Building an ASP.NET Intranet

by Kourosh Ardestani, Brian Boyce, Matt Gibbs, et al.

This book uses ASP .NET and Visual Basic .NET to develop an intranet application that provides all of the features that users expect. The author base the sample intranet within the book on Microsoft's free best practices example, the IBuySpy Portal, and show how one can rapidly create an application that makes good use of the advanced features of ASP .NET.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590592565
• ISBN13: 9781590592564
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Apress
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding IBuySpy (pre-DotNetNuke) Book!

[...] I picked this book up about three years to late, as it is entirely written about the original IBuySpy Portal framework, and I am an avid DotNetNuke module developer. The author presents numerous great examples of custom module development for IBuySpy, including a simple library application, extended discussions module, a complex Human Resources module, and a great Document Management System. Keep in mind IBuySpy is the forerunner to DotNetNuke, and all of the modules outlined in the book port nicely to the newer architecture, as they leverage many of the features moved forward into DotNetNuke, like user account integration, portal security, and more. As I worked through configuring the various samples provided with the book, I got to set up & play with the original IBuySpy Portal framework after nearly three years of playing with it for the for the first time. When it was first released, it very intimidating in some of it's implementation details, although it didn't appear as sophisticated in it's business architecture, unlike the original Reports, Time Tracking, & Issue Tracking kits. The book provides one of the best guides I have read to everything IBuySpy. The second time looking at IBuySpy portal, I was more able to appreciate the great concepts introduced in it, and I was at times amazed at how simple the IBuySpy Portal is when compared to the latest version of DotNetNuke. With the Introduction of the DotNetNuke Data Access Layer (DAL) in version 2.x, DotNetNuke was able to encapsulate all of the sophistication, and more, of the business layer found in the Time Tracking/Reports starter kits, at which point I was hooked. I found the Document Management System described in Chapter 9 sophisticated enough that I believed it was worth the effort to convert it to a modern DotNetNuke module. The module is very well designed and documented in the book, so I decided on an uneventful Sunday afternoon to start converting it. Approximately 40 hours of development later, I have completed converting the module to DotNetNuke 2.1.2 (DotNetNuke 3.0.9 was released two days before the writing of this review).

Great IBuySpy book

I really like the approach that this book takes. Using the IBuySpy example means that all the mailing lists and forums about it will be useful.The explanations in the early chapters really cleared up how IBuySpy works for me. Especially on security.The later chapters led me through some great coding techniques. The download worked fine for me. I guess the authors sorted it out since those previous reviews.

This book rocks!!!

This book is just what I have been looking for. The documents and content apps in particular saved me from having to hire a consultant that was asking $$$ to do lesser work!

The Devil is in the Details

This is the book I have been waiting for! Since last summer, when ASP.NET was (somewhat) introduced and the best practices app IBuySpy was released, I and others have awaited a tome that would walk us through the process of building an ASP.NET intranet step-by-step and this book is it. It starts off by highlighting what is important to have in an intranet but it quickly gets down to the nitty-gritty of (1) dissecting IBuySpy and (2) showing how to customize and extend the IBS application to a full fledged intranet portal. Their explanations are well written and concise and there were a number of topics that I was able to finally understand.This book is not exactly for newbies, but for the person that has gotten their feet wet with ASP.NET and wants to get his or her hands dirty with a serious project.I only have one negative point about this book and it is the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. No CD and No online code.I do not know about the rest of you, but I would have prefered to spend an extra 5-10 dollars not to have to type all of this code over again. Additionally, the authors use an abstracted database class in all of their code that is supposed to be downloadable from the WROX website, but, at this time, is not available, which was very frustrating. The upside is, I ended up re-writing it myself, so I actually ended up learning more!All in all, a good book and well worth the price.

A good overview of the IBuySpy application

Having installed and made a few (trivial) changes to the IBuySpy portal application, I decided to get this book in order to make sure that I didn't 'miss any tricks'.The book doesn't disappoint. It's a good overview of the application with detailed instructions on the installation process and operational level usage of the product.A useful discussion of the portal architecture is followed by detailed discussions of the underlying concepts of security, specific modules, content and document management.Finally, there is an analysis of a new module - Human resources management, in which all the issues that you would normally have to deal with in a real-world development are met.The only real disappointment was that the download code listed in the book was not yet available from Wrox.com - no doubt that will be resolved in short order.There are more than a thousand instances of the IBuySpy portal already on the web, with many hundreds more in the making. This book is an ideal introduction to the subject.