The release candidate for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 is available for download. The downloadable release candidate was offered to MSDN subscribers on Monday. Non-members can get it on Wednesday.
The RC includes a go-live license for people who want to deploy in their production environment. For more information, see “Going live” with the Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate.
The launch of Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4 for April 12.
Visual Studio 2010 features capabilities for developing applications for the Microsoft SharePoint collaboration platform, Windows 7, and the Windows Azure cloud platform; .Net Framework 4 offers features such as a reduction in size.
For more information
For more information on the RC, check out Jason Zander's blog posting, Announcing VS2010 / .NET Framework 4 Release Candidate (RC).
For more information about the key features in Visual Studio 2010, see Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4 Release Date Set. Key areas include:
In addition third party companies that have popular Visual Studio add-ins (such as Resharper, CodeRush, Whole Tomato, etc) to make sure the environment works well.
How to get started
You can get started learning more about the features in Visual Studio first hand:
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
The SQL Azure team has put together a set of questions and answers in their blog post, SQL Azure Database Now Generally Available – SLAs in effect.
Q: What is Microsoft SQL Azure Database?
A: Microsoft SQL Azure™ Database is a cloud-based relational database service built on SQL Server technologies. It provides a highly available, scalable, multi-tenant database service hosted by Microsoft in the cloud. SQL Azure Database enables easy provisioning and deployment of multiple databases. Developers do not have to install, setup, patch or manage any software. High Availability and fault tolerance is built-in and no physical administration is required. SQL Azure Database supports Transact-SQL (T-SQL). Customers can leverage existing knowledge in T-SQL development and a familiar relational data model for symmetry with existing on-premises databases. SQL Azure Database provides great value by saving on development costs by working with existing toolsets and providing symmetry with on-premises and cloud databases. For more information view this video.
Q: What are the key features are included in SQL Azure Database?
A: SQL Azure Database supports most of the features and data types found in SQL Server 2008. SQL Azure supports many SQL Server 2008 data types; it does not support data types that have been deprecated from SQL Server 2008. For more information about data type support in SQL Azure, see Data Types (SQL Azure Database). Many SQL Server Transact-SQL statements have parameters that allow you to specify file groups or physical file paths. These types of parameters are not supported in SQL Azure because they have dependencies on the physical configuration. In such cases, the command is considered partially supported. For more information about Transact-SQL support, see Transact-SQL Support (SQL Azure Database). Analysis Services, Replication, Reporting Services, and Service Broker are currently not supported.
A variety of SQL Server tools can be used with SQL Azure Database including SSMS, SMO, SSIS, Visual Studio, SQLCMD. Click here for more details
Q: How does Microsoft differentiate SQL Azure Database from Microsoft SQL Server?
A: SQL Azure Database is built on SQL Server database technologies that are used for running mission-critical applications in the enterprise as well as on the Web. Since SQL Server is a broad information platform that can handle all data types from birth to archival, there are many associated capabilities that our information platform provides. SQL Azure Database is exposing a large subset of these relational capabilities and extending them as services in the cloud.
These services feature built-in high scale, availability, and self-management, and are provided in a way that makes it easy for customers and partners to consume over the Internet. Although SQL Azure in its first iteration exposes only the core RDBMS capabilities of what is in the full SQL Server information platform, Microsoft expects these to increase over time, with likely future features including Reporting, Analytics, ETL and other premium services etc. SQL Server and SQL Azure share some technologies and will share some innovations bilaterally.
Q: How is SQL Azure Database different from working with any hosted database?
A: SQL Azure Database provides highly available, scalable, multi-tenant database service hosted by Microsoft in the cloud. SQL Azure Database is self-managing and enables easy provisioning and deployment of multiple databases. Developers do not have to install, setup, patch or manage any software. High Availability and fault tolerance is built-in and no physical administration of hardware, storage or servers is required. SQL Azure Database supports Transact-SQL (T-SQL). Customers can leverage existing knowledge in T-SQL development and a familiar relational data model for symmetry with existing on-premises databases. SQL Azure Database provides a strong value proposition through savings in the cost of development by working with existing toolset and providing symmetry with on-premises and cloud database
With hosted databases, developers are still responsible for installing, updating and managing operating systems and database software. Additionally, hosted database solutions have to manually configure high availability and fault tolerance. SQL Azure Database provides all this for you as part of the service.
