Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1

http://blogs.msdn.com/bethmassi/archive/2009/05/20/visual-studio-2010-beta-1-everyone-can-download-and-play-today.aspx

(VERY GOOD BLOG from bethmassi)

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 – Everyone can download and play today!

Published 20 May 09 10:50 AM

Here it is folks, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 has been released to the public today. Check out the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1 site to download the Beta, submit product feedback on the Beta 1 Forums, report bugs on Connect, and find additional information. Also visit the Beta 1 walkthroughs page for information on how to use the new features and download the Visual Studio 2010 Samples. There’s also some good language-focused resources on the Visual Basic 2010 and C# 2010 that are hanging off the Developer Centers.

Some of my favorite features include those around the WPF Designer and the Data Sources Window which now supports the same drag-drop RAD experience of Winforms in WPF applications:

• Walkthrough: Binding WPF Controls to an Entity Data Model
• Walkthrough: Binding WPF Controls to a Dataset
• Walkthrough: Binding WPF Controls to an ADO.NET Data Service
• Walkthrough: Displaying Related Data in a WPF Application

For Office solutions, check out the Advanced Office Solution Deployment topic in the library and the VSTO Team blog for some cool new Office client features:

• Walkthrough: Deploying Multiple Office Solutions in a Single ClickOnce Installer
• Walkthrough: Copying a Document to the End User Computer after a ClickOnce Installation

Take a look through the Visual Studio 2010 Product Highlights and What's New in Visual Studio 2010 for more info on other new features including multi-monitor – YUMMY! :-)

New Team Bloggers

I’d also like to introduce the “come-back” of the Visual Studio Data team blog. We’ve got a lot of new faces on the team that are building some amazing tools in Visual Studio to help you build business applications. They’ll be posting a lot of great VS 2010 content here.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 resources:

• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1 site
• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Training Kit
• Visual Studio 2010 Samples
• Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 Walkthroughs
• WPF and Silverlight Designer Walkthroughs
• What's New in Visual Studio 2010
• Visual Studio 2010 Product Highlights
• Visual Basic 2010
• C# 2010
• VS 2010 Library
• Visual Studio 2010 on Channel 9

My recommended blogs on VS 2010:

• Visual Studio Data Team
• VSTO Team
• Visual Basic Team
• Jason Zander (executive blog)
• and Me ;-)

Enjoy!

Five Windows tools to keep your digital life in sync

Five Windows tools to keep your digital life in sync

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=787

Offline Files The single most useful Windows feature you’ve never heard of, it allows you to work with files on a network share even when you’re disconnected.

Windows Live Mesh Another Microsoft file-sharing technology, this one is ideal for keeping folders in sync on two or more PCs, with online backup as a bonus.

LastPass Create random, unique, impossible-to-guess passwords for websites and store them in a secure online vault that automatically keeps other PCs in sync.

FeedDemon 3.0 If you get your news from RSS feeds, you need this brand-new update to one of my all-time favorite Windows programs.

Xmarks How do you keep bookmarks organized between multiple browsers on multiple PCs? This cross-platform add-in (formerly Foxmarks) is just the ticket.