Microsoft Bing is live, but Bing is not Live Search

Microsoft has launched new search engine last week called Bing.

Bing: Microsoft's search engine unexpectedly live, but not LiveMicrosoft has made its new search engine available ahead of schedule, and is redirecting searches from Live Search to the new site

If you fancied using Microsoft's new search engine, it's unexpectedly live at http://www.bing.com/ . (According to Microsoft, it was being opened at the SMX search marketing conference in Seattle on Wednesday.)

Or rather, Microsoft's new "Decision Engine and consumer brand" is unexpectedly live. Microsoft says:

Bing is specifically designed to build on the benefits of today's search engines but begins to move beyond this experience with a new approach to user experience and intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions, focusing initially on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.

Bing is not Live Search, though obviously it's based on it, and the current UK beta version still has Live's front page layout, rather than a menu down the left hand side, which is the format for the US version. The UK also doesn't seem to have any image hot spots, and other features. To get the "real thing," go here.

It's too soon to say whether Bing will attract long-term users, rather than tyre-kickers. However, the reception on Twitter has been reasonably positive.

It does seem to work much better than Google for finding real product info and reviews, where Google's results are loaded with spam and price comparison rubbish. As @studentsoftware noted on Twitter: "Keyword stuffing that skews Google search results doesn't quite work in bing. Bing 1 Google 0. Over to you SEO gurus..."

Some Google commands also work -- for example, try ["psp go" site:guardian.co.uk] -- which could ease the changeover.

The Search History feature, which keeps a list of your previous searches down the left hand side, is obvious but excellent.

But in most respects, Google still rules. The fact is that Bing is an incomplete beta, and while it's not bad, it's not actually a match for Google at the moment.

Microsoft knows perfectly well that it's going to take it "years and years and years" (in Steve Ballmer's words) to get anywhere in search, if it ever does. It knows it has to overtake Yahoo first. In that sense, comparisons with Google are misguided, though we're all making them. In reality, Bing is competing with Yahoo and Ask to be the leading Google alternative, and that's how its success -- or failure -- should be evaluated.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 Now Awailable

Download the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4 are the next generation of Microsoft development tools. They work together to accelerate the process of turning vision into reality for the developer. Visual Studio 2010 Professional has been engineered to support the development of applications for Windows, the Web, and Office.

As expected, on May 20, Microsoft made the Beta 1 bits of its Visual Studio 2010 release downloable by anyone interested in testing Microsoft’s forthcoming release of its developer tool suite.

Microsoft released the Beta 1 VS 2010 bits on Monday, May 18, to TechNet and MSDN subscribers. Both MSDN/TechNet subscribers and the public are able to test VS 2010 Professional, Team Suite, Team Foundation Server and the .Net Framework 4.

A list of what’s new in the 2010 release is on Microsoft’s MSDN Web site, including everything from the inclusion in the box of the new F# concurrent programming language, to parallel development techologies, to better support for Silverlight and the Windows Presentation Foundation. And a handy list of related VS 2010 resources is available here.

Company officials have not provided a target ship date for the final VS 2010 suite, but a number of company watchers (including me) think it will ship before the end of calendar 2009.

Internet Explorer 8 is now available

Microsoft has finally launched Internet Explorer 8.0 on 20-Mar-09. You can download it from it here

Internet Explorer 8 empowers content providers to create the richest, most dynamic experiences on the Web, extending the reach and value of online services. Whether you’re a developer, a systems integrator, or a sales and marketing professional, Internet Explorer 8 offers new possibilities for increasing revenue by building out solid solutions and service practice offerings.

Download Internet Explorer 8 and discover innovative features that help people browse faster easier, and safer than ever before.

Web Slice

A Web Slice is a navigation shortcut that can help eliminate the need to continually visit favorite websites to check for updates to e-mail, weather reports, sports scores, stock quotes, and other frequently modified content. When a Web Slice is available on a Web page, a green Web Slices icon appears in the upper-right hand corner of the browser. You can then subscribe to the Web Slice, and it will be added to the Favorites bar in your browser. When new information is available, the Web Slice is highlighted. Clicking on the highlighted Web Slice gives you a preview of the new information. You then have the option of clicking on the highlighted Web Slice to go directly to the other site to view the content.

