Microsoft has released an IE powertoy called Fiddler. What is Fiddler?  Fiddler is an HTTP debugging proxy that logs all HTTP traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler enables you to inspect all HTTP traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler is much simpler to use than NetMon or other network debuggers because it exposes only HTTP traffic and does so in a user-friendly format.

Download Fiddler here.

Also see this article.

A few years ago, we looked at some open source .net PDF generation tools. It is interesting to look at them again to see which ones are still maintained and which ones are out of maintenance.

There two .net ports of iText, iText.Net and iTextSharp. .iText.Net is still maintained but iTextSharp was out of maintenance. Why? iText.Net is compilation of Java code using J# and thus can catch up the new versions of iText easier. iTextSharp is a C# port with a more ambitious agenda but never realized. J# port has its danger as well; would J# support all future JDK releases?

The other tool I looked at was nfop which is a J# port of fop. Unfortunately, nfop has not been maintained either.

I have encountered this article by Tom Barnaby on FTPOnline at http://www.ftponline.com/reports/vslivesf/2005/barnaby/. It recommends a tool called Rapier-Loom.net at http://www.dcl.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/research/loom/rapier_loom.htm.

The much anticipated enterprise library from Microsoft Pattern and Practice team has been finally released:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/entlib.asp

I am lucky enough to attend a seminar by Hisham Baz at Inland Empire .Net user's group meeting (http://www.iedotnetug.org/). Hisham is a developer of Enterprise Library. His blog points to many other blogs by Enterpise library architects and developers, together providing very useful information.