Tweet about Telerik Products and Win

If you haven’t “won” something from Telerik in the last couple of weeks, you’ve got one more chance this week (after today’s TeamPulse giveaway, of course). And this contest doesn’t require you to stay up at all hours (depending on your timezone – thanks to those of you in Australia, Japan, and surrounding countries that attended the webinars last week)!

With the Q2 2010 release and the addition of the JustMock and TeamPulse products to the Telerik portfolio, we want you to help spread the word about all of the different types of products Telerik provides. Telerik now offers products in four distinct divisions:

1. Developer Productivity
   • AJAX, MVC, Silverlight, WPF, WinForms, Reporting, ORM, JustCode, JustMock
2. Team Productivity
   • TeamPulse (officially launched today!), TFS Work Item Manager and Project Dashboard
3. Automated Testing
   • WebUI Test Studio – Dev and QA Editions
4. Web Content Management
   • Sitefinity CMS

For this “Tweet and Win” contest, your challenge is to tell the (Twitter) world about everything Telerik is doing these days. To enter the contest, simply:

• Tweet about 4 Telerik products from at least 2 of the Telerik product divisions
• Include #Telerik in your Tweet
• Follow @Telerik (important if you want to win since we’ll be DM’ing the winners)

If you do that between now and this Friday, you’ll be in the drawing for 3 Telerik Ultimate Collections and an Apple iPad!

Got it? Here are some example tweets in case there is any confusion:

• “AJAX=RadControls, CMS=Sitefinity, Testing=WebUITestStudio, Agile=TeamPulse #Telerik”
• “DevProductivity=JustCode, JustMock, TeamProductivity=TeamPulse, Testing=WebUITestStudio #Telerik”
• “DevProductivity= AJAX, Silverlight, ORM, MVC, JustCode, JustMock, Reporting, WinForms, WPF! TeamProductivity=TeamPulse #Telerik”

You get the idea. At least 4 products from at least 2 Telerik divisions. Tweet by Friday midnight (Eastern) and you could win valuable prizes.

Not on Twitter?! (Shocking…) Facebook more your style? We’re extending the contest there, too. On the Telerik Facebook Page, you’ll find a post on the wall about this contest (see image below for fool proof reference). Simply “Like” the post and leave a comment with the “4 from 2” rules above to enter to win.

TeamPulse launch event next week, Free licenses for all attendees!

While you’re still enjoying the last of the Q2 2010 Webinar Week events, you can start looking forward to even more online events from Telerik next week. This first event next week is a big one. We will be officially launching TeamPulse, Telerik’s newest product, and we’ll be giving free licenses to all webinar attendees (more on that in a second)!

TeamPulse expands Telerik’s focus beyond software construction and testing, and introduces tools to help you in the early days of software project planning. TeamPulse is designed to make it easy to capture ideas, personas, user stories, and all related information needed to plan your software project. Built completely in Silverlight, TeamPulse is a rich visual tool designed for ease-of-use and intended to be consumed by developers, business analysts, and all members of a project team.

And while there are many agile planning tools around today, TeamPulse is doing many unique things (even in v1) that set it apart, such as:

• Best Practice Guidance for Agile Teams – New to agile? Great! TeamPulse is here to help by providing built-in Best Practice Analysis. It’s like static code analysis for software development practices. TeamPulse will help check for best practice behavior and highlight areas that need attention.
• Agile with Dates – Many agile tools don’t acknowledge the reality that projects exist in a date-driven world. TFS makes it especially hard to plan iterations and sprints with dates. With TeamPulse, you can be agile while still using dates to schedule your iterations and sprints.
• Integration with TFS (coming in vNext) – If you’re a TFS shop, TeamPulse is a perfect addition. You can easily plan in TeamPulse (think of it as your sandbox) and then sync with TFS to carry your items, area, and iterations in to construction.

Clearly, there is much more happening in TeamPulse that we think you’ll enjoy. To see it all in action, join us for the launch webinar on Tuesday, July 27th at 11:00 AM. As extra incentive, we’ll be giving TeamPulse licenses to ALL live attendees of the event! We’ll also giveaway 3 Telerik Ultimate Collection licenses! What are you waiting for?! Register now!

Register for TeamPulse online launch event

Free JustCode, JustMock licenses for all Thursday webinar attendees (update)

Sometimes people use the saying “Everyone’s a winner,” when in fact everyone is not a winner. If you join us tomorrow for the JustCode, JustMock and OpenAccess ORM webinar, though, you will be a winner! Everyone is truly a winner tomorrow because everyone that attends the Q2 2010 What’s New webinar will get free licenses for both JustCode and JustMock, Telerik’s powerful Visual Studio productivity tools. That’s $500 worth of software just for attending the live webinar event!

