AJAX Control Toolkit, IT Toolbox, Flash Content

Yesterday I turned off JavaScript in my browser and saw what my web site will look like without JavaScript. You won’t see the Flash header without JavaScript and you will not be able to navigate to any of the web pages in the Flash menu. This is a mistake that many web sites make when they use Flash. They do not provide any alternative content to take the place of the Flash content. It is particularly important to provide your links in the alternative content. I expanded the text and added links in my header although you won’t see it if you are seeing the Flash loaded over it.I began to study the AJAX Control Toolkit yesterday. I discovered that I didn’t even have it installed. I had the AJAX Extensions for ASP.NET 2.0 installed but not the AJAX Control Toolkit which is sort of a library of common web controls. I created a toolkit project template and added all those web controls to my toolbar. Now I am going through the controls to find the minimal requirements for using them in a web page.I now have a blog at IT Toolbox where I will be writing about social media. IT Toolbox is a social networking site for IT professionals. Or should I say, it is a professional networking site? This is going to give me too many blogs to maintain because I’m also writing a blog on the Microsoft site for ASP.NET and my business blog here. However I can get many more readers on the Microsoft site and IT Toolbox provides some additional incentives and marketing support for their bloggers. There are now too many web sites built around user generated content and some sites now realize that they need to provide some incentive to their top contributors. I’ve seen this on YouTube were top vloggers have been made partners and offered exclusive ad revenue sharing deals. Boy did that cause a ruckus in the community!