Julian's Blogtech

One of the issues that has been close to the fore in hosting pretty consistently over the last few months is the movement among hosting companies in general toward offering more cloud-based services, and the evolution of those offerings.

This week saw several announcements related to several of the larger dedicated hosts working on cloud-based offerings, and one of the largest players in the cloud business developing its offering further.

Microsoft said Thursday it would issue an RC (release candidate) for IE8 (Internet Explorer 8) in the first three months of 2009, indicating it will ship its newest browser sometime in the first half of the year.

"We will release one more public update of IE8 in the first quarter of 2009, and then follow that up with the final release," Dean Hachamovitch, the general manager overseeing IE8, said in an entry to a company blog.

Silverlight 2 brings better implementation and more features to HD video and interactive animations via the browser plugin. The Silverlight 2 WOW! factor is that it brings the .NET runtime to the browser without the need for the .NET framework. This means developers who are familiar with any of the .NET Languages (languages like VB, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby) can leverage their knowledge to create rich interactive applications that run in a web browser.

Silverlight 2 is small in size (4.6MB) and only takes seconds to install on a machine that doesn't already have the runtime installed.

We are using software applications more than ever before. As the demand for new capabilities and functions grows, companies strive to provide an adequate response to business needs. The rate of application evolution places an ever-larger burden on the shoulders of software producers, vendors, and even consumers.

In addition, much of the costly software used by organizations was not designed to respond to a rapidly changing marketplace or highly dispersed workforce, requiring its substitution or modernization.

Marking the two-year anniversary of their controversial interoperability agreement, Microsoft and Novell this week are announcing upcoming availability of both the beta version of Moonlight, which puts Microsoft's Silverlight rich Internet application technology on Linux, and the general release of Advanced Management Pack for Suse Linux Enterprise for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2.

Microsoft today previewed the ability to centrally manage applications and resources in the planned upgrade of SQL Server, code-named "Kilimanjaro."

The company introduced the centralized app and system management capability at the annual Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Conference, being held this week in Seattle. Though PASS is an independent user association, Microsoft typically has a strong presence at its annual conferences because of the large number of SQL Server customers and partners that attend.

NASA announced today that it has completed its first successful test of a communications network in space that’s modeled on the internet.

The space agency could use the network to improve control over remote spacecraft and communication with manned missions. But the science fiction nerd in me can’t help dreaming about an actual deep space internet, connecting folks on Earth with those in space, on the moon and elsewhere.

Following in the footsteps of other publishers, Ziff Davis said today it will drop the print edition of its popular PCMag and will focus on its online property PCMag.com.

Ziff Davis says the final print issue of PCMag will be published in January 2009. The PCMag Digital Network attracts more than seven million unique monthly visitors, which is ten times the circulation of the print publication.

The New Xbox Experience, a.k.a. the new Xbox 360 Dashboard, hits tomorrow. If you've got an Xbox 360 that's connected to the internet, you're going to be prompted to update your console as soon as you turn it on. No exceptions; this is what your machine will look like until either it dies, you die, or Microsoft decides to make ANOTHER Xbox Experience. Unfortunately, unlike Batman, you didn't have time to prepare. Here are the ten things you should know about the new Xbox experience so you can be set for tomorrow.

There are many useful Web development tools that integrate in your browser. These in-browser tools are commonly known as add-ons or extensions. Though add-ons and extensions aren’t just for Web development, many of them out there are designed specifically for Web developers. In-browser tools vary greatly in the jobs they perform; for example, some of them help you diagnose issues with CSS, HTML and JavaScript, while others evaluate the accessibility of your website.

In this article, we explore some of the most popular and useful in-browser Web development tools. You’ll find tools for popular Web browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Often, patients have a difficult time envisioning the complicated medical procedures doctors are trying to explain. A large Texas health care provider is hoping that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s tabletop touch-screen Surface computers can help patients better understand their doctors.

