Technology News of Note

64-bit Windows safer, claims Microsoft - 11/18/2009
Whettstone uses 64-bit Windows technology
Age of cyber warfare is 'dawning' - 11/18/2009
Cyber war has moved from fiction to fact, says a report. Link posted -- Whettstone.com
NASA finds reservoir of water ice on the Moon! - 11/13/2009
The idea is that over millions of years, comet impacts and other events have brought water to the Moon. Most of it goes away over time, but if any water happens to accumulate at the bottoms of craters at the poles, where the Sun never shines, it can stay put, frozen forever in shadow.
Microsoft to offer second beta for Visual Studio 2010 - 10/28/2009
Whettstone will use Visual Studio 2010. The official launch date is March 22, 2010.
Clean Web.Config for .NET 4.0 - 8/26/2009
.NET 4 includes a new version of the CLR, and a new .NET 4 specific machine.config file (which is installed side-by-side with the one used by .NET 2, 3 and 3.5). The new .NET 4 machine.config file now automatically registers all of the ASP.NET tag sections, handlers and modules that we’ve added over the years, including the functionality for ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, ASP.NET Routing, ASP.NET Chart Control What this means is that when you create a new “Empty ASP.NET application” project in VS 2010, you’ll find that the new default application-level web.config file is now clean and simple.
Developers get their hands on Windows 7 - 8/12/2009
Microsoft has released the finalised, release-to-manufacturing version of Windows 7 to software developers ahead of the operating system's public launch in October. Whettstone plans to use Windows 7 as its development operating system.
ASP.NET MVC Version 2 Preview released - 8/5/2009
This preview includes: Templated Helpers - allow you to automatically associate edit and display elements with data types. For example, a date picker UI element can be automatically rendered every time data of type System.DateTime is used. Areas - provide a means of dividing a large web application into multiple projects, each of which can be developed in relative isolation. This helps developers manage the complexity of building a large application by providing a way to group related controllers and views. Support for Data Annotations - Data Annotations enable attaching validation logic in a central location via metadata attributes applied directly to a model class.
WhettStone is now offering Merchant Accounts through Authorize.Net - 7/29/2009
To add e-commerce (shopping cart) or credit card processing solution to your website, contact your WhettStone representative at 402.391.1713 or email info@whettstone.com.
Windows 7 Offers Faster Graphics - 7/29/2009
Windows 7 will offer significantly improved graphics performance over its predecessors due new abilities to more efficiently delegate work to 3D graphics cards.
Flash Cookies - 7/24/2009
A new style of tracking is on the rise across the internet. These "Flash Cookies" are similar to a normal cookie, which most people now know how disable or delete. When it comes to Flash Cookies, users have little knowledge so anybody from YouTube to advertisers are starting to use them to track you. Be aware of who is watching.
Silverlight 3 Released - 7/15/2009
Microsoft has taken the beta off and released a new version of Silverlight. Mark Quirk, web product manager for Microsoft, said that the main benefit of developing in Silverlight is speed to market, thanks to an easy and efficient workflow. He says a developer working in Visual Studio and a designer working in Expression are using exactly the same file formats, which can really speed development time up.
The End is Near!!! - 7/14/2009
YouTube is phasing out IE 6.0. This ancient, very flawed browser is finally going to the way side. Whettstone began phasing the browser out nearly 1 year ago. Just another reminder to always upgrade your browswer.
Silverlight 3 Ready to Go? - 7/8/2009
Microsoft officials announced they plan to launch Silverlight 3 and Expression Studio 3 ahead of schedule, July 10. "Silverlight 3 allows developers to focus on the business logic layer...and not all the little pieces," says Tony Lombardo, Microsoft MVP and Infragistics' lead evangelist. "You don't have to write as much code."
Windows 7 Release Date - 7/1/2009
According to Wikipedia, Windows 7 has a planned release date of 22nd of October 2009. We are very excited about this release and the programming modifications Windows 7 will deliver.
FireFox 3.5 Released - 7/1/2009
Time to upgrade your browser again. Upgrade to FF 3.5
Google Chrome Browser Losing Steam - 1/30/2009
Google released a new browser to the mix in 2008, it's uptake has been slow. Not surprising as the world already has several good browsers...
AboutScrum.com Launched - 12/30/2008
A new website with videos, articles and other resources related to Scrum software development has launched. Scrum is an iterative incremental process of software development.
Internet Explorer Out of Band Security Update - 12/17/2008
An urgent security update was released on December 17th. The update concerns a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Everyone should run a Windows update.
Silverlight 2 - 11/21/2008
Silverlight 2 has been installed on more than 100 million consumer machines. Over 1 in 4 computers on the Internet now have some version of Silverlight installed. The NBC Olympics site used Silverlight 2 for video coverage. Next year SL3 will ship. Visual Studio will support a designer and a tool for binding.
Brain Computer Interface - 11/3/2008
Researchers have been working on interfacing the brain directly to your computer. Very interesting stuff, it will be curious to see where this technology will be in 5 years.
Silverlight Netflix - 11/3/2008
Netflix is using Silverlight Technology to enable its Mac users to watch movies via their browser. This will help expand the install base of Silverlight increasing its coverage.
Windows 7 - 11/3/2008
Windows 7 beta was shown at the PDC, sound like it will have some nice features.
Stay Ahead of the Curve - 10/23/2008
Microsoft will be releasing an out of band update today. It covers all versions of windows. They recommend doing the update ASAP.
IE October Security Update Now Available - 10/17/2008
Keep your IE Browsers updated!!! This will help with new features as the Internet changes very rapidly, and keep you safe from possible harmful flaws.
Silverlight 2.0 Released - 10/17/2008
Microsoft just released version 2.0 of Silver Light. This is Microsoft's competitor of Adobe Flash, this is good for Whettstone customers as we will expand our website development technologies to include Silver Light. We will begin Hosting Silver Light Websites soon.
Welcome to Whettstone Tech News - 10/17/2008
We will be keeping our customers and whoever else wants to read, informed on news relating to software, the internet, and general technology topics. Stay tuned...