Blogs from Wise Owl on ADO.NET and data in ASP.NET webforms

Creating data classes for ASP.NET data controls

Posted by Andy Brown on 07 August 2012

Yes, ASP.NET provides DataSource controls, but wizards only get you so far. Share the secret of how Wise Owl create all our ASP.NET websites, using a single, simple data class.

Overview of Data Controls in ASP.NET 4.0

Posted by Andy Brown on 19 September 2011

With the introduction of the ListView data control in ASP.NET 3.5, there are now 4 separate tools for displaying multiple rows of data in ASP.NET. Which one is best - GridView, Repeater, DataList or ListView?

Review of VB.NET Data Storage Structures

Posted by Andy Brown on 24 August 2011

There are a bewildering array (excuse the pun) of data storage structures available to you in Visual Basic. Choose from arrays, ArrayLists, SortedLists, Dictionaries, HashTables, Lists and DataTables, among others. This blog gives an example of each type of structure, and benchmarks them to show which perform best and worst.

Using SQL UNION queries to populate the first Item in a list type control

Posted by David Wakefield on 31 May 2011

Adding a first or default item to a list control which gets its data from a table can be tricky. This blog gives an elegant solution using UNION queries, which works equally well for ASP.NET dropdown controls, Windows Forms dropdowns or Access combo boxes.