To get your complimentary licenses, register now for the webinar, and then join us tomorrow, July 22nd at 11:00 AM Eastern. You must attend the live event to get your license.

If you’ve never worked with JustCode or JustMock, this is your lucky week. Both tools can save you tons of time while coding or testing in Visual Studio, especially with the new features in Q2 2010. JustCode, for instance, includes a built-in Unit Test Runner and powerful solution-wide code analysis, while JustMock makes it easy to mock anything (including LinqToSql or EntityFramework). Don’t miss your one chance to get these tools pro-bono! Clear your calendar and we’ll see you at 11:00 AM.

Register now for JustCode, JustMock webiar

[UPDATE: The emails with the free license codes have been sent. Check your inboxes and spam folders to get your code and claim your free copy of JustCode and JustMock.]

Virtual MVC Conference this Thursday, Join my sessions

As if there wasn’t enough to do online this week with the Telerik Webinar Week, I have another online event that needs mentioning. This Thursday, July 22nd, from 8 AM to 5 PM Central time, there will be a virtual ASP.NET MVC conference. Conducted entirely over Live Meeting, the day long (free, Telerik-sponsored) conference, dubbed mvcConf, will feature 3 tracks with sessions exclusively covering ASP.NET MVC and related topics. There will be some great speakers presenting throughout the day, so if MVC is something you’re even remotely interested in, this is a great “event” to attend.

For my part, I’ll be delivering two sessions (official schedule should be on website soon):

• Creating Rich MVC Views with Open Source Telerik Extensions
  11:00 AM Central Time
  ASP.NET MVC is a great web development platform, but it shouldn’t require you to write all HTML, CSS, and JavaScript by hand. Come learn how the free and open source Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC are making it easy to build rich MVC views by giving you MVC-native reusable UI components. This session will focus on how to add Telerik Extensions to an MVC project, how to use the rich Grid for MVC (including binding to web services), in addition to highlighting additional tools in the MVC toolbox, such as the new rich text Editor for MVC.
• The Four C’s of Web Asset Optimization
  2:00 PM Central Time
  Learn how to leverage the four C’s of web asset optimization- caching, combining, compressing, and CDNs- to deliver higher performance standards-based web sites. By applying one or all of these techniques to JavaScript and CSS resources, ASP.NET MVC applications can improve load-time performance and scalability. This session will  also look at two Extensions included in the open source Telerik Extensions for MVC- ScriptRegistrar and StyleSheetRegistrar- that simplify the actions required to optimize web assets.

So, right after you attend the JustCode/JustMock/OpenAccess ORM Telerik webinar (at 10:00 AM Central), jump over and join me for some MVC fun at mvcConf. If the conference will allow it, I’ll give away a few commercial licenses for the Telerik MVC Extensions and JustMock to attendees of my sessions.

One final note: the event is currently sold out! I know, unusual for an online event, but I’m told it has to do with the event’s access to Live Meeting (or Live Meeting limits, or something…). Fortunately, they are working on streaming sessions via UStream, too, so check the conference website for updates (or check their official Twitter account). Otherwise, I’ll see you- virtually- at mvcConf on Thursday.

Q2 2010 Webinar Week underway, Videos on Telerik TV

Quick! If you’ve already missed the first two Webinar Week webinars, you’ve still got time to catch the remaining events this week and next. Everyday this week at 11 AM Eastern, we’re hosting a live webinar to help you get started with the Q2 2010 bits from Telerik. Yesterday, we kicked things off and talked about What’s New in AJAX and MVC (recording embedded above). Today we just wrapped-up an overview of What’s New in Reporting and WinForms. And tomorrow we’re talking XAML.

To register for any of the upcoming webinars, visit this post and follow the quick registration links.

Also, don’t forget about our upcoming “Ask the Experts” webinar on Friday, August 5th. It’s the perfect time to bring your questions and get answers live from Telerik Evangelists, Developer Support Specialists, and Telerik MVPs.

Otherwise, we hope you continue to enjoy Q2 2010 and all that it has to offer. If you’re still try to get your hands on a Q2 2010 Ultimate Collection license, you’ll definitely want to join the webinars where you’ll have a chance everyday to win Telerik software!

