"Zen Coding is a faster way to write HTML using a CSS style selector syntax, and you can now use Zen Coding in Visual Studio via the Web Essentials 2012 plug in (v1.7). Zen Coding was introduced by Sergey Chikuyonok in 2009 (according to Smashing Magazine) and has been updated over time to become a great way to write monotonous HTML much more efficiently."

"Markup is a beautiful thing, and it certainly has changed over the years. What was effectively HTML1, has certainly progressed to an amazing semantic markup language, to which we can largely thank the W3C. And, what do ya know, the next thing to thank them for has come about - HTML5."

"Two years ago I was very sceptical about automated UI testing. I had some painful experience with it because while writing the tests seemed relatively easy, maintaining them would become harder and harder over time to the point where it was impractical to maintain."

"One of the major constraints of web applications has always been connectivity. We imagined leveraging the browser to bring fully competent web applications to the desktop, but failed due to the lack of decent browser support. Although there were some caching techniques available before, they were never really designed with the intention of making web applications run completely offline, making them fragile and complex to set up. HTML5 tries to make up for this missing browser capability by introducing the offline application cache; a more reliable way to make web applications truly available even offline."

" Great code has many attributes. It's effective, efficient, maintainable, elegant. When working on code with many developers and teams and maybe even companies, great code needs to also be consistent and easy to understand. For that purpose there are style guides. We use style guides for a lot of languages, and our newest public style guide is the Google HTML and CSS Style Guide."

"This document describes new features and enhancements that are being introduced in ASP.NET 4.5. It also describes improvements being made for web development in Visual Studio (Visual Web Developer). "

"ASP.NET Web API has a pipeline for processing HTTP messages on both the client and server. The client and server sides are designed to be symmetrical but independent; you can use each half by itself. Both sides are built on some common objects:"

"Recently, I've been exploring the new ASP.NET Web API. So far, I've been impressed with how easy it is to build RESTful web interfaces. In the examples I've published, none have been secure. In the real world - the world that exists beyond the world of samples and demos - security is a matter than cannot be brushed aside. In this post, I squarely tackle that issue by showing you an approach that locks down and secures your ASP.NET Web API."

"Let's face it - there are a lot of sites out there now running MVC3, probably mostly using the same patterns. This is a taster of some of the creative ways that this versatile platform is being used."

"ASP.NET MVC 3 introduced global filters, which allows you to add the AuthorizeAttribute filter to the global.asax file to protect every action method of every controller. (In MVC versions prior to MVC 3, it was difficult to enforce the AuthorizeAttribute attribute be applied to all methods except login/register. See my previous blog on security for details.) The code below shows how to add the AuthorizeAttribute filter globally."

"Crazy random logo of evocative clipart combining the .NET Logo and some universal powerplugs into an unofficial logoI always like to remind folks of the equation ASP.NET > (ASP.NET MVC + ASP.NET WebForms). The whole "base of the pyramid" of ASP.NET has lots of things you can use in you applications. Some of these useful bits are Session State, Membership (Users), Roles, Profile data and the provider model that underlies it. Using these isn't for everyone but they are very useful for most applications, even ones as large as the ASP.NET site itself."

"So you're ready to start that new and ambitious ASP.NET MVC project. Maybe you're kicking off a new startup or just finally moving that old-and-crusty webforms project into modern development world. Either way, here are a few very simple things you can do immediately after creating that new MVC project that you will thank yourself for as your project grows in complexity."

"In case you did not see the latest news, what we used to know as WCF Web API was recently rebranded and included in ASP.NET MVC 4 as ASP.NET Web API. While both frameworks are similar in essence with focus on HTTP, the latter was primarily designed for building HTTP services that don't typically require an user intervention. For example, some AJAX endpoints or a Web API for a mobile application. While you could use ASP.NET MVC for implementing those kind of services, that would require some extra work for implementing things right like content-negotiation, documentation, versioning, etc. What really matter is that both framework share many of the extensibility points like model binders, filters or routing to name a few."

" The jQuery UI widgets are brilliant. They speed up web development no end with those easy to use controls. The downside is remembering all the HTML mark-up and widget options! "

"One common problem with the naming convention and default routing mechanism in ASP.NET MVC is that we tend to group actions in a controller for sharing an URL space. This basically leads to complex controllers with a lot of unrelated methods that break the SOLID principles. Too many responsibilities in a simple class affects maintainability in the long run and causes secondary effects that complicates unit testing. For example, we usually end up with class constructors that receives too many dependencies as it is discussed here in SO."

"The primary issue with running an ASP.NET site in IIS7 Integrated Pipeline mode is if you have any HTTP modules configured. See, the "problem" is that with ASP.NET under IIS6, there were essentially two pipelines: one for ASP.NET and one for IIS. A request would come into IIS and if the file extension was mapped to the ASP.NET ISAPI extension, the request would be passed off to aspnet_isapi.dll and was then processed by the ASP.NET pipeline, which is where the HTTP modules come into play with regards to events that occur in the pipeline. However, in IIS7 there is only one pipeline for those events, and its used for both IIS7 native modules and ASP.NET modules (once the pipeline events have been taken care of, the file is taken care of by the appropriate ISAPI extension)."

"Spark is a view engine for Asp.Net Mvc and Castle Project MonoRail frameworks. The idea is to allow the html to dominate the flow and the code to fit seamlessly."

How so? You've tried it?

Yup, been using Razor in MM for the last 9 months or more, and it is awesome! But I read this, yesterday, that's why I tagged it: http://geek.ianbattersby.com/2012/01/07/battle-of-heart-vs-mind-you-win-again-razor-over-spark

"The .NET CLR can give your web application a significant performance boost compared to other platforms such as PHP due to it's compiled nature. Not only does your .NET code perform better because it's more low-level, it also comes with good support for parallel programming. This guide will not explain the basics of a responsive and fast web application by talking about CSS minifying, sprites, content delivery networks, etc. Instead this guide will be an essential guide for making sure you don't miss any features that can enhance the performance of your ASP.NET MVC3 application. "

"I love ELMAH - this is one those libraries which is both beautiful in its simplicity yet powerful in what it allows you to do. Combine the power of ELMAH with the convenience of NuGet and you can be up and running with absolutely invaluable error logging and handling in literally a couple of minutes."