Accelerators

Accelerators are a feature of Internet Explorer 8 that help you quickly perform your everyday browsing tasks without having to navigate to other websites to find the information you’re seeking. You can highlight text on any Web page and then click on the blue Accelerator icon for a list of available Accelerators that can instantly provide access to common web services. For example, if you need to find directions, you can highlight an address, click on an Accelerator, and view a map and directions, without having to cut and paste the address and open a new browser window.

Internet Explorer 8 Gallery?

The Internet Explorer 8 Gallery displays Web Slices, Accelerators, and other Internet Explorer add-ons that are currently available for use in customizing your Internet Explorer 8 browser. Everything featured in the Gallery is free for download and use. There is also no charge to submit an add-on to the Gallery.

The Internet Explorer Add-ons Gallery currently represents 19 languages across 22 locales. They are: US, Brazil, China (Chinese Simplified), Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, India (English), Israel (Hebrew), Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico (Spanish), Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan (Chinese Traditional), Turkey, UK.

Visual Search?

Internet Explorer 8 has teamed with top search providers such as Live Search, Wikipedia, Yahoo, and Amazon to deliver "visual search" images that provide you with immediate clickable results. For example, typing "Seattle weather" with Live Search will instantly show you a preview of the current weather directly in the Search Box drop-down.

Other new features of Internet Explorer 8?

New Internet Explorer 8 features include:

InPrivate Browsing: When activated, enables users to browse the Web without any evidence of searches or sites visited retained by the browser. InPrivate Filtering: Helps prevent third-parties that serve content on a Web page from tracking the user’s Web surfing activities. SmartScreen Filter: Helps protect against phishing Web sites, and sites known to distribute malware; helps detect and prevent “Click Jacking” which is a malicious technique of tricking web users into revealing confidential information. Enhanced “Find on this Page”: Enables users to find text on a Web page more easily, in a way that does not obscure any of the page’s content. Redesigned “New Tab” Page: Provides links to use an Accelerator, activate InPrivate browsing, reopen closed tabs, or restore the last browsing session. Enhanced Address Bar: Provides matches as the user types across History, Favorites, and RSS Feeds, searching against all parts of the URL string (and the page title) instead of just the beginning. Allows mistyped entries to be removed from the address bar. Enhanced Tabbed Browsing: Tabs are grouped and color-coded so user can quickly discern which are related. Users can easily group or ungroup tabs, and can reopen closed tabs.

Internet Explorer 8 RC1 Now Available

On 26-Jan-09, Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch has announced the immediate availability of Internet Explorer 8 RC1. Internet Explorer 8 RC1 is available in 25 languages for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server. You can download IE8 RC1 here: http://www.microsoft.com/ie8 . Here is what Dean says about IE8 today:

“IE8 focused on how people really use the web. Consumers want a browser that makes the tasks they do every day faster and easier. The activities people spend their time on define real-world performance: navigating to websites, working with tabs,searching, keeping track of changing information (like traffic or an auction), and using the information from one site with another (as in getting a map). Everyone wants atrustworthy browser that keeps them in control and protects their safety. Developers want great developer tools, great interoperability, and a powerful platform that enables them to innovate. For some people, accessibility is crucial; for some organizations, policy, administration, and deployment are essential.”

For more information on upgrading to RC1 – please see this post from Internet Explorer Program Manager Jane Maliouta. Jane provides an excellent and information-filled post on what you need to know to upgrade to RC1.
Internet Explorer 8 RC1 can only be installed on Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server. For more information on Internet Explorer 8 and Windows 7, please read this blog post.

Free e-book on SQL Server 2008

Microsoft is making a free offer on a book and three clinics on SQL Server 2008. Here's how you can get yours.

You'll have to register, but most of you are probably already registered on MSDN anyway. Here's the link.

There is another link to download SQL Server 2008 ebook from Microsoft without registration. Here's the link

SQL Server 2008: What's New

AT A GLANCE:

• More powerful management
• Improved performance and scalability
• Better security and availability
• Changes for developers

Once again, Microsoft has released a new version of SQL Server that promises to improve life for database administrators. The latest version is SQL Server 2008, and it offers a large variety of new

features and functionality that will make the administration a whole lot better.

