Community 2.0 published on AspAlliance

I've be longing to share this incredible content with you for what seems like months now. After a lengthy review process- most of which was just waiting for an open publication date- my whitepaper on "community 2.0" has been published on the popular AspAlliance website. This whitepaper grew out of an internal effort at Telerik to effectively understand and describe what it takes to build a strong, thriving community. The research in the paper was so compelling, though, that I couldn't resist making it available to the community for broad consumption.

What is community 2.0? I assure you I am not out to create yet another "2.0" version of a common word (Business 2.0, you'll be missed?). Rather, this paper methodically examines the elements of many popular "web 2.0" sites that have thriving online communities. What did Digg and Wikipedia do correctly to grow their communities that others like Netscape failed to do? Through my research, three simple and easy to understand principles emerge that connect the success of online communities, and by these principles you'll have the best chance at creating your own successful online socials.

If you have a site or business and you want to create a community, this paper is a must read. Check it out on the AspAlliance site, tell your friends, and then let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy my latest publication.

WinForms controls on dnrTV

Here's another hot news item that I didn't deliver to you on time. A little more than a week ago I sat down (virtually, of course) with .NET celeb Carl Franklin to film a new episode of dnrTV all about Telerik's RadControls for WinForms. The episode was released late on October 12th, but it is still on the homepage of dnrTV at the time of this writing.

What is dnrTV? For those that have never seen it, dnrTV delivers Camtasia captured screen casts of conversations that Carl has with a vast array of guests from the .NET world. The WinForms episode that we "filmed" comes in a series of dnrTV episodes focusing on various .NET products. But unlike unfettered internally produced web casts on .NET products, dnrTV episodes benefit from the candid and insightful questions that Carl delivers to guests- often the questions you wish you could ask while watching a web cast.

Either way, it was fun to shoot and it is a great way to learn about what Telerik is doing in the WinForms space if you still have yet to check it out. And without giving too much away, I have some pretty big news regarding WinForms learned at VSIP that I'm going to try to share later this week. I guarantee it will surprise you. Until then, check out the dnrTV episode and look for more content like this in the future.

Telerik Watch celebrates 1 year

As I was composing my last post explaining the uncommon week of silence on this blog, I realized that in all the preparation for the VSIP Summit and the recovery from DevReach I missed a very important event: the first birthday of the Telerik Watch blog! That's right, you've been enjoying this fine publication for over a year now. The first post, dated October 11, 2006, set the stage for what has been a very successful blog- thanks in no small part to you, the outstanding and loyal audience.

Time marches forward, though, and I look forward to bringing you another great year of content. When I originally started this blog, Paul Thurott's WinSuperSite was a big inspiration and I aimed to deliver the same in-depth attention for Telerik products that he delivered for Microsoft. Since then, a few things have changed. Most notably, I was hired full-time by Telerik in early 2007. I also started contributing to two additional blogs: Telerik.com Blogs and ASP.NET Weblogs. Needless to say, this blog has adopted a much more casual approach of brining you the latest Telerik and industry news while leaving more in-depth content for other venues.

Is that what you want? I want to know. I'm starting a new poll that will run for the next couple of weeks on the side of this blog asking you to submit your opinion: should Telerik Watch keep on keepin' on or should it start running more in-depth content? With your feedback, we'll build on the success of 2007 and march boldly in to 2008, delivering content you enjoy reading.

Happy birthday Telerik Watch!

The week the blog stood still

Since it's introduction almost over a year ago (can you believe that?!), not a single week has passed where this blog didn't bring you something new. Over 200 posts later with a continually growing audience- thanks as always to you for reading- this blog had it's first week of silence last week. It wasn't to make a point and it certainly wasn't due to a dearth of good news to share. Rather, I was in Redmond, Washington enjoying the annual Visual Studio Integration Partner (or VSIP) Summit and simply didn't have the time I needed to bring you your regularly scheduled, high quality, Telerik Watch posts.

But I am back now and have plenty of news items to share. Much of what we learned at VSIP is under Microsoft NDA, so I'm afraid I can't bring you a lot of news from that event (yet), but there is plenty of fun stuff to share in the meantime. Expect quite a few posts this week as I try to catch-up and bring you back up to speed on the world of Telerik and its surrounding environment. I hope you enjoyed your week off and used the time to catch-up on your "guilty pleasure" RSS feeds- Engadget, Joystiq, you know the ones. As for this blog, it's time to get back to your regularly scheduled content.

.NET Rocks WPF Panel

One of the fun little activities that took place at the recent DevReach conference in Bulgaria was a panel discussion on the current state of WPF. The panel featured Tim Huckaby, Brian Noyes, and yours truly (and the famous .NET Rocks hosts, of course) discussing the merits of WPF, dispelling some of the myths, and clarifying some of the misconceptions about designer tools available for WPF. Tim brought to the table excellent first hand experience using WPF to deliver solutions; Brian brought an incredible depth of technical WPF knowledge; I brought a unique perspective that needs a little introduction.

Ever since joining the "programming world" about 6 years ago, I have been reluctant to mention my "hidden" past as a graphic designer. Yes, that's right. I'm the artist in the room of engineers. For years I did freelance logo design, brand development, and designs for all variety of print projects. I cut my proverbial computer teeth on Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop, and the Macromedia design products. In fact, in my early hunt for colleges RISD (Rhode Island School of Design or "riz-dee" for the initiated) and similar topped my list of interests.

"What in the world are you doing in programming?!" say you. Glad you asked. I may be an "artist" but I am also thoroughly pragmatic. I had no intention of becoming a "starving artist". With entrepreneurship in my blood, Texas A&M's highly ranked business school replaced my desire to go hang with hippie artists and involvement in the school's Student Council lead me to programming. An ugly (and I mean ugly) ASP application was dropped in my lap one day and I didn't run away. Quite the opposite. The web suddenly became my playground for building things and it gave me a venue to continue to flex my graphic designer muscles.

The rest (as everybody says) is history. I spent much of my own time learning as much as I could about building things for the web- ASP Classic, ASP.NET 1.x, ASP.NET 2, and now about 5,000 different Microsoft platforms. I never left my designer roots, though, so when Microsoft starts touting tools that "designers will love" my ears perk up.

I'll let you uncover my opinions on that marketing message in the .NET Rocks episode. Either way, that's my true background and the source of my unique perspective on this panel. Hopefully you'll enjoy the new point of view.

