Scott On Writing.NET : .NET Toolbox

www.DotNetToolbox.com, not www.AspNetToolbox.com

Scott Mitchell — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 12:16:00 GMT

Back in August 2003, I created a site called - at the time - AspNetToolbox.com [see this old blog entry]. The aim of this site was to serve as reviews for free must-have ASP.NET tools, programs, applications, etc. I later enlarged the scope to .NET in general, and aptly renamed the site to DotNetToolbox.com. Recently the www.aspnettoolbox.com domain name expired, and I didn't bother renewing it. However, I have received a few emails, and even a blog comment, asking what's up. Sorry if I hadn't made it clearer in the past, but the site is live and running, just use www.DotNetToolbox.com instead...

In any event, I'm always looking for folks who are interested in writing a quick review of a free .NET tool they find they can't live without, one that helps them in their development, be it WinForms apps, Web applications, or Web services. If you are interested in contributing to DotNetToolbox.com, drop me a line.

Exception Management Application Block Review on .NET Toolbox

Scott Mitchell — Tue, 18 May 2004 20:07:00 GMT

Sadly it's been over five months since my last contribution to .NET Toolbox (RSS feed available here). The drought has ended, though, as I've posted a review about my second-favorite application block - the Microsoft Exception Management Application Block. (My favorite application block being, naturally, the Data Access Application Block.)

I'm going to try to update .NET Toolbox more regularly going forward, but one challenge I have is coming up with ideas on free .NET tools and utilities that I am interested in writing up a review for. All of the utilities I use on a day-to-day basis - Reflector, NDoc, the DAAB, Snippet Compiler, etc. - already have reviews. Any suggestions on utilities or tools that you can't live without that have yet to be covered on .NET Toolbox?

nGallery Review on DotNetToolbox.com

Scott Mitchell — Mon, 03 Nov 2003 18:30:00 GMT

First-time reviewer Dana Coffey added a review of nGallery - an open-source photo album Web application written in C# - to DotNetToolbox.com. If you're interested in adding a photo album to your site, check out nGallery. Dana gives nGallery high praise for its ease of installation, its skinnability, and its growing, helpful community, which is easily reachable via the nGallery forum and the nGallery ListServs. Learn more about nGallery at www.ngallery.org or by reading Dana's review.

(Know of a free and useful .NET or ASP.NET application or tool? If so, consider writing a review for DotNetToolbox! It only takes a few minutes and helps spread the word of your favorite free tools to other developers worldwide...)

Snippet Compiler Review on .NET Toolbox

Scott Mitchell — Wed, 17 Sep 2003 14:52:00 GMT

I just completed a reivew for .NET Toolbox of my current favorite free tool, Jeff Key's Snippet Compiler. If you haven't heard about or used Snippet Compiler, I heartily recommend it, it's a wonderful tool for quickly testing out C# or VB.NET code, as you don't have to go through the pains of creating a new Visual Studio .NET project.

Also, for those unaware, there is an RSS feed with the latest reviews from .NET Toolbox - Subscribe Here.

SharpDevelop Review on .NET Toolbox

Scott Mitchell — Tue, 09 Sep 2003 22:09:00 GMT

Today I finally had some free time in order to get up Vasanth Dharmaraj excellent review of SharpDevelop. For those not familiar with SharpDevelop, it is a free, open-source .NET IDE specifically targetted for C# WinForms development. Vasanth's review also includes some good screenshots as well. Thanks Vansanth!

Would you like to author a review? It will only take a few minutes and will help other .NET developers learn about what free .NET tools you find indespensible. If you're interested, check out how you can submit a review.

James Avery is a God Among Men

Scott Mitchell — Tue, 19 Aug 2003 23:12:00 GMT

I owe James Avery a beer. He has written stellar reviews for NUnit and CodeSmith for .NET Toolbox. A nice follow-up would be a review on the NUnit add-in: Jamie Cansdale, care to tell the world about your tool? Thanks again, James.

Have you Used SharpDevelop?

Scott Mitchell — Sun, 17 Aug 2003 19:12:00 GMT

Have you used SharpDevelop before as a C# editor? It's an open-source, free IDE for WinForms C# development. If you have used it, what are your thoughts about it? Can it compete with VS.NET? Does it have its place in the .NET developer's toolbox?

If you have used this product, perhaps you'd like to write a short review of it and share it with others on the .NET Toolbox.

.NET Toolbox Updated

Scott Mitchell — Fri, 15 Aug 2003 00:35:00 GMT

My fiancee and I have been working on and off on the .NET Toolbox back-end. My fiancee added support for listing all reviewers, and a Web interface for the 10 most recent reviews. (There is also an RSS feed for the most recent reviews.) Also, per Nauman Leghari's suggestion I have extended each review to not only include comments and screenshots, but also recommended articles. Also, with my fiancee's help, we have finished cleaning up my initially ugly code; .NET Toolbox now uses a solid object model and DAL with which user controls and ASP.NET Web pages interact with.

While the back-end material is coming along nicely, I've yet to have an opportunity to write more reviews. Bummer, because that's what will attract and keep people. So... I am imploring you to write a review of a free .NET tool, one that you find indespensible.

Right now, I've been trying to keep .NET Toolbox pretty low key - I've only talked about it here on my blog and have not mentioned it on 4Guys or asked other ASP.NET Web sites to link to it/pimp it. If nothing else, examining the stats for .NET Toolbox gives me a good indication of how many (or, perhaps, few) people read my blog! :-) Over the past three days, www.dotnettoolbox.com has received a total of 171 unique visitors, averaging about 125 visites per day, and 475 page views per day. Total bandwidth consumed: 6.93 MB. (These numbers are higher than I initially assumed - more than 100 people reading my blog! How eerie. :-) ) It will be interesting to compare these statistics to the stats after I “get the word out” about the site.

A New ASP.NET Web Site

Scott Mitchell — Sun, 10 Aug 2003 13:37:00 GMT

A few days ago, Steve Smith asked on a listserv I'm on what people thought some good, free ASP.NET tools were - he was interested in writing an article listing the “Top 10” or so. Never being one to pass up an opportunity to one-up Steve, I decided to crank out an entire Web site dedicated to this, rather than a Top 10 list. :-)

Anyway, I spent Friday jamming out the code and the site it now live: http://www.ASPNETToolbox.com

The focus of the site is to serve as reviews for free ASP.NET tools. (Emphasis on “free,“ if you couldn't tell. )

THE IMPORTANT PART - PLEASE READ:
I need your help! Right now, the site only has a small handful of recommended tools, such as FxCop, the Data Access Application Block, Web Matrix, Reflector, .Text, etc. Naturally, I'd like many, many more listed and reviewed. This is where I can use your help! (Yes, you, the two people who read this blog!) Namely, I would appreciate if you could help with any of the following:

Review the site, and let me know if you encounter any bugs, anamolies, or have any suggestions on how to improve the UI or look and feel.
Suggest any potential categories for tools.
Leave comments/ratings for existing tools reviewed.
Create a review for a free tool not currently listed. If you do this, there will be a special place in heaven reserved for you, and happiness will follow you throughout your life. To learn more about submitting a review, check out http://aspnettoolbox.com/toolbox/Submit.aspx

Hope you can find the time to help. Once the tool database gets built up a bit further, I plan on some hard-core publicizing of the site, so your reviews and comments will definitely be read and used by others. Thanks for any help you can muster.