Using my IFRAME tooltip with ASP.NET

Just posted an article on using my IFRAME tooltip to show webforms. The article discusses how it can be used to show a 'details page' for every row of a datagrid/datagridview inside a tooltip.

http://ashishware.com/WebfrmTooltip.shtml

Sometimes it might just not be convenient to show dynamic content using 'innerHTML' property of a floating container. This may be useful in scenarios for incorporating tooltip feature for already designed grid/details pages.

My Photo in MS Originals Gallery !

I am famous ! Just found my photo in Microsoft's Originals Gallery.

Check out yourself !

I hope you are able to locate me in the gallery* .
[*Hint: Enter my yahoo email id in the search.]

Uploaded another tooltip script !

Last week, I uploaded yet another tooltip javascript. This time it was the ' IFRAME based Javascript Tooltip'. It can be very useful to show full webpages inside a tooltip. This also solves the problem of DIV hovering a SELECT(drop down) in older versions of Internet Explorer.

This tooltip support all features of my previous DIV based tooltip, with only exception that it accepts a URL instead of 'innerHTML' string for showing content.

Check out the script in action and notes on using it here:
http://ashishware.com/IfrmToolTip.shtml

Buy a gadget and do some charity !

XO Laptop (One laptop for a child project) would be sale for two weeks in US. It comes for around USD 400. The deal is when you buy one for USD 400 , you spend 200 on your laptop and another 200 for laptop which would be donated to a child in poor country.

These laptops have been specifically made for children and for extreme conditions in poor countries. Though they are not as powerful as the commercial once, still they do have some nice functionality like Wifi, mesh networking, Linux, 6 hour battery ..etc .

Here is a nice video review about the same .

Now think of this, you could at least use it as a e-book reader or a cool PDA. Considering cost of such devices is around USD 200-300 in market, it’s a nice thing to buy. Also you can claim a tax-deduction on USD 200 you spent for charity.

This is their website:
http://www.xogiving.org/
http://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtml (Philosophy behind the project)

Ok, if you are thinking that this could help children in India, the answer unfortunately is 'no'. India has said 'NO' to such laptops (as it happens with many good things in India…no points for guessing 'why?' ). But still not a bad deal.

I am definitely curious to know how it fares as a PDA and/or ebook reader !

Writing my first Rails Application

Started work on writing my first RoR (Ruby on Rails) application a week back. Its a simple multiuser bug logging system.

Rails as a framework looks great. It does save lot of development time, only if you know how exactly to do things. Scaffolding generated views are also very cool, but to me it doesn't look very useful in practical scenario, since you will invariably find yourself rearranging fields or design of the view. But I am definitely impressed with ORM feature included with Rails. This is the first time I am using ORM, and I think the time it saves can be invaluable for certain types of projects. There are also some goodies like AJAX, DojoToolkit can be combined with Rails.
It took me some time to figure out how things work in rails. Also since I am new to Ruby, I had to go online many a times to get help.

I am very excited with prospects of being able to create very useful and robust applications in no time once I master Ruby and Rails. Right now this little application that I am making is a great learning experience for me.

Screenshot of 'Create new bug' screen.

Google Gears ! ... Looks Interesting

Google Gears assists you to create web applications that can work in offline mode. Gears is one of the first such tool to make this happen. With amount of javascript code being written increasing every day, one day web apps will be made on top of web services with javascript front end. You need to be as good with javascript as you are with ASP.NET, PHP or Ruby ! One more language to learn.

Cool ASP.NET Validators !

Uploaded an article on enhancing ASP.NET client side validators using AJAX Control Toolkit. The example discussed in the article shows how to add validation callouts to every control and show list of errors in a modal dialog box with translucent background.

Read the article here : http://ashishware.com/ASPValid.shtml

Dojo Book 0.9 Released

The Dojotoolkit is open source javascript toolkit for creating next generation web applications. As a part of documentation project for the upcoming version the Dojo Book 0.9 has been released.

You will find my name displayed , as a contributor on the book's home page. I have written the section on Drag and Drop API. Once Dojo 0.9 is hosted for public, it will be possible to view live demos of my examples in the book! Try out Dojo and ask your friends to do so!

This is my first shot at working with the open source community. A bit of personal achievement for me.

Looking forward to make more contributions (and learning many new things!).

My Dream Gadget !

I am thinking of buying a new gadget. Maybe you can help me. I am looking for below mentioned features. Do you know of any gadget (mobile/laptop/tablet/handheld) that is a close match for my needs?

If yes, do drop a comment.

• Wifi : For wireless internet.
• Size : at least half the size of laptop.
• TV Out : This I think can be a great feature for viewing videos, surfing playing games.
• Full HTML Browser : Yes, preferably some port of FireFox with javascript.
• Operation System : Linux or any other. SDK should be available. Open source stuff preferred.
• Games : It should be powerful enough to run some of older 3D games like Doom. Ability to run emulators like MAME would be awesome. Should allow connecting upto 2 wireless joysticks for multiplayer gaming.
• Connectivity : Bluetooth would be required. There should be ways of attaching a pointing device (mouse) and QWERTY keyboard via some kind of interface. It should be able to turn into a small computer if required. It could even have a couple of USB ports for attaching joysticks or other hardware.
• Screen : Should be wide enough for displaying descent length lines of text. Even if it can display 10 such lines, I think it can be used for reading ebooks.
• Multimedia : Ability to play audio and video files of common formats. Flash player could also be a great addition.
• Storage : Mini SD cards up to max limit (2 GB I think). Having a hard drive would be really cool.
• Price : Okay, this one is important :. Should cost around $200 – 350 (Rs. 8000 – 15000)

Fun with Silverlight !

Have been working with Silverlight since last month. Its a really cool thing and has lot of potential. Posted an article on the 'CodeProject.com' on creating real time AJAX line graphs with silverlight.

You can read it here : http://www.codeproject.com/silverlight/Silverlight_AJAX_Graph.asp

It can have many applications in Web 2.0 applications. Planning to do more interesting things with Silverlight.