Today, deploying a web application is not as easy as it should be. Whether you are deploying your web to a shared hosting environment and paying monthly to maintain it OR whether you have a web server/s managed by your enterprise, there are a lot of manual steps involved in getting your application from point A to point B.

If you are deploying your web application to a shared hoster then today you have to use technologies like FTP which take a long time to get your web content to the hosted server. After deploying your content you have to manually go to hoster control panel and install your database by running sql scripts and configure various IIS settings like marking a folder as an application to isolate it from the rest of the application.

If you are in an enterprise environment and you want to get a web application deployed you have to systematically document each step that your server admins and DBAs have to perform. In most circumstances you also have to ask your admins to modify the web.config files and go to IIS Manager and configure your settings apart from deploying your web content. Your DBA has to do the necessary steps of running the sql scripts in the right order to get your DB up and running. Such installations many a times take hours to complete.

With Visual Studio 2010 and IIS Web Deployment Tool (MsDeploy.exe / Web Deploy) we are introducing a set of technologies which can seamlessly deploy your applications taking care of the problems stated above. Microsoft Web Deployment Tool is a free download available on the web… You can download MSDeploy from below location:

http://blogs.iis.net/msdeploy/archive/2008/10/29/the-web-deployment-tool-beta-2-is-now-available.aspx

Do note that installing Visual Studio 2010 will automatically install MSDeploy for you. Visual Studio 2010 CTP can be downloaded from below location:

http://www.asp.net/vwd/

Web Deployment feature sets in VS 2010 can be broken down into following major areas:

1. Web Packaging - VS 2010 uses MSDeploy to create a .zip file for your application which we call as a web package. This file contains meta data + the below artifacts

· All of your IIS Settings (e.g. application pools, error pages etc)
· Web Content (e.g. .aspx, .ascx, .js, images etc)
· SQL Server DB
· Various other artifacts like Security Certs, GAC Components, Registry etc

A web package can then be taken to any server and installed either via IIS Manager UI Wizard or even via command line or API for automated deployment scenarios.

2. Web.Config Transformation – With VS 2010 web deployment we are introducing XML Document Transform (XDT) which will allow you to transform your development time web.config file to production/deployment time web.config file. The transformation is controlled by web.config TRANSFORM files named web.debug.config, web.release.config etc. The naming of these files is tied to the MSBuild configuration you are trying to deploy. The transform file will need just the changes that you really want to make to your deployed web.config… You can control the type of changes by instructing the XDT engine using simple and easy to understand syntax…

e.g. the below syntax in web.release.config will replace the connectionString section with new values in the web.config file which is produced for deployment of your release configuration.

3. DB Deployment – VS 2010 allows you to deploy your application along with all of its dependencies including database dependencies on SQL Server. Just by providing the connection string of your source database VS10 will automatically script its data/schema and package it for deployment. VS will also allow you to provide custom .sql scripts and also sequence them correctly to run on the server. Once your DB is packaged along with your IIS Settings and web content you can choose to deploy it to any server by providing the connection string at the install time.

4. 1-Click Publish - VS 2010 will allow you to not only package your web applications with all of its dependencies but also use IIS remote management service to publish the application to remote server. VS 10 will now allow you to create a publish profile of your hoster account or of various testing servers and save your credentials securely so that going forward you can deploy to any of these publish profiles with just one click using Web One Click toolbar. With VS 10 you will also be able to publish using MsBuild command line so that you can configure your team build environment to include publishing in continuous integration model

If you use Visual Studio to open a Web project that was developed for the .NET Framework 2.0, the .NET Framework 3.0, or the .NET Framework 3.5, Visual Studio can automatically perform all the changes to Web.config files that are required to be able to run using .NET Framework version 4. If the project is a local IIS project and you are using IIS 7.0, Visual Studio can also reassign the application to an application pool that is associated with the .NET Framework version 4

It is recommended that you use Visual Studio to perform the tasks that are required in order to upgrade. If you do not use Visual Studio to perform the upgrade automatically, you must manually edit the Web.config file and must manually associate the application in IIS with the .NET Framework version 4

Typically the procedures covered in this topic are sufficient for upgrading a Web application, because later versions of the .NET Framework are designed to be backward compatible with earlier versions. However, you should also look in the readme documentation for breaking changes. The behavior of a component that was developed for an earlier version of the .NET Framework might have changed in the newer version of the .NET Framework

Note:
Do not upgrade an IIS application if it has nested applications within it that target earlier versions of the .NET Framework. If an IIS application that targets the .NET Framework 3.5 or earlier is nested within an IIS application that targets the .NET Framework 4, the compiler might report errors when it compiles the nested application. This is because Web.config files inherit settings from files that are higher in the configuration file hierarchy. The .NET Framework 4 is backward compatible; therefore, a nested Web application that targets the .NET Framework 4 can inherit settings from Web.config files that are for earlier versions. But earlier versions of the .NET Framework are not forward compatible; therefore, they cannot inherit settings from a .NET Framework 4 Web.config file.

1. Open the Web site or project in Visual Studio.

2. If a Visual Studio Conversion Wizard welcome dialog box appears, click Next. This wizard appears when you open a Web Application Project or a solution. It does not appear when you open a Web Site project that is not in a solution

3. If you are converting a project, in the Visual Studio Conversion Wizard, select backup options and click Next in the Choose Whether to Create a Backup dialog box

Visual Studio upgrades your project file to the Visual Studio 2010 format. If you are upgrading a solution instead of an individual project, Visual Studio upgrades the solution file to the Visual Studio 2010 format

4. If you are converting a project, in the Visual Studio Conversion Wizard, click Next in the Ready to Convert dialog box

5. If you are opening the Web project on a computer that does not have the .NET Framework 3.5 installed, in the Project Target Framework Not Installed dialog box, select Retarget the project to .NET Framework 4 and click OK

6. If you are opening the Web project on a computer that does have the .NET Framework 3.5 installed, in the Web Site targeting older .NET Framework Found dialog box, clear the check box if you do not want to upgrade all Web sites or projects in a solution

7. In the dialog box, click Yes

Visual Studio updates the Web.config file. The changes that are made to the Web.config file are listed in the procedure later in this topic that explains how to update the Web.config file manually. Visual Studio does not update comments. Therefore, after the conversion, the Web.config file might contain comments that reference earlier versions of the .NET Framework

Visual Studio automatically sets the controlRenderingCompatibilityVersion attribute of the pages element to 3.5. You can remove this setting in order to take advantage of XHTML and accessibility improvements in ASP.NET 4. For more information, see the procedure later in this topic that explains how to update the Web.config file manually

8. If you are converting a project, in the Visual Studio Conversion Wizard, click Close in the Conversion Complete dialog box.