More information
For more information about SQL Azure, see SQL Azure on MSDN.
The Windows Azure platform includes
- Windows Azure: operating system as an online service
- Microsoft SQL Azure: fully relational cloud database solution
- Windows Azure platform AppFabric: makes it simpler to connect cloud services and on-premises applications
Learn more about the platform.
For information on how the MSDN Subscription benefits to help you get started, see Windows Azure Platform Benefits for MSDN Subscribers. For pricing and special offers, see Pricing Info.
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
Special thanks to David Robinson.
The SQL Server Evangelism Team has released the SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit is available as a free download from the Microsoft Download center.
Download the kit from SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit. You can download SQL Server 2008
R2 Community Preview at Get the SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP.
SQL Server 2008 R2 offers an impressive array of capabilities for developers that build upon key innovations introduced in SQL Server 2008. The SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit is ideal for developers who want to understand how to take advantage of the key improvements introduced in SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 in their applications, as well as for developers who are new to SQL Server.
Overview and Benefits
The training kit offers the following benefits:
- Learn how to build applications that exploit the unique features and capabilities of SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2.
- Provides a comprehensive set of videos, presentations, demos and hands-on labs.
- Contains new content for developers who are new to SQL Server.
- Contains new content for SQL Server 2008 R2.
- Contains all of the existing content from the SQL Server 2008 Developer Training Kit.
- Easy to download and install.
Contents
The training kit includes the following content:
- Videos (8)
- SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Overview Part I - SQL Server 2008 Review
- SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Overview Part II - Introducing SQL Server 2008 R2
- Introducing SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight
- Demo: Real Time Analytics with SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight
- Introducing SQL Server 2008 R2 Application and Multi-Server Management
- Introducing SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services
- Introduction To SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight and Complex Event Processing
- Introducing PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010
- Presentations (8)
- SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Overview Part I - SQL Server 2008 Review
- SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Overview Part II - Introducing SQL Server 2008 R2
- SQL Server 2008 Filestream
- SQL Server 2008 Spatial
- SQL Server 2008 T-SQL
- SQL Server 2008 Date and Time Types
- SQL SErver 2008 SQLCLR
- SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
- Demos (13)
- AdventureWorks Racing All-Up SQL Server 2008 Demo
- SQL Server 2008 All-Up Spatial Demo
- SQL Server 2008 Spatial Types Demo
- Intro to SQL Server 2008 Filestream Demo
- SQL Server 2008 SQL CLR Nullable Types Demo
- Programming with SQL Server 2008 Filestream Demo
- SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Web Application Integration Demo
- Date and Time Support in SQL Server 2008 Demo
- SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Table-Valued Parameters Demo
- SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Row Constructors Demo
- SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Grouping Sets Demo
- SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Merge Demo
- Hands-on Labs (8)
- How to build your first Web Application with SQL Server and ASP.NET
- Using SQL Server 2008 Spatial Data in TSQL
- Using SQL Server 2008 Spatial Data in Managed Code
- Using SQL CLR in SQL Server 2008
- PowerPivot in SQL Server 2008 R2
- Using the New Features of Reporting Services 2008 R2
- Introduction To SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight and Complex Event Processing
- Data-tier Applications in SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010
The training kit is brought to you by Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism.
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
MSDEV presents a video series where Bill Lodin uses a whiteboard to help illustrate why people should adopt Windows Azure. The series takes an interesting turn when the whiteboard’s personality emerges and it becomes a co-host.
The series answers the question, Why Windows Azure.
Episodes
Episode 1 - What Is Windows Azure and Why Is It In the Cloud? In this first episode, Bill and his whiteboard sidekick introduce the concept of Cloud Computing and Microsoft's implementation of Cloud Computing with Windows Azure.
Episode 2 - The Windows Azure Development Experience. In this episode, Bill and his less than enthusiastic helper, focus on the underlying technology of Windows Azure that developers need to understand as they make the move to Cloud Computing with Microsoft.
Episode 3 - Moving Existing Applications to Windows Azure. Bill and his cheeky whiteboard friend are back, illustrating some of the issues users may encounter when moving existing applications to Windows Azure, and more importantly, how to mitigate potential issues.