Silverlight Short Cut giveaway winners

The time has come to announce the two lucky winners of the Silverlight 1.1 Short Cut giveaway. Today our winners will be taking home one fabulous prize...A NEW CAR PDF (so it's not quite as exciting as The Price Is Right). The Silverlight 1.1 Short Cut covers everything you need to know to get up to speed on Silverlight, how 1.0 compares to 1.1, and how to use the tools that are available today for working with this alpha technology. An updated version will also be available soon that corrects a few last minute errors in the copy, so check your O'Reilly downloads page later next week to get the latest version.

And with that, my ability to stall the naming of the winners has run out. The same technique used to select the Learning Guide winners was applied here, so thank the random atmospheric noise if your number doesn't get called. And the winnings numbers are...
Clayton Powell and Asit...come on down. Send an email to todd[dot]anglin[at]telerik.[youKnowWhat] to get your free copies of the Short Cut. Thanks to everybody who took time to play; I promise there will be more fun giveaways in the near future. And don't forget, have your pets spayed or neutered.

Q2 2007 SP1s released

Landing just a few weeks after the original Q2 launch and a day later than planned, the first round of service packs for the Q2 2007 release is now online. Updates have been released for the RadControls for ASP.NET, RadControls "Prometheus", and Reporting; an update for RadControls for WinForms should be available later today. These service packs address a slew of bugs reported across all of the product lines and add a few new features along the way. You can get the complete scoop by reading the release notes for each product:

• RadControls for ASP.NET Release Notes
• RadControls "Prometheus" Release Notes (update coming soon)
• RadControls for WinForms Release Notes (update coming soon)
  
• Telerik Reporting Release Notes
  

Jump over to your Client.net accounts and download the latest bits to get your applications running on the latest Telerik release. There will be one more service pack released for the ASP.NET and WinForms controls before Q3 in December, so keep sending your feedback and we'll do our best to solve any of your issues.

Sitefinity 3.1 released

While a little late out of the gate, Sitefinity 3.1 is now officially available for your consumption. If you've been following along on this blog, then you already know most of what's new in the major Sitefinity update: site search, forums module, new page edit mode, and so on. There are at least 8 new major features by my count, so this should be a no brainer update if you're using Sitefinity 3.0. That said, there are a few issues with some of the new features to watch out for. The release notes clearly identify these issues, so take a quick look over there while you're upgrading to understand what will be fixed in an ensuing service pack.

I know I previously promised some screenshots of the new features, and I still plan to deliver those soon. Travel to DevReach in Bulgaria and VSIP in Redmond is making it difficult to get everything online as fast as I'd like, but the Sitefinity tasks are high on my list. Until then, download your own copy and let us know what you think of the upgrade!

Silverlight 1.1 Short Cut published, win a copy

This is a very exciting news item that I have been eager to share. After weeks of writing and rounds of editing, Telerik has just published a new O'Reilly Short Cut covering all the ins and outs of Silverlight 1.1 Alpha. This short 76 page book was written by yours truly along with a lot of help from the brains that make up the Telerik Silverlight Team. It is a great primer for anyone looking to get up to speed on Silverlight and the tools that are available to work with it. We've worked very hard to produce a resource that is easy to read and full of helpful information, and we've involved some of the brightest minds in Silverlight- Jesse Liberty and Adam Kinney- to make sure everything is accurate. The short cut is available as a downloadable PDF from O'Reilly's site for $9.99. To help celebrate its release, though, I'll be giving away two copies next week. To win, simply leave a comment on this post telling us the reason you're most looking forward to Silverlight 1.1. Will it enable you to build new types of applications? Is there something you've always wanted to do that Silverlight will finally enable? Tell us and win. Standard rules apply to the contest (only one post will be entered per person, blah, blah). All entries must be made by midnight (GMT +6) next Thursday (October 11) to be eligible in the drawing. Enjoy the new resource and good luck!

Q2 2007 SP1 coming next week

As with all major releases, there are always a few features that don't make the release date or have bugs that need to be quickly addressed. Handling that for the recent Q2 2007 release is the first service pack due to hit the streets late next week. This service pack will address bugs and issues reported since September 19th and will add a few new features to some of the RadControl components. Among the controls getting the most improvement in the upcoming service pack is RadEditor "Prometheus". We know there has been a fair amount of confusion surrounding this beta product and some of its missing/broken features, but hopefully SP1 will start to fix that problem.

Meanwhile, some exciting initiatives are underway at Telerik that should make the bug reporting and status tracking process easier for you to follow. This program is still being developed, so the details are thin at this point, but expect some updates in a few months. When it is complete, it should be much easier for subscription holders to track the status of the bugs/issues/enhancement requests they submit to Telerik.

Until then, stay tuned to this blog and watch for an announcement next week regarding SP1.

DevReach 2007 recap

This has been a light blogging week for me, largely because I'm still in Sofia trying to recover from the nightly DevReach 2007 parties. But while the parties were good, the conference was great. In its second annual appearance in the capital city of Bulgaria, DevReach 2007 brought in an amazing array of great speakers to educate .NET developers in eastern Europe. I joined big names in the .NET world like Richard Campbell, Carl Franklin, Stephen Forte, and Tim Huckaby to put on over 40 sessions in two days. Hundreds of developers attended the conference helping make it a big success and solidifying the stature of DevReach as a major international .NET conference.

Slides, demo code, and pictures from the event should be available online in the next week or so. Check the event site for updates and links to the downloads. There will also be a DVD produced that has all of the DevReach sessions (video and audio), slides, and code coming soon. I'll provide more details on that when they're available.

All in all, everyone seemed to have a great time and talks about doing this again next year are already underway. If you missed the fun in 2007, start clearing your calendar in 2008 because this is an event you don't want to miss!

Visual Studio 2008 not launching until 2008

Say what? After what seems like months and months of "it'll be here before the end of the year", there seems to be official confirmation that Visual Studio 2008 will not be launched until 2008. February 27th to be exact. In what's being called the "Global Launch Wave", Microsoft will launch Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008 at the same time in February at what is sure to be an over the top party in Los Angeles (they had to use that PDC credit somehow). There are even widgets being supplied for your website and for Vista to help you keep track of the countdown.

Now, apparently I am very late in noticing this announcement since the news was originally published in early July. I think that I've seen Microsoft insiders still reference a late 2007 Visual Studio release since July, but clearly I must be crazy. That or they are referencing a potential November RTM release for MSDN and Technet subscribers (a la Vista). Either way, the date is very official and you can put off plans of working with retail VS 2008 'til at least February. Am I the only one who missed this?

