Awhile ago I blogged about Microsoft releasing products protocol documentation which are essential design specifications. That was about 2 months ago and the documents are of beta version.
Today the official version 1 is out that it covers the following products.
Few days ago I blogged about SQL Server 2008 RC0 availability and SQL 2008 Trial Hosting by SQL Server Pro Association. Then yesterday I found out there is also a web site offering free online training from Microsoft here.
Microsoft released the 1st release candidate (RC0) for SQL Server 2008 few days ago. This could means the rumoured date of a Q3 2008 released is possible.
Go here to download the bits. Note they even got a new logo for their server products (pic above)
On the mean time, I also realize that Professional Associaition For SQL Server (SQLPass.org) is offering trial SQL 2008 accounts here on top of some learning resources.
DinnerNow is a cool sample application that is complex and huge enough to showcase all the latest Microsoft Windows Application Platform technologies. It is also a good example on how to put Software plus Service vision to work here. You can download the latest v2.5 version from Codeplex website.
Not I want to do selling here but the technologies includes
Because of IIS 7.0, you will need to install DinnerNow on top of Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008. However since trying this for the past few months, I got no luck of getting it running. There has been quite a few posts on the Codeplex forum with people complaining the same time.
Then checking back all the event logs in the OS, I realize there are a lot of authentication error in the IIS log. This leads me to a creation the self signed SSL cert causes this problem. This is because when you setup the WCF service website of DinnerNow it will installs its own SSL cert as well. So for a change I created a clean Win Server 2008 VPC and during the IIS installation process, I refused to create or install any SSL cert. Just select Choose a certificate for SSL encryption later in the Choose a certificate for SSL encryption screen (as pic below)
Well, do check out whether this work for you or not which I believe there are other environment issues which might pops up for larger application like DinnerNow.
P/S: So to get DinnerNow working on my VPC, I installed the following software
Check out the slides about ADO.NET Tips and Tricks