Episode 4 - The Windows Azure TCO and ROI Calculator. This episode shows users how to use the TCO and ROI calculator. Bill and the ever present whiteboard walk users through this online tool, and how users can use it to calculate how much it will cost them to move to windows Azure, and what kind of savings they can anticipate.
Episode 5 - Front Runner. With the help of his whiteboard, Bill will show users the benefits of the Front Runner program for the Windows Azure platform.
Episode 6 - Sign Up. This episode discusses the various offers available to users who want to get started using Windows Azure. Bill and the whiteboard will show users how they can get started with Windows Azure for free.
See the series at Why Windows Azure on MSDEV.
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
Interested in getting started with Windows Azure? Come join in Front Runner program for Windows Azure.
When you join the Front Runner program, you’ll get access to one-on-one technical support from our developer experts by phone or e-mail. Then, once you tell us that your application is compatible, you’ll get a range of marketing benefits to help you let your customers know that you’re a Front Runner.
Technical Benefits
Get application support from our development expert by phone and/or e-mail. Access technical Windows Azure Platform resources in one central place. Marketing Benefits
Promotional tool kit including a Front Runner stamp and press release you can include in your marketing materials to showcase and announce your early adopter status. US$500 discount on Ready-to-Go Campaign costs — such as list rentals, printing, or shipping — or a $500 rebate on Ready-to-Go Services if you finish Front Runner Azure by March 31, 2010. Assistance creating a Solution Profile that will be featured in a special Microsoft Pinpoint directory of Windows Azure Platform solutions. Learn More on Academy Live
Join in the Academy Live Webcast on Feb 9 at 9:30 AM Pacific (12:30 Eastern).
Click to sign up. For USA Developers: Microsoft Front Runner - Early Adopter Program and No-cost Technical Support For Windows Azure Platform (CSD23PAL)
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
MSDEV has produced a set of videos to help you light up your application with the features of Windows 7. The online videos are available today.
Get to know Windows 7, 7 minutes at a time! In this series of short, code-focused videos you’ll see how to take advantage of the great new features in Windows 7. Each video is under seven minutes long, so you can check out a new video in less time than it takes to check your mail or grab your morning cup of coffee.
Windows 7 Taskbar “Thumb Buttons”. This video shows examples of taskbar thumbnail controls, and the code that created them.
Windows 7 Taskbar Icon Overlays. This demo shows an example of coding a taskbar icon overlay.
Windows 7 Taskbar Jump Lists. This video demonstrates how to customize an application’s Windows 7 Jump List.
Windows 7 Taskbar “Hot Colors”. This video shows how a "hot color" is used in the taskbar and explains how that hot color is determined.
Windows 7 Touch. This video shows how to apply some principles of touch to improve an application's "touchability".
Windows 7 Multitouch. This video demonstrates some of the manipulations available in the multi-touch API and shows a code example.
New Dialogs in Windows 7. This video demonstrates a new dialog available in Windows 7 and shows how to code with it.
Using the Windows 7 Ribbon in WPF. This video shows how to create a simple ribbon in a Windows Presentation Foundation application.
Using the Windows 7 Ribbon in Windows Forms. This video shows how to create a simple ribbon in a WinForms application.
Windows 7 Libraries. This video shows how to code for storing in and retrieving from the new Windows 7 libraries.
Federated Search in Windows 7. This video shows how to write a search provider to include your site in a federated search.
Available February 15
Windows 7 Gestures. This video demonstrates using a standard gesture in an application.
Programming with Inertia in Windows 7. This video shows how adding inertia affects an object's behavior and shows a code example.
“Manipulation” in WPF and Windows 7. This video demonstrates some basic manipulation options and shows a code example.
Windows 7 and Ink. This video shows code for using Microsoft Ink with the Text Input Panel
Handwriting Recognition in Windows 7. This video demonstrates how to use the Text Input Panel with predictive text and correction.
Handwritten Math Recognition in Windows 7. This video demonstrates how Math Recognition provides a natural way to enter mathematical expressions in applications.
Windows 7 Sidebar Gadgets. This video shows how to write a simple sidebar gadget for the Win 7 desktop.
