ReSharper 5 Beta 2 Released

Please click here to find more.

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Release Candidate

Microsoft has released Release Candidate (RC) for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 to all MSDN subscribers on February 8th 2010 and will be made available to the world on Wednesday, February 10th. The RC includes a go-live license for people who want to deploy in their production environment.

Please click here to download.

Visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd441784.aspx for release candidate walkthroughs. 

jQuery 1.4.1 Released

jQuery 1.4.1 is now out! This is the first bug fix release on top of jQuery 1.4, fixing some outstanding bugs from the 1.4 release and touching up some gaps in the API.

New Features

A full list of the API changes can be found in the 1.4.1 category on the jQuery API site.

• .live(“focus”) and .live(“blur”) now work – mapping to .live(“focusin”) and .live(“focusout”). (Documentation, Ticket)
• .live(“hover”) now exists, mapping to .live(“mouseenter mouseleave”). (Documentation, Ticket)
• It’s now possible to bind multiple event types with live. (Documentation, Ticket)
• Calling .die() (with no arguments) removes all bound live event handlers. (Documentation, Ticket)
• .height( function ) and .width( function ) now exist. (Height Documentation, Width Documentation, Ticket)
• jQuery.parseJSON has been exposed, allowing you to parse JSON strings into JavaScript objects. (Documentation, Ticket)
• jQuery.error has been exposed, to be used by plugin developers to provide informative user feedback. (Documentation, Ticket)

Bug Fixes

Core

• window.JSON can’t take an empty string

Events

• multi event bind() causes namespacing to fail

• bind() with special events causes things to get corrupted (Ticket 1, Ticket 2)

• change event broken in IE

• Unable to preventDefault on live submit

• Select change event firing on first focus

• .live() is affecting inline scripts

• Stop live click from triggering on right click

Traversing

• prev/nextUntil needs to check for non-elements

• Make sure filter/not only does it on elements

Effects

• Make sure animations only happen if speed is truthy or 0

Ajax

• ajaxError not firing on 404 for load

• if data has length breaks param

• Make sure context is set back to original in all cases

• Don’t deep extend context

• Don’t attempt to set the readyState

• Parsererror cause lost

Offset

• Make sure .offset(coords) return a jQuery set

Manipulation

• Make sure .html() is XHTML purified

• Cloned checkbox checked aren’t cloned in WebKit

• replaceWith(fn) function scope is useless

• wrapInner(fn) is inconsistent with wrapInner(html)

• .remove() not removing generic handler

• Possible memory leak with remove()/events in IE

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Launch Date Postponed

In a very small announcement by Developer Division’s Marketing and Communications Manager Rob Caron, Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 is set to be officially launched April 12, 2010 and not March 22 as previously announced. However, the date for release to manufacturing (RTM) still remains unknown.

Historically, RTM for Visual Studio has been months ahead of the official launch. Visual Studio 2008 as an example was RTM November 19 2007, but officially launched February 27 2008, 3 months later.

Scott Guthrie reported late last year that Visual Studio 2010 is postponed because of performance issues found in Beta 2 and revealed plans for an intermediate release in February:

…we plan to make a Release Candidate build available in February that everyone will be able to download and test. It will be a public build and include a broad “go live” license that supports production deployment.

Taking into account that the official release date is now April 12 and the RC is in February, the date difference between the official release and the RTM is probably much closer than for previous releases of Visual Studio.

jQuery 1.4 released

Great news for jQuery lovers, jQuery 1.4 is released on 14-Jan-2010 and it has got amazing new features. Please click here to see 15 new features of jQuery you must know.

What’s New in jQuery 1.4?

jQuery is probably the most popular JavaScript framework on the web. Many developers insert the script by habit (yes W3C.org, I’m referring to you!), so the jQuery team needs to be extremely cautious when creating new releases.

The code base has been heavily restructured to reduce complexity and increase performance. There are some impressive bar charts on jquery14.com which highlight how good the optimizations are.

207 bugs have been fixed and the framework now passes 100% of all tests in IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Firefox 3.5, Safari 3.2, Safari 4, Opera 10.10, and Chrome.

There is a substantial number of new methods and two new events: focusin and focusout. These are equivalent to focus and blur, but they implement an event bubbling-like technique (focus and blur do not normally bubble)

What Will Break If You Upgrade?

The jQuery team has provided a list of the most likely problems. I suspect the following issues will cause the most confusion:

1. jQuery() returns an empty set
In previous versions of the library, running jQuery() (no arguments) returned jQuery(document). It now returns an empty set, although the jQuery().ready() event will still fire as expected.

2. Ajax requests must use valid JSON
If you’re passing JSON data in Ajax calls, you must ensure it’s not malformed.jQuery now use the browser’s native JSON.parser in preference to eval when possible.

3. jQuery.browser returns the engine version
If you’re sniffing for browsers, jQuery.browser now returns the rendering engine version rather than a specific browser type, e.g. “webkit” rather than “chrome”.

I mentioned how difficult user agent parsing had become in a previous post. The jQuery developers have reduced complexity and increased speed by simplifying the returned information.

Although jQuery still supports browser-like detection, I strongly recommend you avoid it and use feature/object detection instead.

Get Free Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition with Party Pack By Hosting Win7 Launch Party

In a new campaign to promote Windows 7, Microsoft is giving chances to Windows 7 enthusiasts around the world to be part of Windows history by hosting a house party to mark the official launch of Windows 7. The host will not only get the rare opportunity to invite friends, buddies, relatives and other guests to his or her home for a reason (Windows 7 launch), but will also get a special “Signature Edition” of Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Party Pack for free.

The Windows 7 Launch House Parties to the tune of thousands will be available globally, as Microsoft intends to select participants to host personal Windows 7 Launch Party in the following countries:

Australia
Canada
France
Germany
Hong Kong
India
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Spain
UK
USA

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Available for Download

Service Pack 2, the latest service pack for both Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, is now available for public download . SP2 supports new types of hardware and emerging hardware standards, includes all of the updates that have been delivered since SP1, and simplifies deployment for consumers, developers, and IT professionals. For more details, see the TechNet page for Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista.