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Microsoft Releases the ASP.NET Resource Kit

Microsoft recently released the ASP.NET Resource Kit. It's chock full of code samples, walkthroughs, sample applications, and all sorts of other goodies. It's got sections on just about everything you might want to do with ASP.NET including web applications, mobile applications, web services, and data access. It even includes the obligatory special offers for discounts on hosting and free and trial .NET controls.

I found out about it's release from a contact at Microsoft:

Hi John

I wanted to let you know that today Microsoft announced the availability of additional tools and resources for developers building Web applications. The Microsoft ASP.NET Resource Kit provides a wealth of resources that include tools, tutorials and samples to help new developers learn ASP.NET. For developers who currently use ASP.NET or other existing Web technologies, the Resource Kit provides new controls and components, discounts on ASP.NET training, and great deals on ASP.NET Web hosting. The ASP.NET Migration Center on MSDN includes the newly released ASP to ASP.NET and PHP to ASP.NET Migration Guides, which will help developers by providing documentation, samples and utilities to help them use existing technology investments while upgrading to ASP.NET.

Press Release link - Microsoft ASP.NET Builds Momentum With Web Development Community

If you have questions please let me know.

Once installed, you access it via your web browser (just like everything else these days) and it looks like this:

Personally I spent most of my time in the 'Web Applications' section, but I guess what you find most interesting will probably depend on what you are doing or planning to do with ASP.NET.

I was a little surprised by the size... at 135MB, it's a relatively hefty download and I didn't get exceptional speeds. After installing I looked around for what was taking up all that space. The two biggest files (accounting for almost 40MB) were third party components that seem like they could just as easily have been offered as separate downloads. Anyway, for you users without a fast connection Microsoft will ship you a copy on CD, but you'll need to cough up a couple bucks for shipping and handling.

Another point of interest is that much of the content seems re-tasked. I opened one walkthrough to find a warning telling me "Please do not remove this manual from the lab". While this in no way detracts from the usability or quality of the information contained in the kit, I mention it simply in case you find yourself lost at any point. While the information and code seem excellent, keep in mind that at least some parts of it have been culled from other sources. As such, it feels more like a collection of cool things that were lying around then an actual product that was put together from scratch.

Anyway... enough of my rambling... go get it. There's lots of cool code and the price is right.

Download

You can get more information and download the ASP.NET Resource Kit from http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/asprk/.