Web Developer Blog

The Chinook database is a sample database that is an alternative to the Northwind sample. One of the advantages it has over Northwind is that it can be installed on SQL Server (including the Compact Edition), Oracle and MySQL. Therefore it can be used to test Object-relational mapping (ORM) frameworks (e.g. NHibernate , SubSonic etc).

Rather than type repetitive code, a code generator could be used to do it for you. MyGeneration is one such piece of software that will help. As the output is just text, you can output code in any language (ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET, PHP, JavaScript etc) - although with a bit of extra work, PDF's can be generated (using iTextSharp - which would need to be downloaded and the dll saved in the MyGeneration install folder). It can query many database types (SQL Server, Oracle, SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL and more), but a database isn't required for it to be of use. You can set up an interface (to select columns in a table for example), but it is optional. For example, to loop through columns in a database table: Template Code <% public class GeneratedTemplate : DotNetScriptTemplate { public GeneratedTemplate(ZeusContext context) : base(context) {} private string DatabaseName; private string TableName; private ITable table; private ArrayList columns; private string PrimaryKe...

Created some GIMP images that can be used as templates for creating buttons. Available in 64x64 and 256x64 sizes. Text can be altered and the background style changed (by altering visibility).

Raphaël enables you to create geometric shapes / vector images in your web page without needing to know the syntax of Vector Markup Language (VML) or Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). You can follow Raphaël on Twitter. Sample code (example from website) shows how easy it is to work with. // Creates canvas 320 × 200 at 10, 50 var paper = Raphael(10, 50, 320, 200); // Creates circle at x = 50, y = 40, with radius 10 var circle = paper.circle(50, 40, 10); // Sets the fill attribute of the circle to red (#f00) circle.attr("fill", "#f00"); // Sets the stroke attribute of the circle to white (#fff) circle.attr("stroke", "#fff"); Animation of the shapes created can also be done with it (e.g. circles into squares).