Updates of Xceed’s .NET, Silverlight, and Workflow Foundation networking libraries bring important new features and bug fixes to the FTP capabilities of these products.

Xceed FTP for .NET version 4.0 provides performance enhancements that resolve certain issues involving connecting to a server protected by a firewall, through the addition of the CCC (clear command channel) command. Other interfaces changes, which have also been made to Xceed FTP for .NET CF (v4.0), further improve working with servers running behind a firewall.

Additionally, internal architecture changes help prevent applications from hanging or small files being empty after transfer in certain situations. Finally, various enumerations have been modified to match those found in the .NET Framework to take advantage of the .NET Framework SslStream class; these improvements are also available in the FTP activities available in Xceed Activities for WF (v1.3).

Version 1.1 of Xceed Upload for Silverlight features the ability to upload unlimited amounts of data in a single or batch operation, using the HTTP 1.1 “chunked” format and Silverlight’s Sockets class. These enhancements vastly increase the number of contexts where the product can be used. Developers can also choose to use their own implementation of the HttpWebRequest class if they need to use a specialized transfer algorithm.

Fully functional free trial versions of these 100%-managed components are now available for download.

The bottom line for a company is fundamental, of course. But that doesn’t mean that a company can’t look for ways to help others out. With that in mind, for the remainder of 2009, Xceed will donate $20 for each sale of a Silverlight component to .NET guru Scott Hanselman’s favorite charity, the American Diabetes Association. For nearly 70 years, the ADA has been funding research into the prevention, cure, and management of diabetes, as well as providing services, information, and support to those affected by this disease. And Xceed is doing its part to chip in!

Xceed’s free videos and services help many in the development community. The free videos—such as ones done by our WPF and Silverlight integrator that show not only how to do certain things in your applications, but also how not to do certain things—can be accessed on our home page (the most recent ones) and on our YouTube account. Look for more of these free videos in the near future, as well as “feature videos” that will describe capabilities that we are adding to our products. Furthermore, services such as our blogs and forums, both of which can be freely accessed, are great sources of information, going far beyond mere product support. Finally, we made access to the first of our upcoming webinars free of charge. (See below for details.)

Xceed will broadcast its first webinar on Thursday, March 26, 2009, starting at 10 a.m. (Pacific Time) / 1 p.m. (Eastern Time). The Xceed DataGrid for WPF webinars will demonstrate to participating developers how to use Xceed’s WPF datagrid and give them the chance to ask questions after the training session. The first webinar sold out in roughly 12 minutes; a link for the next webinar with openings is available at http://xceed.com/Presentation/webinar.aspx.

The recommended best practices as applied to improving attendees’ experience with Xceed DataGrid for WPF and increasing their knowledge of the product will form the basis of these workshops. For example, the following topics will be covered in the March 26, 2009 webinar:

1. Providing data to the grid using common sources such as ADO.NET DataSets, XML, and custom collections (BindingList<T> and ObservableCollection).
2. Adding items to and delete them from these sources, and commit modifications to data sources.
3. Handling inserting and removing items in a source that does not inherently support these operations (List<T>).

More advanced workshops, for which the attendance fee will be $250 US, are scheduled.

The webinars will last between 90 and 120 minutes, beginning with a 60-minute training session. A question-and-answer session lasting 30 to 60 minutes will then follow. Questions may be asked either through the GoToWebinar Web conferencing tool that will be used to present the workshop or by phone. Attendees will receive a recording and a transcript of the webinar, as well as the sample code used during the presentation. Questions not answered during the presentation will be answered in the transcript.

If you have suggestions for future topics, send e-mail to Jimmy at webinar@xceed.com.