9. If the project is not a local IIS project, associate its IIS application with the Visual Studio when it is deployed to IIS. For more information, see the procedure later in this topic that corresponds to the version of IIS that you are using

If the IIS application is associated with the .NET Framework 2.0, the site will not work. ASP.NET will generate errors that indicate that the targetFramework attribute is unrecognized.

10. If the project is a local IIS project and the IIS version is 6.0, associate its IIS application with the Visual Studio by following the procedure later in this topic for IIS 6.0

If the project is a local IIS project, Visual Studio automatically performs this association. It assigns the application to the first available application pool for the .NET Framework version 4. If no application pool exists, Visual Studio creates one

Note: By default, the IIS 6.0 Metabase API that Visual Studio uses to assign and create application pools is not available in Windows Vista or Windows 7. To make it available, enable IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility Layer in the Windows Control Panel by selecting Programs and Features and Turn Windows Features On or Off. The following illustration shows the Windows Features dialog box

11. If the project includes code that accesses the HttpBrowserCapabilities object (in the HttpRequest.Browser property), test the code to make sure that it works as expected

The browser definition files that provide information to the HttpBrowserCapabilities object were changed in ASP.NET 4, and the changes are not backward compatible with earlier versions of ASP.NET. If you discover a problem and prefer not to change your code to accommodate the ASP.NET 4 changes, you can copy the ASP.NET 3.5 browser definition files from the ASP.NET 3.5 Browsers folder of a computer that has ASP.NET 3.5 installed to the ASP.NET 4 Browsers folder. The Browsers folder for a version of ASP.NET can be found in the following location:

%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\versionNumber\Config\Browsers

After you copy the browser definition files, you must run the aspnet_regbrowsers.exe tool. For more information, see ASP.NET Web Server Controls and Browser Capabilities.

IIS URL Rewrite 2.0 enables Web administrators to create powerful rules to implement URLs that are easier for users to remember and easier for search engines to find. By using rule templates, rewrite maps, .NET providers, and other functionality integrated into IIS Manager, Web administrators can easily set up rules to define URL rewriting behavior based on HTTP headers, HTTP response or request headers, IIS server variables, and even complex programmatic rules. In addition, Web administrators can perform redirects, send custom responses, or stop HTTP requests based on the logic expressed in the rewrite rules.


Define powerful rules to transform complex URLs into simple and consistent Web addresses

URL Rewrite allows Web administrators to easily build powerful rules using rewrite providers written in .NET, regular expression pattern matching, and wildcard mapping to examine information in both URLs and other HTTP headers and IIS server variables. Rules can be written to generate URLs that can be easier for users to remember, simple for search engines to index, and allow URLs to follow a consistent and canonical host name format. URL Rewrite further simplifies the rule creation process with support for content rewriting, rule templates, rewrite maps, rule validation, and import of existing mod_rewrite rules.


Easily replace Web application URLs to produce user and search engine friendly results

URL Rewrite permits Web administrators to easily replace the URLs generated by a Web application in the response HTML with a more user friendly and search engine friendly equivalent. Links can be modified in the HTML markup generated by a Web application behind a reverse proxy. URL Rewrite makes things easier for outbound response content and headers rewriting with outbound rewrite rules that work with HTTP request and response headers and with IIS server variables


Seamless integration with existing IIS features that improve management, performance, and troubleshooting

URL Rewrite is tightly integrated with IIS Manager for better management. In addition, URL Rewrite supports both user-mode and kernel-mode caching for faster performance. URL Rewrite also supports Failed Request Tracing for enhanced troubleshooting of application logic execution


Features of URL Rewrite 2.0

- Rules-based URL rewriting engine
- Rules-based response rewriting engine
- Support for custom .NET rewrite providers
- Regular expression pattern matching
- Wildcard pattern matching
- Global and distributed rewrite rules
- Rewriting within the content of specific HTML tags
- Pre-conditions for outbound rules
- Access to server variables and HTTP headers
- Rewriting of server variables and HTTP request headers
- Rewriting of HTTP response headers
- Allow list for server variables
- HtmlEncode function
- Built-in rule templates
- Reverse proxy rule template
- Rule templates for Search Engine Optimization
- Various rule actions including redirect and request abort
- Tracking capture groups across rule conditions
- Logging of rewritten URLs
- Updated user interface in IIS Manager
- Integrated user interface for managing rewrite rules and rewrite maps
- Integrated user interface for importing of Apache mod_rewrite rules
- Integrated user interface for testing regular expression and wildcard patterns
- Support for IIS kernel-mode and user-mode output caching
- Lowercase conversion function
- Rewrite maps to generate the substitution URL during rewriting
- Failed Request Tracing support


Reasons to trust your URL Rewrite website to us

 What we think makes ASPHostCentral.com so compelling is how deeply integrated all the pieces are. We integrate and centralize everything--from the systems to the control panel software to the process of buying a domain name. For us, that means we can innovate literally everywhere. We've put the guys who develop the software and the admins who watch over the server right next to the 24-hour Fanatical Support team, so we all learn from each other

- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is operating 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmas/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Excellent Uptime Rate - Our key strength in delivering the service to you is to maintain our server uptime rate. We never ever happy to see your site goes down and we truly understand that it will hurt your onlines business. If your service is down, it will certainly become our pain and we will certainly look for the right pill to kill the pain ASAP
- High Performance and Reliable Server - We never ever overload our server with tons of clients. We always load balance our server to make sure we can deliver an excellent service, coupling with the high performance and reliable server
- Experts in URL Rewrite Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostCentral
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it.
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control Panel in 1 minute!

Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010) has some wonderfully integrated features for building and deploying web sites. The VS team has finally made it easy to get your web site onto someone else's Host server. But what if you want to implement a Host server and allow developers/customers easy access to your server? How do you do it?  You have questions, we have answers.

ASPHostCentral.com offers the Visual Studio 2010 hosting to all our new customers. You can always start from our Standard Plan hosting plan (from @$4.99/month) to get this start using the Visual Studio 2010 service. Should your requirement changes in the future, you can always request for an upgrade without causing any downtime. Remember, everything is just one-click away from your mouse! So, why wait longer? Please register your interest here

In Visual Studio 2010 (and in VS2008 as a separate download), the web developer can quickly deploy the website by using the Publish Web  feature. To publish a web, generally the developer would create a Configuration, add in the proper web.config transforms for his server-specific settings, right-click on the web project, and select Publish. The resulting dialog looks something like the one presented below. But what does the server need to support in order to allow web publishing from Visual Studio? 


Enter the Web Deploy Tool

To accept web publishing your server must be running IIS and have installed the Web Deploy tool 1.1 or later. The Web Deploy tool is supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit servers and is pretty simple to install.
1. If you haven't done so already, install the Microsoft Web  Platform installer. This application makes installing IIS modules (like the Web Deploy tool) a snap!
2. Install the Web Deploy tool appropriate for your server (32-bit or 64-bit).
3. More installation instructions can be found here
4. Once installed the only "gotcha" that you may hit is that the Web Deployment Agent Service is not immediately started. To start this service Please do the following:
    - On the server, click Start | Run
    - Type in services and hit enter
    - Search for Web Deployment Agent Service
    - Right-click on the service and select Properties
    - Change the Start-up Type to Automatic (or Automatic delayed start)
    - Click the Start button on the dialog to start the service immediately
    - Click OK to save your changes


Configuring a Website for Publishing

In order to allow a user to publish to a website, a couple items need configuration. This includes setting up the website and the user(s) that will be allowed to publish to the site


Setting up the website

Setting up the website in IIS7 works the exact same way as normal. Run IIS Manager and create a new website. As always, make sure the Application Pool account has access rights to the website directory


Setting up the users

The next step involves making sure the users have access to the website directory.  The user accounts are Windows accounts, and they will need read/write privileges to the actual website directory. In windows explorer, navigate to the website directory and make sure the appropriate users have permissions


Publishing to the Server

Once the website is setup and the users have been given permission, you are now ready to Publish to your website
1. To publish, run VS2010, right-click the web project in Solution Explorer, and select the Publish menu option
2. From this dialog, you will want to pick the Web Deploy publish method
3. The Service URL will be the default website URL for your server
4. The site/application value is simply the name of your website as seen in IIS manager
5. Make sure  you enter the user name/password of the user account on the host server that has permissions to publish to the site


Reasons to trust your Visual Studio 2010 website to us

 What we think makes ASPHostCentral.com so compelling is how deeply integrated all the pieces are. We integrate and centralize everything--from the systems to the control panel software to the process of buying a domain name. For us, that means we can innovate literally everywhere. We've put the guys who develop the software and the admins who watch over the server right next to the 24-hour Fanatical Support team, so we all learn from each other

- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is operating 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmas/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Excellent Uptime Rate - Our key strength in delivering the service to you is to maintain our server uptime rate. We never ever happy to see your site goes down and we truly understand that it will hurt your onlines business. If your service is down, it will certainly become our pain and we will certainly look for the right pill to kill the pain ASAP
- High Performance and Reliable Server - We never ever overload our server with tons of clients. We always load balance our server to make sure we can deliver an excellent service, coupling with the high performance and reliable server
- Experts in VS 2010 Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostCentral
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it.
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control Panel in 1 minute!

For those of you who just upgraded your site to the latest ASP.NET 4.0 Framework, you may sometimes see this error message: “A potentially dangerous Request.QueryString value was detected from the client”.

The request validation feature in ASP.NET provides a certain level of default protection against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. In previous versions of ASP.NET, request validation was enabled by default. However, it applied only to ASP.NET and only when those pages were executing.

In ASP.NET 4, by default, request validation is enabled for all requests, because it is enabled before the BeginRequest phase of an HTTP request. As a result, request validation applies to requests for all ASP.NET resources, not just .aspx page requests. This includes requests such as Web service calls and custom HTTP handlers. Request validation is also active when custom HTTP modules are reading the contents of an HTTP request.

As a result, request validation errors might now occur for requests that previously did not trigger errors. To revert to the behavior of the ASP.NET 2.0 request validation feature, add the following setting in the Web.Config  file:

<httpRuntime requestValidationMode="2.0" />

However, we recommend that you analyze any request validation errors to determine whether existing handlers, modules, or other custom code accesses potentially unsafe HTTP inputs that could be XSS attack vectors.

Do you need to host your ASP.NET 4.0 website?

What we think makes ASPHostCentral.com so compelling is how deeply integrated all the pieces are. We integrate and centralize everything--from the systems to the control panel software to the process of buying a domain name. For us, that means we can innovate literally everywhere. We've put the guys who develop the software and the administrators who watch over the server right next to the 24-hour Fanatical Support team, so we all learn from each other:

- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is operating 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmas/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Excellent Uptime Rate - Our key strength in delivering the service to you is to maintain our server uptime rate. We never ever happy to see your site goes down and we truly understand that it will hurt your online business. If your service is down, it will certainly become our pain and we will certainly look for the right pill to kill the pain ASAP
- High Performance and Reliable Server - We never ever overload our server with tons of clients. We always load balance our server to make sure we can deliver an excellent service, coupling with the high performance and reliable server
- Experts in SSRS Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostCentral
- Daily Backup Service - We realize that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control Panel in 1 minute!

Happy hosting!