Database administrators who have been using SQL Server® 2005 for any length of time will find many of the same features that they use in their day-to-day jobs, but they'll also soon discover that these familiar tools have been enhanced in SQL Server 2008. The new functionality built on the existing features goes a long way in reducing the number of workarounds or customizations once needed for using various features in complex database environments.

New features in SQL Server 2008 involve a large range of database job roles, making it difficult to categorize them. As I classify features under different topics, I realize that some readers will be wondering why I placed Feature X under Category Y when it clearly belongs under Category Z. It's a matter of perspective, and it's affected by how your company does business.

I do understand that database people often find themselves doing many different job roles, but I will try to break down the new features so they fit into the following generic categories: Management, Scalability, Performance, High Availability, Security, Development, and Business Intelligence.

What's New for Management?

For database administrators (like me), the additional management functionality makes SQL Server 2008 a very exciting new product. The new policy management, multiple server query capability, configuration servers, and data collector/management warehouse offer powerful new abilities for database administrators who are often responsible for managing large and complex database environments with hundreds or thousands of databases on dozens or even hundreds of servers.

The SQL Server 2008 Policy Management feature, which was actually called Declarative Management Framework in the Community Technology Previews (CTPs), allows you to create and execute configuration policies against one or more database servers. With these policies, you can ensure that standard configuration settings are applied and maintained on each of the targeted servers and databases. You can see an example of this feature in Figure 1.

Figure 1 The Data and Log File Location Best Practice policy (Click the image for a larger view)

Policies are created from a predefined set of facets. Each facet contains a subgroup of SQL Server 2008 configuration settings and other events that you can control. You pair these facets with conditions in order to create a policy. Conditions are the values that are allowed for the properties of a facet, the configuration settings, or other events contained within that facet.

Conditions are also values used for policy filters. Say you want the policy to be executed only against a certain database. In this case, you can create a condition that contains the name of the database and then add this condition to the policy. Now the policy will only apply to that one database. Trust me on this—SQL Server 2008 Policy Management may sound complex, but once you try it you'll realize it's pretty intuitive.

The new Multiple Server Interaction and Configuration Servers capabilities come in handy when you need to execute queries against multiple servers at the same time. You can register servers in your Management Studio and then place those servers together under a grouping. When you need to execute a policy or query against all the servers in the grouping, you simply right-click on the grouping and do so.

As an added benefit, you can configure this feature to return one resultset per server or merge all the resultsets together into one big resultset. You can also specify whether you want the server and database names as part of the results so you can separate the individual results from each server. Being able to store the registered servers on the configuration server rather than in each individual's Management Studio is a big benefit.

Another nice new management feature is the Data Collector. Database administrators often need to collect management data from a large number of servers, and many of these DBAs have created their own custom solution for doing so. The Data Collector is a built-in mechanism that eases the task of collecting management-related data. It allows you to use the SQL Server Agent and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to create a framework that collects and stores your data while providing error handling, auditing, and collection history.

Unlike third-party tools and custom jobs, the Data Collector will be easily understood by most database administrators since it uses SQL Server Agent and SSIS to create a set of jobs and packages to handle the connections, collection, and storage of data (as you can see inFigure 2). Once this data is stored in a central location, referred to as the Management Warehouse, it can be viewed and organized through a set of T-SQL statements and SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services reports. This central data store makes it much easier to analyze and view the overall management metrics of the database environment.

Figure 2 The Data Collector Disk Usage Log file (Click the image for a larger view)

What's New for Scalability?

Over the years, SQL Server database administrators have found their database environments becoming increasingly large. As the size of your database environment increases, you need new methods and tools to achieve the scalability that most enterprises require. SQL Server 2008 has introduced several new features that will help.

SQL Server 2008 has built-in compression that allows you to compress the database files and the transaction log files associated with the compressed database. SQL Server 2005 introduced the ability to compress data on a read-only file or filegroup, but this form of compression simply used the compression ability of Windows® NTFS. With SQL Server 2008, you now get both row-level and page-level compression, offering benefits you don't get with compression at the data file level.