Sitefinity 3.1 beta released

Amidst all of the activity surrounding the Q2 release last week, the Sitefinity team managed to hit a new milestone by shipping the first public beta of Sitefinity 3.1. This beta previews many of the new features that that will be introduced in the 3.1 update. I can't believe that I haven't shared a list of these improvements with you on this blog yet, so without delay let me highlight some of the cool new things coming to Sitefinity:

• New module: Forums
• Categories and tags added to Blogs, News, and Generic Content (finally!)
• New! Site search added
• New page edit mode
• Improved editors for Toolbox controls
• Templates to help jumpstart new projects
• Integrated ActiveDirectory support

There's a lot in this update, so if you're a Sitefinity developer you should definitely start checking things out with the beta. If you still haven't taken the time to kick the proverbial tires, now is a great time to start. Setup your own personal website in no time with Sitefinity Community Edition and discover how easy it is to work with this .NET CMS. It really is as easy as working with a "normal" .NET website- something you can't say about all .NET CMS products.

I'll be posting some pictures of the new Sitefinity features later this week, so stay tuned for more updates. Until then, give the beta a try and share your feedback/bug reports in the forums.

Survey says: most developers waiting for Silverlight 1.1

In a completely non-scientific straw poll conducted on Telerik Watch over the last two weeks, the overwhelming majority of respondents said they will be waiting for Silverlight 1.1 before doing any serious Silverlight development. This is in sync with my general belief and statements

that Silverlight 1.0 is more or less a "placeholder" release for Silverlight 1.1 in most developer's minds. Sure there are some big Microsoft partners releasing Silverlight 1.0-based applications, but the real goal of Silverlight 1.0 is to start generating the all important install base for the auto-updating Silverlight plug-in. The serious use of Silverlight on many sites is going to depend heavily on Microsoft's ability to quickly distribute their plug-in to a large percentage of Internet users.

I'm not suggesting that Silverlight 1.0 doesn't have any merit. If you look at the "large partners" implementing Silverlight applications this year you'll find a lot of interesting media-centric applications- MLB, WWE, HSN. And that's about all you'll find. Silverlight 1.0 is a great web-based video player, but a lot of business applications aren't looking for fancy video players. Instead, business developers are waiting for Silverlight 1.1 before they really place a lot of weight in this new platform.

But don't take my word for it. The survey says it all.

Q2 2007 Released!

After months of waiting, the second major release of 2007 is official and available on Telerik.com. This release is packed with new features, new controls, and loads of performance improvements. Many of the details of this release have been known for a while now, but let's just review some of the major items we shipped today:

• New controls: RadScheduler, RadCalendar for WinForms
• Major updates: RadEditor "Prometheus", RadGrid 5 for ASP.NET, RadChart for all products, RadGridView for WinForms
• New "Prometheus" controls: RadCalendar, RadChart, RadEditor, RadInput, RadWindow
• New Telerik Reporting with integrated wizard and parameters
• New CAB Enabling kit for WinForms
• Overhauled WinForms demos application (with new carousel navigation built on Telerik Presentation Framework)
• Tons of new documentation for all product lines (online tomorrow)

And that doesn't include the work were doing on Sitefinity, which will see its second major release of the year next week. Clearly things are busy at Telerik as we work hard to bring you the tools you need to make your lives as developers easier. A lot of work has been done for this release- there are over 8 pages of release notes for "Prometheus" and 12 pages of release notes for WinForms alone- and we hope that you enjoy the improvements.

Get started with the controls right now by jumping over to your Client.net downloads page, and then visit the Telerik.com forums to let us know what you think. Now, on to Q3!

RadChart Q2 improvements

While we wait on the finishing touches to be applied to the Q2 2007 release, let's take a closer look at one of the controls that is getting some big improvements this cycle. I briefly mentioned some of the new features coming to RadChart a couple of months ago, but I did not spend much time elaborating on the improvements. RadChart has been one of Telerik's key focuses since late 2006 and it is being aggressively improved and upgrade in every release cycle. It is still not a full-fledge 3D charting solution, but the rich set of business charting features in the control is rapidly expanding.

But before I list the new major features, let me point out that the improvements being made to the Telerik charting engine are being shared across all Telerik product lines. That means improvements are seen in RadChart for ASP.NET, for WinForms, and in Telerik Reporting charts. The shared nature of the charting engine means that it is even easier for Telerik to improve your charting experience and make new features available wherever you need them. Expect the improvements to continue in Q3.

In Q2, the major new features you can expect to find in all Telerik products that display charts are:

• New chart type: Spline Area (essentially Spline chart with fillable area)
• New chart type: CandleStick (great for financial applications)
  
• Support for empty value approximation
  
• Scale breaks now supported
• All labels now support multi-line mode (such as title, axis, legend, etc.)
• Intelligent label support
• One of my favorite new features. Intelligent labels are automatically positioned so that text does not overlap on the charts.
• Marked zones
• Another personal favorite. This feature is great for dashboard reporting as it allows you to easily color different ranges on the chart background.
• Support for logarithmic y-axis values

As you can see, the Charting team has been very busy. You can play with all of these new features in the "Prometheus" Futures online demos today and get ready to use them in your applications tomorrow!

Tracking Q2 2007 release status made easy

Do you like being informed up-to-the-minute on what's going on at Telerik during release times? Do you anxiously refresh your Client.NET downloads page all day waiting for the new files to show up? If that's you, stop refreshing and subscribe to this new thread in the Telerik forums. Since some updates during release time don't merit a full blog posts, I decided to create a new way for you to get the information you need, when you need it. Join the "status thread" and I'll do my best to keep you in the loop and let you know what's happening at Telerik release HQ. And of course, as soon as the release is available, you'll know about it if you're subscribed to the thread.

Sign-up now and save your F5 key. If you have questions about the release, you can ask them there too and I'll do my best to answer (or find someone who can).

Preparing for new Q2 default skins (updated)

As many of you are probably aware, the default skins for all RadControls are changing in Q2. Zhivko Dimitrov from the Telerik UX team originally introduced the new default skins about a month ago, so you've already had a chance to see what's coming. In short, the new default skins aim to give the RadControls a refreshed look that out of the box is more modern and appealing. We're all very hopeful that you like the new default skins and that they will work well in many of your applications.

That said, if you built your application around the old default skins, you're going to need to take some extra steps when you upgrade to Q2 to preserve the look of your application.

The "old" default skins will be included in RadControl assemblies along with the new default skin. To accommodate this change, the old default skin has been renamed to "Default2006". If you want your controls to use the old default look instead of the updated look, you'll need to explicitly set the "Skin" property to "Default2006". You can easily apply this preference globally by modifying your web.config with a simple application setting. With that single change in the web.config, your application will continue to use the old default skin after you upgrade to Q2 2007.

