Continue reading »]]> UPDATE: The public version of the Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 can be found here.

Today sees the waiting over for many people, myself included, for the release of Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2010.

According to Mike Ormond the beta will be available to MSDN Subscribers today, with a public download following hot on its heels on Wednesday.

Apparently, the beta will run fine on Windows 7 RC1.

If you are an MSDN Subscriber, visit MSDN subscriber downloads here.

Technorati Tags: beta, Microsoft, MSDN, visual studio 2010, vs2010

Continue reading »]]> So, I have my Windows 7 RC up and running and I am now itching to get hold of a beta of Visual Studio 2010.

I held off downloading the Virtual PC CTP ion order to wait for an installable version, but that seems to have been a long time coming.

The wait may be over this week though as a lot of rumours are going around that put the release of a beta within the TechEd timeframe (May 11 – May 15).

Fingers Crossed!

Have you tried the CTP yet? What did you think?

Technorati Tags: beta, visual studio 2010

Continue reading »]]> UPDATE: MARCH 19TH 2009 -  The final version of Internet Explorer 8 should be available today from 4pm GMT from the IE8 web site.  It is expected that this will be announced at the second keynote at MIX this afternoon.

UPDATE: Internet Explorer 8 RC 1 is now  available for download.  This is the version you should be installing as it is feature complete, more secure with increased reliability . You can get Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 from the IE8 web site.

Usually, I am always pretty keen to start using beta software when it becomes available, and I suppose that this is why I currently have the Firefox 3 beta (which I am writing this from at the moment), Expression Web 2 Beta and the subject of this post, the Internet Explorer 8 beta.

With previous IE betas I have always tried to put up with any small issues with the software until final release, because the gains have always out-weighed the problems (for me at least), for example, the tabbed browsing in IE 7. This time though, I am having to throw in the towel with the Internet Explorer 8 beta, at least for now. Since I installed a few days ago, the small but annoying problems started to surface. They started with two tabs opening when you only requested one. Ok, so you have to close an extra tab, I can deal with that.

But, unfortunantely, since then it has only gotten worse. I am now experiencing an increasing number of JavaScript errors on numerous different sites and the full app is crashing at least once every 10-15 minutes (I am using Firefox 3 now, because IE 8 crashed 5 times in as many minutes!).

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know this is beta software and I have no problem with the fact that it has issues, of course it has issues. But I cannot help thinking that Microsoft have simply rushed this release of Internet Explorer to keep up with the ever-present threat of Firefox?

Anyway, maybe it is just my laptop config, maybe it is in fact just me. As I don’t know anybody else using it at the moment, I haven’t had any other comments yet.

Have you tried the Internet Explorer 8 Beta? If you have, leave a comment and lets get a list together (positive and negative) of user experiences.

Technorati Tags: beta, ie8, internet explorer 8, microsoft internet explorer