Team Foundation Server

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) uses Team Foundation Server (TFS) as the data storage and collaboration backend. TFS provides a source control repository, work item tracking and reporting services. TFS works on "work items", which are a single unit of work which needs to be completed. Items themselves can be of several different types, such as a Bug, a Task, a Quality of Service Requirement, a Scenario, and so forth. The framework chosen for any given project in a TFS defines what types of work items are available and what attributes each type of work item contains.

ASPHostCentral.com, as the leading ASP.NET and Windows Hosting Provider, proudly announces the availability of Team Foundation Server 2010 service on all our hosting plans. You can always start from as low as $4.99/month to get this service.

TFS source control system stores all code, as well as a record of all changes and current check-outs in a SQL Server database. It supports features such as multiple simultaneous check-outs, conflict resolution, branching and merging, and the ability to set security levels on any level of a source tree. TFS uses SQL Server Reporting Service to create reports including the rate of code change over time, lists of bugs that don't have test cases, regressions on previously passing tests, and so on. The reports can be in various formats including XML and PDF.

TFS also includes a build server which can be used by developers to do a complete build of the most recent bits contained in source control. All build events are tracked by TFS as well. Visual Studio's Code Analysis, Test Tools and Code Coverage can be enabled to validate a build before it is deemed to be "good".

VSTS integrates with TFS using the TFS Client API, to expose the capabilities of TFS from within the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). It includes the Team Explorer to browse and manage the items in a team project. The version control capabilities, including browsing individual revisions, labeling revisions, check in/out and shelving in/out are available from the main IDE itself, via the Source Control Explorer. VSTS can use the TFS Team Build system, instead of the integrated build system. The VSTS IDE can also be used to view and create analysis reports in TFS as well. The Source Control Explorer can also be used to create and merge branches of the software. It also includes a diff engine for viewing the differences between different files and revisions.


Team Test Load Agent

In addition to Team Foundation Server, Microsoft also offers a server component called Team Test Load Agent. This tool, which is licensed separately from Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio, is intended for use by testers to perform automated load testing on a web or Windows application. Microsoft advertises that a "typical PC" can support simulating 1,000 simultaneous users. The results of load tests are stored in the Team Foundation Server warehouse, and can be linked to specific builds so that performance testing can be tracked over the lifetime of a project


Visual Studio Integration

The client-side applications are specialized versions of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005; collectively they are called the Visual Studio Team Editions. When Visual Studio 2005 was launched in November 2005, this consisted of editions for three distinct roles in application development: Developers, Architects, and Testers. A fourth edition, targeted at Database Developers, was subsequently developed and released towards the end of 2006. A "Team Suite" edition of Visual Studio 2005 is also available, which combines the tools in each of these four roles.

Team Explorer is a component included with Team Foundation Server that provides the client-side tools and integration. More specifically, this adds Team Foundation Server as a source control provider, and adds a "Team Explorer" window alongside the standard "Solution Explorer" window. Team Explorer includes a license for Visual Studio 2005 Premier Partner Edition for those without Visual Studio 2005 for the exclusive use of Team Explorer's functionality

The following article describes .NET Framework 4. In case you are looking for ASP.NET 4 Hosting, you can always consider ASPHostCentral and you can start from our lowest Standard Plan @$4.99/month to host your .NET 4 site.

Why SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important for any publically facing web-site.  A large percentage of traffic to sites now comes from search engines, and improving the search relevancy of your site will lead to more user traffic to your site from search engine queries (which can directly or indirectly increase the revenue you make through your site).

Measuring the SEO of your website with the SEO Toolkit

We blogged about the free SEO Toolkit we’ve shipped that you can use to analyze your site for SEO correctness, and which provides detailed suggestions on any SEO issues it finds. 

We highly recommend downloading and using the tool against any public site you work on.  It makes it easy to spot SEO issues you might have in the site, and pinpoint ways to optimize it further.

ASP .NET 4 SEO Improvement

ASP.NET 4 includes a bunch of new runtime features that can help you to further optimize your site for SEO.  Some of these new features include:

- New Page.MetaKeywords and Page.MetaDescription properties
- New URL Routing support for ASP.NET Web Forms
- New Response.RedirectPermanent() method

Below are details about how you can take advantage of them to further improve your search engine relevancy.

Page.MetaKeywords and Page.MetaDescription properties

One simple recommendation to improve the search relevancy of pages is to make sure you always output relevant “keywords” and “description” <meta> tags within the <head> section of your HTML.  For example:

<head runat=”server”>
           <title>My Page Title</title>
           <meta name=”keywords” content=”These, are, my, keywords” />
           <meta name=”description” content=”This is the description of my page” />
</head>

One of the nice improvements with ASP.NET 4 Web Forms is the addition of two new properties to the Page class: MetaKeywords and MetaDescription that make programmatically setting these values within your code-behind classes much easier and cleaner. 

ASP.NET 4’s <head> server control now looks at these values and will use them when outputting the <head> section of pages.  This behavior is particularly useful for scenarios where you are using master-pages within your site – and the <head> section ends up being in a .master file that is separate from the .aspx file that contains the page specific content.  You can now set the new MetaKeywords and MetaDescription properties in the .aspx page and have their values automatically rendered by the <head> control within the master page.

Below is a simple code snippet that demonstrates setting these properties programmatically within a Page_Load() event handler:

void Page_Load(object sender, EventsArgs e)
{
           Page.Title = “Setting the <head>’s <title> programmatically was already supported”;

           Page.MetaDescription = “Now you can set the <head>’s <meta> description too”;
           Page.MetaKeywords = “scottgu, blog, simple, sample, keywords”;
}

In addition to setting the Keywords and Description properties programmatically in your code-behind, you can also now declaratively set them within the @Page directive at the top of .aspx pages.

As you’d probably expect, if you set the values programmatically they will override any values declaratively set in either the <head> section or the via the @Page attribute. 