What’s being said about Telerik Q2 2010

It’s only days after Telerik shipped the major Q2 2010 release, and already the internet is abuzz with praise for our latest round of bits. Both “traditional” media and the always buzzing social media are talking about Q2 2010. From the traditional press, you can find good articles talking about Q2 2010 bits here:

A Busy Week, But a Good One
Dr. Dobb’s – M-Dev Update (by Jon Erickson)

Telerik Pushes Design, Testing Tools
SD Times (by Dave Worthington)

Meanwhile, from the vocal Twitterland, developers are spreading the word about the Telerik release and adding their two-cents (or stotinky, if you’re in Bulgaria) as they go:

“Congratulations to @Telerik - JustCode excellent updates on the Q2 2010 with this great news :D”
(by @djonatastenfen)

“…the HTML that that #Telerik control outputs is perfect - images are imbedded! What we were looking for.”
(by @lancelarsen – he’s talking about the new RichTextBox for Silverlight)

“New #telerik Silverlight Demo based on 2010 Q2 controls, is available. Looks super clean!”
(by @BenHayat)

“Started up visual studio with a nice surprise alert: new version of JustCode from #Telerik is out!”
(by @SelAromDotNet)

“AWESOME http://demos.telerik.com/silverlight/#Controls”
(by @ssdulawat)

“Liking what I see in Telerik Silverlight controls Q2 2010: http://bit.ly/9R7Ezf. Like the XAP minifier.”
(by @gillcleeren)

“…Cool re freebies from Telerik. They just released Q2 of their toolkit today. Looks ace.”
(by @graemehumphrey)

“Telerik have just released a new beta of their mvc extensions. Some very nice stuff in there. http://bit.ly/aSoj1u #dotnet #mvc”
(by @seancross)

“Just bought the Telerik suite for silverlight and wpf. Lovin it”
(by @JoshGraham78)

“Wow, Telerik's OpenAccess ORM looks impressive http://tinyurl.com/3anzsvh”
(by @coridrew)

Even the blogosphere (yes, people still blog in this ago of “social updates”) is spreading love and excitement for the Q2 release:

HTML Editor in Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC
(by David Hayden)

New goodies in the Q2 Release of Telerik OpenAccess : Part I
(by Stephen Forte – an “insider,” but a great intro post)

What do you think of Q2 2010? Hopefully you’re discovering and enjoying the new features, controls, and tools. Be sure to join us next week for the “What’s New Webinars,” which will help answer any questions you have about the new bits. Until then, keep on enjoying Telerik’s Q2 release and be sure to share your thoughts on Facebook and Twitter!

(NW) Arkansas DNUG Road Trip

In the midst of a busy Telerik Q2 release week, I’m multi-tasking and doing a .NET User Group Road Trip in Northwest Arkansas. Visiting 6 DNUGs in 4 days and delivering 3.5 different talks, this week is definitely busy! At this point, there is one more major “public” stop left on the DNUG Road Trip (a few stops are “private” corporate DNUGs in the area), and so far all stops have been great. Northwest Arkansas has a great .NET community and it’s been fun talking about Silverlight 4, HTML5, and Building Testable Data Layers with this group of smart developers.

The “public stop” schedule this week was (and is):

1. Forth Smith .NET User Group on Monday
   Talk: The Rich Standard: Getting Familiar with HTML5
2. Northwest Arkansas DNUG on Tuesday
   Talk: Building a Testable Data Layer
3. Northwest Arkansas SQL Users Group on Wednesday
   Talk: What’s New in Silverlight 4 (with a “data twist”)
4. Ozark DNUG on Thursday
   Talk: Building a Testable Data Layer

I’ll update this post with slides and code soon, but in the mean time, if you’re in the area, why not join us for the last stop of the road trip tonight, Thursday, at 6:00 PM at the Ozark .NET User Group? It’ll be a fun talk and there will be some more great Telerik swag to give away.

Thanks to all of the community leaders in the area for helping make this Road Trip a success, and for doing a good job growing an active .NET community. I look forward to coming back!

60+ Q2 2010 videos on Telerik TV

Looking for a way to get started with the Q2 bits while you wait for next week’s Q2 2010 What’s New webinars? Then why not swing by the recently improved Telerik TV, where you’ll find over 60 new videos created to help you learn the Q2 2010 controls and features. Videos for everything from Telerik Reporting to JustCode to WebUI Test Studio have been posted, and most are “bite size” in length, making it quick and easy for you to use the video to learn a specific lesson.

More videos will be streaming out to Telerik TV this week, so check back often for even more Q2 video learning. Specifically, you’ll soon see more videos covering the new features in OpenAccess ORM, RadControls for AJAX integration with SharePoint, and getting started videos for the new beta features in the Telerik Extensions for MVC. Stay tuned!

For now, you can get started with the quick four minute “overview” what’s new video for Q2 2010 (pre- a much needed hair cut on my part!):

http://tv.telerik.com/watch/telerik/whats-new-q2-2010

Q2 2010 is live, Download today!