Compression at the row and page levels reduces the amount of data space needed, plus it reduces the amount of memory needed since the data remains compressed while in memory. Compressed data in memory results in increased memory utilization, which benefits the scalability of many systems.

SQL Server 2008 also introduces compression at the backup level. While database backups only back up the active portion of the database, this still represents as many as hundreds of gigabytes or even dozens of terabytes. In database environments that have more than one copy of a multi-terabyte backup file, these backups often take up valuable storage space that could be used more effectively. By allowing database administrators to compress their backup files, SQL Server 2008 frees up some of this space, so it can be used for live data.

Then there's the Resource Governor. This new feature lets you define the amounts of resources that individual or groupings of workloads are allowed to use during execution. With Resource Governor, you can create an environment in which many different workloads coexist on one server without the fear of one or more of those workloads overwhelming the server and reducing the performance of the other workloads.

The benefit of this feature is that you can more effectively use the total amount of resources that are available on your database servers.Figure 3 shows an example of using the Resource Governor to limit activity on a server.

 Figure 3 Limit activity with the Resource Governor

What's New for Performance?

The general performance of databases improves with SQL Server 2008. Thanks to several new features found in SQL Server 2008, you can control and monitor the performance of your databases and the applications that execute against them.

When you have large numbers of transactions performed every second, the locking that normally occurs during these transactions can have a negative impact on the performance of your database applications. SQL Server is designed to reduce the total number of locks a process holds by escalating locks from the smaller row-level and page-level locks to large table-level locks. But it's important to understand that this escalation of locks can cause problems. For example, a single transaction can lock an entire table and prevent other transactions from working with that table.

SQL Server 2008 works with the table partitioning mechanism (which was introduced in SQL Server 2005) to allow the SQL Server engine to escalate locks to the partition level before the table level. This intermediary level of locking can dramatically reduce the effects of lock escalation on systems that have to process hundreds and thousands of transactions per second.

SQL Server 2008 offers several new query processor improvements for when the query interacts with partitioned tables. The query optimizer can now perform query seeks against partitions as it would against individual indexes by only working with the partition ID and not the partitioning mechanism at the table level.

What's New for High Availability?

As database environments become more complex and databases grow in size, the ability to ensure the availability of those databases becomes increasingly difficult. The familiar mechanisms you have used in the past to achieve high availability are still present in SQL Server 2008. But some of these features have been enhanced in SQL Server 2008 and some new ones have been added.

With SQL Server 2005, many administrators started implementing database mirroring to achieve high availability. SQL Server 2008 offers many improvements for the practice of database mirroring. For instance, in the past, database mirroring occasionally had performance issues related to moving transaction log data from the principal to the mirrored databases. In response, SQL Server 2008 now reduces the amount of information that is moved across the network from the principal's transaction log to the mirror's transaction log by compressing the information before sending it to the mirror's transaction log for hardening.

You now have the ability to repair corrupted data pages on the principal. If a principal database suffers corrupt data pages due to errors 823 and 824, the principal can request a fresh copy of those data pages from the mirrored servers. This request of good data pages is an automated process that is transparent to any users who are currently accessing the principal databases.

Another new feature, Hot Add CPU, lets you add additional CPUs to a database server without affecting the availability of the databases residing on that server. However, you should know that Hot Add CPU does have some limitations, as it is only useful when running the 64-bit Itanium-based Windows Server® 2008 Enterprise Edition or Datacenter Edition, and it requires the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2008.

What's New for Security?

SQL Server 2005 introduced data security in the form of data encryption. With SQL Server 2008, encryption is greatly enhanced with the introduction of two features: Extensible Key Management and Transparent Data Encryption.

Extensible Key Management allows for an enhanced structure to safely store the keys used in the encryption infrastructure—not only in the database itself but also outside the database in third-party software modules or with a Hardware Security Module.

Transparent Data Encryption offers improved flexibility for encrypting data by allowing encryption to be a property of the database and not just the result of functions in a line of code. The result is that administrators do not have to perform the large number of changes that are required for their database structure and application code when they perform encryption at the data level. The code in Figure 4 shows how you can encrypt a database with Transparent Data Encryption.

