Marius Bancila’s Blog

Axialis released a lite version of its IconWorkshop software, which is a great tool for creating and modifying icons (I’m using the full version and I find it easy to use and very productive). This lite version is available for Visual Studio 2008 users, and installs only if VS 2008 Standard or Professional is installed on the machine. The software is available for download here.

Microsoft released today the first service packs for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5. For the time being they are available to download to MSDN subscribers.

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 contains:

• Improved WPF designers
• SQL Server 2008 support
• ADO.NET Entity Designer
• Visual Basic and Visual C++ components and tools (including an MFC-based Office 2007 style ‘Ribbon’)
• Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server (TFS) addresses customer feedback on version control usability and performance, email integration with work item tracking and full support for hosting on SQL Server 2008
• Richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools, and Web site deployment improvements

The .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 contains:

• Performance increases between 20-45% for WPF-based applications – without having to change any code
• WCF improvements that give developers more control over the way they access data and services
• Streamlined installation experience for client applications
• Improvements in the area of data platform, such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and support for SQL Server 2008’s new features

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is available here and the .NET Framework 3.5 here.