Category Archives: Download

Windows Server AppFabric v1.1 CTP–Now Available for download

 

Windows Server AppFabric V1.1 CTP was recently released for download at MSDN. This is first major upgrade of Windows Server AppFabric, which is a set of integrated technologies that makes it easier to build, scale and manage Web and Composite Applications that run on IIS. This is something which is very close to my heart for obvious reasons.

For more details on Windows Server AppFabric read this.

Please note that it is recommended to have a clean install of this update.

Following are some of the key highlights of what’s changed in v1.1 of Windows Server AppFabric.

Read-Through/Write-Behind

This allows a backend provider to be used on the cache servers to assist with retrieving and storing data to a backend, such as a database. Read-through enables the cache to "read-through" to a backend in the context of a Get request. Write-behind enables updates to cached data to be saved asynchronously to the backend. For more information, see Creating a Read-Through / Write-Behind Provider (Windows Server AppFabric v1.1).

Graceful Shutdown

This is useful for moving data from a single cache hosts to rest of the servers in the cache cluster before shutting down the cache host for maintenance. This helps to prevent unexpected loss of cached data in a running cache cluster. This can be accomplished with the Graceful parameter of the Stop-CacheHost Windows PowerShell command.

Domain Accounts

In addition to running the AppFabric Caching Service with the NETWORK SERVICE account, you can now run the service as a domain account. For more information, see Change the Caching Service Account (Windows Server AppFabric Caching v1.1).

New ASP.NET Session State and Output Caching Provider

New ASP.NET session state and output caching providers are available. The new session state provider has support for the lazy-loading of individual session state items using Windows Server AppFabric v1.1 CTP Caching as a backing store. This makes sites that have a mix of small and large session state data more efficient, because pages that don’t need large session state items won’t incur the cost of sending this data over the network. For more information, see Using the ASP.NET 4 Caching Providers for Windows Server AppFabric v1.1 CTP.

Compression

You can now enable compression for cache clients. For more information, see Application Configuration Settings (Windows Server AppFabric Caching v1.1).

Multiple Cache Client Application Configuration Sections

A new dataCacheClients section is available that allows you to specify multiple named dataCacheClient sections in an application configuration file. You can then programmatically specify which group of cache client settings to use at runtime. For more information, see Application Configuration Settings (Windows Server AppFabric Caching v1.1).

Windows Live Essentials ++

Microsoft just unveiled the new Windows Live Essentials and the role it plays in completing the Windows experience. Essentials is a suite of free software and services which includes Messenger, Mail, Writer, Photo Gallery, and Movie Maker – as well as Sync and Family Safety.

We all take a lot of photos and videos that we love to share. Windows Live Photo Gallery and Movie Maker now comes with intuitive tools for organizing photos and movies, in addition to providing consumers with the tools to polish and then share their content online. Some of my favorites include:

-          Photo Fuse.  Allowing you to take the best parts of similar photos and fuse them together into one “perfect” photo

-          Retouch. A great new feature which allows you to get rid of blemishes, scratches, bruises and stains on photos in a few clicks

-          Precision Video and Audio Editing.  Make it so simple for you to find  the sweet spot for each video or audio clip

-          High-Definition Formats (720p and 1080p). Now you can make your movies look even more polished and professional

Finally, a new tool introduced in the Windows Live Essentials family, Windows Live Sync. With Sync, you can access your files and folders on the web – even if your PC is offline.

Learn more about the new Windows Live Essentials at http://www.windowslivepreview.com

WCF Rest Starter Kit

You can download WCF Rest Starter kit from codeplex.

The WCF REST Starter Kit is a set of features, Visual Studio templates, samples and guidance that enable users to create REST style services using WCF. The CodePlex Preview 1 release provides new features that enable or simplify various aspects of using the http capabilities in WCF, such as caching, security, error handling, help page support, conditional PUT, push style streaming, type based dispatch and semi-structured XML support. The WCF REST Starter Kit also provides Visual Studio templates for creating REST style services such as an Atom feed service, a REST-RPC hybrid service, Resource singleton and collection services and an Atom Publishing Protocol service. In addition, there are samples, documentation and other guidance that help to use these new capabilities.

http://www.codeplex.com/aspnet/Wiki/View.aspx?title=WCF%20REST

VS 2008 sp1 & .Net 3.5 sp1 is out

You can download VS 2008 sp1 and .Net 3.5 sp1 @

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab99342f-5d1a-413d-8319-81da479ab0d7&DisplayLang=en

This release offers major improvements in WCF and WF.

Brief overview avaialble @ download page says:

.NET Framework version 3.5 Service Pack 1 provides the following new features and improvements:

ASP.NET Dynamic Data, which provides a rich scaffolding framework that enables rapid data driven development without writing code, and a new addition to ASP.NET AJAX that provides support for managing browser history (back button support). For more information, see What’s New in ASP.NET and Web Development.