There are a number of additional new skins coming with many of the controls in Q2, such as Vista and Outlook 2007 skins for RadGrid, so don't forget to check those out, too. Until then, add this "to do" to your upgrade checklist and stay tuned for more Q2 updates.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, I misspoke. The Default2006 skin will not be included in the control assemblies. To use the old default skin, you'll need to deploy the RadControls directory to your site with (at minimum) the Default2006 skins folders. To use the skin, you can still follow the advice in the post above. Sorry for the confusion.

Q2 game complete, Telerik Labs revealed

We have finally put enough people on the Telerik Q2 scale to raise the Q2 release! Thanks to everyone who contributed their weight to the game and helped us count down to the Q2 2007 release. Now that the game is over, you can jump over to the game page and browse through the highlights of Telerik's second major release for 2007. Have fun reviewing all of the new things that will be shipping early next week- the wait for the great new controls like RadScheduler and RadGrid 5 is almost over.

And as I promised, there is one "secret" that we finally revealed today: Telerik Labs. Built with Silverlight, Telerik Labs is where you can go to see previews of some our latest development efforts. This new location is going to become a permanent fixture in the Telerik universe, so expect to see frequent updates to labs.telerik.com that showcase early previews in the future. Labs is built entirely with Silverlight 1.1 (so you'll need the alpha plug-in) and it showcases some of Telerik's work in the yet-to-be-previewed RadControls for Silverlight 1.1. Hopefully you'll enjoy this new resource and have playing with the site.

So there you have it. Q2 in (and now out of) a box. Enjoy your weekend browsing some of the new demos and tune-in next for all of the release activity.

Learning Guide giveaway winners

The time has finally come to announce the winners of this week's Learning Guide giveaway. But before I announce the winners, let me take a moment to thank you for your great feedback on the Q2 release. We know you guys are very excited about RadGrid 5, RadEditor 8, and the new RadScheduler and we can't wait to get these products in your hands. The teams are working very hard as I speak type to put the finishing touches on the release and get everything prepared for next week's launch. The Q2 game will also be ending later today, so stay tuned for for some more interesting news.

But back to the topic at hand. To select the winners of this contest, I turned to the atmosphere. Well, the Random Integer Generator, that is, which derives its randomness from atmospheric noise. The generator produced two integers for me- between 1 and 27 (the total number of eligible comments)- and the comments in those two positions determine our winners. If someone posted multiple comments on the thread, only their first comment was counted towards the final entry list. So without further delay, let's see what the atmospheric noise did:

Congratulations Shaun Peet and "Stephen"! You are the winners of the Learning Guide giveaway. To collect your prize, simply email me (todd.anglin[at]telerik[dot]com) your mailing address and we'll send the Learning Guides to you right away. Thanks to everyone who played. If you didn't win this time, blame the atmosphere.

Telerik Reporting getting major updates, new features in Q2

While a lot has been said lately about the RadControls for ASP.NET and WinForms coming in Q2, little has been mentioned about the forth coming updates to Telerik Reporting. If you recall, Telerik Reporting was originally introduced to the world in the Q1 2007 release, so it is still a very young product. When version 1 released, the foundations for a great reporting product were established, but many tasks were still much harder to do than necessary. Our developers recognized these problems and have been working hard to make version 1.5 in Q2 a big step forward. And when you look at the list of features they're delivering, I think you'll agree they have succeeded:

• New integrated expression builder
• New filters with helpful presets (like 'show top X clients by sales')
• Support for conditional formatting
• Built-in support for report parameters (finally!)
• New integrated "New Report" wizard

Those features on their own would be huge (I'm especially happy to have parameter support and a report wizard), but the developers have gone a step further. In addition to all of these new major features (and obvious bug/performance improvements), they are also shipping two report converters in Q2!

With Telerik Reporting 1.5, you'll be able to automatically convert existing Active Reports and Crystal Reports to Telerik Reports directly from the "New Report" wizard in Visual Studio. And even though you'll need the latest version of those two report formats to use the converters when this ships, it is definitely a good sign of things to come.

If you looked at Reporting at Q1 and were turned-off by some of the missing features, definitely take some time to look again in Q2. The Reporting team is doing a great job of establishing Telerik Reporting as a first class reporting product and I can't wait to see what they'll manage to deliver in version 2. For now, start counting down the days- Telerik Reporting 1.5 ships early next week with the rest of the RadControls.

Q2 release almost revealed!

How have you enjoyed the Q2 game so far? Thousands of you have already contributed your weight (or some of your weight...sorry Lino) to the game and we are getting very close to completely raising the Q2 release. If you have not already contributed your part to this releases' game, help everyone out and jump on the scale right now. With about 500 more players, all will be revealed and the details of Q2 will displayed for your viewing pleasure. Also, if you have not taken a moment to scroll over some of the names and countries involved in the game, you should. Seeing people from all corners of the globe come together for the Telerik release is fun to watch.

Oh...and one more thing. There actually is something new and exciting that will be revealed for the first time once the Q2 release has been unlocked. I know I had previously said there were no secrets that would be revealed in Q2- and there still are no control secrets- but there is something very cool that we've kept quiet for a while now that will go live as soon as the game ends. So hurry up!

RadControls Learning Guide give away

Do you want a nice printed copy of the RadControls for ASP.NET Learning Guide? In the run up to Q2, which is now only about a week away from general availability, I've decided to give away two copies of the Learning Guide (a $40 value) to two lucky blog readers. All you have to do to play is leave a comment on this blog post saying what you're most looking forward to in the Q2 release. Since I don't have the ability to see your email address when you add comments, and since I don't want to subject commenters to unnecessary spam exposure, simply include your name in your post and I'll run a follow-up post this Friday, September 14th announcing the two winners and how to collect the prize.

And that's it! Just a fun little giveaway contest to help you pass the time while you wait for the Q2 release. You must add your comment by midnight CST (GMT -6) on Thursday to be considered in the random selection and you only need to enter once (multiple entires will not be counted in the drawing). Have fun and let us know what you're looking forward to in Q2!

Q2 is "coming up" (updated)

It's that time again. Another major release is just 3 short weeks away, due to hit the streets September 17th, 2007. Unlike Q1, we don't necessarily have any "secrets" to share with about this release, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun counting down the days. A new game launched today that enables you (the Telerik Community) to help real-in the new release. As with the Q1 game, the more people that help add their "weight" to the game, the faster the Q2 details will be revealed. Once enough people add their weight, the Q2 details will be hoisted up and freely available for everyone to browse.

So do your part and add your weight to the game right now. I'm not really sure why there are two weight choices, but I'd suggest everyone choose 200 pounds so that we can reveal the hidden details faster.

One last detail about the Q2 game. Take a moment after you add your weight to right-click on the puzzle area. Is that Silverlight powering this Q's game? I think the days of Flash at Telerik are quickly coming to an end...

UPDATE: While we wait on the Q2 release details to come up, visit the official Q2 game forum thread to share your thoughts about the Q2 2007 release with other community members.

WinForms Q2 2007 beta released

Today is a busy day for announcements. Hot on the heals of the official release of RadControls for Silverlight 1.0, Telerik is pleased to present the beta of the RadControls for WinForms Q2 2007. Out almost 3 weeks ahead of the official September 17th release, this beta should allow plenty of time for you to submit your feedback and suggestions for improvement.

As was the case with the WinForms SP2 release a couple of months ago, Q2 2007 will focus mainly on improving the performance of the RadControls. Since their introduction, performance has been the number one issue with WinForms developers and thus our number one priority. Our devs have worked hard on improving that situation and I think you'll be very pleased with what you find in Q2.

Even though performance was the main focus of Q2, there are some new controls for you to play with. RadChart for WinForms received a major update in this release and a brand new control- RadCalendar- has been added to the suite. RadCalendar delivers the same rich "WPF-like" visuals that you've come to expect from Telerik's WinForm controls and an API that is similar to the ASP.NET version. If you're using the rigid standard WinForms calendar control, you definitely need to check out RadCalendar for WinForms.

Help us make Q2 a great release by downloading the beta today and letting us know what you think.

RadControls for Silverlight 1.0 released

Mere hours after the official unveiling of Silverlight 1.0 from Microsoft, Telerik has released the official version of its community supported RadControls for Silverlight 1.0. This release makes Telerik the first component vendor to deliver official support for the freshman Silverlight 1.0 release and highlights our commitment to this new framework.

As we've discussed before, the Silverlight 1.0 controls from Telerik address the lack of basic controls in 1.0, adding buttons, media controls, labels, and the infamous spinning cube to the mix. These controls are free for all RadControl subscription holders and will be supported primarily through the forums (read the license agreement: "no dedicated support is offered for this product"). Telerik's work on the Silverlight 1.1 framework will be much more extensive and will be licensed separately from existing products. Watch for some early previews of the 1.1 controls later this year. I've already seen some of the controls in action and they are looking very good!

If you are a RadControls subscription holder and today's Silverlight release inspired you to create, jump over to Telerik.com, download your free Siliverlight 1.0 controls, and get started.

Silverlight 1.0 released, 1.1 alpha refreshed

Brad Abrams must have had some fresh milk in his refrigerator when he predicted on August 25th that Silverlight 1.0 would be released before the milk in our frigs expired. Either way, three days later than I predicted, we finally have an official Silverlight 1.0 release. The release itself does not contain many surprises, but Microsoft did make some interesting revelations today.

First, Silverlight 1.1 alpha has been refreshed and new alpha bits are now available. Yes, that's right. Alpha bits. Microsoft is still tight lipped about when Silverlight 1.1 will ship, but with references to many more "refreshes" this year I expect we're starting to look in to 2008. Hopefully you didn't plan on doing an .NET development with Silverlight this year.

Second, Microsoft announced a formal partnership with Novell (see where this is going) and a project called Moonlight that will bring Silverlight to Linux. Based on Mono, Moonlight will enable JavaScript and .NET Silverlight development on Linux, further enabling the Silverlight plug-in to gain universal distribution. How long did it take Flash to support Linux? Along these lines, Microsoft will also develop the Silverlight Media Codecs for Linux so the media experience is the same on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

So there you have it. After months of waiting and small refreshes, 1.0 has finally shipped. Download the new bits, check out some early adopters, and then back to the waiting game for 1.1.

New blog: Code Campground

It is with great excitement that I bring you news about a new blog I started today. Dubbed the "Code Campground" (explanation in the welcome post on the blog), this blog resides in the "official" ASP.NET blog space. It is a great honor to blog in the same web space as major influencers like Scott Guthrie and Bertrand Le Roy, and I am going to work hard to bring great original content to this new .NET resource. Unlike this blog that focuses primarily on Telerik related news, Code Campground will focus more generally on .NET, brining you original how-to's, articles, tutorials, and commentary on .NET news.

Faithful readers of Telerik Watch do not lose heart. I will not abandon this space for my new digs on weblogs. Quite the opposite. I will continue to try to deliver 3 to 5 posts per week in this space and deliver a more manageable 5 to 6 posts per month at Code Campground. The content of these two blogs- while related- is distinct and I have plenty to deliver in both spaces.

For now, check out the Code Campground welcome post and add the blog to your RSS readers. New content will start flowing there later this week. Special thanks to Joe Stagner for giving me this new platform.

RadEditor "Prometheus" up to 76% faster

[Cross posted from Telerik.com blogs]

For months now we have been talking about the new RadEditor being built in the "Prometheus" suite and how it is going to be the best version of RadEditor to date. Today an early preview of that work was released in the "Prometheus" Futures build and made available for general testing in the Telerik community. Obviously, the version that was released today looks a lot different from the final version that will be released- dialogs are still rough, features are unpolished, and some features are missing- but it is still a great look at what's coming.

Today I ran the RadEditor Futures release build through some tests to compare the total page load time to the current Q2 2007 SP2 RadEditor. While the exact feature sets of the two controls differ at this stage, I tried to configure the classic Editor with the only the controls in the default "Prometheus" Editor to make the tests fair. To measure the page load times, I turned to the handy JavaScript page load stop watch I blogged about many months ago. I ran each control- Classic and Prometheus- through 12 tests: 6 in FireFox 2, 6 in IE7, 3 with "unprimed" browser cache, and 3 with the component's files already cached by the browser.

The results were amazing!



RadEditor "Prometheus" on average loaded 76% faster in IE7 after the control's files had already been cached. It loaded 67% faster on an unprimed cache. The gains in FireFox are more modest, but the load time has still been cut almost in half. Overall, IE7 loads both versions of RadEditor faster than FF2, but the difference in performance is much greater with RadEditor "Prometheus". IE7 on average loads RadEditor "Prometheus" 56% faster than FireFox, compared to a mere 13% advantage with the classic Editor component. I expect FireFox's performance to approach IE's in future RadEditor "Prometheus" builds.