And just like that, the next major Q release from Telerik is available on Telerik.com! Today marks the official release of all Q2 2010 bits, which means all ten developer products in the Telerik Ultimate Collection have been updated! I’m always amazed (even as an insider) at our ability to consistently deliver high quality releases full of new features and innovation on time, and I’m sure you’re going to enjoy what you find in this release. While there is tons that could be talked about in a release this big, let me draw your attention to a few major improvements you’ll find:

1. (Real) RichTextBox for Silverlight
   Sure, Silverlight 4 ships with a “richtextbox,” but anybody who has worked with it knows its limits (no “end-user features,” support for only XAML formatting, etc.). The RadRichTextBox for Silverlight that officially ships today finally gives developers a native Silverlight text editor that can import/export HTML(!), Word’s DOCX format, and XAML. It also includes built-in support for paged(!) printing. Enjoy. (TIP: If you see the old Q2 online demos, try clearing your browser’s cache.)
2. Assembly Minifier for Silverlight
   If you’re building Silverlight apps, you know how important (and challenging) it is to keep them small. Telerik goes the extra mile in Q2 2010 by giving you a new tool to help you minify your Telerik RadControl assemblies. Check it out online and watch for some powerful improvements in this tool in upcoming releases.
3. Improved Automated Testing for Silverlight Apps
   Now that the Telerik Ultimate Collection includes the Dev Edition of WebUI Test Studio, I expect many more of you are starting to experience the benefits of automated UI testing. In this release, Telerik extends its industry leading support for testing Silverlight by adding support for creating Out-of-Browser Silverlight app tests, support for testing ChildWindows and Pop-ups, improved support for virtualized lists, and a cool new pixel-based image verification (for “visual” validation of an app).
4. Round-Trip Mapping in OpenAccess ORM
   One of my favorite features in Q2 2010 is the new Round-Trip Mapping support in OpenAccess. Not only does the Visual Designer now support forward and reverse mapping, it lets you “switch” between forward and reverse mapping at any time in a project. No more “either or” decisions about making projects forward or reverse mapped. This makes OpenAccess very flexible (more than any other ORM I’m aware of) and enables some new cool scenarios (such as, reverse map to start a project, then forward map as your project evolves).
5. Official Release of JustMock!
   And finally, JustMock, our newest developer productivity tool. JustMock makes mocking as easy (as possible) in unit tests by fully leveraging the language features of .NET to provide an intuitive, fluid API. It also integrates with JustCode to help you write some of your mocking code, making it easy to start mocking even if you’ve never done any in the past.

That’s already a lot of value, and I haven’t even mentioned the new controls and features in the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX, Telerik Extensions for MVC, RadControls for WinForms, or the other 12 new controls in the RadControls for XAML, OR the new interactive features in Reporting! Clearly, too much for one blog post, so for now, the most important thing to do is download the new bits and try things out for yourself. So…download the new bits and enjoy Q2. More details and coverage to come!

Firefox 4 beta arrives, HTML5 browser war heats up

Don’t look now, but the next wave of browsers is starting to roll-out. Just five days ago Opera shipped version 10.6 of their “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” web browser, and today Mozilla has followed with the first beta release of Firefox 4. Google continues to spin the versions on Chrome with v5 in beta and now rocking “native” Flash support, while Microsoft slowly works on churning out their return-to-standards IE 9 (begging for attention with their impressive hardware acceleration). And let’s not forget Apple, which released Safari 5 about a month ago at WWDC.

It has been about 6 months since browsers really stole headlines, but the entire arena of browser excitement has been gaining steam during the first half of 2010. Individual milestones from the browser makers have marked the road:

• Microsoft made (and continues to make) waves with IE9’s hardware acceleration, pushing the idea of browser performance reaching new levels by using more hardware.
• Google has arguably done the most to refocus the browser industry on performance, but it was the introduction of the open Web M video format that really surprised at Google IO.
• Apple has not done much to make Safari on the desktop more popular, but they have elevated the awareness (and power) of HTML5 by popularizing rich mobile browsers on the iPhone and iPad (and defiantly refusing to support Flash).

The world’s second most popular browser, Firefox, has not had much to say in the mean time, so the introduction of Firefox 4 beta finally rounds-out the browser conversation. Firefox 4 beta ships with a radically re-imagined (or quickly “borrowed”) tab experience, support for the new WebM video format, and the requisite improvements in support for HTML5 and CSS3.

Ultimately, the current wave of browsers is coalescing around competing on a few key “web battlegrounds:”

1. Performance – Chrome redefined the browser performance standard 2 years ago, and everyone (including Google) has been working ever since to go faster. The current wave of browsers is intently focused on faster JavaScript processing, faster HTML/CSS rendering, and faster browser startup speed.
2. HTML5 – The new wave of browsers won’t have 100% uniform support for the collection of standards that define “HTML5,” but there will be broad support for the core features that move the standards-based, rich web in to the future. Even Microsoft has set the bar high for delivering complete standards support in IE9.
3. Video – Yes, video. While a relatively small feature in the grand scheme, it is a contentious feature since it quickly derails “HTML5 is the future” conversations in to talking about the need for rich plug-ins (like Silverlight). The new wave of browsers is aiming to make video delivery on the web as familiar and uniform as static images.

