I've just created my first dashboard control for the umbraco backend, and I have a few questions:

1) I've got an UpdatePanel in my control, but it doesn't appear to be working - is there some trick to properly handling partial page refreshes?

2) Where do I go to set the default culture on the backend? For instance, I need dates formatted as mm/dd/yy.

3) This one is way more specific. The front-end of the site has a page that allows members to upload files to a directory that is outside of IIS. I'd like to create a backend tool that allows umbraco users to download these files securely. I typically do this with an aspx page, since it involves changing ContentHeaders. Is there a way to do this in a user control? Also, what part of the API tells me which umbraco user is logged in to the backend?

Thanks!