Microsoft releases Expression 3

When Silverlight 3 debuted nearly two weeks ago, Microsoft also premiered the release candidate of Expression Blend 3 with SketchFlow, a new interface prototyping tool, and one of the premier features of Expression Studio. Microsoft promised that the rest of the Expression family would be delivered in 30 days.

Products are available as 60-day trial versions, or as full retail packages. Purchasing the full version of Expression Studio 3 will cost $599, and Expression Web 3 will cost $149.

Upcoming Update for Windows Update

Beginning next month Microsoft will start an upgrade to the Windows Update and Microsoft Update services.

Microsoft plans to start the infrastructure update in late August, claiming "it will take a couple of months to complete the rollout." The update is required to "maintain and improve service quality, reliability, and operations." The update will simply improve the user interface for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 computers running Windows Update, adding a more visible and detailed description of updates as well as improvements in how users are notified about service packs.

For more information on Windows Update please visit the Microsoft Update Team Blog.

source: neowin.net

Microsoft and Yahoo! deal

Several reports have surfaced today indicating that a Microsoft and Yahoo! deal is "imminent".

24/7 Wall Street is reporting that under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo! will be paid $3 billion upfront and will get 110% of the revenue that its searches provide after traffic acquisition costs in each of the first two years. In the third year, that figure would go to 90%.

Top executives at Microsoft–including SVP of the Online Audience Business Group Yusuf Mehdi and others have reportedly flown to Silicon Valley to iron out the final details of the deal. It's expected that Microsoft will pay Yahoo cash upfront to take over its search advertising business.

source: neowin.net

Silverlight.FX

Silverlight.FX is an application framework for building Rich Internet Applications with Silverlight 2. It focuses on providing building blocks and controls that allows applications to be naturally well-architected.

• Enable concise declarative specification of user interfaces. The driving philosophy is what is declarative and ought to be designable should remain declarative, without requiring significant amount of code-behind logic. Furthermore, the resulting XAML should not appear bloated.


• Enable easier separation of view and code. This is to facilitate separation of concerns, and promote testability and reusability.


• Provide a lean framework. The general approach is to favor composability over kitchen-sink style features. Silverlight.FX is currently ~60KB compressed, and the goal is to stay under 100KB as development progresses for its mainline functionality.
  

Latest Release: Silverlight.FX for Silverlight 3 Silverlight.FX for Silverlight 2

Thanks to nikhilk.

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010

See What's New in Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010.

Check out more videos on Office 2010 here.

Code7 Contest!

Microsoft is challenging developers to write an "amazing Windows 7 application" in exchange for a trip to LA for PDC09, and up to $17,777 in cash.

Code7 is a special coding contest for developers. "It is a way for you to cash in on your knowledge and skills" said Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 Technical Evangelist, in a Windows Blog team post.

To enter:

Build an original, consumer-oriented client application prototype that runs natively on Windows 7 (for example Win32, WPF, MFC or WinForms – not an Air application or just a gadget) and addresses one or more of the following topic categories:

• Simplify My Life
• More Media, More Places
• Gaming
• Work From Anywhere
• Safeguard Your Work
• Applications for a Better Tomorrow

The application must use at least one of the following Windows 7 technology features; however, judging will give more weight to entries that take advantage of more than one of these features:

• Libraries
• Windows Touch
• Shell Integration
• DX11 (DirectX 11)
• Sensor and Location Platform

The contest starts now and ends at 11:59 p.m. PT on October 10, 2009. In order to enter you must create and submit a video in which you describe and demonstrate your application.

For the complete contest rules please visit the rules section on the Code7 Contest Web site - https://www.code7contest.com/.

Source : neowin.net

How install sharepoint to windows server 2008

In order to install MOSS 2007 to Windows Server 2008 you have to create a slipstream from Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

In server farm deployments, all your Web servers must have the same software update version applied. This means that, before you add a new Web server to an existing server farm, this new Web server must have the same software updates as the rest of the Web servers in your server farm.

