Ajax CDN Launched

ASP.NET team launched a new Microsoft AJAX CDN (Content Delivery Network) service, to provide caching support for AJAX libraries (including jQuery and ASP.NET AJAX), for FREE.
This service doesn't require any registration and can be used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

CDNs are composed of "edge cache" servers, which are placed around the world at key internet network points. These servers can be used to deliver and cache all types of content, including images, CSS, JS files and videos.
CDNs improves a website's end-user performance drastically, as it enables browsers to more quickly retrieve and download content, to make your pages load faster.

Microsoft AJAX CDN provides a easy way to add the jQuery and ASP.NET AJAX script libraries to serve automatically from one of the thousands geo-located edge-cache servers.

How to use?
ASP.NET 4.0 makes easy to use the CDN from ASP.NET web forms applications that use server control. This control includes a new boolean property named EnableCdn. Change the value to TRUE to request JS files automatically. When CDN is enabled in application it will retrieve all JS files that it normally retrieves from System.Web.dll or System.Web.Extensions.dll assemblies from the CDN instead.

You can get a full listing of JS libraries & URLs @ ASP.NET AJAX CDN

Web.Config cleaned in .NET 4.0 & VS2010...

Yes...

The Web.config in .NET 4.0 is simplified and cleaned. Web.config in VS2008 SP1 is of 126 lines long and contains almost everything, including handler definitions, tag definitions and modules which are to be included in ASP.NET HTTP engine, and eventually, increase in size. The reason because .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5 uses the same CLR and machine.config configuration file which are shipped with .NET 2.0

.NET 4.0 and VS 2010 includes a new version of CLR and a new .NET 4 specific machine.config file. .NET 4.0 is installed side-by-side with the one used by .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5

The new .NET 4.0 machine.config file now automatically registers all ASP.NET tag sections, handlers and modules including the below functionalities

ASP.NET AJAX

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

ASP.NET Routing (for both ASP.NET web forms and ASP.NET MVC)

ASP.NET Chart Controls ( new with ASP.NET 4.0)

First section in web.config tells ASP.NET to enable debugging by default for the application, and indicates the version of .NET. Visual studio uses this to target when it shows us intellisense. VS2010 supports multi-targetting and the intellisense within the IDE will automatically vary based on the targetted framework version.

Second section tells whether to use "Integrated" mode when running ASP.NET application within IIS7.0, to control running ASP.NET HttpModules for all requests within the application or just for ASP.NET specific URLs.

Project Trident

Project Trident from Microsoft Research
A scientific workflow workbench, allowing researchers in any discipline to build their own custom computer experiments without relying on computer scientists.
This uses companion technologies like, Dryad and DryadLINQ, adding capabilities to multiprocessor systems and large computer "clusters", to enable those experiments handling extremely large computations, like those required by Neptune.
A workflow in science is the process of turning raw data from sensors and other sources into information that researchers can use.
Project Trident begins with the Windows Workflow Foundation,. From there, the team has built all of the tools and services that are unique to scientific workflow. As it uses widely available Microsoft Technologies, Project Trident enables scientists to plug into many different systems and reuse piece of experiements in new ways.
Project Trident also provides for what's known as "provenance" - the ability to re-create an experiment to validate teh result - along with a registered repository of workflows that lets scientists know who wrote the workflow, how long it's been around and where its code came from.
Architecture:

Office 2010 Test Preview revealed

Microsoft Office 2010 Test Preview revealed at Microsoft Worldwide Partner conference.
Various office 2010 productivity suite components - Excel, Word, Powerpoint, OneNote, Project, Publisher and visio, all hit the 2010 technical preview milestone, along with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.
Office 2010 will be accessible by PC, phone and browser.
The new enabling factor is something called "Office Web Applications" which are light-weight versions of Excel, Powerpoint and Word that can in a web browser. Supported browsers currently include Firefox, IE and Safari, giving a good competetion to Google & Zoho.
Microsoft will offer its Office web applications to consumer users for free. Users just have to sign up a Windows Live account. Businesses won't have free access.
Office 2010 also incorporates the "ribbon" menu system, first introduced in Office 2007.

