I just found out about the new training kit thanks to the blog of Guy Bernstein. While I'm downloading this kit I'm also downloading the latest MSDN library optimized for VS 2008 SP1, a whopping 2205Mb.

Grz, Kris.

Well, just after last week SQL Server 2008 was released, SP1 for Visual Studio 2008 came out today. Normally a service pack only contains some patches but this time there's a lot of extra added features inside the package. The things I'm most looking forward to are these:

• ADO.NET Entity framework
• ADO.NET Data Services
• Classic ASP support in Visual Studio.
• ASP.NET Dynamic Data
• ...
  

I noticed the links on the MSDN subscription pages and you can also download the goods here.

Here you can read more about what's inside.

Grz, Kris.

Last week I bought several new songs on iTunes and suddenly I noticed in the store a link to a free podcast by MASASHI OSAKU. If you're into it you can subscribe to it: www.ibizaeivissa.com/podcast1.xml. He's got several podcasts available right there.

Grz, Kris.

Yes, you read it correctly, SQL Server 2008 hit the RTM status. You can download a trial here or the real stuff at the MSDN subscription pages.

Hopefully SP1 for .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 will arrive soon also?

Grz, Kris.

Some time ago I received this book for reviewing and now I finally got the time to completely finish reading it. The nice thing about the book is that it covers the data presentation controls from all .NET frameworks (1.x, 2.0 and 3.5). The repeater, datalist, datagrid, gridview and listview are covered. The book itself is less than 250 pages so a quick read when you dedicate the time to it.

The thing I didn't like however was the chapter about list controls. This shouldn't be in a book about data presentation controls. I would've loved to see more about the listview control instead. That particular chapter could also use an update since it still talks about Orcas (the codename of Visual Studio 2008). It would be a great thing if this book would get an upgrade on that chapter and even an extra chapter instead of the list item controls chapter which should never have made it to the book in the first place.

Since I started with ASP.NET in 2002 I've been around for some time with the data presentation controls myself so I didn't really learn much from the book but for people that want to learn more about these controls or are just beginning. The controls from that were introduced during the .NET 2.0 era have quite some coverage so that's good material.

Grz, Kris.

The most complicated aspect of large software projects is not the implementation, it is the real world domain that the software serves. Domain Driven Design is a vision and approach for dealing with highly complex domains that is based on making the domain itself the main focus of the project, and maintaining a software model that reflects a deep understanding of the domain.

Domain Driven Design Quickly is a short, quick-readable summary and introduction to the fundamentals of DDD.

Grz, Kris.

On June 26th, community day 2008 was held in Keerbergen. Last year I couldn't make it so I really wanted to go this year. It was all thanks to the sponsors that this event could be held in the first place and it was fun to see so many familiar faces. Old colleagues, other MVPs, ...

I followed these 3 presentations: Entity Framework, new things in SQL Server 2008 and 10 greatest new additions to SQL Server 2008. During the first session I even won a book (Programming Microsoft LINQ) given by one of the sponsors of the event. Tip: it pays off to be a Star Wars fan when you get a question.

After all the sessions we still had some time to enjoy a dinner in company of our peers. Of course a lot was talked about community day, technology, ... during that time.

Grz, Kris.

Yesterday I already downloaded FireFox 3 on my MacBook Pro and today on my PC. In the meantime I also downloaded and installed IE8 Beta. Both are working just fine for me.

Grz, Kris.