Out of curiosity, I compared "Prometheus" Futures RadEditor to another leading WYSIWYG web editor to see how their performance compared. The other editor loaded quickly- faster in some tests by tenths of a second. At first I was a little stunned. Then I compared more closely the feature set and richness of this competing control. It completely lacked innovative user interface features like the integrated RadWindow for dialogs (it just uses clunky browser windows) and basic features like undo history (not to mention lack of Ajax support or an extensive client-side API)! When you consider the extra features and richness RadEditor "Prometheus" delivers in 3 tenths of a second, I think the delay becomes acceptable for most users.

Either way, the number one rich-text editor on the web is definitely getting faster in version 8 and any applications that use RadEditor should definitely plan of upgrading soon after Q2!

Future bug in new Prometheus Futures build

Did you eagerly download today's "Prometheus" Futures build only to be confounded by strange JavaScript errors? Don't worry, it's probably not you. It appears today's Futures build was released with a build date in, well, the future. As Telerik's own Atanas Korchev detailed in a blog post early last month, products built on ASP.NET AJAX have a problem if the assembly's build date is in the future (relative to your local system clock). As you probably know, the RadControls are developed in Bulgaria which means the build clock is about 7 hours ahead of Eastern Time, making the assembly build date "in the future" for most of today's US work day.

To solve the problem, simply set your system clock to some time after 5:10 PM today. With your computer safely operating in the future, reload your Prometheus Futures page and your JavaScript issues should disappear. I've found that you can then set your system clock back to the correct time and the page will continue to function correctly, even after clearing your browser's cache.

Hopefully the next build will be built in the past so you don't have take your computer back to the future (thank you, I'll be here all week).

[Thanks to Shaun for reporting this in the forums.]

In case you missed it: part III

Keeping with my general pace of delivering a new installment in this series about once a month, it is high time I brought your attention to some great blog posts on the Telerik blogs...(wait for it)...in case you missed it (well, in case you missed them, in this case, but that wouldn't match the series title). The blogs have been busy with new faces and great installments from long time writers, so if you haven't subscribed yet, you should. Without further delay, here are some of the great posts from the last month:

• Ultimate .NET Credit Card Utility - a brief post talking about a new article I recently added to the Code Project.
• How to: Create RadRotator Programmatically- a detailed how-to on creating RadRotators with templates programmatically
• Online Help Skin- a sneak preview of the new skin coming to the Telerik Online Documentation
• ASP.NET Web Control Performance Test in Selenium- Telerik's masters of QA show you how to use Selenium to run performance tests on web controls
• Q2 Skinning- the RadControl default embedded skins are changing in Q2 and this post gives you a preview of the new look
• ASP.NET AJAX Tips & Tricks- this brief post shows you some tricks for optimizing ASP.NET AJAX updates

And that's just a small sample of the content on the Telerik blogs right now. There have been almost 20 new posts in August and many more that weren't highlighted in July. So if you're looking for something interesting to read today, you've got plenty of great material to pick from.

Prometheus Futures delayed, available today (update)

When you're trying to release beta components there is fine line between releasing unfinished code to meet an announced deadline and delaying a release to finish a few more beta features. In the case of the second "Prometheus" Futures release, we have obviously opted for the later path so that we can deliver the highest quality beta code. At this point, you already know what's coming in today's release, but for those that missed it, the major update will be RadEditor Prometheus.

And while we're waiting on the release, let me mention a few of the new things you'll find in this totally re-built WYSIWYG online editor:

• CSS sprites used for toolbar buttons- that means fewer images to download from the server, which means better page load times.
• Background script loading- instead of loading all of the client-script for all of the Editor features on the initial page load, RadEditor "Prometheus" will load the client-side scripts for specific features asynchronously. That means less code to download on initial page load and faster page load times.
• Single file deployment- while all other RadControls have moved to embedded web resources in previous releases, RadEditor remains the one control that still requires the RadControls folder. That changes in RadEditor "Prometheus", which now supports the easy single file deployment.

Obviously, RadEditor "Prometheus" is a major step forward for the award winning component, so we're eager to get your feedback on the changes. Watch for the "Prometheus" Futures release today and check back here for an update with a direct link to the download.

UPDATE: The "Prometheus" Futures update is now available! Grab the download from your Client.net account and check out the new online demos.

Telerik Silverlight survey live

Silverlight 1.0 is almost here, and you've already got a project scheduled to use it, right? Or do you? Either way, Telerik wants to know. As the official release of Silverlight dawns and the release of Silverlight 1.1 rapidly approaches, we want to know how you plan on using Silverlight in your projects. Take five minutes to complete the new Silverlight Survey and tell us what you think of Silverlight. Your feedback will help shape the products Telerik delivers for Silverlight 1.1 and will be key in setting our development priorities over the next 6 to 8 months. As a thanks for your time and feedback, you'll get 1500 Telerik points added to your Client.net accounts.

So take a break, visit the survey, and help shape the future of Silverlight at Telerik. The survey will run through September 17th.

Houston TechFest wrap-up

In case you missed it, the first annual Houston TechFest has come and gone and it seems like it was a great success. I've already shared with you the interesting tid bit keynote speaker Brad Abrams provided regarding Silverlight, but the fun didn't stop there. I had the pleasure of demoing the Telerik RadAjaxManager for ASP.NET AJAX (or RadAjax "Prometheus" for the initiated) to a standing room only crowd of about 60 people. It seems next year we'll need a bigger room!

For those of you that were able to attend the session, thanks for stopping by and for bringing some great questions. The slides from the presentation, the demo code, and even a recorded web cast version are all available online if you want to take a closer look at anything we covered. If you still have questions about ASP.NET AJAX or the RadControls, always feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to help you on your road to learning both.

If you weren't able to make the conference, the online resources should help you catch-up on what you missed. You'll definitely want to try to join us at our next event, though. It is great to visit with "real" developers and we'd love to meet you face-to-face. 'Til then, have fun with ASP.NET AJAX and thank you for your interest at the TechFest!

exclusive: Silverlight 1.0 getting official this week

At today's Houston TechFest, Microsoft's Brad Abrams was the keynote speaker and he delivered what has become (more or less) the standard Silverlight overview presentation. He showed off Silverlight applications running on his Mac PowerBook and showed off the incredible new media capabilities that Silverlight is aiming to provide in the near future. If you've seen a Microsoft delivered overview on Silverlight before, then you pretty much know what was covered in this keynote (the Airlines demo, the chess demo, etc.).