High DPI Awareness in Windows 7. This video shows how to make an application display correctly on newer monitors with high resolution.
DirectX 11 in Windows 7. This video shows a code example of using a DirectX 11 API for animation.
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
Scott Guthrie has announced the availability of ASP.NET MVC (Release Candidate 2) for VS 2008/.NET 3.5. You can download it here.
The RC2 release of ASP.NET MVC 2 is a follow-up to the first ASP.NET MVC 2 RC build that we shipped in December. It includes a bunch of bug fixes, performance work, and some final API and behavior additions/changes.
For a list of changes, see ASP.NET MVC 2 (Release Candidate 2) Now Available.
ASP.NET MVC is a free, fully supported, Microsoft product that enables developers to easily build great web applications. It provides total control over your HTML and URLs, enables rich AJAX integration, and facilitates test driven development.
ASP.NET MVC provides the following benefits:
- Provides complete control over your HTML markup
- Enables rich AJAX integration
- Intuitive website URLs
- Clear separation of concerns which results in web applications that are easier to maintain and extend over time.
- Testability – including support for test-driven development.
To get started, see Learn ASP.NET MVC. Watch the following video to learn how to build an entire database-driven website with ASP.NET MVC in less than 15 minutes.
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
Yochay Kiriaty has pulled together a blog post describing how you can use the Windows 7 Sensor API to build compelling applications. His post is I Can Feel You – Using the Windows 7 Sensor Platform on the Windows Team Blog.
Windows 7 includes native support for sensors, which are devices that can measure physical phenomena such as temperature or location.
For example, automobile engines typically use a variety of sensors. These sensors are monitored by an onboard computer that continuously adjusts settings, such as engine timing, to maximize power and efficiency. A television may use an ambient light sensor to adjust the brightness of the picture to match changing room conditions. Even something as simple as a doorbell button acts as a rudimentary sensor to detect a human presence at the door.
While the purely mechanical doorbell fulfills its purpose, the information provided by complex sensors becomes far more powerful when it is combined with software. Modern sensors can provide a lot of data very quickly, and in a variety of formats, so software provides a natural mechanism for making sense of sensor data.
He writes, “In the past, using sensors tended to be a very vertical solution. There was no specific definition of what a sensor was, what its data fields were, or how to access those fields.
“In Windows 7, we set out to solve this problem from the ground up (as we usually do). We addressed these problems by providing out-of-the-box support for sensors. The Windows 7 Sensor and Location platform provides a set of standard interfaces that free developers from the need to become familiar with specific vendor devices and, instead, focus on their application logic, treating sensors as just another ‘standard’ input device.”
Windows 7 includes native support for sensors, expanded by a new development platform for working with sensors, including location sensors, such as GPS devices. The Windows Sensor and Location platform provides a standard way for device manufacturers to expose sensor devices to software developers and consumers, while providing developers with a standardized application programming interface (API) for working with sensors and sensor data.
For more information about using sensors in your Windows 7 application, see Sensor API on MSDN.
See Windows Team Blog posts:
I Can Feel You – Using the Windows 7 Sensor Platform Using Sensors in Your Application – Native Implementation, Part 1 Using Sensors in You Application – Managed Part 1 Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
Bjørn Olstad, CTO of FAST and Microsoft Distinguished Engineer, has penned a blog post on the Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog that details the future plans for FAST. Here is just a snippet, be sure to check out the full post for all the details:
- We will always interoperate with non-Windows systems on both the front- and back-end. Our search solutions will crawl and index content stored on Windows, Linux, and UNIX systems, and our UI controls will work with UI frameworks running on any operating system.
- We will support ESP 5.3—the cross-platform search core in the 2010 products—for 10 years as per our standard support policy (5 years mainstream support and 5 years extended support). Non-Windows customers on ESP 5.3 can continue running their core on Linux and UNIX and add Windows-only innovations or cloud-based services by using a mixed-platform architecture.
- We’re introducing a Customer Upgrade Program that will help customers evaluate our hosted solutions and/or a Windows-based deployment. The program will help customers assess level of effort, plan for the project, and implement the upgrade. (Customers should contact their account representative for more details.)
