Following September's launch of the new Microsoft CDN (Content Delivery Network Service), in which you can reference ajax libraries in cache, Microsoft recently added SSL support, thus confirming Microsoft's announcement back then. This new feature is necessary in websites that have SSL enabled pages and script library references in them. What would happen until now was a message displaying "This page contains both secure and non-secure items...".
SSL support is now enabled with the scripts hosted on the Microsoft AJAX CDN. Simply use an “https” moniker with any script references on your site that point to the CDN, and they...
Just posted another article from a series of articles regarding the jQuery Library. This next iteration explains all the major areas of this magnificent API, and targets element selection and filtering through some basic explanation and examples. Don't miss out if you're getting into jQuery.
jQuery Tutorial Part 1
jQuery Tutorial Part 2
Saw a great vide this weekend about Silberlight 4’s new OOB capabilities. Joe Stegman, Director of Program Management on the Silverlight team, went on camera in Channel 9 to talk about Silverlight 4's Out of Browser improvements. OOB means that you can run a Silverlight application on your desktop, outside the usual browser enviroment.
Check it out here: Channel 9
Technorati Tags: Silverlight
At the Professional Developers Conference 2009, Microsoft announced public beta of Office Professional Plus 2010 productivity suite. In all the fanfare, Stephen Chapman of Microsoft Kitchen managed to grab a Microsoft roadmap pointing next Windows operating system's arrival. Microsoft launched Windows 7 on October 22 and now the plans of Windows 8 roadmap were spotted on the Interwebs. The successor to Windows 7 is tentatively codenamed as Windows 8 and is expected to be next "Major Release" in 2012. On the contrary, Windows 7 is being treated as "Release Updates" - to what? Maybe...
A lot has been talked about recently regarding Internet Explorer 9. At the PDC, Steven Sinofski talked about IE9’s new development lines and there are some interesting features and improvements being taken care of. For starters, the standards! IE9 will support CSS 3.0 and HTML 5, which was already expected. Performance-wise, Microsoft is making a huge investment. Performance disadvantages of IE8 are widely known and the team wants to change this in the 9th iteration of Internet Explorer. Javascript rendering engine and DOM processing are getting huge improvements. Steven...
A lot has happened in PDC 2009. Although I couldn’t make it this year, I’ve been watching it very closely from the keynotes, session contents, technologies, attendees, the space, chill out zone and merchandising. XAML-wise, there were some glorious days.
Some cool WPF 3 and 4 apps were shown in day 2 of this year’s PDC, like Saesmic, a Tweeter and Facebook desktop client for MAC and Windows, Pivot, from Microsoft labs, Fishbowl, another facebook desktop client, and I’ve been inspecting every one of them. Aside from the release of Silverlight 4 Beta, IE 9 video demo, Office 2010 Beta,...
The Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) team, announced today the release of Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP, a PHP performance optimizer/accelerator created to increase the speed of PHP applications running on Windows and Windows Server.
This is a production-ready release that is provided under an open source BSD license, with the source code hosted and maintained here, and the documentation hosted on php.net.
You can find more details on this release on IIS team Product Unit Manager Mai-lan Tomsen Bukovec's blog.
WinCache extension is a significant open source contribution from Microsoft to the PHP on Windows community. The...
Microsoft also announced yesterday the Office 2010 Beta (Professional Plus) availability.
You can check out all about the Office 2010 productivity apps at http://www.microsoft.com/2010/en and download the beta from the top right link. You need to register to get the software but it will all be worthwhile. Included apps are Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace and Communicator.
Here's what you need to know:
This is pre-release software, so please read the following to get an idea of the risks and key things you need to know before you try the Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta.
...
Yesterday at PDC 2009, Microsoft unveiled the Beta version of Silverlight 4. This latest version has a lot of new features and everyone’s talking about it. Amongst the new features there’s: New Features for Application Developers Comprehensive printing support enabling hardcopy reports and documents as well as a virtual print view, independent of screen content. A full set of forms controls with over 60 customizable, styleable components. New controls include RichTextbox with hyperlinks, images and editing and Masked textbox for complex field validation. Enhanced controls include DataGrid with...
One of the first novelties straight from PDC 2009 is the release of ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta for Visual Studio 2008.
Q: What happens when you cross a Silverlight application with Bing Maps?
A: A full fledged geographical DeepZoom navigation experience.
