Natasa Manousopoulou

It was announced by Bob Muglia at his TechEd keynote speech and will be soon available for download at https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=5395

TechEd is starting today in Orlando and many interesting announcements and launches are expected. SQL Server "Katmai" is expected to be christened as SQL Server 2008 and be released for a public preview.
There are also three sessions on a new client framework code named "Acropolis" which is already available for download, and helps the creation of WPF client applications, like the Smart Client Software Factory for Windows Forms.

This is a click once WPF application that presents an interactive view of the servers, programs, services and tools that developers can use to build Office Business Applications. You can read more, install and run it at the Office Interactive Developer Map page.

Microsoft Surface is an interesting approach to human computer interaction. It is a surface computer that allows the user to interact using touch, gestures and physical objects over a tabletop. It uses a touch surface and cameras to recognize objects and gestures of the user. Read more at the Surface web site.

Popfly is a social site created by MS for the creation and sharing of mashups and Web pages. It provides users with a mashup search tool and design surface, the ability to connect with other creators and exchange content or designs, a Web page creator and content rating.

This is the 3rd beta for Longhorn server, that got its final name and is expected to ship before the end of the year. This beta is open to everyone for download and evaluation.

The ASP.NET futures pack for May contains AJAX extensions such as CSS selectors and Astoria services support, Silverlight support, the DLR, new dynamic data controls and more. Get them and read more here.

The Mono project team has started planning on a Silverlight implementation for Firefox on Linux. The relevant page is here.

So many interesting things were announced in MIX 07 that I still feel dizzy from the impact. So, let's see:

• .NET Framework support for Silverlight 1.1 (now in alpha)
• The Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), a layer over the CLR for dynamic languages
• Project codename "Astoria", a technology that helps exposing data as a service easily
• Project codename "Jasper", a data access technology for RAD
  
• Expression Studio, containing VS2005, Expression Blend, Expression Web, Expression Design and Expression Media
  

MS has deployed an OSS for Windows developer center on SourceForge.

Now you can also develop WPF projects with the Express editions of Visual Studio "Orcas". Announced by John Montgomery, the extensions are available for both C# and VB.

Alan Cooper has added a new book to his very interesting About Face series. About Face 3.0 is in preorder at Amazon.com, and discusses subjects such as user experience in new Web technologies and  mobile devices.

The Migration and Synchronization Toolkit is a framework for tools that synchronize to and from TFS. Read more at Brian Harry's blog.

The Beta 1 of Visual Studio code name "Orcas" has been released, and is already available for MSDN subscribers. It is expected to appear in the Microsoft Downloads soon, probably within the next 24 hours. This new version is also accompanied for the first time by an Express edition, still in CTP. Read more at S. Somasegar's blog.

Found it in irenak's blog: http://visitmix.com/university/ contains lots of content from MIX '07.