A new Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) template supports rapid applications development. It works with Visual Studio Team System 2008/Team Foundation Server and integrates SDL with the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) and Agile development practices. You download the template from MSF-Agile plus Security Development Lifecycle Process Template for VSTS 2008.
The template automatically creates workflow items to meet SDL security requirements each time code is checked in to the server. There is also an analyzer feature to ensure code meets SDL guidelines.
MSF-A+SDL is a TFS process template that incorporates the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) for Agile process guidance into the MSF Agile development framework. With the MSF-A+SDL template, any code checked into the Visual Studio Team System source repository by the developer is analyzed to ensure that it complies with SDL secure development practices. The template also automatically creates security workflow tracking items for manual SDL processes such as threat modeling to ensure that these important security activities are not accidentally skipped or forgotten.
For more information, see Security Development Lifecycle (SDL).
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
Check out the new “Quick Hit” videos about ASP.NET 4. They’ll give you a great way to quickly learn about many of the cool new things coming with the release.
Most videos are shorter than 5 minutes.
You can learn more about some of the new ASP.NET 4 features by watching these 22 ASP.NET Quick Hit Videos.
See 22 ASP.NET Quick Hit Videos.
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
A beta release of Windows Azure Drive is now available. It was announced as XDrive at PDC 2009.
Customers have told us that they want to take their already running Windows applications and run them in the cloud using the standard Windows NTFS APIs, and make sure that the data is durable. With Windows Azure Drive, your Windows Azure applications running in the cloud can use existing NTFS APIs to access a durable drive.
This can significantly ease the migration of existing Windows applications to the cloud, enabling customers a more seamless migration experience while simultaneously reducing the amount of time it takes to move their applications from your own Windows environment to a Windows Azure environment. The Windows Azure application can read from or write to a drive letter (e.g., X:\) that represents a durable NTFS volume for storing and accessing data.
The durable drive is implemented as a Windows Azure Page Blob containing an NTFS-formatted Virtual Hard Drive (VHD).
For more information, see Beta Release of Windows Azure Drive on the Windows Azure Team Blog.
More detailed information can be found in the technical white paper here: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9710117
As well as in MSDN documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee924681.aspx
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
Check out www.jumpman23mosaic.com. It’s a five gigapixel “social mosaic” of photos of Air Jordan shoes submitted by fans.
Windows Azure currently supports the following two types of roles:
- Web role: A web role is a role that is customized for web application programming as supported by IIS 7 and ASP.NET.
- Worker role: A worker role is a role that is useful for generalized development, and may perform background processing for a web role.
Fans submit photos of their shoes online. Then every ten minutes Azure worker roles create a profile of new photos. The code inside the worker role looks at the colors in the user-submitted picture to decide where is the “right place” in the mosaic for the photo.
Azure Web roles work on the front end in collaboration with Silverlight Deep Zoom.
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
If you have a billing location in one of our initial launch countries, beginning February 1, 2010 any Windows Azure CTP account(s) not already converted to a commercial subscription will be deactivated. To avoid interruption of service you must upgrade your CTP account to a commercial subscription by visiting our offers page to get an account.
For more information, see Commercial Rollout plan.
The Windows Azure platform offers a flexible, familiar environment for developers to create cloud applications and services. With Windows Azure, you can shorten your time to market and adapt as demand for your service grows.
Windows Azure offers a platform that is easily implemented alongside your current environment.
- Windows Azure: operating system as a service
- Microsoft SQL Azure: fully relational database in the cloud
- Windows Azure platform AppFabric: makes it simpler to connect cloud and on-premises applications
To get started writing your application on Windows Azure, see
As an early adopter, you can join the Windows Azure Front Runner program and get free support for getting your application into the cloud for a limited time.
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
Windows 7 RC (release candidate) users will start seeing notifications on their PCs on February 15 to indicate that the system will expire and their data needs to be backed up.
Important Dates
February 15 – Notifications begin and the frequency increases as it gets closer to the March 1st.
March 1 – Time bomb. The system reboots every two hours (or blue-screens depending on the system failure settings in Startup and recovery options).
June 1 – License expires. The system goes into Notification State.
For more information, see Windows Blog for the first blog post that outlines all the milestones, experience, and benefits of moving to RTM.
Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
