Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

As a web developer, if you are floored by Google Suggest 's auto complete feature & its smart use of AJAX , you should also check the neat Dictionary/Thesaraus app done with XMLHttpRequest object & ASP.Net . I will keep updating my meta-list of practical AJAX examples whenever I find a new one.

According to the XML Litmus Test , XML is the appropriate tool for the job if the following criteria are satisfied by choosing XML as the data representation format for a given application: There is a need to interoperate across multiple software platforms. One or more of the off-the-shelf tools for dealing with XML can be leveraged when producing or consuming the data. Parsing performance is not critical. The content is not primarily binary content, such as a music or image file. The content does not contain control characters that aren't carriage return, line feed, or tab because they are illegal in XML.

Ryan Farley reports about a story from the trenches on migrating an ASP.NET 1.1 project to ASP.NET 2.0 . Also on the topic, Scott Allen blogs and writes authoritative articles about ASP.NET 2.0

If your website offers PDF downloads, it pays to optimise those pdf files for faster access . In general, higher the PDF version number, smaller the file. To create the smallest possible PDFs for the Web minimize the number of fonts, bitmapped images, and substitute vector based-graphics instead. Minimize the number and complexity of forms in your PDF document, and avoid the use of multimedia. The "Speed Up Your Site:Web Site Optimization" offers similar practical tips. At its complementary website, excerpts of the book and Web Page Analyzer - a website performance tool are available.

Clusty is a new search engine on the block which automatically organizes search results into related groups or clusters , on the fly .