You must collect latest software updates to the Update folder of your installation source :

To use the updates folder

1. Copy the files from the released version source media for the product to a folder that you can use as an installation point for the servers in your server farm. (ex: C:\MOSS)
   
2. Download the appropriate software update package.
   
   MOSS 2007 SP2: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b7816d90-5fc6-4347-89b0-a80deb27a082&displaylang=en
   WSS 3.0 SP2: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=79BADA82-C13F-44C1-BDC1-D0447337051B&displaylang=en
   
3. Extract the software update files, by using this command:
   
   wssv3sp2-kb953338-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract: C:\Temp\WSS
   
   C:\Temp\WSS is the location to which you copied the files that you extracted from the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 released version.
   
4. Copy the files that you extracted from the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 software update package (C:\Temp\WSS) to the updates folder you created in the previous step(C:\MOSS\Updates).
   
5. Extract the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 software update files, by using this command:
   
   officeserver2007sp2-kb953334-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract: C:\Temp\MOSS
   
   C:\Temp\MOSS is the location to which you copied the files that you extracted from the Office SharePoint Server 2007 released version.
   
6. Copy the files that you extracted from the Office SharePoint Server 2007 software update package(C:\Temp\MOSS) to the updates folder containing the source for the released version(C:\MOSS\Updates).
   
7. Verify that the Svrsetup.dll file has been copied from the Office SharePoint Server 2007 software update package.
   
8. Delete the Wsssetup.dll file.
   
9. Run Setup.exe and enjoy!

source : Microsoft.com

What Is CAML?

Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) is the XML-based language that is used to build and customize Web sites based on SharePoint™ Team Services from Microsoft®.

CAML can be used to do the following:

1. Provide schema definition to the Web site provisioning system about how the site looks and acts.
2. Define views and forms for data and page rendering or execution.
3. Act as a rendering language that performs functions in the DLL like pulling a value from a particular field.
4. Provide batch functionality for posting multiple commands to the server using protocol.

Effective example could be found on How to Use CAML

Source: Microsoft.com

Microsoft releases Silverlight 3.0

Today Microsoft launched its latest effort to "Light up the web", Silverlight 3 which is now available for download.

Silverlight has come a long way since its version 1.0 launched in 2007. It has even attracted big players like Netflix who use it as their primary video player. 3.0 brings a host of improvements such as "Smooth Streaming" and "out of browser experiences". Web developers will also appreciate the built in support for GPU acceleration.

Silverlight 3.0 is available for download right now at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx

Google's new operating system

SUN VALLEY, Idaho (AP) -- Google Inc. is working on a new operating system for inexpensive computers in a daring attempt to wrest away Microsoft Corp.'s long-running control over people's computing experience.

The new operating system, announced late Tuesday night on Google's Web site, will be based on the company's nine-month-old Web browser, Chrome. Google intends to rely on help from the community of open-source programmers to develop the Chrome operating system, which is expected to begin running computers in the second half of 2010.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Chrome OS is being created for people "who spend most of their time on the web" according to Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management at Google.

The LCID and ddwrt:FormatDate method

With the following example you can customize the date strings output in dataviews by setting the LCID and FormatFlag parameters in the ddwrt:FormatDate(szDate, lcid, FormatFlag) method.

ddwrt:FormatDate(string(@PublishDate), 1033, 5) => MM/DD/YYYY
ddwrt:FormatDate(string(@PublishDate), 1033, 1) => MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM AM/PM

1033 is the English LCID, for persian you may use 1065.
For more LCIDs click here.

Windows 7 RTM

Microsoft will officially announce the final Windows 7 RTM build in the second half of July.

Wait, it comes!

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 focuses on the core pillars of developer experience, support for the latest platforms, targeted experiences for specific application types, and core architecture improvements.

How to Download and Install the Beta
Are you excited to try Beta 1, but not excited about reading the installation documentation? This video will show you how to download and install Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2010 Team Suite and Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server. Start your downloads!

Featured Overviews and Walkthroughs
Check out this diverse collection of walkthroughs for Beta 1. They provide step-by-step instructions for common scenarios and are a good place to start learning about Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.

Download Beta 1

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com