Microsoft officially releases Visual Studio 2013...

Microsoft officially releases Visual Studio 2013

 

Personally still haven't installed it myself but planning soon. Here are few highlights as read on MSDN forums and blogs on the new VS 2013 released:

•	New MVC 5 web application template and SharePointContext for SharePoint apps - MVC web application template for app for SharePoint has been introduced since Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 Preview. In this Visual Studio 2013 RTM release, the MVC web application template in app for SharePoint has been updated based on the latest one for MVC 5.   SharePointContext is a set of classes (in SharePointContext.cs/SharePointContext.vb) that provides a set of APIs to relieve you from the tedious steps of dealing with communication between SharePoint and web application. Need to decide whether your app be authenticated with Windows Azure Control Services or a certificate (high-trust)? SharePointContext makes it possible for you to use the same snippet of code no matter which way you go. Need efficient but safe strategy to cache the access tokens? APIs in SharePointContext provide a good pattern and the default implementation for you. Which APIs can you use for hosting web and which ones for app web? API naming convention carefully designed in SharePointContext gives you an explicit view what you can use in which case. You can also easily extend the SharePointContext helper by subclassing to provide more advanced features to fulfill your scenarios. Apart from the Visual Studio 2013 in-box release, the new SharePointContext helper is also included in App for SharePoint Web Toolkit - NuGet package, which means you can install the package and leverage the helper APIs in any VS 2013 or VS 2012 project that you want to communicate with SharePoint. For the app for SharePoint projects that you’ve created with VS 2013 Preview, you can simply upgrade the SharePointContext helper to the latest by updating the App for SharePoint Web Toolkit NuGet package (which is installed in the web project when you created the app for SharePoint).
•	Support for Windows 8.1 app development: Visual Studio 2013 provides the ideal toolset for building modern applications that leverage the next wave in Windows platform innovation (Windows 8.1), while supporting devices and services across all Microsoft platforms. Support for Windows Store app development in Windows 8.1 includes updates to the tools, controls and templates, new Coded UI test support for XAML apps, UI Responsiveness Analyzer and Energy Consumption profiler for XAML & HTML apps, enhanced memory profiling tools for HTML apps, and improved integration with the Windows Store.
•	Web development advances: Creating websites or services on the Microsoft platform provides you with many options, including ASP.NET WebForms, ASP.NET MVC, WCF or Web API services, and more. Previously, working with each of these approaches meant working with separate project types and tooling isolated to that project’s capabilities. The One ASP.NET vision unifies your web project experience in Visual Studio 2013 so that you can create ASP.NET web applications using your preference of ASP.NET component frameworks in a single project. Now you can mix and match the right tools for the job within your web projects, giving you increased flexibility and productivity.

You can download Visual Studio 2013 here - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=306566 

More here...  http://startupnext.blogspot.com/2013/10/microsoft-officially-releases-visual.html

 

 

-D

Microsoft SQL Server CTP2 announced...

Microsoft SQL Server CTP2 announced...

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 brings to market new in-memory capabilities built into the core database and provides new cloud capabilities to simplify cloud adoption for your SQL databases and help you unlock new hybrid scenarios.

 

Key SQL 2014 Architecture features and improvements:

 

1.) Provides new disaster recovery and backup solutions with Windows Azure, enabling customers to use their existing skills with the on-premises product offerings to take advantage of Microsoft’s global datacenters.

2.) Code named "Hekaton" is now known simply "In-Memory" Online Transaction Processing (OLTP). In-Memory OLTP will let administrators move selected tables into main memory, thereby delivering performance improvements without having to touch the actual applications.

3.) Support for additional index types.

4.) Natively compiled stored procedures for efficient execution of business logic.

5.) New tools to help administrators access database performance so that they can determine which tables would most benefit from in-memory optimization.

 

Download Microsoft SQL Server 2014 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/sql-server-2014.aspx

 

Here's more to In memory architecture overview of SQL server 2014 -

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2013/07/22/architectural-overview-of-sql-server-2014-s-in-memory-oltp-technology.aspx

 

Tech net blog on how to get started with SQL 2014 -

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2013/06/26/getting-started-with-sql-server-2014-in-memory-oltp.aspx

 

Hardware Considerations for SQL Server 2014 (Microsoft does claim backward compatibility -if you can run your applications on SQL 2012, you can run on SQL 2014)-

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2013/08/01/hardware-considerations-for-in-memory-oltp-in-sql-server-2014.aspx 

 

Final release expected to be announced sometime later half of CY 2014, but will learn more from developer community as we play around this!

 

Pass Summit 2013 is going on now... stay tuned for more innovation!!!

 

Cheers - Dipesh

Microsoft Server 2014 CTP1 features and download available now...

Server 2014 CTP1 available now

 

• SQL Server 2014 takes an integrated approach to in-memory database technology. In-Memory OLTP, which optimizes performance of OLTP workloads, is fully integrated in the core SQL Server relational data
• SQL Server 2014 introduces enhancements to two common database maintenance operations namely Partition Switching and Online Index Rebuild which greatly increases enterprise application availability

 

• Extending Memory to SSDs:  Seamlessly and transparently integrates solid-state storage into SQL Server by using SSDs as an extension to the database buffer pool, allowing more in-memory processing and reducing disk IO.
• Buffer pool memory, which plays key role in storing data pages and in turn reducing the I/O demand
• Easy Cloud migration - New cloud migration wizard to easily move on premises SQL Server to Windows Azure
• Easy Integration with Excel - "GeoFlow" - richer insights with 3D Visualization , faster insights and predictive analytics with data mining add ins in Excel

 

Download Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Community Technology Preview 1 -

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dn205290.aspx

 

Reference: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/default.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2013/07/25/buffer-pool-extension-to-ssds-in-sql-server-2014.aspx

Looking forward to get hands on too....

 

How to upgrade Office 2013 on Surface RT to the final version?

How to upgrade Office 2013 on Surface RT to the final version?

The Microsoft Surface running Windows RT includes Office 2013 Home and Student Version which runs on the tablet's desktop. Out of the box it comes with the Review version of Office, but you can upgrade to the final version which is currently available, here's how.
 

http://www.groovypost.com/howto/upgrade-office-2013-microsoft-surface-windows-rt/ 

 

Cheers - Dipesh