Microsoft released a beta of .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 releases. While devoted in great part to bug fixes, they also include new features, some that have been eagerly awaited. Versions of ADO.NET Entity Framework and the ADO.NET Data Services framework (Astoria) are included. Read more »

Little noted but of major interest: At last months Microsoft MVP Global Summit, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie spoke about how he approaches his role as leader software technology steward at Microsoft. The session provided an inside view of how this famed technologist operates. Read more »

How much foresight must engineers have? At what point do threats become absurdly remote? The questions arise, as I look at an item that recently crossed my desk. It provides a view into a future in which application security will endlessly enter uncharted regions. It has to do with hacking pacemakers via radio.

“Pacemakers and Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators: Software Radio Attacks and Zero-Power Defenses” describes a study that University of Washington and University of Massachusetts researchers undertook to measure the security and privacy properties of implantable defibrillators that support radio-based reprogramming. Read more on SearchSoftwareQuality.com.

Read Application threats seen to radio programmable pacemakers.

Dino Chiesa, who previously wrote about how not to write a REST app, finally spills his guts on how to go about doing so. The basic metaphor in WCF is that services receive and respond to incoming communication, and clients initiate those communications. The REST service is an application that receives and understands HTTP GET Requests according to the REST pattern. He notes that although these can be built using any text editor, Visual Studio makes it a lot easier to code, test, and debug. He also talks about how LINQ complements REST approaches.

http://blogs.msdn.com/dotnetinterop/archive/2008/03/20/how-to-build-a-rest-app-in-net-with-wcf.aspx

NOTABLE THIS WEEK - There is little question that tools these days are subject to rolling releases. Noris there much question that bosses still look for reasons to put off new migrations. Developers want to get their hands on the newest stuff so they are ready when the tools and runtimes are truly released. Managers are not always wrong in waiting until the software is more fully baked.

Well, Visual Studio 2008 went to its final debutante ball last week. The event was held in Los Angeles, and it was entitled ‘’Heroes Happen Here.'’ As Microsoft hoped, VS 2008 was rolled out along with Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 (which, admittedly, is still something of a ‘player to be named later,’ as all of its parts did not get into the box on time for the Heroes launch.)

‘’With the launch of Visual Studio 2008,'’  CEO Steve Ballmer told the Heroes crowd, ‘’you’ll see performance again ramp up dramatically as we improve compiler speeds and developer productivity really quite dramatically. Start times, load times, compile times are all quite dramatically improved with this launch of Visual Studio 2008.'’

After a long journey the tool once code-named Orca is out as Visual Studio 2008. For some of us, the move from code name to product name is anti-climactic. For many more of us, the real game is just about to begin.

To get a gauge of where things are headed, correspondent Coleen Frye spoke to Visual Studio 2008 users, and her work is on display on SearchWinDevelopment.com. In ‘’A view on VS 2008, ‘’ a development manager at a cutting-edge Internet agency tells Frye that improvements to Team Foundation Server are among the keys that led the firm to take the VS2008 plunge. So, Ballmer’s boast of load and compile time improvements may be sound.

SearchWinDevelopment.com has been following Orca elements for a while. A clear area of interest has been LINQ, which spans both VB and C#. Check out the LINQ Learning Guide to get up to speed on this new way of working with data programmatically.

A slew of Visual Studio 2008 tips and tutorials is available as well in the site’s Visual Studio 2008 Learning Guide.