But the one question on everyone's mind is when will all of this Silverlight stuff officially be released (you do remember that even Silverlight 1.0 has yet to be released, don't you?). While Brad claimed that the "people" at Microsoft would not let him provide exact dates, he did provide a juicy clue that indicates Silverlight 1.0 will be officially released within the next week. As Brad put it today, "Silverlight 1.0 will be released before the milk in you refrigerator goes bad." I don't know about the milk you buy, but milk that's in my frig now will probably expire in about a week, maybe two.

Brad seemed very eager to share (dang corporate shackles), so I'd be inclined to think his "hint" meant we'll see the official release of Silverlight 1.0 this week. "So what?" you say. As Brad put it again, the official release of Silverlight 1.0 marks the beginning of the Silverlight adoption clock. Partners that have "real" applications built on Silverlight- like MLB and Fox- will begin to turn on their new Silverlight services with the official release and we'll finally start seeing adoption of the Silverlight plug-in outside of the group of early-adopters (a.k.a. Microsoft developers)- a critical step in the evolution of Silverlight if it is to compete with Flash's 98% global adoption.

So there you have it. Silverlight 1.0 will (most likely) be officially released this week and you heard it here first.

RadGrid 5.0 beta coming soon

As the dog days of summer start to come to an end, it's time to start looking forward to the exciting new features coming in the Q2 2007 release. Four months have passed since the huge Q1 release and about three weeks remain before Q2 will hit the streets. Many controls will be getting new features in the next release, not the least of which is RadGrid.

RadGrid, which will get a major upgrade to version 5, is going to be sporting some very interesting new features. I almost hate to tell you the features here and ruin the surprise, but with a beta due late next week it's time to share. Aside from the normal round of bug fixes and performance improvements, RadGrid 5.0 will also feature:

• Support for the ObjectContainerDataSource
• Improved accessibility
• Frozen column support in scrolling with static header scenarios
  
• Built-in export to CSV
• and Built-in export to PDF!

Clearly the last feature is the big one. You will now be able to export data from your RadGrid directly to PDF. This feature has been one of the top requests for a while now, and our developers are happy to finally deliver the powerful export option in the Grid.

The other features are no slouches, either. Frozen column support, export to CSV, improved accessibility, and client-side performance optimizations all contribute to making RadGrid 5.0 one of the (if not the) best ASP.NET grid components available. Certainly the best Telerik has ever released. Watch for an early beta of this new control late next week and get ready to give us your feedback as we put the finishing touches on another great Q release!

Telerik WinForms CAB Enabling Kit beta released

For any developers in the Telerik community that develop WinForms applications using the Composite UI Application Block, this is some very exciting news. Today we announced and released the beta of our new RadControls for WinForms CAB Enabling Kit. This new kit provides seamless integration of the RadControls in CAB-based smart client applications and makes the process of using Telerik's WinForms controls with the CAB among the best in the industry.

The new CAB Enabling Kit is going to be actively supported and updated by Telerik, earning status as a separate Telerik product. Obviously, it will be freely available to all WinForms subscription holders. Before the official release in Q2, the Kit's WPF Woodgrove Finance-like demo will receive some need fit-and-finish, but other than that it is ready for you to start downloading and testing. We look forward to supporting CAB developers in the future and to enhancing the Kit to make it the best development experience available for developing rich CAB-based applications.

Download the CAB Kit beta today and then give us your feedback in the forums. The most active beta testers have the opportunity to earn up to 5,000 Telerik points!

PayPal getting a face lift, new logo

Many Telerik developers (self included) run sites that use PayPal to process online payments. Of those that don't, almost all use PayPal from time to time to make purchases online. Therefore, I thought this audience might find it interesting that PayPal is about to get a major face lift and a new logo.

The new web site is currently a live beta and it definitely has a "lighter" more corporate look than the current site enjoys. Gone are the bold blue rounded tabs and in are sleek silver square tabs (rounded tabs seem to be so Web 1.0). It's not the best looking redesign I've seen, especially considering it seems almost entirely cosmetic. Once you log-in, the organization of the tools and content looks very familiar. I think PayPal could have done more to actually improve the site's usability, such as making it easier to locate purchased merchant services through your account page.

The beta site does not feature the new logo, though. To see the new logo, you'll need to check out PayPal's stealth "Paypal-promo" site (checks out as a real PayPal site in the Whois records). The new logo reminds me of Visa's recent logo redesign, relying on simple statements of color and oblique lettering to show that all important forward motion. The new logo is not that different from today's outlined version, but it does look more professional and on par with other "big players" in the credit industry. Either way, the new logo means you'll need to update any PayPal logos on your site so that "customers know you are a current PayPal merchant" as a recent email states.

Expect the new logo to drop publicly "in the coming weeks" and get ready to make some site updates if you support PayPal purchases. And everyone should try out the PayPal beta site and submit your feedback via the Site Feedback link to let the PayPal web team know what you think of the changes. This concludes this public service announcement.

Prometheus Futures update due next week

Have you been wondering what happened to the Futures updates we promised a "few" weeks ago? Well stop wondering and take off your thought reading helmets, the time has finally come to update the Prometheus Futures. Next Tuesday, August 28th, we will release a major update to the Prometheus Futures build, and hopefully the scale of this update will make the wait worth it.

In the next Futures release you'll find stable betas of RadWindow, RadInput, and the totally new RadEditor. Of these newly "prometheus'd" controls, RadEditor is clearly the most significant. RadEditor has been completely re-built for Prometheus and its performance has been radically improved. If you're a fan of RadEditor, you'll definitely want to start playing with this beta next week.

The controls that have already been introduced in the Futures build will see some updates next week, too. RadScheduler and RadChart have a number of new features to show-off as all of the controls get ready for the big Q2 release in September. So stay tuned and watch for the release announcement next week!

DevReach 2007 details now available

If you don't have the opportunity to visit with Telerik at the upcoming Houston TechFest, your next chance to mingle is DevReach 2007. Hosted near Telerik HQ in Sofia, Bulgaria, DevReach is the premier developer conference organized by Telerik for Microsoft developers across Eastern Europe. This year's event will take place on October 1st and 2nd and will feature notable speakers like Tim Huckaby (Microsoft Regional Director), Carl Franklin (DotNetRocks), and Dino Esposito.

I will be making the trip to DevReach this year, too, so the event is not strictly limited to developers in Europe. If you just happen to be in Bulgaria October 1st, pay the 80 EUR registration fee and come join us for a good time.

