Ajaxus place on the net

Today from Microsoft released the links to download the new Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2!

Here is the link.

VS 2010 Product Line SKU Simplifications

With VS 2010 we are simplifying the product lineup and pricing options of Visual Studio, as well as adding new benefits for MSDN subscribers. With VS 2010 we will now ship a simpler set of SKU options:

* Visual Studio Express: Free Express SKUs for Web, VB, C#, and C++

* Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN: Professional development tools as you are used to today with the addition of source control integration, bug tracking, build automation, and more. It also includes 50 hours/month of Azure cloud computing.

* Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN: Premium has everything in Professional plus advanced development tools (including richer profiling and debugging, code coverage, code analysis and testing prioritization), advanced database support, UI testing, and more. Rather than buying multiple “Team” SKUs like you would with VS 2008, you can now get this combination of features in one box with VS 2010. It also includes 100 hours/month of Azure cloud computing.

* Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN: Ultimate has everything in Premium plus additional advanced features for developers, testers, and architects including features like Intellitrace (formerly Historical Debugging), the new architecture tools (UML, discovery), test lab management, etc. It also includes 250 hours/month of Azure cloud computing.

Side by Side Support with VS 2008

VS 2010 and .NET 4.0 can be installed side-by-side on the same machine as VS 2008 and .NET 3.5. You can install the Beta 2 version on a machine and it will not impact your existing VS 2008 / .NET 3.5 development.

Go-Live License Available

.NET 4 and VS 2010 Beta 2 include a “go-live” license which means you can start using the products for production projects.

Some of the new features also include making SEO-friendly url’s. Before we used to write some keywords mapping but now it all could be done with code.
Before:
http://ajaxus.net/news.php?newsID=23232

Now:
http://ajaxus.net/news/Url_routing

This can be achieved with the function MapPageRoute.

Handling PostBack Scenarios

URL Routing with ASP.NET 4.0 fully supports postback scenarios. The

Here are four free chapters from the book “The Microsoft Expression Web Developer’s Guide to ASP.NET 3.5: Learn to create ASP.NET applications using Visual Web Developer 2008“. You can download it from here or buy it from here.

The list of the free chapters:
* Creating Web sites
* Creating and Managing CSS Styles
* Applying CSS to Web Forms
* Debugging ASP.NET Applications

Yesterday from Microsoft released the AJAX CDN. The Microsoft Ajax CDN enables you to significantly improve the performance of ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC applications that use ASP.NET AJAX or jQuery. The service is available for free, does not require any registration, and can be used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

ASP.NET 4.0 will make it especially easy for ASP.NET Web Forms developers to take advantage of the CDN. By setting one property of the ScriptManager control, you will be able to redirect all requests for the built-in ASP.NET JavaScript files to the CDN and improve the performance of your Web Forms applications.

You can get a full listing of the JavaScript libraries (and associated URLs) we already have loaded in our CDN cache here: www.asp.net/ajax/cdn

Here is a free chapter from the book called Windows 7 Secrets. The book is written by Paul Thurrott and Rafael Rivera.

Go beyond the obvious and explore the secrets behind Windows 7 with this comprehensive guide. Leading authorities in the field expose the hidden functionality within the Windows 7 operating system, revealing everything from its new features and functionality to modifying the system to work for you. These expert tips and tricks will help you gain the skills you need to quickly go from a Windows 7 user to a Windows 7 expert.

Download it from here!

Paperback: 1104 pages
Publisher: Wiley (September 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0470508418
ISBN-13: 978-0470508411

Many exciting changes for ASP.NET are coming in the .NET Framework version 4. This document gives an overview of many of the new features that are included in the upcoming Beta 2 release of the .NET Framework 4 and of Visual Studio 2010.
Download it from here!

I have found this post at somasegar’s blog writing about the new enhancements in VB and C# languages.

About VB.NET they include:
- removed the underscore (“_”) character when breaking a code statement across multiple lines
- simple way of declaring properties
- collection initializers and array literals are simpler as well
- better support for lambdas
- interoperating with dynamic language code such as Python and Ruby are simpler

Read also about C# improvements and find nice code samples here.

Here is what I have found this late evening. The Developer Evangelist Handbook is something which is a good read from one side and serious role at every IT company.

This handbook will get you on the way to be a great developer evangelist for any product or company. Of course your approach needs tweaking for different markets and audiences - and in accordance with your own personality - but the main principles are the same for everybody and anywhere in the world.

Developer evangelism is a totally new field of work and the first hurdle you will encounter is people asking what a developer evangelist is and why any company would need a role like that.

After writing about the new up-coming release of Silverlight 3, yesterday it happened. Here is part of the new features as described by Scott Guthrie.

New features:
- HD Media - Silverlight 3 now supports hardware graphics acceleration – enabling both video and graphics compositing to be offloaded onto a GPU. This can dramatically lower CPU usage on a computer, and enables HD video to be played on older low end machines. You can now deliver and play 1080p HD video experiences over the web.

- Immersive Graphics - The new GPU acceleration capabilities of Silverlight 3 enable even richer and more immersive graphic experiences.

- Out of Browser Support - Silverlight 3 enables applications to run outside the browser and taken offline. Users can safely install web applications on their computers, and create persistent shortcuts to them on the desktop, start menu and taskbar (this is supported on both Windows and the Mac).

- Application Development - Silverlight 3 includes a ton of new application development features.

- Visual Studio 2008 Tools for Silverlight 3

- Expression Studio 3

Here you can read more about it.

Microsoft’s competitor to Adobe Flash, Silverlight, has officially rolled out the new version, Silverlight 3, today. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering media experiences and interactive applications for the Web. The first version was launched in 2007 and the second version was launched in September of 2008. In April, Microsoft reported 300 million downloads of Silverlight between September 2007 and April 2009, with an estimated 300,000 developers and engineers working off the Silverlight platform.

Siverlight 3 launched a day earlier today on Microsoft’s servers, surprising the blogosphere. The new version has improved streaming capabilities, called Smooth Streaming. Here’s what Microsoft said about the new streaming function:

If the Internet bandwidth and video rendering capability on your playback device are sufficiently high, you’ll experience high-definition video playback of the sample content. You will also be able to simulate end user experiences under varying conditions by simulating drops and recoveries in bandwidth. If your actual bandwidth is below 3 Mbps, or your playback device is video-challenged, then you will experience the adaptive nature of Smooth Streaming without needing to simulate a bandwidth cap.

Microsoft is also extending Silverlight’s technologies beyond the browser by allowing developers to design and create apps that can run on the desktop. Microsoft will be announcing further details about Silverlight at its official launch of Silverlight 3 and Expression Studio 3 tomorrow morning. We’ll have all the details. And Microsoft will also be demoing some of the real-time capabilities of Silverlight 3 at TechCrunch’s Real-Time Stream CrunchUp tomorrow.