URL Routing with ASP.NET Web Forms

URL routing was a capability we first introduced with ASP.NET 3.5 SP1, and which is already used within ASP.NET MVC applications to expose clean, SEO-friendly “web 2.0” URLs.  URL routing lets you configure an application to accept request URLs that do not map to physical files. Instead, you can use routing to define URLs that are semantically meaningful to users and that can help with search-engine optimization (SEO).

With ASP.NET 4.0, URLs like above can now be mapped to both ASP.NET MVC Controller classes, as well as ASP.NET Web Forms based pages.  You can even have a single application that contains both Web Forms and MVC Controllers, and use a single set of routing rules to map URLs between them.

Response.RedirectPermanent() Method

It is pretty common within web applications to move pages and other content around over time, which can lead to an accumulation of stale links in search engines.

In ASP.NET, developers have often handled requests to old URLs by using the Response.Redirect() method to programmatically forward a request to the new URL.  However, what many developers don’t realize is that the Response.Redirect() method issues an HTTP 302 Found (temporary redirect) response, which results in an extra HTTP round trip when users attempt to access the old URLs.  Search engines typically will not follow across multiple redirection hops – which means using a temporary redirect can negatively impact your page ranking.  You can use the SEO Toolkit to identify places within a site where you might have this issue.

ASP.NET 4 introduces a new Response.RedirectPermanent(string url) helper method that can be used to perform a redirect using an HTTP 301 (moved permanently) response.  This will cause search engines and other user agents that recognize permanent redirects to store and use the new URL that is associated with the content.  This will enable your content to be indexed and your search engine page ranking to improve.

Below is an example of using the new Response.RedirectPermanent() method to redirect to a specific URL:

Response.RedirectPermanent(“NewPath/ForOldContent.aspx”);

ASP.NET 4 also introduces new Response.RedirectToRoute(string routeName) and Response.RedirectToRoutePermanent(string routeName) helper methods that can be used to redirect users using either a temporary or permanent redirect using the URL routing engine.  The code snippets below demonstrate how to issue temporary and permanent redirects to named routes (that take a category parameter) registered with the URL routing system.

// Issue temporary HTTP 302 redirect to a named route
Response.RedirectToRoute(“Products-Browse”, new { category = “beverages” });

//Issue permanent HTTP 301 redirect to a named route
Response.RedirectToRoutePermanent(“Products-Browse”, new { category = “beverages” } );

You can use the above routes and methods for both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC based URLs.

Summary

ASP.NET 4 includes a bunch of feature improvements that make it easier to build public facing sites that have great SEO.  When combined with the SEO Toolkit, you should be able to use these features to increase user traffic to your site – and hopefully increase the direct or indirect revenue you make from them.

Top Reasons to trust your ASP.NET 4 website to ASPHostCentral.com

What we think makes ASPHostCentral.com so compelling is how deeply integrated all the pieces are. We integrate and centralize everything--from the systems to the control panel software to the process of buying a domain name. For us, that means we can innovate literally everywhere. We've put the guys who develop the software and the admins who watch over the server right next to the 24-hour Fanatical Support team, so we all learn from each other:

- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is operating 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmas/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Excellent Uptime Rate - Our key strength in delivering the service to you is to maintain our server uptime rate. We never ever happy to see your site goes down and we truly understand that it will hurt your onlines business. If your service is down, it will certainly become our pain and we will certainly look for the right pill to kill the pain ASAP
- High Performance and Reliable Server - We never ever overload our server with tons of clients. We always load balance our server to make sure we can deliver an excellent service, coupling with the high performance and reliable server
- Experts in ASP.NET 4 RC Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostCentral
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control Panel in 1 minute!

Happy hosting!
<!--[endif]-->

The following article describes .NET Framework 4. In case you are looking for ASP.NET 4 Hosting, you can always consider ASPHostCentral and you can start from our lowest Standard Plan @$4.99/month to host your .NET 4 site.

Other new features and improvements in the .NET Framework 4 are described in the following sections:

1. Application Compatibility and Deployment
The .NET Framework 4 is highly compatible with applications that are built with earlier .NET Framework versions, except for some changes that were made to improve security, standards compliance, correctness, reliability, and performance.

The .NET Framework 4 does not automatically use its version of the common language runtime to run applications that are built with earlier versions of the .NET Framework. To run older applications with .NET Framework 4, you must compile your application with the target .NET Framework version specified in the properties for your project in Visual Studio.

The following sections describe deployment improvements.

- Client Profile
The .NET Framework 4 Client Profile supports more platforms than in previous versions and provides a fast deployment experience for your Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), console, or Windows Forms applications.

- In-Process Side-by-Side-Execution
This feature enables an application to load and start multiple versions of the .NET Framework in the same process. For example, you can run applications that load add-ins (or components) that are based on the .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 and add-ins that are based on the .NET Framework 4 in the same process.

2. Core New Features and Improvements
The following sections describe new features and improvements provided by the common language runtime and the base class libraries.

- Diagnostics and Performance
Earlier versions of the .NET Framework provided no way to determine whether a particular application domain was affecting other application domains, because the operating system APIs and tools, such as the Windows Task Manager, were precise only to the process level. Starting with the .NET Framework 4, you can get processor usage and memory usage estimates per application domain.

You can monitor CPU and memory usage of individual application domains. Application domain resource monitoring is available through the managed and native hosting APIs and event tracing for Windows (ETW). When this feature has been enabled, it collects statistics on all application domains in the process for the life of the process.

- Garbage Collection
The .NET Framework 4 provides background garbage collection. This feature replaces concurrent garbage collection in previous versions and provides better performance.

- Code Contracts
Code contracts let you specify contractual information that is not represented by a method's or type's signature alone. The new System.Diagnostics.Contracts namespace contains classes that provide a language-neutral way to express coding assumptions in the form of preconditions, postconditions, and object invariants. The contracts improve testing with run-time checking, enable static contract verification, and support documentation generation.

- Design-Time-Only Interop Assemblies
You no longer have to ship primary interop assemblies (PIAs) to deploy applications that interoperate with COM objects. In the .NET Framework 4, compilers can embed type information from interop assemblies, selecting only the types that an application (for example, an add-in) actually uses. Type safety is ensured by the common language runtime.

