Welcome to Imar.Spaanjaars.Com

This is the first part of a (long running) article series about migrating a .NET 1.x Web site to ASP.NET 2. I'll show you how to take an existing site, and upgrade it to ASP.NET 2. As an example, I'll be using my own web site, Imar.Spaanjaars.Com, show you how I have designed and implemented the currently existing features, and how they can be upgraded to take advantage of the new ASP.NET 2.0 Framework. I won't be describing each and every feature in great detail, but instead focus on general concepts and techniques, and provide links to other articles with more in-depth information.

Each article starts with a little background about one of the new ASP.NET 2 features, like Master Pages, the new Login controls, the Provider Model, Skins, and so on. Next, I'll discuss how I implemented similar behavior in my current site, or how I managed to live without it. Then I'll explain how the new features work and how you can use it in your ASP applications. At the end of the article, I'll show you how I implemented the feature in my own site.

Today I uploaded the official version 2.0 of my Web site. A while ago I launched the first beta of the site, and during the past 1 and a half week, I fixed the last few issues.

As you likely have noticed by now, I changed the design for the Web site Imar.Spaanjaars.Com. I got a bit bored with the black and white design, so I felt it was time for something new.

There has been a lot of buzz going on lately about the upcoming ASP.NET 2 release. Together with Visual Studio 2005 this will be a large milestone in the development of dynamic and database driven Web sites.

The betas of Visual Studio 2005 have made quite an impression so far. Both the Express versions as the full version of Visual Studio 2005 (available to MSDN subscribers only) have been around for some time. But what to do with them? It's fun to give the tool a little test drive, read about the new controls, master pages, the skins and themes engine, the cool membership and role management modules, personalization, better integration with Microsoft SQL Server and other cool new features.

But with the release date so far away ("somewhere" in 2005) is it any good to you?

Update!! 05-24-2006 - Updated the old beta code to the RTM version of ASP.NET 2.0. Also updated the downloadable source file.

Uploading files in ASP.NET is easier than ever. All you need to do is add the new <asp:FileUpload> control to your page and write a bit of code that deals with the uploaded file once the page is posted back to the server.