“As a team, we’ve spent the last year heads down working hard on IE8. Last week, we achieved an important milestone that should interest web developers. IE8 now renders the “Acid2 Face” correctly in IE8 standards mode.” – Source
“As promised earlier this month, Microsoft announced today that both Visual Studio 2008 and the accompanying .NET Framework 3.5 have been released to manufacture (RTM).
Codenamed Orcas, Visual Studio 2008 (VS2008) comes two years after Visual Studio 2005. In total, there are more than 250 new features added with significant enhancements across every version ranging from Express Editions to Visual Studio Team Systems (VSTS). A key addition in VS2008 is support for the new Language Integrated Query (LINQ), which is positioned as a technology for rapid application development. LINQ is designed to let developers focus on what they need the data to do, rather than be mired in the complexities of data abstraction and casting. Also, LINQ makes it easier to tie C# or Visual Basic with SQL.” – Source
Coverage at Neowin.net
Coverage at RegDeveloper
“Then there’s the work Ubuntu computer, on which I do just about everything when I’m in the office. On Friday, I decided to update it from 7.04 to 7.10. That took a single click – no, honestly – in the system software manager, and about ten minutes downtime, most of which was me playing about. While most of the software was downloading and installing itself, I could carry on working.
And 7.10 is really rather nice; I find myself enjoying the various windows animation gimmicks more than I expected. I particularly enjoyed installing some new Firefox add-ins that needed a browser restart: as the old instance closed, the window shrank into the distance, and a second later the new instance sprang into life as if it was being thrown onto the screen from behind me. The tabs I had open were carried across the restart – stylish, fun and minimally invasive. Oh, and 7.10 found the ZDNet editorial printer on the network and installed the correct driver, without fuss. Superb.” – Source
“JavaScript has become a crucial part of Websites built on AJAX underpinnings, which makes the upcoming revision to the ECMAScript standard crucial for the future of the Web. But in today’s browser environment, no one vendor can impose an update path — which may set things up for a nasty conflict. A fight is being fought on blogs between Mozilla Chief Technology Officer (and creator of JavaScript) Brendan Eich, who wants to the new ECMAScript standard to be a radical upgrade, and Chris Wilson, architect of MS’s IE team, who would rather keep JavaScript as is and put new functionality into a brand-new language.” – Source
“Microsoft will release Windows 2008 Server as the direct successor to Windows 2003 Server in the spring of next year. The new server OS, code named Longhorn, shares the same kernel with Windows Vista and incorporates many additions compared to its predecessor.
When using the completely revamped server-management console, configuration and administration of the new server become much simpler. The new Internet Information Server 7 also sports a new user interface. With virtualization technology integrated directly into the operating system, third-party tools or solutions are no longer necessary when using virtual machines and the like. Lastly, administrators are as up-to-date as it gets, since Windows 2008 Server includes all of the components slated for inclusion in Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista.” – Source
“Microsoft has won a high-profile technology industry battle with Google and Yahoo to invest in the social networking upstart Facebook.
The two companies said on Wednesday that Microsoft would invest $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook. The investment values the three-year-old Facebook, which will bring in about $150 million in revenue this year, at $15 billion.” – Source
“Microsoft engineer Eric Traut gave a presentation on virtualization technology at the University of Illinois last week. And as part of that presentation, he showed off a few old versions of Windows running in Virtual PC. And he also pulled up a disc image running a tiny version of Windows 7.” – Source
“Now that a handful of lucky folks have gotten their hands on Windows XP Service Pack 3, we’re starting to think you might not want to upgrade to Windows Vista anytime soon. Okay, we already kind of thought that, but it turns out SP3 includes a ton of security updates, some Vista code, and a couple of brand spanking new features for Windows XP:” – Source
“How does the current version of OpenOffice.org (OOo) compare with Microsoft Office in its ability to produce slide presentations? The last time I tried to answer that question, two years ago, both OOo Impress and Microsoft PowerPoint had features that the other lacked. To see how the two programs compare now, I installed Microsoft Office 2007 and OpenOffice.org 2.3, and went through the process of designing a slide show from start to finish. To my surprise, the results were more decisive than in my last comparison. They’re not enough to award a knockout victory, but, even based on points, the winner is clear.” – Article
“Microsoft will make the first release candidate for Windows Server 2008 and the first beta for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 available within the next 24 hours, the software maker announced today. Windows Server 2008 is intended to bring new technologies like server and presentation virtualization capabilities, IIS 7, Server Core, PowerShell, Network Access Protection, Server Manager, and enhanced networking and clustering technologies; it has been touted as the most “integrated” Windows to date.
Along with Windows Server 2008, MS will also be releasing the first beta of Vista SP1 to a select group of 12,000 testers. The current plan is to release Vista SP1 to manufacturing in the first quarter of 2008. The beta focuses on specific reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards. Vista SP1 will be very different from Windows XP SP2, which was all about security and broke a large number of applications, including some of Microsoft’s own, as it involved trade-offs around application compatibility and the user experience, David Zipkin, senior product manager for Windows Client, told eWEEK Aug. 28. “That is not our intent with Vista SP1, which we are designing to limit user interface changes as much as possible. Those UI changes that we do make will be quite small and will not require retraining or anything like that,” he said.” – Source
Coverage at ars technica
Coverage at Somasegar’s WebLog
Coverage at eWeek