- Dynamic Language Runtime
The dynamic language runtime (DLR) is a new runtime environment that adds a set of services for dynamic languages to the CLR. The DLR makes it easier to develop dynamic languages to run on the .NET Framework and to add dynamic features to statically typed languages. To support the DLR, the new System.Dynamic namespace is added to the .NET Framework.

The expression trees are extended with new types that represent control flow, for example, System.Linq.Expressions..::.LoopExpression and System.Linq.Expressions..::.TryExpression. These new types are used by the dynamic language runtime (DLR) and not used by LINQ.

In addition, several new classes that support the .NET Framework infrastructure are added to the System.Runtime.CompilerServices namespace.

- Covariance and Contravariance
Several generic interfaces and delegates now support covariance and contravariance.

- BigInteger and Complex Numbers
The new System.Numerics..::.BigInteger structure is an arbitrary-precision integer data type that supports all the standard integer operations, including bit manipulation. It can be used from any .NET Framework language. In addition, some of the new .NET Framework languages (such as F# and IronPython) have built-in support for this structure.

The new System.Numerics..::.Complex structure represents a complex number that supports arithmetic and trigonometric operations with complex numbers.

- Tuples
The .NET Framework 4 provides the System..::.Tuple class for creating tuple objects that contain structured data. It also provides generic tuple classes to support tuples that have from one to eight components (that is, singletons through octuples). To support tuple objects that have nine or more components, there is a generic tuple class with seven type parameters and an eighth parameter of any tuple type. 

- File System Enumeration Improvements
New file enumeration methods improve the performance of applications that access large file directories or that iterate through the lines in large files.

- Memory-Mapped Files
You can use memory-mapped files to edit very large files and to create shared memory for interprocess communication.

- 64-Bit Operating Systems and Processes
You can identify 64-bit operating systems and processes with the Environment..::.Is64BitOperatingSystem and Environment..::.Is64BitProcess properties.

- Other New Features
The following list describes additional new capabilities, improvements, and conveniences. Several of these are based on customer suggestions.
1. To upport culture-sensitive formatting, the System..::.TimeSpan structure includes new overloads of the ToString, Parse, and TryParse methods, as well as new ParseExact and TryParseExact methods.

2. The new String..::.IsNullOrWhiteSpace method indicates whether a string is null, empty, or consists only of white-space characters. New overloads have been added to the String.Concat and String.Join methods that concatenate members of System.Collections.Generic..::.IEnumerable<(Of <(T>)>) collections.

3. The String..::.Contract method lets you concatenate each element in an enumerable collection without first converting the elements to strings.

4. Two new convenience methods are available: StringBuilder..::.Clear and Stopwatch..::.Restart.

5. The new Enum..::.HasFlag method determines whether one or more bit fields or flags are set in an enumeration value. The Enum..::.TryParse method returns a Boolean value that indicates whether a string or integer value could be successfully parsed.

6. The System..::.Environment..::.SpecialFolder enumeration contains several new folders.

7. You can now easily copy one stream into another with the CopyTo method in classes that inherit from the System.IO..::.Stream class.

8. New Path..::.Combine method overloads enable you to combine file paths.

9. The new System..::.IObservable<(Of <(T>)>) and System..::.IObserver<(Of <(T>)>) interfaces provide a generalized mechanism for push-based notifications.

10. The System..::.IntPtr and System..::.UIntPtr classes now include support for the addition and subtraction operators.

11. You can now enable lazy initialization for any custom type by wrapping the type inside a System..::.Lazy<(Of <(T>)>) class.

12. The new System.Collections.Generic..::.SortedSet<(Of <(T>)>) class provides a self-balancing tree that maintains data in sorted order after insertions, deletions, and searches. This class implements the new System.Collections.Generic..::.ISet<(Of <(T>)>) interface.

13. The compression algorithms for the System.IO.Compression..::.DeflateStream and System.IO.Compression..::.GZipStream classes have improved so that data that is already compressed is no longer inflated. Also, the 4-gigabyte size restriction for compressing streams has been removed.

14. The new Monitor..::.Enter(Object, Boolean%) method overload takes a Boolean reference and atomically sets it to true only if the monitor is successfully entered.

15. You can use the Thread..::.Yield method to have the calling thread yield execution to another thread that is ready to run on the current processor.

16. The System..::.Guid structure now contains the TryParse and TryParseExact methods.

17. The new Microsoft.Win32..::.RegistryOptions enumeration lets you specify a volatile registry key that does not persist after the computer restarts.

Managed Extensibility Framework

The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a new library in the .NET Framework 4 that helps you build extensible and composable applications. MEF enables you to specify points where an application can be extended, to expose services to offer to other extensible applications and to create parts for consumption by extensible applications. It also enables easy discoverability of available parts based on metadata, without the need to load the assemblies for the parts.

Parallel Computing

The .NET Framework 4 introduces a new programming model for writing multithreaded and asynchronous code that greatly simplifies the work of application and library developers. The new model enables developers to write efficient, fine-grained, and scalable parallel code in a natural idiom without having to work directly with threads or the thread pool. The new System.Threading.Tasks namespace and other related types support this new model. Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), which is a parallel implementation of LINQ to Objects, enables similar functionality through declarative syntax.

Networking

Networking improvements include the following:

1. Security improvements for Windows authentication in several classes, including System.Net..::.HttpWebRequest, System.Net..::.HttpListener, System.Net.Mail..::.SmtpClient, System.Net.Security..::.SslStream, and System.Net.Security..::.NegotiateStream. Extended protection is available for applications on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

2. Support for Network Address Translation (NAT) traversal using IPv6 and Teredo.

3. New networking performance counters that provide information about HttpWebRequest objects.

4. In the System.Net..::.HttpWebRequest class, support for using large byte range headers (64-bit ranges) with new overloads for the AddRange method. New properties on the System.Net..::.HttpWebRequest class allow an application to set many HTTP headers. You can use the Host property to set the Host header value in an HTTP request that is independent from the request URI.

5. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) support for the System.Net.Mail..::.SmtpClient and related classes.

6. Improved support for mail headers in the System.Net.Mail..::.MailMessage class.

7. Support for a null cipher for use in encryption. You can specify the encryption policy by using the System.Net..::.ServicePointManager class and the EncryptionPolicy property. Constructors for the System.Net.Security..::.SslStream class now take a System.Net.Security..::.EncryptionPolicy class as a parameter.

8. Credentials for password-based authentication schemes such as basic, digest, NTLM, and Kerberos authentication in the System.Net..::.NetworkCredential class. To improved security, passwords may now be treated as System.Security..::.SecureString instances rather than System..::.String instances.

9. Ability to specify how a URI with percent-encoded values is converted and normalized in the System..::.Uri and System.Net..::.HttpListener classes.

Web

ASP.NET version 4 introduces new features in the following areas:

1. Core services, including a new API that lets you extend caching, support for compression for session-state data, and a new application preload manager (autostart feature).

2. Web Forms, including more integrated support for ASP.NET routing, enhanced support for Web standards, updated browser support, new features for data controls, and new features for view state management.

3. Web Forms controls, including a new Chart control.

4. MVC, including new helper methods for views, support for partitioned MVC applications, and asynchronous controllers.

5. Dynamic Data, including support for existing Web applications, support for many-to-many relationships and inheritance, new field templates and attributes, and enhanced data filtering.

6. Microsoft Ajax, including additional support for client-based Ajax applications in the Microsoft Ajax Library.

7. Visual Web Developer, including improved IntelliSense for JScript, new auto-complete snippets for HTML and ASP.NET markup, and enhanced CSS compatibility.

8. Deployment, including new tools for automating typical deployment tasks.

9. Multi-targeting, including better filtering for features that are not available in the target version of the .NET Framework.

Client

Windows Presentation Foundation
In the .NET Framework 4, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) contains changes and improvements in many areas, including controls, graphics, and XAML. 

Data

ADO. NET
ADO.NET provides new features for the Entity Framework, including Persistence-Ignorant Objects, functions in LINQ queries, and Customized Object Layer Code Generation.

Dynamic Data
For ASP.NET 4, Dynamic Data has been enhanced to give you even more power for quickly building data-driven Web sites. This includes the following:

- Automatic validation that is based on constraints that are defined in the data model.

- The ability to easily change the markup that is generated for fields in the GridView and DetailsView controls by using field templates that are part of a Dynamic Data project.

Communications and Workflow

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) provides messaging enhancements and seamless integration with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). WF provides improvements in performance, scalability, workflow modeling, and an updated visual designer.

Top Reasons to trust your ASP.NET 4 website to ASPHostCentral.com

What we think makes ASPHostCentral.com so compelling is how deeply integrated all the pieces are. We integrate and centralize everything--from the systems to the control panel software to the process of buying a domain name. For us, that means we can innovate literally everywhere. We've put the guys who develop the software and the admins who watch over the server right next to the 24-hour Fanatical Support team, so we all learn from each other:

- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is operating 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmas/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Excellent Uptime Rate - Our key strength in delivering the service to you is to maintain our server uptime rate. We never ever happy to see your site goes down and we truly understand that it will hurt your onlines business. If your service is down, it will certainly become our pain and we will certainly look for the right pill to kill the pain ASAP
- High Performance and Reliable Server - We never ever overload our server with tons of clients. We always load balance our server to make sure we can deliver an excellent service, coupling with the high performance and reliable server
- Experts in ASP.NET 4 RC Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostCentral
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control Panel in 1 minute!

Happy hosting!

The following article describes .NET Framework 4. In case you are looking for ASP.NET 4 Hosting, you can always consider ASPHostCentral.com and you can start from our lowest Standard Plan @$4.99/month to host your .NET 4 site. We promise we’ll not disappoint you and we will give the best service for you. For us, the most important thing is you.

If you're an avid .NET programmer, you are likely aware of what the above title says. Since the birth of multi-core computing, there has been a need for parallel-programming architecture. Now, the multi-core computing has become the prevailing paradigm in computer architecture due to the invention of multi core-processors. By the way, almost every programmer considers Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 as getting remote and out of the way. To avert its programming market fiasco, recently, Microsoft released the beta versions of .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010. The main focus fell on .NET 4, yet the labels boasted the advent of parallel-programming. The question is whether there are any advantages (more specifically towards performance) on sticking to existing APIs? This article attempts to briefly answer the question.

.NET 4's Multi-Core processing ability: First of all, the MSDN site shows that the parallel extensions in the .NET 4 , has been improved to support parallel programming, targeting multi-core computing or distributed computing. The support for the Framework has been categorized into four areas like library, LINQ, data structures and diagonastic tools. .NET 4's peers and predecessors lacked the multi-core operable ability. The main criteria like communication and synchronization of sub-tasks were considered as the biggest obstacles in getting a good parallel program performance. But .NET 4's promising parallel library technology enables developers to define simultaneous, asynchronous tasks without having to work with threads, locks, or the thread pool.

Full support for multiple programming languages and compilers: Apart from VB & C# languages, .NET 4 establishes full support for programming languages like Ironpython, Ironruby, F# and other similar .NET compilers. Unlike 3.5, it encompasses both functional-programming and imperative object-oriented programming.

Dynamic language runtime: Addition of the dynamic language runtime (DLR) is a boon to .NET beginners. Using this new DLR runtime environment, developers can add a set of services for dynamic languages to the CLR. In addition to that, the DLR makes it simpler to develop dynamic languages and to add dynamic features to statically typed languages. A new System Dynamic name space has been added to the .NET Framework on supporting the DLR and several new classes supporting the .NET Framework infrastructure are added to the System Runtime Compiler Services.