For web developers and consumers this is a win-win situation. Browser makers are finally competing on meaningful features that will help reenergize web development in the same way Ajax did in 2005. If the makers can ship browsers that live-up to the promises, we’ll all be browsing the web faster and interacting with rich applications, previously the exclusive realm of plug-ins and client development.

The only challenge to this utopian future: legacy browsers. So why not do the future a favor and help an IE6 user move in to the “pre-future” today?

Telerik, of course, continues to test and commit to supporting the latest browsers as they emerge, both with our RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and our open source UI Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. I’ll provide more details on how we’re embracing HTML5 and the new browsers in future blogs posts. For now, give some of the latest HTML5, speed-demon browsers a test:

Download Firefox 4 Beta 1
Download Chrome 5 Beta
Download IE9 Platform Preview
Download Safari 5 (actually, not a beta!)
Download Opera 10.6 (if you just love being unique)

Silverlight Pivot on Telerik TV

Hot on the heels of this week’s official Microsoft release of Pivot for Silverlight, we have added experimental Pivot support to Telerik TV! For those unfamiliar, Pivot (and the related PivotViewer), is a powerful data visualization tool from Microsoft (for Silverlight 4) that makes it easy to visualize “collections” in a fun, powerful and engaging way. It relies on a combination of DeepZoom technology, XML, and the new PivotViewer UI control.

On Telerik TV, we have implemented experimental video search using a dynamic Pivot. Pivot collections and images are created and cached on the fly, using OpenAccess ORM on the backend, and then served via the Microsoft PivotViewer. The result is an incredibly rich and engaging approach to searching Telerik TV.

Clearly, this is very experimental and “beta” at this point. I’ll be publishing more details on the implementation soon (it took less than a day to implement the viewer), and we’ll be working on making the Pivot loading process faster and more robust. For now, Telerik is proud to be one of the first companies to deliver a Pivot-based implementation and we hope you enjoy the new view on Telerik TV!

Try Pivot video search now

Testing Telerik Menu for MVC in jsFiddle (no server-side processing)

Recently, I’ve been talking a lot about the value of server-side rendering when picking UI components. And while server-side rendering is essential for maximizing SEO efficiency and even optimizing caching and initial page load times, modern web applications must have UI controls that can operate completely in the client to deliver the rich responsiveness of “desktop” apps. That’s why it’s important to pick UI components that can do both server- and client-side rendering.

I recently stumbled across a very cool online (alpha) tool called jsFiddle. It’s a browser-based HTML/CSS/JS scratchpad. Wanting to test it and prove the client-side prowess of the Telerik Extensions for MVC, I figured I’d use this pure client-side tool to “load” a Telerik Menu.

Loading Telerik Menu in JS Fiddle

To initialize a Telerik Extension, such as the Menu, without any server-side processing, you need to execute a few simple steps:

1. Manually add links to the required Telerik CSS and JS resources. For Menu, four resources are required (I pulled them from the Telerik CDN):
   • http://aspnet-scripts.telerikstatic.com/mvc/2010.1.309/telerik.common.min.js
   • http://aspnet-scripts.telerikstatic.com/mvc/2010.1.309/telerik.menu.min.js
   • http://aspnet-skins.telerikstatic.com/mvcz/2010.1.309/telerik.common.min.css
   • http://aspnet-skins.telerikstatic.com/mvcz/2010.1.309/telerik.vista.min.css
2. Manually add the HTML for the Extension, with required CSS classes for skin styling (more on this in a moment). For jsFiddle, I copy and pasted the HTML from a Menu demo as a starting point.
3. Manually initialize the Extension with a simple jQuery call. For Menu, the single line required is: jQuery('#Menu').tMenu();

Follow these steps and you get a fully functional Telerik Menu, complete with proper skin applied and client-side API in-place. You can play with the live jsFiddle example to see and test for yourself.

The Missing Piece of the Equation

While the jsFiddle demo proves that the Telerik Extensions work completely free of any server-side processing, it also highlights the one challenge with today’s model. You have to know how to create the HTML by hand, or you have to copy and paste to get started. Some components, like Grid for MVC, can actually create (some) HTML client-side when bound to JSON data, but most Extensions today do not have simple client-side intializers.

So what?

In most cases, you’ll be using the Extensions for MVC…in MVC, so the incredibly easy to configure fluent API syntax will make it easy for you to configure your control and spit-out the needed HTML. If you want to use the Extensions on a “plain” HTML page, it’s definitely possible (again, see jsFiddle), but it requires a little more work today. In the future, we may be able to provide simple client-side APIs for initializing controls completely client-side, but for now, you get the most value by letting the server do the initial render.