This is what you get with the new Bing maps Silverlight Control now available from Microsoft.
Microsoft is finally ready to launch their next big update to Xbox LIVE dashboard, with Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm and Zune video.
The update is scheduled to be made available to all Xbox LIVE members on November, the 17th. The update will allow users to connect with their friends though Facebook, get news feeds, photos, messaging and navigate through other profiles, and get instant twitter updates of all your connections.
Technorati Tags: Xbox 360
Vodafone and Microsoft have been working together in order to develop a custom retail application for vodafone customers. It's been implemented in Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom, so customers that live in these countries can now experience Surface in local flagship Vodafone stores.
Microsoft recently released an updated version of their Facebook SDK for .NET developers. This is the result of a joint partnership between Clarity Consulting and the Concept Development Team at Microsoft.
According to Microsoft "the goal is to enable .NET developers to quickly and easily leverage the various features of the Facebook Platform." The software giant has provided samples and tools for helping develop Facebook applications in the various .NET platforms including: ASP.NET, Silverlight, WPF and WinForms. Microsoft has also release the source code for the API, components, controls, and samples."
The main goals driving the release of version 3.0 are:
• Provide...
Microsoft announced today the purchase of Teamprise Client Suite, from Teamprise.
Teamprise is a division of SourceGear and it's main focus is creating products and solutions for enterprise companies standardizing on Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server. SourceGear's most popular product is SourceOffSite. You have probably already heard of it.
Teamprise Client Suite consists of 3 components:
Eclipse plugin - Allows developers to perform all of their source control, bug tracking, build, and reporting operations from within Eclipse and Eclipse-based IDEs, such as Rational Application Developer, JBoss, BEA Workshop, and Adobe Flex Builder. It integrates into the menu...
Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop, announced today at the Microsoft Tech-Ed Europe 2009 conference in Germany, that Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is now available worldwide.
"Exchange Server 2010 customers are already reporting cost savings of up to 70 percent thanks to a simplified high-availability model and support for lower-cost storage. Customers are also seeing productivity gains of more than 20 percent with a universal inbox that delivers e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging and text messaging consistently across virtually any device..."
"Together with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the combined cost savings and improved productivity helps customers generate long-term...
How about having a status button showing your Windows Live Messenger status? It’s pretty simple, and this mini-post explains how you can accomplish this.
To get the HTML code for Windows Live Messenger IM Control, login here with your Windows Live ID. First thing to do is log in to your Windows Live account. Then, confirm that you are in Windows Live Messenger > Web Settings and choose the “Create HTML” option, in the left menu.
You’ll be taken to a page where you can select the kind of integration you want to achieve. You can select a Messaging Window...
Telerik released the new ASP.NET MVC extensions that complemment the ASP.NET MVC framework by delivering a server-based framework that integrates with client-side modules based on popular JavaScript library, jQuery. Here's what you can expect from this release:
Pure ASP.NET MVC components
Built on top of ASP.NET MVC to leverage its values - lightweight rendering, clean HTML, separation of concerns, and testability.
Completely Open Source
The Extensions are licensed under the widely adopted GPLv2. A commercial license with support is also available.
Exceptional Performance
No postbacks, no ViewState, and no page lifecycle. The Web Asset Managers optimize the delivery of CSS and JavaScript, so no precious HTTP...
The EF team announced today the release (and availability of course) of Entity Framework CTP 2. The updated includes many requested improvements and features, and supports installation with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2. Some of the improvements and added features added since the last CTP include:
Enhancements to Code Only, including:
Fine Grained Control over model
Specify Navigation Property Inverses
...
Microsoft recently announced that it's making additional job cuts today. A total of 800 job positions will be cut around the world, and affecting several product groups. It has been said that about a quarter of the job cuts are in the Seattle region.
With these cuts, Microsoft says it has now completed its plan, announced in January, to eliminate 5,000 positions over 18 months. The latest cuts also go a step further, taking the cumulative number of layoffs beyond the original 5,000-position plan, spokesman Lou Gellos confirmed, without saying how much further they go.
Hang in there guys...
Microsoft updated it's MSN.com with a cleaner look and more structured information. It has a new logo (I'm not too convinced, I'm still getting used to it) side by side with the Bing search area.
Besides the latest news and weather, the new MSN homepage allows you to view your facebook news feed, connect to Windows live and view your tweets.
Check out the preview here.