HEROES Happen {HERE}

Microsoft have just posted the resources from the Windows Server, SQL Server & Visual Studio Heroes happen {Here}  launch. Check them out they are very informative indeed!

Catergorys include:

• Session 1 | What’s New in Windows Server 2008
• Session 2 | Virtualization and Your Infrastructure
• Session 3 | Securing Your IT Infrastructure with Windows Server 2008
• Session 4 | Exploring Windows Server 2008 Web and Application Technologies

Find the links to the slides here: http://www.technetbriefings.com/2008-launch-resources.aspx

A new version of the Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison Guide is now available. Version 1.08 includes updates to a number or line items, but in particular it includes a lot of fixes in the debugging section and adds a section on 64-bit development features.

Also check out the update for Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Web Developer Express 2008 @ http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/KB946581

Picture this: You’re a developer who frequently writes console applications. Each day after work you go home and head to bed, you close your eyes and burnt into the darkness is the ever so familiar output of command prompt jargon.
Does the above sound like you? Sick of screen-burn in your eyes?
Well Microsoft have answered your call to give your eyes a rest

Introducing the “Consolas” font Microsoft developed specifically for developers!!

“When we began work on a project to create a new set of fonts which would take maximum advantage of ClearType, we decided to develop a fixed-pitch font for developers - because no one ever thought of their needs, and we realized a highly-readable fixed-width font would make their lives a lot easier…
…The Windows International fonts team is also working on another version that’ll support Vietnamese, and also the line draw characters that we made to support the console window.”

See for yourself-This image (as shown on IE blog is of the standard 8 x 12Px Raster font used by default in CMD.exe

Compare this to the Consolas type fonts:

You

BARCELONA, Spain — Nov. 5, 2007 — Today, during the keynote address at Microsoft TechEd Developers 2007, S. “Soma” Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft Corp., announced that Microsoft will release Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 by the end of November 2007. Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 enable developers at all levels to rapidly create connected applications that offer compelling user experiences for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, mobile devices and the Web. Soma also unveiled plans to open new opportunities for Visual Studio partners, as well as to deliver new tools and resources for developers, including a first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the Microsoft Sync Framework and new capabilities for Popfly Explorer.

“The highly social and visual nature of the Web has fundamentally changed what users expect from all applications they interact with, regardless of whether it’s on a customer-facing Web site or Windows rich client application, or a desktop business application built using Microsoft Office,” said Somasegar. “Traditionally, organizations have been hard pressed to deliver the richer, more connected applications and services they need to boost productivity, drive revenue and stay ahead of

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Few days ago, I shared about how to upgrade your ASP.NET 1.1 to ASP.NET 2.0, this time I am going to discuss about enabling ASP.NET AJAX v1.0 to your existing Web Site or Web Application.

1) You have to downlaod and install the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0. Here
2) You may download and extract the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. Here

After install it, you will found out that you may create AJAX Enabled Web Application when creating new projects(Web Site or Web Application). You may also found out that there is a new tab called “AJAX Extensions” in Toolbox. If you have extracted the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, you may do the following,

1) Create new tab called “AJAX Control Toolkit”;
2) Right click under the created tab and click on “Choose Items…”;
3) Click “Browse…” and browse to the folder which you extract the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, and then browse to “~\SampleWebSite\Bin\” and select AjaxControlToolokit.dll
4) Now you will see a lot of controls which you are ready to use. You may browse and view the “Toolkit Live” to get the sample and idea on the controls.

You are now ready to build your AJAX web site or

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As you might already know, the VS2008 VPC will be expired on Nov 1st, the VSTS team is going to release a new VPC with updated expiration date.  Detail in below,

As the final act in our saga of expiring VPCs, I’m happy to announce that we’ve reissued VPCs for VS2008 Beta2 with an updated expiration date.  You can find the updated links on the VS2008 download page:

• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Suite VPC
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Suite & Team Foundation Server VPC

Thanks to everyone that has helped us get the word out about this situation and please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this might have caused you.  Needless to say, we’re taking steps now to ensure that we don’t make this particular mistake again.

Source from Jeff Beehler’s Blog — VS2008 Beta2 VPCs re-released