	WindowsFormsSpecifics\TranslatedApplication
9. Machine Translation	MachineTranslation\TranslationEvaluator
10. Testing Internationalization	TestingInternationalization\GlobalizationRules

In the opening session of the VBUG Conference this week Mark Anderson conducted a quick poll of the audience and I jotted down some very rough results that you might find interesting. Bear in mind that this is the Visual Basic User Group so the root of its membership is Visual Basic developers. Of the 150 (approx) attendees in this session 10 people are still using Visual Basic 6, 50% of the audience use Visual Studio 2003 and 60% of the audience use Visual Studio 2005 (obviously the overlap is because some people use both).

Until recently I had always installed Vista in a Virtual Machine and everything had worked well because (a) the cozy environment provided for virtual machines hides them from the harsh reality of real hardware and (b) I was using it to investigate Vista and didn’t have to install everything that I needed for my host machine. Last week I installed Vista RC1 as the host operating system and I thought others might benefit from hearing some of the issues I encountered.

• Vista didn’t recognize my hard disk - At first Vista refused to recognize my hard disk and I was unable to find a suitable driver for it. After much searching I decided to install Windows XP from scratch and then let Vista upgrade it and all was well.


• Virtual PC 2004 - VPC2004 doesn’t run on Vista. The solution is either to use Virtual Server 2003 or the beta of Virtual PC 2007.


• Visual Studio 2003 - Visual Studio 2003 isn’t supported on Vista but it can be made to work. The user account that you run in isn’t in the debugger group so to debug you need to run as administrator. You also need to install Frontpage Server Extensions if you use ASP.NET.


• Various utilities for my Toshiba Qosmio G20 laptop don’t run in Vista - Toshiba don’t have solutions for these yet.


• Norton Antivirus/Norton Systemworks - These don’t work in Vista. Symantec say that a free upgrade will be released (for the latest versions of their tools) when Vista ships. Until then you have to use another AV tool.


• Visual Studio 2005 - You are advised to upgrade to VS2005 Service Pack 1. You also need to Run as Administrator for various parts of VS2005 to work. Unfortunately this means running as a different account so there are some differences in behaviour due to the nature of running as a separate account.


• Adobe Acrobat Printer - I have been unable to get the Adobe Acrobat Printer driver to install on Vista. This is part of Adobe Acrobat Professional and allows me to convert PPT files to PDF. I don’t have a solution for this at present.


• Shutdown - I am used to using Ctrl+Esc, U, U to shut down a PC. This key combination doesn’t work on Vista. Instead use Alt+F4 when the desktop is focused. (Use the Windows Key with D to focus the desktop).


• Vista and Projection Equipment - This is the biggest problem for me. Vista doesn’t like projection equipment. I was at VBUG this week at the Microsoft Campus in Reading and I was using the same laptop with the same projection equipment that has worked just fine for a long time. It didn’t work with Vista. I could get the laptop to output to the projector but the laptop’s own display refused to work in this mode. Other people had similar problems with Vista. However, still others (inc. Mike Taulty) had no problems with Vista. My solution in the end was to use my old Windows XP hard disk that I brought in case of emergencies. I am feeling very smug with my level of preparedness right now.


I think you should read this as a list of teething problems and not as any critique of Vista because clearly it doesn’t mention the wealth of new features that Vista offers. I offer it in case it saves someone else some grief getting up and running with Vista.