....and commence downloading. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/11/19/visual-studio-2008-and-net-3-5-released.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2007/11/19/visual-studio-2008-and-net-framework-3-5-shipped.aspx  

I've been using this plugin now for the past few months. You would not believe the difference it makes. This plugin puts a little search box right into Visual Studio to make it easy to find work items.  It is an addin for Team Foundation Client (Team Explorer) and is accessible from the Team menu when you're connected to a Team Foundation Server and is also avalible from a VS Toolbar.  You just type in some search text and it runs a work item query for you showing you results across the work item store. Source: Codeplex project "Search Work Items"

Check out this useful macro for visual studio 2005 dependent (nested) items. Useful for breaking up large classes into partials when refactoring doesn't make sense. I found it useful when you want, for example one integration test class per implementation class and the test class is getting a bit large. Source: http://www.delarou.net/weblog/PermaLink,guid,a81a2d9d-02de-4fe1-ad8d-ee2fee97cf20.aspx Visual Studio .NET Macro for nesting project itemsThis macro enables you to nest project items inside Visual Studio .NET. Until now, there is no easy way to nest project items through the Visual Studio IDE, you can only do it by manipulating the project (.csproj...

During a recent project we found a recurring problem where the test view of the unit (& integration) test projects would not load and we could not run tests. This was typically seen by the Test View load progress bar sitting at around 99%. This just adds to the list of "features" of VSTS Unit Test that make life oh so irritatingIt is due to the corruption of the *.vsmdi files in the visual studio solution which is caused by auto-merging the content of the file or having the test view property window open when getting the latest version. The...

Lately I decided to see how easy was to create AJAX custom controls specifically using the included javascript libraries. I thought it might be useful to try to use the included javascript libraries to enable client side access to the selected value from a custom control. The example I will use is a date time picker which uses the calendar extender from the ajax control toolkit for the date and a simple drop down for the time. Much like outlook, the date is pickable from a textbox and the time in a list of 15 minute intervals. The goal is to...

The Microsoft Patterns and Practices team have just released Enterprise Library 3.0 - April 2007. This is the full RTM version of EntLib with some really neat new features: Validation Application Block. Allows you to centrally define validation rules using configuration or attributes, and easily validate data from anywhere in your application, including deep integration with Windows Forms, ASP.NET and WCF. Policy Injection Application Block. Provides a powerful approach for separating cross-cutting concerns from business logic using declarative policies that are attached at runtime to methods on your objects. Application Block Software Factory. Dramatically simplifies the process of building application blocks and...

Microsoft have finally listened to all the developers (who are also designers) rightfully throwing our toys out of our prams and included Expression Web Designer and possibly some other Expression badged products in the MSDN subscription downloads. "...we received a lot of questions about why we did not include some of these products, particularly Expression Web, within customers? MSDN subscriptions.........Based on this feedback, I am pleased to say that we will be making Expression Web available starting today to all MSDN Premium subscribers" This is really good news. The presumption that developers never need to use the latest CSS and HTML tools as they...