Core improvements to the CLR (common language runtime) that include better layout of .NET Framework native images, opting out of strong-name verification for fully trusted assemblies, improved application startup performance, better generated code that improves end-to-end application execution time, and opting managed code to run in ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) mode if supported by the operating system. Additionally, managed applications that are opened from network shares have the same behavior as native applications by running with full trust.

Performance improvements to WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), including a faster startup time and improved performance for Bitmap effects. Additional functionality for WPF includes better support for line of business applications, native splash screen support, DirectX pixel shader support, and the new WebBrowser control.

ClickOnce application publishers can decide to opt out of signing and hashing as appropriate for their scenarios, developers can programmatically install ClickOnce applications that display a customized branding, and ClickOnce error dialog boxes support links to application-specific support sites on the Web.

The Entity Framework is an evolution of the existing suite of ADO.NET data access technologies. The Entity Framework enables developers to program against relational databases in according to application-specific domain models instead of the underlying database models. For more information, see Getting Started with the Entity Framework. The Entity Framework introduces some additional features, including support for new SQL Server 2008 types, default graph serialization of Entities, and the Entity Data Source. This release of the Entity Framework supports the new date and file stream capabilities in SQL Server 2008. The graph serialization work helps developers who want to build Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services that model full graphs as data contracts. The Entity Data Source provides a traditional data source experience for ASP.NET Web application builders who want to work with the Entity Framework.

LINQ to SQL includes new support for the new date and file stream capabilities in SQL Server 2008.

The ADO.NET Data Services Framework consists of a combination of patterns and libraries, which enable data to be exposed as a flexible REST (Representational State Transfer)-based data service that can be consumed by Web clients in a corporate network or across the Internet. The ADO.NET Data Services Framework makes data service creation over any data source. A conceptual view model of the underlying storage schema can easily be exposed through rich integration with the ADO.NET Entity Framework. Services created by using the ADO.NET Data Services Framework, and also compatible Windows Live (dev.live.com) services, can be easily accessed from any platform. For client applications that are running on Microsoft platforms, a set of client libraries are provided to make interaction with data services simple. For example, .NET Framework-based clients can use LINQ to query data services and a simple .NET Framework object layer to update data in the service.

Windows Communication Foundation now makes the DataContract Serializer easier to use by providing improved interoperability support, enhancing the debugging experience in partial trust scenarios, and extending syndication protocol support for wider usage in Web 2.0 applications.

The .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server (SqlClient) adds new support for file stream and sparse column capabilities in SQL Server 2008.

Web Client Software Factory – February 2008

Web Client Software Factory is available for download now.

The Web Client Software Factory provides an integrated set of guidance that assists architects and developers in creating composite Web client applications. The factory includes a reference implementation, QuickStarts, How-to topics, patterns, and Visual Studio .NET extensions.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=47755838-049B-4291-AFEA-A379AE28D7B3&displaylang=en

WCF Web Programming Model Documentation

I just came across this post at Steve Maine’s blog. I thought its worth sharing with you all: 

Conceptual Overviews:

Class Library Reference (not exhaustive):

Configuration Schema:

Samples:

CEP : Complex Event Processing

CEP or Complex Event Processing offers a great value proposition if your domain requires event based processing. And I believe a whole lot of scenarios require that. Do read about Espers offering here.

An excerpt from Esper web site:

Complex Event Processing, or CEP, is technology to process events and discover complex patterns among multiple streams of event data. ESP stands for Event Stream Processing and deals with the task of processing multiple streams of event data with the goal of identifying the meaningful events within those streams, and deriving meaningful information from them.

The Esper engine has been developed to address the requirements of applications that analyze and react to events. Some typical examples of applications are:

Business process management and automation (process monitoring, BAM, reporting exceptions, operational intelligence)
Finance (algorithmic trading, fraud detection, risk management)
Network and application monitoring (intrusion detection, SLA monitoring)
Sensor network applications (RFID reading, scheduling and control of frabrication lines, air traffic)

The best part is that Esper is available .Net and Java libraries both.

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, .Net 3.5 Beta 2 & Silverlight 1.0 RC

The next version of Visual Studio, Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008, will provide an industry-leading developer experience for Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and the Web. In addition, it will continue in the Microsoft tradition of development language innovation. To enable early feedback, this page provides links to prerelease versions of Visual Studio 2008, and for technologies that we plan to include in it. As previews of additional technologies become available, we will make them available from this page.

Sounds good! right? :)

So dont wait for the next christmas and download it now!

Files & Disc Images for Self-installation
If you prefer to install the software yourself, you can download separate disc images for the following products:

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Express Editions
Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Standard Edition
Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Professional Edition
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Suite
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Foundation Server
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Test Load Agent
MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2

If you prefer to use VPC (just like I do) then you can download VPC from following links!

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