Public beta of 'SharePoint 2010' was announced yesterday....You can preregister for the Beta here

The short named (without 'Office') avatar has entire Features Wheel redefined. WSS is now 'SharePoint Foundation 2010'

for detailed info visit Sharepoint 2010 site (and for the lazy ones here is an overview and if you are not much of a reader watch some videos here.. no excuses)

Not a new news but But if you still do not have x64 hardware you are not yet ready for it.

You might encounter following error if you try to connect to Team Foundation Server 2008 from TFS 2010 Beta 1 even after clearing 'Path' Text Box

TF31001: Cannot connect to Team Foundation Server at <xyz>. The server returned the following error: The ServicePointManager does not support proxies with the https scheme.

Solution:

Run Command Prompt as Administrator and run following commands...

reg add hklm\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\TeamFoundation\RequestSettings /v BypassProxyOnLocal /t REG_SZ /d False
reg add hklm\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TeamFoundationServer\10.0\RequestSettings /v BypassProxyOnLocal /t REG_SZ /d False

Additionally on a 64-bit machine...

reg add hklm\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\TeamFoundationServer\10.0\RequestSettings /v BypassProxyOnLocal /t REG_SZ /d False
reg add hklm\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\TeamFoundation\RequestSettings /v BypassProxyOnLocal /t REG_SZ /d False

This series introduces Windows 7 with an emphasis on those new features that will be of most interest and use to developers. Watch it here

If you haven't already checkout this great tool that comes out-of-the-box with IE8!

Press                     To

F12                         Open Developer Tools Window

CTRL+P                 Pin Developer Tools window to IE window

CTRL+M               Minimize Developer Tools (silently sits at bottom, above status bar)

And try following Feature(some are similar to developer toolbars/addons which have to be installed seperately earlier)

- Find-> Select Element by Click

- Outline

- Color Picker

- Resizer

- JavaScript Profiler

- Browser mode

- Validation

- Dynamic CSS

- Script Debugging

- Search box

more shortcuts...

more details...

TIP1: How many times you have encountered "The terminal server has exceeded the maximum number of allowed connections" error while connecting to a remote desktop?

When even connecting to default session(session 0)# i.e mstsc /console doesn’t help... try this to free some remote sessions:

1. First run as youself from your friends machine

C:\> runas /noprofile /user:mydomain\myusername cmd.exe

Enter your password when propmted

New Command window will open with your credentials

2. Run following command to query Terminal services sessions

C:\> qwinsta /server:myservername

All Sessions will be listed. Look for session in Active state with your username

3. Run following command to reset session (this example resets session #1)

C:\> reset session 1 /server:myservername

4. Try C:\> mstsc myservername now. Should work.

TIP2: Have you ever done RDP to a machine to open yet another RDP session to see that your top yellow bar shows wrong machine name and accidently you clicked on autohide and top yellow bar disappears? How do you go to host now?

Just hit ctrl+alt+break and you should now be able to access your host machine.. nJoy!

NOTE # Starting from Windows XP SP 3, Windows Vista SP 1 and Windows Server 2008  /console option is no longer supported. There is  /admin option though which lets you connect to Session 0 on a remote computer that doesn't have Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3 or Windows Server 2008 or later installed.

Microsoft Announced on 27th Jan, that later sometime this year Microsoft will no longer continue developing the standalone version PerformancePoint Server and has moved the software's scorecard, dashboard and analysis features into SharePoint Server.

Argument is BI is more of a feature than a product and fulfills "BI to the masses" mission of Microsoft.

PerformancePoint was priced at $20,000 per server, plus $195 for each CAL. Microsoft's SharePoint partners are very happy that their chosen product, which is already enjoying massive adoption, has been given even more functionality.

more

T4 (Text Template Transformation Toolkit) is a code generator built right into Visual Studio! This is one of the best Kept Visual Studio Secret

Here is a Scott Hanselman's article explaining this little secret.

The "next generation development tools and platform for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System, and the Web" viz. Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 are available now as CTP for download. Here are some highlights...

Whats new in VS 2010/.NET 4.0?
- Call Hierarchy of methods
- A New Quick Search
- Multi-targeting more accurate
- Parallel Programming and Debugging
- XSLT Profiling and Debugging
- The XSD Designer
Whats new in  ASP.NET?
- Static IDs for ASP.NET Controls
- The Chart control
- Web.config transformation
Whats new in VB.NET?
- Auto Implemented Properties for VB.NET
- Collection Initializers
- Implicit Line Continuations
- Statements in Lambda Expressions
Whats new in C#?
- Dynamic Types
- Optional parameters
- Named and Optional Arguments

This codeguru article explains these in detail.

You can download Visual Studio 2010 NET Framework 4.0 CTP from here