 Figure 4 Using Transparent Data Encryption

What's in Store for Developers?

Database administrators are not the only people that will benefit directly from the changes in SQL Server 2008. There are a number of new features that are designed to help database developers. These range from several new T-SQL enhancements to new components that can help developers create and utilize database queries.

Many database developers are responsible for creating the queries that are needed for returning the data required for their applications. You're probably familiar with the LINQ (Language Integrated Query) tool that enables database developers to issue queries against a database using a Microsoft® .NET-based programming language instead of the normal T-SQL statements. Well, SQL Server 2008 enhances LINQ by providing a new LINQ to SQL provider that allows developers to issue LINQ commands directly against SQL Server tables and columns. This will reduce the amount of time it takes to create new data queries.

When developing against databases, developers use higher-level objects that they map to individual database tables and columns. These objects, also known as entities, represent the data needed for database applications and, therefore, the developer doesn't need to understand the actual storage structure of the data and schema of the database. The new ADO.NET Entity Framework now allows developers to create database queries using these entities. The abstracting of the underlying database structure allows developers to be more productive.

SQL Server 2008 offers many different enhancements to T-SQL that allow database developers to be more efficient. One example is the new MERGE statement, which allows the developer to check for the existence of data before trying to insert the data. This check prior to performing the INSERT statement allows the data to be updated. No longer is it necessary to create complex joins in order to update data that exists and to insert data that does not already exist, all during a single statement.

In addition, separating time and date data from the combined date/time data type has been made easier. SQL Server 2008 introduces two separate data types to handle date and time data. Different data types will translate to improved performance for many queries since there will no longer be a need to perform an operation on the data before it can be used in the query.

When creating newer database structures, database developers often find themselves stretching the structure of databases in order to implement mapping applications. SQL Server 2008 helps to address this issue with new spatial data types. The two spatial data types, GEOGRAPHY and GEOMETRY, allow developers to store location-specific data directly into the database without having to break those data elements down into formats that fit other standard data types. The code in Figure 5 is an example of a simple spatial table.

 Figure 5 A simple spatial table

A very common issue for database developers in the past was how to store and utilize large binary objects such as documents and media files. The method typically used was to store the files outside of the database and just store a pointer in the database to the external file. With this method, however, when you move the file, you must also remember to update the pointer.

SQL Server 2008 handles this issue with the new FILESTREAM data type. With this data type, files can still be stored outside of the database, but the data is considered part of the database for transactional consistency. This allows for the use of common file operations while still maintaining the performance and security benefits of the database.

What about Business Intelligence?

Increased use of SQL Server over the last few years has been driven in large part by the adoption of business intelligence strategies. Business intelligence capabilities are not new to SQL Server, but SQL Server 2008 does bring some new features to the table.

For example, when data is stored in data warehouses, space is often wasted due to NULL values. Columns that store NULL values take up the space of the largest allowed data size defined in the column. This means that a column with thousands of NULL values can actually consume many MB of space without actually storing any data.

SQL Server 2008 introduces sparse columns, which allows NULL values to be stored without taking up any physical space on the disk. Because sparse columns do not consume actual space, tables that contain sparse columns can actually exceed the 1,024 column limit.

SQL Server 2008 also introduces a new mechanism, Change Data Capture, for managing incremental changes that need to be loaded into the data warehouse. This captures and places changed data into a set of change tables. Capturing updated, deleted, and inserted data in an easily consumed storage schema allows for the incremental loading of data warehouses from those tables—as opposed to having to build custom insert statements that try to figure out the changes made to existing rows of data before updating the data warehouse.

Merge
SQL 2008 includes the TSQL command MERGE. Using this statement allows a single statement to UPDATE, INSERT, or DELETE a row depending on its condition. The example below demonstrates the MEGRE being used to combine a new list of Inventory Item descriptions into the existing Inventory Master. In addition to new Descriptions, there are some new parts included in the NewInventory table. Without the Merge statement, two commands would need to run. The first would look for a match then upgrade the Description. The second statement would look for non matches and then INSERT. With MERGE, one statement can perform both tasks as shown below.