Universal Lessons

This demo proves a point, but there are important lessons to takeaway:

1. Just as Microsoft is proving that it is Software + Services that represents the future for application development, the Telerik Extensions demonstrate the power and value of Server + Client for UI development. Don’t get trapped by “client-side only” or “server-side only” controls.
2. You can take complete control over your MVC controls. The Script and StyleSheet Registrars save you time (and help you optimize), but as you can see in this demo, you can manually add resource references and initialize your MVC Extensions.
3. The Telerik Extensions are truly universal. Optimized for MVC, but usable even in plain HTML pages.
4. Don’t forget about the Telerik CDN! A great free resource for further optimizing globally targeted applications.

Enjoy playing around with the jsFiddle tool and watch for more powerful client- and server-side UI Extensions from Telerik in a few short weeks.

Ask the Experts webinar scheduled for August

By now, you should know that the Telerik Q2 2010 release is mere weeks away and that the Q2 2010 Webinar Week registration is open. (You should also be registered for the Webinar Week now, too, so if you’re not, now is a great time to register before you forget.) When mid-July arrives and you download the Q2 bits, you’ll quickly get started by enjoying the “release notes on steroids” (also known as Webinar Week), but what happens if you have questions after you’ve spent some time using the bits in the real world?

To help answer those burning questions that form in the first week of working with the Q2 2010 bits, Telerik is hosting another Ask the Experts webinar on August 5th at 11 AM Eastern.

What is Ask the Experts? It’s a unique webinar format driven entirely by your questions. Telerik MVPs and product experts host the event and spend over an hour answering any questions you have about the Q2 release. The event is full of on-the-spot demos and quick tips and tricks from real masters of the Telerik products. It’s the perfect Webinar Week follow-up.

Register for the Ask the Experts webinar now and then join us on August 5th with your questions!

Q2 2010 Webinar Week registration is open (update)

As the hot summer months start to set-in, it’s almost time for another Telerik release! The Q2 2010 release is just a few short weeks away (bits are shipping in mid-July), and with it another action-packed “What’s New Webinar Week.” For the uninitiated, a Webinar Week is 5 days of webinars designed to help you discover all of the major new features Telerik is shipping in a release. As another Telerik Evangelist said, “it’s like release notes on steroids.”

Clearly, you don’t want to miss these webinars. Only people attending the live events will have a shot at winning Telerik Ultimate Collections (our newest “super bundle,” $1999 value), so don’t wait for the Telerik TV recordings. We’ll give away at least one Ultimate Collection per webinar.

Q2 2010 What’s New Webinar Week starts on Monday, July 19 at 11:00 AM Eastern. Registration links for all 5 webinars are below. Sign-up right now and then invite your friends, family, and pets.

Mon, Jul 19: What’s New in RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and Extensions for MVC Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/391602961

Tues, Jul 20: What’s New in RadControls for WinForms and Telerik Reporting Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/840774105

Wed, Jul 21: What’s New in RadControls for Silverlight and WPF Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/296364240

Thurs, Jul 22: What’s New in JustCode, JustMock, and OpenAccess ORM Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/665018560

Fri, Jul 23: What’s New in WebUI Test Studio Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/119429289

[UPDATE] Tues, Jul 27: Official TeamPulse Launch Webinar Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/737864569

Thurs, Jul 29: What's New in Sitefinity 4 Beta Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/406935048

Fri, Aug 5: Q2 2010 Ask the Experts Webinar

Now that you’ve registered, don’t forget to play with the Q2 2010 betas. Your time for providing beta Q2 2010 feedback is quickly fading.

Testing web pages with “spider” vision

In my previous post about the importance of choosing UI controls that provide server-side rendering, we discussed the problem that modern “JavaScript-only” UI components present- most notably, their inability to support search engine indexing. We established the importance of picking UI controls- like Telerik’s RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX or Extensions for ASP.NET MVC- that provide both server- and client-side rendering to ensure that your websites can both maximize performance and accessibility (to both humans and search bots).

But how do you know you have a problem? You may be using UI controls now and not be sure if you’re SEO friendly (unless you’re using Telerik controls, of course, in which case, you’re covered). You need a way to see your pages in the same way the bots do.

How do you gain search “spider vision” for testing your pages?

Fortunately, you have a couple of options:

1. Text-only Web Browser – Text browsers, such as Lynx, provide you with a close approximation of what search spiders see when they visit your page. That makes them good tools for testing your content to see how your page renders when JavaScript is not in play. Even Google recommends using this approach to test content.
2. Fetch as Googlebot – This is super spider vision. Google provides a beta tool as part of its Tools for Webmasters called “Fetch as Googlebot.” As the name implies, this tool allows you to plug-in a URL from your site (you have to have verified access to the site before you can use this tool, unfortunately) and get back a processed result that shows you “exactly” what Goolgebot sees when it visits your page. Obviously, Google is probably not showing all its cards with this tool, but it gives you a good approximation and once again clearly highlights the “text-only” nature of search indexing.

