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.NET Framework 4 Now Supports LocalDB
Microsoft has added LocalDB support in .NET Framework 4. LocalDB is a free developer edition of SQL Server “Denali” meant to provide most of the server’s API but without management overhead.
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WCF Data Services October CTP Updates OData Libraries, Adds Spatial Data Types
Microsoft has released the WCF Data Services October CTP, which targets .NET 4 and Silverlight 4. This update includes new libraries for OData version 3, and adds support for spatial data.
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Building Visual Studio Extensions with Roslyn
Yesterday we talked about the Roslyn Compiler and Workspace APIs. Today we take a look at the Roslyn Service APIs and how they can be used to extend Visual Studio. The extensions we will look at today are Code Issue, Quick Fix, Code Refactoring, Completion Provider, and Outliner.
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Microsoft Unveils its Compiler as a Service
Early reports suggested that the Rosyln project would just be a better runtime-accessible compiler and REPL-style interpreter, but it turns out that it is much more ambitious. By opening up the entire compiler pipeline Microsoft hopes that developers will create a wide variety of tools at many levels.
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Mono 2.12 Roadmap
In anticipation of the upcoming Mono 2.12 public beta, Miguel de Icaza has released the planned feature set including many of the .NET 4.5 APIs and C# 5’s Async support. There is also an improved garbage collector, support for the full table of Unicode surrogate characters, and a new backend for the C# compiler.
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The Story of Read-Only Collection Interfaces in .NET
.NET 4.5 adds two new collection interfaces, IReadOnlyList and IReadOnlyDictionary. While these interfaces are quite humble on the surface, they expose the rather complex story of backwards compatibility, interoperability, and the role of covariance.
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Microsoft Announces Windows Management Framework 3.0 CTP #1
The new Windows Management Framework 3.0 CTP 1 provides Windows administrators with updated tools to more easily manage Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and the upcoming Windows 8 platforms. This framework has 3 main components: Windows PowerShell 3.0, WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation), and WinRM (Windows Remote Management).
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ORM Profiler Analyzes Data Access Performance
Solutions Design has released ORM Profiler, a tool meant to help improve data access layer performance. It tracks and logs ADO.NET calls so that developers can analyze their data access and discover potential problems.
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A Standardized Printing UI for Windows 8
Windows 8 Metro is bringing with it a lot of changes and printing is no exception. Building upon the charm concept, there is a new API and extendable user interface for printing. This API is available for both XAML and JavaScript-based applications.
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HealthVault Update Continues Microsoft Investment in Electronic Medical Records
Microsoft HealthVault, the web-based solution launched in 2007 for electronic medical records, recently released new capabilities for end users and platform developers. This release introduced incremental changes to a maturing offering in this emerging area of healthcare IT.
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Using Windows Server 8 to Build an IaaS Cloud
Small and large enterprises will be able to create their own clouds with Windows Server 8. A Microsoft whitepaper presents the details of building such an IaaS platform with the upcoming server OS from Redmond.
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The Cost of Async and Await
Asynchronous techniques can offer significant improvements in an application’s overall throughput, but it isn’t free. An asynchronous function is often slower than its synchronous alternative. Stephen Toub of MSDN Magazine has recently covered this topic in an article titled “Async Performance: Understanding the Costs of Async and Await”.
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Managed Extensibility Framework: What It is and Where It is Going
As the name implies, Managed Extensibility Framework is a framework for extending .NET applications. In a recent Channel 9 interview Oleg Lvovitch and Kevin Ransom talked about the history of MEF and what’s planed for version 2.
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Spatial Data Introduced to Entity Framework
One of the new additions in the Entity Framework June CTP is official support for Spatial data types, which allow developers to represent data using a system of coordinates, such as shapes, lines, or points on a map.
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New Extension Introduces Microsoft Office to LightSwitch
The Office Integration Pack enables Visual Studio LightSwitch developers to work with data in Microsoft Office 2010. With this extension, users are able to create documents, spreadsheets, and PDFs; send Outlook appointments and emails; and move data to and from Excel.