I had a debate (friendly one of course...) with a co-worker of mine, called Maayan. We discussed about what is the best place to save quite large of data that need to be used frequently in my web application, should we store it in the Application object or the prefered way - store it in the Cache object?

Before we'll go to the conclution, lets get some details about these 2 terms and the vast term called Caching in applications.

2nd before - I am not going to invent the wheel on this post, just to sharpen some points that I think that are missing or came up for most of us...

Caching is the most effective technique you can use to improve the performance of your ASP.NET web application. Designing your application with caching in mind, improves both the performance and the scalability of that application. Caching is about storing data in memory the first time it is requested and then re-using it for the following requests for a specified period of time.

ASP.NET provides very convenient API in order to use this term for the best and easy way, reffered also to Application data object and Output Cache of course.

You can cache the application data using the System.Web.Caching.Cache class. One instance of this class is created per application domain, and it remains valid as long as the application domain remains active. This object is global which means its data is avaiable anywhere at the application scope.

Now, to the big question: What is more recomended for storing the data, Cache object or Application object?

Well, the main difference between them is that he cache object has some more powerful features that allows you to control the cached data. Which this object, each of the data item has its priority state and expiration time. This object has 2 important issues handling: When your system's memory becomes short, the chache object knows to remove data items with low priorety and free its memory, by that the cahce ensures that unnecessary items does not consume valuable server resources.

One more good adventage (in ASP.NET of course) is to cache the pages' data. ASP.NET allows you to cache web pages or portions of them, calling this an output caching. By caching frequently requested pages or portions of them, you can substantially increases your web server throughput and get a fast page response. You can cache pages on devices like: the web browser making the request, the web server responding to the request, and any other cache capable devices such as proxy servers. To read some more information about it go here).

Conclution: I think that for more complex data manipulation caching, the recommended way is to use the cache object and API, but if you want to use and cache some 'dummy' data (or just data that not has to be modified and managed during the application), use the application object (or session object - per user's session) to chach your data.

I sat yesterday in front of my big screen LCD TV at home, and I must tell you that I've enjoyed every step on the game between Real Madrid and Mallorca.

1456 days - this is the time that had pass from the last Real's championship until yesterday evening. After a great comeback from the men in white, (3:1 on Mallorca), this club earned his 30th championship. Until the 79th minute of the game, Barca (the previous champion) was virtually saved its title, but of course Capello's team did the unbelivable, the substitue - Rayas ripped the net twice and lead the men in white to its championship.

I am glad and think that it's a good refreshment (Barca had become a little bit boring...), after all the Spanish league is the best, don't you think?

 (A.P)

I know that I am a big fan of Microsoft products and technologhy, but I read today the Safari (from Apple) is ready to download.

Despite this version is still a beta, you can download it to your PC and start playing with it.

I downloaded it just to get the feel impression of it and also to has an idea how my web applications are being showed there... (good for cross browsers suitabilities). And it's nice...

Download is here.

These days I am working on a very big web application...

In one of my aspx pages I had needed to save lots of data in the ViewState object in order to persist data between postbacks, but when I looked at the rendered HTML, I saw a large hidden field for carring the ViewState.

ASP.NET 2.0 came up with a new feature that helps to reduce the amount of the hidden filed's ViewState data that called: PageStatePersister.

When we add an override the PageStatePersister property and use the built-in SessionPageStatePersister, the behavior of the page remains the same, but the storage used for the bulk of the state data is shifted from the hidden field to session state.

Implamantation instance:

protected override PageStatePersister PageStatePersister
{
   get { return new SessionPageStatePersister(this); }
}

In several cases you'll only want to override this property in your page and to shift the ViewState data into the Sesson object, but if you'll want to use it (wisely of course) on your entire web application? You should implement this property in a particular custom base page and to inherit it to all of your application pages.

The only disadventage that I could think about here is the data existent, session can lose its data and information if its timeout has ended, but ViewState can hold the data forever on the page, because it's hard coded.

I had installed the AJAX extesions framework on my computer in order to assimilate it in my web application that I am working on right now. I added some AJAX controls such as <asp:ClientScript>, <asp:UpdatePanel> and more, and damn... I find that the markup intellisense no longer works for these controls, or for any controls nested within them.

This happens because my ClientScript control is defined in the master page, and when I tried to drag (create) some other AJAX control in the other aspx pages that inherits the master page, the intellisense was lost.

I found a great solution/trick in ScottGu's Blog, that says that in order to see that intellisense in the rest of aspx pages, we need to leave the master page designer open (isn't it little bit ackward?)

For some more information and tricks (in ScottGu's Blog) you can click here.

Hey, I just can't wait this movie will be coming on screens already, so I have decided to remind you that in 4th of July will be the premier.

Is this logo reminds you somthing...?

So, here is a link to to countdown to Transformers movie with trailers, photos and more (from Yahoo! site)...

See you at the theaters...