• SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 Released:
  • Information: http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/archive/2009/04/07/service-pack-1-for-sql-server-2008-available-today.aspx
  • Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6f26fc45-f0ca-49cf-a6ee-840c7e8bb8af&displaylang=en
• Internet Explorer 8 Released:
  • Information: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx
  • Download: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/worldwide-sites.aspx
• ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Released:
  • Information: http://www.asp.net/mvc/
  • Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=53289097-73ce-43bf-b6a6-35e00103cb4b&displaylang=en
• Expression Blend 3 Preview Released:
  • Information: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/try-it/blendpreview.aspx
  • Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a04aa0ae-87be-4201-a65e-e792859122fc&displaylang=en
• Silverlight 3 Beta Released:
  • Information: http://silverlight.net/themes/silverlight/getstarted/sl3beta.aspx
  • Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=11dc7151-dbd6-4e39-878f-5081863cbb5d&displaylang=en
• Microsoft Web Platform Installer 1.0 and 2.0 Beta Released:
  • Information: http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx
  • Download:
    • 1.0: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9588072
    • 2.0 Beta: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=145505

The official 1.3.0 documentation was posted this weekend as well and is also available from the downloads link above, or this Google Code download page.

Keep your eyes peeled for a jQuery 1.3.2 release anytime in the next few days as John Resig has mentioned there is still one last 1.3 regression they are working on fixing.

For those interested, the regression has to do with the $(document).ready() function waiting until images are fully loaded in Internet Explorer 6 & 7. The jQuery bug ticket ID is #3988 and here’s a Stack Overflow question in which John Resig talks about the issue in some detail.

Taken from the update page:

An update for the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is available. This article describes information about the issues that the update for the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 fixes.

The update for the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 fixes the issues that are described in the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

• 958481  List of the breaking issues with the .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 after you upgrade to the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1
• 958483  List of the breaking issues with the .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 2 after you upgrade to the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1
• 958484  List of the breaking issues with the .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 1 after you upgrade to the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

Joe Healy has blogged about this update and mentions some of the important fixes:

Interesting items fixed (note a full list can be found via the KB) – dynamic data one to one relationships – ASP.NET BrowsCap being broken of FPSE are installed – some broken UpdateProgress control issues – changes in the AutoCommit behavior for Oracle transactions – problems with WPF generating images on the fly via ASP.NET on IIS – and some other fairly freaky stuff – read the kb for all details.

I installed this update today on my Vista x64 work machine and it is actually 3 seperate updates which have to be downloaded and installed in a specific order. Please be sure to read the KB documention as to the order in which to install the updates.

The blog post regarding this release makes a few important points to be aware of:

• jQuery support for Safari 2 is being phased out. 
  • Safari 2 has been superceded by Safari 3 and no longer has an appreciable market share.
• Packed versions of jQuery will no longer be available.
  • Packed scripts make debugging more difficult, cause platform incompatibilities (e.g. Adobe Air, Caja), and can actually increase loading times in many cases versus a plain minified script.

This update should not contain any breaking changes. Happy jQuerying!

John Resig mentioned in a podcast with Scott Hanselman a few months back that one of the primary goals of the 1.3 release was to increase performance and a quick glance at the important changes listd in this release, specifically rewrites of big parts JQuery like the selector engine, seem to allude to this.

A quick run of the Javascript library benchmark app at http://experiment.bcse.info/slickspeed/ on my machine using Chrome shows a *significant* performance increase in JQuery 1.3b1 versus 1.2.6 (final time of 13ms compared to 26ms, so about a 100% speedup overall).

• I was promoted to “Software Engineer II”.
• I got married (I love you Erika!). The wedding was wonderful. Many thanks to all who were in attendance.
• Spent a week on honeymoon in Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, Canada (4 days and 3 days respectively).

So, enough of the mushy stuff.

This last Saturday was the Jacksonville Code Camp and it was a very nice event despite the last minute change in location due to after effects of Tropical Storm Fay. There were a lot of great sessions and the speakers all did a great job. (I even won a copy of CodeSmith Professional Tools in the raffle… woot!) This was my second year in attendance.

For those in the Jacksonville area, the Jacksonville Developers User Group website can be found at http://www.jaxdug.com/ and contains information on Jacksonville area Developer events. I have agreed to do my first user group talk in October and well be covering what free tools are available to make .Net developers’ lives easier. (I will be posting the slides here on my site afterward.)

VS2008 & .NET 3.5 SP1 Fun!: Service Pack 1 for Microsoft .NET 3.5 and Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2008 have been released! (about a week ago…) Information on the updates included with the service packs can be found here, and for the impatient, you can download the service packs directly from here. If you have trouble with the installation of the service packs, try running the Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack Preparation Tool. Microsoft has also released the Framework 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit which has even more information about the new features in the service packs and how to use them (This is in addition to the regular Visual Studio 2008 & .NET 3.5 Training Kit.) Another important release that got lost a little in the hype over .NET 3.5 SP1/VS2008 SP1 is the release of SQL Server 2008. This includes SQL Server 2008 Express Edition which you can grab here for those interested.

Now if that wasn’t enough for one post…. on with the show!

XAMLPad 4.0 has been released and can be downloaded from here. But wait.. what is XAMLPad?:

“XamlPad (xamlpad.exe) is a basic visual editor for Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML). XAMLPad is installed with the SDK and can be found from the start menu at All Programs/Microsoft Windows SDK/Tools/XAMLPad. ”

While you’re downloading XAMLPad, be sure to grab LINQPad if you don’t already have it.

And there’s still more…
NHibernate 2.0 Final has also been released! It can be downloaded here. And while the main NHibernate page doesn’t have the link up yet, the release notes for this release can be found here.

Finally, bringing up the rear on the notable release train is the official release of Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth. If you’re not familiar with Microsoft’s Photosynth technology, Photosynth’s About Page and this CNET Article about the launch should give you a good head start.

My very last news item for today (I promise!) is that Sara Ford has announced the pre-sale of her first book, “Visual Studio Tips: 251 Ways to Improve Your Productivity“. If you’re not familiar with Sara Ford and her blog… then you have a lot of reading to do… Sara has an almost daily piece of information about Visual Studio IDE and its various components. Well worth the read if you can squeeze just one more item into your daily blog diet.

Wooo! Hows that for an “I’m not dead, just busy” post! (-;