With tools available to give us spider vision, what does client-side rendering look like versus server-side rendering? Let’s test.

Using a simple ASP.NET MVC test page, I bind a Telerik Extensions Grid for MVC to customers data from Northwind. Since the Telerik MVC Grid supports both rendering modes, I create one view that uses Server Binding and another that uses Ajax Binding (i.e. client side-binding, similar to how something like a jQuery grid works). Here is what the page looks like in the browser (in both modes):

Now, here’s how Googlebot sees the Server Binding version of the page (relevant Grid section in the screen cap):

Notice two things. First, notice that Googlebot only sees text. Second, notice the data in the Grid (highlighted in red). This is good. This means Google is indexing our Grid content in the same way users see it. Now let’s see what happens if we use Goolgebot vision to load our client-side rendering (Ajax Binding) page:

Where’s our data? That’s right: missing in action! Because our client-side page uses Ajax and JavaScript to initialize, Googlebot (and search spiders, in general) do not see the content. The content might as well not exist as far as indexing is concerned.

Make sure your pages aren’t invisible.

Fortunately, my pages are using Telerik controls, so I can easily fix the problem by enabling Server Binding for crawlers. If you are using “pure” client-side components that provide no server-side option, though, your solution will not be as easy. Take advantage of tools like Lynx and “Fetch” to gain “spider vision” and ensure your fancy pages aren’t invisible to some of your most important visitors. And, of course, save yourself some time and use Telerik tools to avoid the problem!

Importance of server-side rendering for web UI controls

As we move in to the Age of jQuery, where web developers are finally embracing and using JavaScript for all variety of cool thing, there are some important “gotchas” that tend to get overlooked. One of the most critical is the importance of supporting server-side rendering.

Most of us don’t worry about browsers not supporting JavaScript these days because, frankly, every browser does! Even mobile browsers (that matter) support and execute JavaScript. And despite what you may have heard, JavaScript can be used in accessible applications (a requirement for most government websites) as long as certain “precautions” are taken. Unfortunately, there is still a MAJOR consumer of the web that cannot deal with most JavaScript! Know who?

Search engine crawlers.

If you want your content to be indexed (by public crawlers OR your own internal corporate crawlers), pure client-side initialization and rendering is a problem. Search crawlers do not execute JavaScript. Some research suggests that modern crawlers are starting to use “tricks” to follow links embedded in JavaScript, but most SEO experts agree that the crawlers are not doing any arbitrary JavaScript execution on your page. (Even Google continues to advise developers to use a text-only browser like Lynx to see a page as web crawlers see it.)

 Telerik Grid for ASP.NET MVC in “client-binding mode” as seen by Google’s cache

So what? Why is this subject for Telerik Watch?

As web developers, we want to ensure that we deliver highly-optimized, high-performance web applications, but we also want to make sure our content is indexable. When you pick UI components, it’s important to pick tools that support BOTH server-side rendering AND client-side rendering.

For most “normal” users, the client-side rendering will enable you to deliver a premium, high-performance experience. If your control is really well built, the client-side mode will only send data between the browser and server and will handle HTML in the browser (minimizing bandwidth, maximizing responsiveness).

For search crawlers, the server-side rendering mode will enable you to present all content on the initial request. HTML is rendered on the server, sent the browser, and then easily indexable by the search crawler.

 Telerik Grid for ASP.NET MVC in “server mode” indexed correctly by Google

Telerik is one of the only UI component vendors that offers this type of “dual mode” support for both ASP.NET AJAX and ASP.NET MVC. Many UI component vendors offer all or nothing- client-side or bust- so beware! Not all tools are created equal, and you might miss this all important feature in your initial review.

Recap: Client-side rendering is great for performance, but terrible for search indexing. Make sure you pick UI components that provide flexible support for both rendering modes so you can have your cake and eat it too.

Minimize Silverlight application size with Telerik Assembly Minifier

There is one major change in thinking that occurs when you move from ASP.NET or WinForms application development to Silverlight development. Okay, there are a lot of changes in thinking, but one very important change that’s easy to overlook. In Silverlight, your application assembly size matters and has a big impact on user experience!

In ASP.NET, assembly size doesn’t really matter because DLLs always live on the server. Only the final HTML and resources are sent to the user. In WinForms, assembly size can definitely make for a larger install, but generally all of the bits needed to run an app are locally installed and ready to go when the user is ready to begin.

In Silverlight, DLLs live in the XAP. Before a Silverlight application can run, the entire XAP must be downloaded, and if you’ve got a ton of DLLs referenced and in your XAP, that can mean megabytes of download and a slow application “startup” experience for your users. To maximize the Silverlight experience you need to minimize the size of your XAP.

Which leads to the new (free!) tool introduced by Telerik last week, the Assembly Minifier.