Anyway, the new DLR provides the following advantages to developers: Developers can use rapid feedback loop which lets them enter various statements and execute them to see the results almost immediately. Support for both top-down and more traditional bottom-up development. For instance, when a developer uses a top-down approach, he can call-out functions that are not yet implemented and then add them when needed. Easier refactoring and code modifications (Developers do not have to change static type declarations throughout the code)

Parallel-diagnostics: Unlike Visual Studio 2008, the new Visual Studio 2010 supports debugging and profiling, extensively. The new profiling tools provides various data views which displays graphical, tabular and numerical information about how a parallel or multiple-threaded application interacts with itself and with other programs. The results enable developers to quickly identify areas of concern, and helps in navigating from points on the displays to call stacks & source codes. If you think only parallel programming abilities and promising capabilities make the MS .NET 4.0 a more promising next generation programming tool, think again! That's not all. There are also a number of enhancements to the Base Libraries for things like collections, reflection, data structures, handling, threading and lots of new features for the web.

Top Reasons to trust your ASP.NET 4 website to ASPHostCentral.com

What we think makes ASPHostCentral.com so compelling is how deeply integrated all the pieces are. We integrate and centralize everything--from the systems to the control panel software to the process of buying a domain name. For us, that means we can innovate literally everywhere. We've put the guys who develop the software and the admins who watch over the server right next to the 24-hour Fanatical Support team, so we all learn from each other:

- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is operating 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmas/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Excellent Uptime Rate - Our key strength in delivering the service to you is to maintain our server uptime rate. We never ever happy to see your site goes down and we truly understand that it will hurt your onlines business. If your service is down, it will certainly become our pain and we will certainly look for the right pill to kill the pain ASAP
- High Performance and Reliable Server - We never ever overload our server with tons of clients. We always load balance our server to make sure we can deliver an excellent service, coupling with the high performance and reliable server
- Experts in ASP.NET 4 Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostCentral
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 free applications directly via our Control Panel in 1 minute!

Happy hosting!                                             

The Microsoft .NET Framework 4 redistributable package installs the .NET Framework runtime and associated files that are required to run and develop applications to target the .NET Framework 4. The following article describes the overview of ASP.NET 4 RC technology in general and the improvements that have been done compared to the earlier version of ASP.NET4 . In case you are looking for ASP.NET 4 RC Hosting, you can always consider ASPHostCentral.com and you can start from our lowest Standard Plan @$4.99/month to host your .NET 4 site.

Overview

The .NET Framework is Microsoft's comprehensive and consistent programming model for building applications that have visually stunning user experiences, seamless and secure communication, and the ability to model a range of business processes

The .NET Framework 4 works side by side with older Framework versions. Applications that are based on earlier versions of the Framework will continue to run on the version targeted by default.

The Microsoft .NET Framework 4 provides the following new features and improvements:

+ Improvements in CLR and BCL
      Performance improvement including better multicore support, background garbage collection, and profiler attach on server
     - New memory mapped file and numeric types
     - Easier debugging including dump debugging, Watson minidumps, mixed mode debugging for 64 bit and code contracts

+ Innovations in the Visual Basic and C# languages, for example statement lambdas, implicit line continuations, dynamic dispatch, and named/optional parameters

+ Improvements in ADO.NET
     - Entity Framework, which simplifies how developers program against relational databases by raising the level of abstraction. The Entity Framework has many new features in the .NET 4 Framework. These features include persistence ignorance and POCO support, Foreign Key Associations, lazy loading, test-driven development support, functions in model, and new LINQ operators
     - Data Services framework consists of a combination of patterns and libraries that enable the consumption of REST-based data services for the web. ADO.NET Data Services has many new features in the .NET 4 Framework. These features include: enhanced BLOB support, Data Binding, Row Count, Feed Customization, Projections, and Request Pipeline improvements. Built-in integration in Microsoft Office 2010 now makes it possible to expose Microsoft Office SharePoint Server data as a data service and access that data using the ADO.NET Data Services client library

+ Enhancements to ASP.NET
     - More control over HTML, element IDs and custom CSS that make it much easier to create standards-compliant and SEO-friendly web forms
     - New dynamic data features including new query filters, entity templates, richer support for Entity Framework 4, and validation and templating features that can be easily applied to existing web forms
     - Web forms support for new AJAX library improvements including built-in support for content delivery networks (CDNs).

+ Improvements in WPF
     - Added support for Windows 7 multi-touch, ribbon controls, and taskbar extensibility features
     - Added support for Surface 2.0 SDK
     - New line-of-business controls including charting control, smart edit, data grid, and others that improve the experience for developers who build data centric applications
     - Improvements in performance and scalability
     - Visual improvements in text clarity, layout pixel snapping, localization, and interoperability

+ Improvements to Windows Workflow (WF) that enable developers to better host and interact with workflows. These include an improved activity programming model, an improved designer experience, a new flowchart modeling style, an expanded activity palette, workflow-rules integration, and new message correlation features. The .NET Framework 4 also offers significant performance gains for WF-based workflows

+ Improvements to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) such as support for WCF Workflow Services enabling workflow programs with messaging activities, correlation support. Additionally, .NET Framework 4 provides new WCF features such as service discovery, routing service, REST support, diagnostics, and performance

+ Innovative new parallel-programming features such as parallel loop support, Task Parallel Library (TPL), Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), and coordination data structures which let developers harness the power of multi-core processors

Reasons to trust your ASP.NET 4 RC website to ASPHostCentral.com

What we think makes ASPHostCentral.com so compelling is how deeply integrated all the pieces are. We integrate and centralize everything--from the systems to the control panel software to the process of buying a domain name. For us, that means we can innovate literally everywhere. We've put the guys who develop the software and the admins who watch over the server right next to the 24-hour Fanatical Support team, so we all learn from each other:

- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is operating 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmas/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Excellent Uptime Rate - Our key strength in delivering the service to you is to maintain our server uptime rate. We never ever happy to see your site goes down and we truly understand that it will hurt your onlines business. If your service is down, it will certainly become our pain and we will certainly look for the right pill to kill the pain ASAP
- High Performance and Reliable Server - We never ever overload our server with tons of clients. We always load balance our server to make sure we can deliver an excellent service, coupling with the high performance and reliable server
- Experts in ASP.NET 4 RC Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostCentral
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control Panel in 1 minute!

Happy hosting!