Microsoft Office 2007
SQL Server 2008 can tightly integrate with Microsoft Office 2007. For example, in SQL Server Reporting Server reports can now export directly to Word. In addition, both Word and Excel can be used as templates for SSRS reports by using the Report Authoring tool. Excel SSAS performance has been improved and there is a data mining add-in.

Conclusion
SQL Server 2008 contains many new features and enhancements, a large numbers of which were not covered in this series. Additional information can be found at the main SQL 2008 Microsoft page: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/default.mspx. Listed below is a concise bulleted list of the SQL Server 2008 features reviewed in this series.

• Transparent Data Encryption. The ability to encrypt an entire database.

• Backup Encryption. Executed at backup time to prevent tampering.

• External Key Management. Storing Keys separate from the data.

• Auditing. Monitoring of data access.

• Data Compression. Fact Table size reduction and improved performance.

• Resource Governor. Restrict users or groups from consuming high levels or resources.

• Hot Plug CPU. Add CPUs on the fly.

• Performance Studio. Collection of performance monitoring tools.

• Installation improvements. Disk images and service pack uninstall options.

• Dynamic Development. New ADO and Visual Studio options as well as Dot Net 3.

• Entity Data Services. Line Of Business (LOB) framework and Entity Query Language (eSQL)

• LINQ. Development query language for access multiple types of data such as SQL and XML.

• Data Synchronizing. Development of frequently disconnected applications.

• Large UDT. No size restriction on UDT.

• Dates and Times. New data types: Date, Time, Date Time Offset.

• File Stream. New data type VarBinary(Max) FileStream for managing binary data.

• Table Value Parameters. The ability to pass an entire table to a stored procedure.

• Spatial Data. Data type for storing Latitude, Longitude, and GPS entries.

• Full Text Search. Native Indexes, thesaurus as metadata, and backup ability.

• Reporting Server. Improved memory management.

• SQL Server Integration Service. Improved multiprocessor support and faster lookups.

• MERGE. TSQL command combining Insert, Update, and Delete.

• SQL Server Analysis Server. Stack improvements, faster block computations.

• SQL Server Reporting Server. Improved memory management and better rendering.

• Microsoft Office 2007. Use OFFICE as an SSRS template. SSRS to WORD.

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1

ASP.NET Data Scaffolding Support (ASP.NET Dynamic Data)

.NET 3.5 SP1 adds support for a rich ASP.NET data "scaffolding" framework that enables you to quickly build functional data-driven web application. With the ASP.NET Dynamic Data feature you can automatically build web UI (with full CRUD - create, read, update, delete - support) against a variety of data object models (including LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities, REST Services, and any other ORM or object model with a dynamic data provider).

SP1 adds this new functionality to the existing GridView, ListView, DetailsView and FormView controls in ASP.NET, and enables smart validation and flexible data templating options.  It also delivers new smart filtering server controls, as well as adds support for automatically traversing primary-key/foreign-key relationships and displaying friendly foreign key names - all of which saves you from having to write a ton of code.

You can learn more more about this feature from Scott Hanselman's videos and tutorials here.

ASP.NET Routing Engine (System.Web.Routing)

.NET 3.5 SP1 includes a flexible new URL routing engine that allows you to map incoming URLs to route handlers.  It includes support for both parsing parameters from clean URLs (for example: /Products/Browse/Beverages), as well as support to dynamically calculate and generate new URLs from route registrations.

This new routing engine is used by both ASP.NET Dynamic Data as well as the new ASP.NET MVC framework.  It will support both WebForms and MVC based requests. 

ASP.NET AJAX Back/Forward Button History Support

.NET 3.5 SP1 adds new APIs to ASP.NET AJAX to allow you to better control the history list of a browser (enabling you to control the behavior of the back/forward button of the browser).

You can learn more about this feature in the article here and the screencast here.

ASP.NET AJAX Script Combining Support

.NET 3.5 SP1 introduces a new element on the server control, which allows you to declaratively define multiple script references within it.  All the script references within the CompositeScript element are combined together on the server and served as a single script to the client, reducing the number of requests to the server and improving page load time for ASP.NET AJAX applications.

The script combining feature supports both path based scripts and assembly resource based scripts, and dynamically serves up the combined scripts using the ScriptResources.axd handler.