Microsoft Visio in second beta
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Software maker releases four new feature sets for the Office 2007 data tool.
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With Release Candidate 1 now out the door, Microsoft is putting what it calls the "fit-and-finish" on Windows Vista's user interface, and the company is looking for feedback from users testing out the beta release.
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Microsoft have let the public use a beta of their tool for some months while testing continues. The last few days have seen a new release of the beta which seems to be getting closer to bringing back consistently sensible results.
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Microsoft late Tuesday released the first beta of its new Web design tool that will compete with the likes of Adobe Dreamweaver. The program is part of Microsoft's forthcoming Expression lineup, which also includes a graphical design tool and an interface designer.
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(InfoWorld) - Looking to assist developers in building business applications, Microsoft published a second beta version of ADO.Net Entity Framework this week and a community technology preview of tools to work with the framework. The goal of the ADO.Net Entity Framework is to eliminate the impedance mismatch between data models and languages, saving developers from having to deal with these. An example of such a mismatch is objects and relational stores. Automation of complex processes is critical to the framework. "Today, when a developer builds an application, they have to write code that fills in the gaps between the way the data is stored in however many databases they interact with and the way they want to manipulate the data in their application," said Britt Johnston, product manager for data programmability tools at Microsoft. "Generally, what they do is create an object model that they write their code against." Developers might write an application that manipulates a CRM system with data for customers stored in 12 different tables, said Johnston. "With the Entity Framework, you can automate the process essentially of bringing all that data together and presenting it to the developer as a single entity so they can interact with it at a higher level of abstraction," Johnston said. Key new features in the framework beta release include events to customize code generation; complex programming types and entity key serialization. A key is a unique identifier for an entity, such as a customer ID. Metadata annotations and better support for LINQ (Language Integrated Query) also are included. LINQ features extensions to the .Net Framework to encompass language-integrated data query, set, and transform operations. Developers can access the framework on Microsoft's Web site. ADO.Net Entity Framework is due for general release as part of .Net Framework 3.5 in early-2008. Most would get it as part of an operating system update. The ADO.Net Entity Framework Tools Community Technology Preview for August features an early version of the ADO.Net Entity Designer, enabling users to visually design model and mappings using the Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 release. The tools preview is accessible on Microsoft's download page with the tools to be part of Visual Studio 2008. With the framework, developers could focus on the needs of an application instead of the complexities of bridging disparate data representations. The framework consists of a data model and design-time and run-time services that allow developers to describe application data and interact with it in a conceptual level of abstraction appropriate for business applications, according to the company. This helps isolate the application from underlying logical database schemas.
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Now that Microsoft has set a release date for both the beta and final versions of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the company is also offering a detailed look at what's being fixed and changed. One thing customers will not see is major changes to User Account Control, although Microsoft says it will reduce some pop-ups.
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Presentate alla Conferenza di Berlino le novitÃ  della versione 2.0 e le strategie di marketing per la suite per ufficio open source che Ã¨ compatibile anche con Mac OS X. La comunitÃ  OpenOffice.org, la suite
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As expected, Microsoft on Friday issued the second release candidate of Windows Vista - the last public build before the next-generation operating system is released to manufacturing. As with the interim build before it, RC2 will be available to a limited number of CPP participants.
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Microsoft on Thursday released a second beta of Windows Media Player 11, providing some performance enhancements, bug fixes and the integration of Windows Media Connect functionality into the player itself.
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According to this new post on Pierre-Alain Joye's blog today, a new version of the GD graphics library has been release - version 2.0.34.   It took a lot of work to get this version released. Version 2.0.34 is a bug-fix-only release (all known security issues have been fixed), and upgrade is strongly recommended. It is also my very first GD release (hopefully, the first of many to come), and marks the official freeze of the 2.0.x tree, only security-related fixes will be made on this tree from now on. Please find the release announcement here.   He also invlites any language binders to contact him about hosting for a project if it's not available.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. has released another test version of an update to its virtualization software, which will be built into the next version of the Windows Server OS. On Thursday Microsoft released Beta 2 of Virtual Server 2005 Release 2 Service Pack 1 (R2 SP1), an update that will add new functionality to the existing version of Virtual Server 2005 once it is generally available. The software, which should be in full release by the first calendar quarter of 2007, can beÂ downloaded for free. New features included in Beta 2 of the software are support for Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s virtualization technology, as well as new integration with Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft said. The software also includes what is called a Volume Shadow Service, which improves the server backup process, according to Microsoft. Instead of scheduling downtime to back up each virtual machine individually, the software will take snapshots of physical machines. Those physical machines will in turn take snapshots of all the virtual machines on the physical host. This enables server administrators to keep virtual machines up and running even while backing them up. Beta 2 of Virtual Server R2 SP1 also includes new offline virtual hard disk (VHD) mounting, which enables customers to view and manipulate files in a VHD without having to start a virtual machine. This enables administrators to easily deploy scripts and perform virus scans across VHDs without having to start each virtual machine, Microsoft said. Microsoft introduced Virtual Server in October 2004. The product enables virtualization of Windows so multiple instances can run simultaneously on one server as if they were running on multiple servers. Microsoft has said virtualization capabilities that are available in its Virtual Server 2005 product will be built into the next version of Windows Server OS, code-named Longhorn, which is slated to be available sometime next year.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp.'s Office 2007 suite is nearing the end of its long testing process. Microsoft on Thursday will offer a refresh of beta 2, the last external test release of the product before it is released to manufacturing, the company said. Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh will feature improved performance, enhancements to its collaboration tools and tighter integration across the individual products, Microsoft said. It also will include improvements in the general look and feel of the suite. Users canÂ download the beta 2 refresh of Office 2007 for free. Beta 2 of Office 2007 was originally released in late May. In the first two months of its public release, it was downloaded more than 3 million times by beta testers, so Microsoft began charging users US$1.50 to download the release at the end of July. The company beganÂ allowing users to test Office online with a Web-based test version of the suite in June. Like its sister product Windows Vista, Office 2007 has been delayed several times, but the company's latest target for release is to have it in the hands of business customers before the end of the year and consumers in the first quarter of 2007. However, online retailerÂ Amazon.com Inc. is already taking orders for Office 2007, and lists the product's ship date as Jan. 30, 2007. Vista, the next major update to Microsoft's Windows client OS, is also expected to be in general release at the same time, and will get to business customers in November, according to its current schedule. Office 2007 features a new user interface and a host of enhancements to its applications that allow users to work together in a collaborative environment.
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This week you'll learn about solid software design practices, many of them borrowed from working with Windows applications. The result is the development of a Web based drawing package. By Guyon Roche. 0802
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Higgins-project developers are creating a tool equivalent to Windows CardSpace but need Microsoft's go-ahead for certain features.
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Microsoft Corp.  released on  Tuesday the latest version of its software for editing and  organizing digital photographs and images to tap into  widespread demand for digital cameras and photography.
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Two months after Google opened up a whole new market with its desktop search tool, Microsoft has joined the party with the release of its own beta test version.
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The Microsoft Download Centre has been updated with some graphical improvements on both the search, listings and item pages. Crucially in the new look download centre many application downloads are now being