Texas Health Resources, which operates 13 hospitals in the Dallas/Fort Worth region, is working with Microsoft to build health-care applications for Microsoft's multiuser, multitouch Surface computers. Among the first Surface applications being co-developed by THR and Microsoft is a patient-doctor relationship tool that's being demonstrated this week in San Diego as a "proof of concept" during a Gartner health care summit.

Less than a year after sending out Beta 1, Microsoft released the final version of Silverlight 2 in October. According to Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of Microsoft's .NET Developer Division, the final release of Silverlight 2 has been downloaded and installed on more than 100 million consumer machines in the past four weeks. What's next you ask? Silverlight 3 of course. Guthrie's latest blog post underlines how Silverlight 2 is being implemented by various companies across the web, but more interestingly, it also sheds some light on what's planned for the next release:

PHP programming has climbed rapidly since its humble beginnings in 1995. Since then, PHP has become the most popular programming language for Web applications. Many popular websites are powered by PHP, and an overwhelming majority of scripts and Web projects are built with the popular language.

Because of PHP’s huge popularity, it has become almost impossible for Web developers not to have at least a working knowledge of PHP. This tutorial is aimed at people who are just past the beginning stages of learning PHP and are ready to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty with the language.

Minimalism, in the context of design, refers to simple, unadorned designs that embody only the most basic and fundamental needs. In art, it is a movement that has its roots in the post-World War II era, started by highly regarded minimalist artists such as Donald Judd, Carl Andre, and Robert Morris. Minimalism today refers to a certain style (or even a certain attitude or way of life) that transcends different fields, such as architecture, philosophy, law and, of course, Web design.

Microsoft's Stephen Elop will be joined by customers and partners to unveil Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint Online at an event in San Francisco today. These suites are SAAS versions of Microsoft's classic messaging and collaboration suites designed to compete with Google Apps and other cloud computing products. The enterprise applications will enable corporate workers to work together without downloading apps to their desktops and computers or cluttering corporate servers.

Microsoft has sealed a virtualisation deal with Hewlett-Packard that will see the computer maker deploy systems loaded with Hyper-V.

Under the agreement, Microsoft has buddied up with HP to sell and market storage, server, networking tech and desktop virtualisation products to the all-important target market: SMEs.

Small and mid-sized companies have seen many tech giants come and go through the revolving door with their range of V goodies. Microsoft has perhaps been making the loudest noises in that area of late.

BABOO, a leading technology Web site in Brazil, wanted to improve the performance of its discussion forum. Service for the PHP application running on Windows Server 2003 was often interrupted when site traffic increased to 9,000 concurrent users. For better stability and performance, BABOO migrated the forum to Windows Server 2008 with Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0. Now the Web site can easily handle more than 22,000 concurrent users. User registration and advertising profits have also increased. BABOO is adding new features to attract even more users, and it plans to consolidate all of its Web applications on the new server. The company has increased flexibility because it can successfully run both PHP and Microsoft ASP.NET applications on Windows Server 2008.

Amid the souring economy, Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) Thursday opened its first online store in the U.S., selling all of its products at a one-stop-shop.

Customers will be able to buy and download products via Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) and can also get direct shipments.

With the launch, U.S. customers can buy first-party software and hardware directly from the company via an online catalog. Products include software, devices and hardware, such as Office 2007, Vista, Visual 2008, Windows Server 2008, Xbox 360 consoles and accessories and the new Zune.

DevExpress has released a collection of free ASP.NET controls that you can use “without royalties or distribution costs". The applications you create with these controls can be distributed royalty free and all the controls are are fully supported by both Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008.

Microsoft is beefing up its Windows Live suite of online applications by adding new communications and social networking tools, and by engineering deeper integration between the suite's various apps and across third-party sites like Twitter and Flickr.

"We're now at the point where we can go beyond siloed communication tools that don't work together -- and start to integrate the best of them," said Windows Live general manger Brian Hall, in a blog post Wednesday.