Great news folks, it looks like the Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 has finally released, although IMHO it's more of a Feature Pack (since new features have been added as well).  You'll see some greate new features like The ADO.NET Entity Framework and some new ASP.NET Extensions.

Here's the description of the Service Pack VS2008 (from the site):

This download installs Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. SP1 addresses issues that were found through a combination of customer and partner feedback, as well as internal testing. These service packs offer Visual Studio and .NET Framework users improvements in responsiveness, stability and performance.
Click here for more information regarding about these service packs.
IMPORTANT

• If you previously installed a Visual Studio 2008 Hotfix, you must run the Hotfix Cleanup Utility before installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1. For more information, see Visual Studio 2008 Hotfix Cleanup Utility for Installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1.
• If you have multiple Visual Studio products installed, you must upgrade all of them to SP1. If you have Visual Studio 2008 and one or more 2008 Express Editions, you cannot upgrade the Express Editions until you have upgraded Visual Studio.
• Prior to installation, you should carefully review the included readme file to be aware of any known issues with this release.
• The following technologies have been tested and verified to work with SP1:
  • Silverlight 2 SDK Beta 2 & Silverlight Tools Beta 2. (If Silverlight Tools Beta 2 is already installed, you must upgrade it after you install Visual Studio 2008 SP1. To upgrade, use the installer on the Silverlight Tools Beta 2 page on the Microsoft Downloa
  Technorati Tags: Visual Studio
  • d Center Web site.)
  • MVC Preview Release #3
  • ASP.NET Extensions/Dynamic Data Preview
  • VC 2008 Feature Pack
  • VB PowerPack Controls (2.0 & 3.0)
  • Expression Studio 2 (RTM)
  • SQL Server 2008
  • .NET Framework 3.5 SDK
  • XSLT Profiler
  • VSTA 2.0 SDK
  • Visual Studio 2008 SDK
  If you encounter issues installing SP1, uninstall technologies and/or development add-ins not listed above, and then try SP1 Setup again. When other technologies are verified to be compatible with SP1, they will be added to this list.

To download this Service Pack: click here

~Robert Shelton

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

The Visual Studio team has released an update (July update) of the Team Foundation Server Power Tools.  They add a few new features to the TFS environment, and the one that I like the best is the “Build Notification tool.”  If you are using VSTFS than you’ll probably want to add these Power Tools to your environment, since the price is right: Free!

Here’s the description from the download site of what’s in the Power Tools:

The Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Power Tools is a set of enhancements, tools and command line utilities that improve the Team Foundation Server user experience.
The following tools are installed with the tfpt.msi package:

• Command line tool (TFPT.EXE)
• Team Explorer IDE menu additions
• Build Notification tool
• TFS Best Practices Analyzer
• Process Template Editor
• Work Item Templates
• Custom check-in policies
• TFS Server Manager
• TFS Users tool
• Alert Editor

Here’s the download location: Click here

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

~Robert Shelton

I was preparing for a meeting that I have later this week, to talk about how to “Best Architect a SharePoint Infrastructure” and I was referring a a great resource that I’ve been using to both understand and help my customers understand the “in’s and out’s “ of planning SharePoint Installations from small to large.  This two part downloadable book is a great resource, but it is very large, which is why I am happy that it’s in electronic form.  It makes finding information much faster, because I can search within Word.

It occurred to me to share it on my blog, so I am doing so today, and I hope that you find it a useful resource as well.

~Robert Shelton

Description of the book, from the site:

This book provides information and guidelines to lead a team through the steps of planning the deployment of a solution based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The audiences for this book are business application specialists, line-of-business specialists, information architects, IT generalists, program managers, and infrastructure specialists who are planning a solution based on Office SharePoint Server 2007. This book also includes links to planning worksheets for recording information related to your planning and deployment activities.

Here are the download links, for Part 1 and Part 2 of the book:

• Part 1
• Part 2

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Eamon Barker posted a list of what he uses for SharePoint development, posted here.  I use all of the products that he uses with the exception of Fiddler (a free HTTP debugger), which I just downloaded and it looks very useful.  So, one thanks Eamon for your post and the heads-up on Fiddler (Click here to download it).

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Here’s a snapshot of Eamon’s list, click on it to go to his blog.

Enjoy,

~ Robert Shelton

I was just pointed to this resource by one of the readers of this blog (thanks Sean), as a Open Source option for streaming video on your site, or recording demonstrations (like I’ve done on this blog).  I use Camtasia Studio version 5 by TechSmith (www.techsmith.com), which is great software, but it has a cost-component to it.  CamStudio, listed below, is Open Source and although they request a donation (which I think is always a good idea if you use the software, to support further development), the product is Open Source.

Here’s a description of the product (from the site):

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)

Here are just a few ways you can use this software:

• You can use it to create demonstration videos for any software program
• Or how about creating a set of videos answering your most frequently asked questions?
• You can create video tutorials for school or college class
• You can use it to record a recurring problem with your computer so you can show technical support people
• You can use it to create video-based information products you can sell
• You can even use it to record new tricks and techniques you discover on your favourite software program, before you forget them

Here’s a link to the site and download: Click here

~Robert Shelton

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

I was looking for a LINQ provider for LDAP this morning and ran across Charlie Calvert’s blog that had a great list of Hyperlinks to other LINQ Providers.  I will list them below, to save you one click, but you should look at Charlie’s blog, it’s pretty good (I have subscribed to his feed).

Here’s the list:

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

This is the latest (update) to the popular and free windows zoom utility called ZoomIt (published by Mark Russinovich).  I use it in my videos and whenever I do demonstrations/presentations of my code.  It’s lightweight and easy to use.

Here’s the description of the tool, from the site:

ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image.

ZoomIt works on all versions of Windows and you can use pen input for ZoomIt drawing on tablet PCs.

Here’s the download location (bottom of the page): Click here

~Robert Shelton

↑ Grab this Headline Animator