For complete details on this year's event (and to reserve your spot), check out the beautifully designed DevReach website that launched this week. It features the full list of speakers, an early list of sessions, and a new blog supported by the DevReach team that will keep you informed on all DevReach happenings. And, of course, it runs on Sitefinity 3.0.

RadControls Learning Guide available in print

At the beginning of the summer we introduced an incredible new learning resource to the Telerik community in the form of a full book dedicated to the RadControls for ASP.NET. Clocking in at just over 620 pages, though, this free PDF is not exactly laser printer friendly. To save you the hassle of waiting on 620 pages to print and to save you from the glares your co-workers would certainly provide as they wait on their print outs, we have decided to make the learning guide available in print!

Taking advantage of the latest in on-demand publishing, Telerik is offering the Learning Guide in print through top-rated printer Lulu.com. What does on-demand publishing mean? It means you'll be able to buy a copy of the Learning Guide that looks just like a tech book you'd buy at your local bookstore with the latest Learning Guide content at an incredibly affordable price. The only downside to on-demand publishing is that you'll have to wait a couple of extra days for your book to ship since (as many fast food chains claim) they don't make it 'til you order it.

The service is quite incredible and a great way to get the Learning Guide in print if you prefer reading books over on-screen PDFs. And at $29.99, I challenge you to find another 620+ tech book that gives you so much for so little. Order your copy today and add it to your essential tech book library.

Telerik at Houston TechFest August 25th

Your next opportunity to meet with Telerik face-to-face and to hang out with a few hundred .NET developers is quickly approaching. The first annual Houston TechFest will be held Saturday, August 25th, and yours truly will be there meeting with developers and doing a session on ASP.NET AJAX with Telerik's RadAjax "Prometheus". The Houston TechFest is being put on by the Houston DNUG (.NET Users Group for the uninstructed) and it will be held on the campus of the University of Houston. As a Platinum sponsor, Telerik will also be distributing free CDs and t-shirts to all event attendees, so don't miss your chance to get your hands on some genuine Telerik cotton.

The keynote speaker for this event is Brad Abrams (Microsoft, Group Program Manager for the UI Framework and Services). He'll be delivering a talk on Silverlight- past, present, and future- that should be very interesting to any developers considering near-term adoption of this young framework. So if you're in the Houston area, register for the TechFest and come join us for a fun filled day of .NET learning.

Adobe PDF previewer finally available

This post has little to do with Telerik (though I'm sure I could make some loose connection), so hopefully you'll forgive the exceedingly rare off-topic post. But since I thought one of the greatest shortcomings of Outlook 2007 when it shipped was the lack of a PDF previewer, I thought I'd share with this audience the widespread availability of the missing previewer. Released back in early June, Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.1 finally ships with a PDF preview handler that enables you to preview PDF files directly in Outlook. Why this wasn't available when Office shipped in November is anyone's guess, but at least there is now a solution.

If you're like me, you probably stopped using (or upgrading) Acrobat Reader long ago. There are many free programs on the Nets that make opening PDFs a much faster and painless experience. The inclusion of the previewer in 8.1, though, finally offers a enough reason to revisit the old bloatware and upgrade to the latest version. If you're using Outlook 2007 and you've missed this too, download the latest Adode Acrobat Reader and have fun previewing PDFs next week.

Grade your website's performance with YSlow

One of the better tools for web developers that exists today is FireBug, a free extension for FireFox. FireBug enables web developers to quickly inspect CSS rules, analyze document structure, and debug JavaScript errors. If you haven't added it to your web development toolbox yet, then do it now. But this post is not not about FireBug, it's about a new tool from Yahoo! called YSlow that extends FireBug (an extension extension?) with incredible performance optimization tools.

YSlow integrates directly into FireBug and when activated it grades the active web page based on Yahoo!'s thirteen simple rules for speeding up your website (another excellent resource). The results of the scan are conveniently presented with a list of scoring metrics, induvidual grades for each metric, details for improving each grade, and direct links to Yahoo!'s resources on performance improvement. I don't think there is any other free tool that exists that makes it this easy to identify easy site performance improvement opportunities.

Clearly, some of the metrics are better suited for larger sites (such as measuring your use of content delivery networks for static content), but for the most part the tips are very helpful. If nothing else, the tool's Stats and Components tabs will help you analyze the total size of your page (pre- and post-cache), the expiration date of your static content, and the size of your cookies- all good things to know when you're trying to optimize an application.

I've got to to give credit to Adam Kinney for blogging this first and bringing it to my attention. Do yourself a favor and download this free tool now and start optimizing your web applications today. With any luck a lot of hard work, maybe you too can earn Google's near perfect score of 99.

Input needed: RadGrid for WinForms v4

If you are a WinForms developer and you want to help shape the next version of RadGrid for WinForms, now is your chance to share your priorities. RadGrid is obviously one of the most important components in our WinForms suite and we've been working double-time to improve its quality (read: speed and performance). Now that the quality is much closer to being on par with the "Telerik standard", we want to make sure we focus on implementing the features that matter most to you.

Do you want export functionality first? Or do you want full hierarchal grids first? Your input in the RadGrid Survey will set our development agenda and help us deliver the correct feature set first. You have until August 31st to cast your vote in the survey, and to thank you for your time you'll get 300 Telerik points added to your Client.net account just for voting.

So what do you have to lose? The survey takes less than two minutes and you get to help set the direction of RadGrid. Vote today or forever hold your peace (well, at least until version 5).

Telerik wins big in SYS-CON 2007 .NET Reader's Choice Awards

It has been a good year for Telerik and awards. After winning 8 asp.netPRO Reader's Choice Awards in May and earning a nod as Best of TechEd 2007 for our WinForms controls in June, we can add 2 awards from the SYS-CON 2007 .NET Reader's Choice Awards in July. Nominated and voted on by .NET Developer's Journal readers, Telerik won the following two awards:

• Best .NET Editors and IDEs for RadEditor
• Best .NET Libraries and Controls for RadControls for ASP.NET

This is the second time that RadEditor has been recognized as best in class this year, further strengthening the point that RadEditor is the best online rich text editor. Winning the award for the best .NET library is also a great honor. In addition to beating out industry veterans likes Nevron and Infragistics for the title, this marks the first time this year that the RadControls suite has taken top honors in a Reader's Choice award show.

None of this would be possible without your support and your votes, though, so thank you again for choosing Telerik as your .NET UI provider of choice. You are what helps make Telerik great and we are committed to matching your enthusiasm for our controls with continuing innovation and outstanding support!