Document collaboration is another feature in Office 2010. Like, Users can edit video in PowerPoint 2010 and then share/broadcast those videos.

Microsoft Office Backstage view lets users quickly access features associated with Office 2010 files, enabling integration with other Office or SharePoint apps.

To test these new productivity suite, Microsoft offers a web form to sign up for waiting list.
Office 2010 Waiting list

Micheal Jackson in Silverlight...

Checkout hundreds of pics of Micheal Jackson in DeepZoom by Silverlight...Microsoft tribute to Micheal Jackson http://www.msn.michaeljackson.shoothill.com/ Don't forget to install Silverlight before...for The Best DeepZoom experience...

Windows 7 Pricing unveiled.

Estimated U.S. retail pricing for Windows 7 is described below.
Upgrade Windows 7:
Home Premium: $119.99
Windows 7 Professional: $199.99
Windows 7 Ultimate: $219.99
Full-packaged Windows 7:
Windows 7 Home Premium: $199.99
Windows 7 Professional: $299.99
Windows 7 Ultimate: $319.99

Microsoft Morro

Morro - Free Anti-virus software from Microsoft

Microsoft is internally testing its free anti-virus software, codenamed Morro, adding that a beta version would be made available via its website. This release signal a distinct change in Microsoft's approach to the security market. Windows Live OneCare, failed to attract a major audience, MS announced plans to discontinue OneCare on June 30th 2009.
As a basic freeware security solution, Morrow will pose a threat to the livelihood of paid solutions.
Symantec shares fell 0.5 percent on Nasdaq and McAfee fell 1.3 percent on New York stock exchange, while Microsoft was up 2.1 percent.
Microsoft has said it will provide protection from several types of malicious software including viruses, spyware, rootkits and trozans.

HTML 5.0

During the last 10years, while there have been no significant changes to HTML 4.01 specification, we njoyed a season of relative prosperity. Let's see what are the new things HTML 5.0 brings.

HTML 4.1
HTML 4.01 already celebrated is 10 th birthday in sept of 2008 and this is the language became a delivery mechanism for our applications and web pages. Browsers have become effectively standardized and the pace of web development has seen numerous changes.

HTML 5.0 seeks to address those issues by making the web much more friendly to applictaions and rich media capabilities such as sound, video and even rudimentary animation.

Cool new features.
With HTML 5.0 new elements such as

,

,

,

, and

. There are also some new great improvments in the form of attributes such as ping attribute on anchor tags, and an async attribute for scripts. For 2D animations and rich JavaScript interactions, element support.

HTML 5.0 is also seeking to replace the way cookies work, by creating a DOM Storage mechanism that will effectively act as client-side SQL database to provide increased storage capacities and options for locally stored data. HTML 5 will add support for drag and drop functionality, 'waypoints' that can be inserted into browser history, and even support for in-browser editing capabilities.

There's no reason that you can't begin learning more about HTML 5 and preparing to use it today.

More details @ HTML5
Use it Today @ HTML5

Google Squared

Google Squared, a new product from Google labs, demonstrated three weeks ago, a search engine that creates structured data from warehouse of information and lets users compare various things by their various/custom attributes. It's really a great idea, in reality.
Cons are very hard to imagine using Squared regularly, but a great idea we'll see where it goes.

Very impressive that when you request a square for a concept Google is unfamiliar with, you're prompted to offer upto five examples and builds the data set for you.

Have a look on Google Squared @ Google Squared

Microsoft StickySorter

Forgotten to do something...? And, do you have a habit of writing sticky notes...This tool is for you..
Microsoft StickySorter is a Grassroots project, developed by two MS employees, that can be used to manage daily challenges...The result of their effort met their complex needs, supports virtual collaboration...

Specialities are Import and Export in csv format, Create and label groups, display structured information and creating custom views...

Check this video @ StickySorter
Download @ StickySorter