Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Has Arrived

It's available to MSDN Subscribers here.

It comes with a Go Live license, so you can start writing production code with this version.

Go forth and code!

More H.P. spoiler goodness

Last Page of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I have to admit, I love spoilers. I just saw that someone posted a photo of the last page of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Click the link if you love spoilers too.

Share Invites to Beta Websites

InviteShare.com is a new website which lets its users sign up to be invited to beta websites (and other invitation-only membership sites) by other members who have invitations available. It currently has pages for spock.com, grandcentral.com, mint.com, pownce.com, and lots more. I've already gotten invites to six beta sites this week.

New iRiver Clix 2 MP3 Player Looks Sweet

iRiver's new gen 2 Clix MP3 player looks like a great new alternative to the iPod Nano. Right now, it's only available in a 4gb model for an MSRP of $199, but hopefully by the holidays the prices will drop a little and they'll have an 8gb version.

Check out the stellar review over at EverythingUSB.

Here's the product page on iRiver America.

Microsoft Releases Early Beta of 'Acropolis'

Microsoft has released CTP 1 of codename 'Acropolis'. Acropolis helps developers build modular .NET applications. It's primary focus appears to be WPF, but it supports WinForms UI components as well.

These tools and components will ship as an add-on to Visual Studio 2008, and Brad Abrams says they will become part of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework in a future release beyond that.

You can download the bits here, and there are already several resources to help get you starting in building your own Acropolis-based UIs.

Acropolis page on WindowsForms.net

Getting Started video

Help File on MS Downloads

Brad Abrams' blog has several good Acropolis links


Go forth and build!

Invited to Join Microsoft Popfly

I requested an received an invitation to test drive the Microsoft Popfly Alpha. Things are really just getting rolling there, but so far it shows a lot of promise, I think. I haven't spent much time with it yet, so I'll keep this brief. More to come as I get to know the tool better...