A number of customers have asked me how they can learn more about and get their hands on the betas of Office & Vista for general evaluation. If you have been asking the same thing, then have a look at https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/ . From...

With all the buzz around Web 2.0 and AJAX, mash-up applications are becoming very popular. In fact we launched our Mash-it-up with Atlas contest last week. But what are you going to mash up? I asked about public web services here . Well I have compiled...

Mike Harsh is bloggin about it! Here's what you'll find if you follow the link: All the details we announced at MIX06 Screenshots (running in both IE & Firefox) Links to some other blog posts & articles on WPF/E Joe Stegman's WPF...

"We are easy to manage, a gregarious people, Full of sentiment, clever at mechanics, and we love our luxuries. " ATTRIBUTION: Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962), U.S. poet. Ave Caesar (l. 7–8). . . Excuse me while I pass the time enjoying spring weather...

Eight report packs have just been released for SQL Server 2005. Report packs are sample reports that you can use as templates to quickly author and distribute new interactive reports. The 8 report packs include: · SQL Server 2005 Report Pack for...

This morning in London, we announced that BizTalk Server 2006 has released to manufacture...more info at: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk , although this page has more about what's new and exciting -- http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/overview...

Likewise "CAL" might represent a client access license, but only a licsensing expert knows it. I get a fair number of questions regarding the CAL requirements of the Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition compared to the full blown, unlimited product...

In my experience, people interested in portals can be roughly divided into two groups. One of those groups cares deeply about WSRP and JSR168 and the other doesn’t. If you belong to the former group or are simply curious about what WSRP and JSR 168 are...

One of the most exciting new features of Office 12 is that it uses XML file formats ( http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/developers/filefaq.mspx ) by default. Although XML file formats were supported in Office 2003, they were optional in that release...

Learn about Visual Studio from Microsoft through the Visual Studio Webcast Series Webcast will run 12:00 – 1:30 PM, EST March 29, 2006 – Overview of VSTE for Software Testers Description: Visual Studio Team Edition for Testers includes a suite of...

Yeah, yeah... but I want to move portions of my TFS to new machines! How the heck can I do it? Here's a post on the VSTF UE blog that can walk you through several of these scenarios: http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsue/archive/2006/03/22/558178.aspx ...

WPF/E is a subset of WPF focused on interactive content that works cross platform. WPF/E can be hosted in multiple browsers and on multiple operating systems. That's right, including operating systems other than Windows. WPF/E, like WPF, uses XAML. Unlike...

Another interesting smart client technology being discussed at MIX06 is gadgets . Gadgets are written in HTML and javascript, technologies familiar to web developers. They can be hosted as part of the live.com portal. From a smart client perspective,...

One of the smart client technologies we've talked a lot about in the past is Windows Presentation Foundation . One of the key points made during MIX06 is that there is an increasing number of display types that devices uses. The application UI may need...

So you couldn't attend the MIX06 conference but you are interested in what Microsoft is doing around all this Web 2.0 buzz? Take a look at http://blog.mix06.com/virtualmix/ . Subscribe to the RSS feed or visit the url periodically because: "The keynotes...

Join Robert Shelton Microsoft Federal Developer Evangelist for a Developer Dinner Overview of Windows Communication Foundation (code name: Indigo) for Developers Register today! http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en...

The theme for the second day of MIX06 was Beyond the Browser. In disconnected scenarios, in scenarios where the application wants to have total control of the user experience, and in scenarios where you want to better integrate with tools the user...

The Windows Live Developer Center is now available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/live/ . This site contains SDKs, articles, and examples to help you get started building applications which leverage Windows Live Services. Areas of focus include: ...

Atlas is a framework for building AJAX style web applications. One of the big announcements at the conference was a new CTP with a go live license. Due to popular demand, this license will allow developers to put Atlas applications into production. ...

One of the trends that we see is the use of RSS for more than blogs and news. As the mash-up trend shows, it is becoming a mechansim for allowing applications to exchange data. In order to make it easier to build applications which leverage RSS, we are...

One of the goals of the keynotes was to make clear that we strongly support Internet Explorer as a development platform. We acknowledged that we have gone too long between releases and have committed to a much more frequent release cycle. A new build...

By now, many of you have heard about the MIX06 conference going on in Las Vegas . There is a ton of information coming out of the conference. Over the next few days, we will try to highlight the announcements that are the most interesting for Federal...

I've blogged about SCBAT before here . While catching up on some blog reading I noticed that Eugenio had announced the March CTP. I downloaded the CTP and did a quick scan. If you've been waiting for a more mature release or better documentation, then...

One of my favorite cartoon characters was Mr. Know-It-All. Am I dating myself? Why not - Bullwinkle still rocks after all these years. How would you like to be Mr. Know-It-All when it comes to project management theory and life cycle support underlying...

This ain't just the luck o' the Irish! The hard work and dedication of countless Microsoft engineers comes to fruitition today with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server release to manufacturer. Bottom line - MSDN subscribers should be able to get the...