When you use 3rd party Silverlight controls, like the RadControls for Silverlight, you should only reference the assemblies for the controls you’re using to avoid adding unnecessary DLLs to your XAP. But that only gets you so far. An assembly like Telerik.Windows.Controls or Telerik.Windows.Controls.Input holds many controls, and using just one brings the rest along for the ride. How do you only “pay for what you use” in your XAP size?

Simply use the Minifier. Today it allows you to quickly “extract” only the controls you’re going to use in your app from Telerik Silverlight assemblies. You just upload your Telerik assemblies, select the controls you want, and then use the new minified output in your project. Depending on the controls you use and assemblies you minify, you can see reductions in uncompressed DLL size greater than 50%. Give the beta a try today and let us know what you think in the forums.

Read all about using the minifier on the Telerik Blogs, too.

How do you make your XAP even smaller?

The Assembly Minifier you see today is just the beginning. As a hosted Silverlight-based tool (which has been minified, too!), we will be constantly updating it leading-up to and then past Q2. We will be working on delivering features in the future that make it even easier to minimize the size of your XAPs, including non-Telerik assemblies! We wanted to start “simple,” though, and then build-up to the “all powerful” minifier we know you need.

For now, enjoy the beta and spread the word. Let’s start minifying Silverlight applications together and start making users’ lives better with radically improved download times!

Q2 2010 betas now available

We’re back from a busy, award-filled week at TechEd 2010, and we’re closer than ever to the next major Telerik release. A few weeks ago, we covered in detail what you can expect in the Q2 2010 release, but now you can actually start to get your hands on some of the new stuff. Available right now on Telerik.com are betas for the RadControls for Silverlight/WPF, RadControls for WinForms, and JustCode. Betas for most other Telerik products will be shipping later in June.

As a reminder, the betas for XAML only include builds for Silverlight/WPF v4. All new controls and features are targeting the v4 of these platforms, so there are no v3 beta builds. The final Q2 release will include native v3 builds, but it will be bug fixes only.

Otherwise, don’t waste any time downloading the latest betas! These bits deliver everything from a unit test runner (JustCode) to new desktop alerts and reminders (WinForms) to a seriously cool Word-like editor for the browser (Silverlight). We need to hear your feedback now so we can get everything just right for the July release!

Beta Feedback Forums
Silverlight / WPF
WinForms
JustCode

Telerik wins Best of TechEd 2010

See that trophy sitting there? That’s the “Best of TechEd: Software Components and Middleware” award (right above the previously mentioned Code Project Members’ Choice award). This is a huge honor for Telerik and we are extremely grateful for all the support and feedback from you, our customers, that helped us bring this trophy home. As our CEO said, this is validation that we’re on the right track and it only pushes to go further!

And while we didn’t take home the trophy in the other two categories where we were nominated (congrats to Dundas and Quest!), being a Best of TechEd Finalist is still a major accomplishment. Hundreds of submissions from around the world get whittled in to fewer than 50 finalists, so being represented in 3 of 14 award categories (only Quest, Symantec, and Microsoft matched that feat) says a lot about Telerik’s success delivering solutions for all aspects of .NET development.

Thank you for being part of Telerik’s success and stay tuned for an exciting Q2 release in a few short weeks!

Telerik at TechEd, Winning awards

As you know, this is a busy week for Telerik because we’re in full-force at TechEd 2010. TechEd New Orleans is underway and the Telerik crew is busy doing booth demos, talking to Telerik fans, and helping developers learn how Telerik’s tools help them save time building great software. As you would expect at a conference made-up largely of the “IT Pro” audience, Telerik’s TeamPulse planning software and WebUI Test Studio testing software are very popular in the booth this week, and Telerik Reporting is a big hit with the BI attendees (especially with our support for Silverlight, WPF, WinForms, and ASP.NET).

We’re also very honored to receive some awards this week.

We kicked-off the week taking home the Code Project Members’s Choice Award for Best Silverlight UI components! The Telerik Silverlight Team has been working very hard to create the best Silverlight UI components available and we’re pleased that our work is producing results the entire .NET community loves. We’ll continue to build on this success and once again establish Telerik as the industry leader for UI components on any Microsoft platform.

Meanwhile, we’ve also been nominated for three “Best of TechEd” awards this year! We’re nominated in these categories:

• Best Database Development Tools (with OpenAccess ORM)
• Best BI Tools (with Telerik Reporting)
• Best Software Components (with Telerik Ultimate Collection)

It’s a great honor to be considered among the best of the best across such a wide spectrum of .NET, and we definitely appreciate all of the feedback and support that you- our avid fans and critics- provide to help make our products great.

Of course, beyond the booth and the awards, there are plenty of parties and meetings and parties this week in New Orleans. It’s a busy time, but an exciting time. And speaking of time, it’s time for me to get back to the expo floor…