Soma just blogged about VS 2008 Performance Improvements.  There is some good info in his post.  One of the things he mentioned was:

"For example, with the new LINQ facility we set a goal that LINQ performance be significantly better than using a SqlDataAdaptor for the same query and competitive with using a SqlDataReader, the lightest weight interface available for retrieving data from SQL Server.  In our testing, LINQ does in fact out-perform SqlDataAdaptor on almost every test case we tried, and in many of the exceptions, it is no more than 10% slower than using a SqlDataReader to accomplish the same task.  Given the power of LINQ, we feel this is a very reasonable trade-off."

For those of you not familiar with Virtual Labs, they are a great way to try out technology without having to install a bunch of stuff or download a VPC.  As Robert likes to say, "Virtual Labs = Free Training:)."  I just came across these Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) 2008 labs.  Haven't tried em myself, but they are on my TODO list!

http://dotnet.org.za/zlatan/archive/2007/08/31/latest-visual-studio-2008-vsto-virtual-labs.aspx

UPDATE: I just went through these labs.  To give you a little history, I am guilty of being one of those "Office Development, that's not for real programmers" snobs in a former life.  The last time I actually did any work with VSTO was with the very first version.  I gave up on VSTO because I just wasn't convinced.  As an evangelist, you really have to believe in the technology you "evangelize" otherwise people see right through you.  Since the first time I saw VSTO 2008 with Office 2007 presented (by Reza Chitsaz) I thought to myself "Wow, I think this VSTO thing is finally coming together."  I'm a little wacky when it comes to technology.  I get really excited by it.  I even called my manager David that day and explained to him that I finally "got" Office Dev and that I would actually consider doing it if I were still doing "real work."  I always joke that evangelism isn't real work because I don't actually build real applications for a living anymore.  Since my epiphany, I have seen Joel do quite a few VSTO 2008 / Office 2007 presentations.  I have continued to "believe."  However, I had never actually given VSTO 2008 a test drive.  Well, I am glad I did.  I'm about to say something I thought I would NEVER say.  Office Dev is pretty cool!  There, I said it. 

If you still don't "believe" in Office Dev, then I'm not going to change your mind with words.  Hopefully, I have made you curious enough to at least give it a test drive yourself.  Does Office Dev eliminate the need to build web or standalone desktop apps?  Heck no, but now that I "get it" and now that VSTO 2008 / Office 2007 give you the features that make it worthwhile, there are so many scenarios for which I would consider solving with a VSTO 2008 solution. 

The last lab (part 4) is all about building SharePoint workflows with VSTO 2008.  Now, I have never built a workflow for SharePoint using Visual Studio 2005, but I've seen Robert do it.  It's quite a bit of work .  There are like 15 or so laborious steps.  I think people who have built workflows for SharePoint using Visual Studio 2005 will be pleasantly surprised with how easy it is in Visual Studio 2008.  It's as simple as:

1. Create workflow project

2. Design/Code the workflow

3. Press F5 to debug.

Anyway, VSTO rant over.

My fellow Public Sector Developer Evangelist Robert has been hard at work building some workshops for developers who want to build custom workflows for SharePoint.  I haven't had a chance to go through these yet, but I plan on it. 

Free Workshop: SharePoint Document Workflow for Developers - Part 1

Free SharePoint Document Workflow Workshop - Part 2 (ASP.NET Workflow Forms)

Free SharePoint Document Workflow Workshop - Part 3 (ASP.NET Workflow Forms continued)

Free SharePoint Document Workflow Workshop - Part 4 on Workflow Tasks

Recently, at the National Association of Government Webmasters conference, a few people tried to download my presentations, but could not open them.  As you might guess, I use Office 2007.  All of my recent presentations have been saved in the new file format.  If you are a PC/Office user, then you can download and install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats.  This will update your Office applications to Open/Save in the new Office 2007 file formats.  If you are a Mac user, then have a look at the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter.  If you are using OpenOffice, then have a look at the OpenOffice OpenXML Translator.  If you are in a position where you cannot install software on your work computer, then please contact me directly and I will send you a copy in the old format.  Why not just upload both formats to my SkyDrive?  I'm a bit of a "slide tweaker."  I rarely go two presentations without changing something.  Keeping my blog, Windows Live Space, and SkyDrive up to date is quite time consuming as it is.  Having to maintain all of my presentations twice would be less than ideal.

September 26th 2:00P-3:30P EST (11:00A-12:30P PST)

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) were released in 2006 as part of the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 with separate extensions for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. These tools were improved on and are now integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and enhanced in the .NET Framework 3.5.  This session demonstrates the top ten new features in Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 for WF and WCF. This includes tools that cover both technologies for building workflow-enabled services. This is a demo session, so do not expect many slides.

A basic understanding of WCF (http://msdn.microsoft.com/wcf) & WF (http://msdn.microsoft.com/wf) is a prerequisite for this webcast.

Register at this link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032349827&Culture=en-US

I'm here to present sessions on Silverlight & Virtual Earth.  I just sat through an EXCELLENT session on accessibility:

"Section 508 / W3C Standards - Zoe Gillenwater

Starting with a general overview of the W3C/ Section508 standards and guidelines, this session will tell you why these standards are important and how you can use semantic coding and CSS to implement them."

I learned quite a bit from Zoe.

Are you a Government webmaster?  Do you know about this organization?  If not, you should check them out at http://www.nagw.org.  After the accessibility session, I sat in on their lunchtime associating meeting.  At the end of the meeting, member after member got up to praise the organization.  If you are a Government webmaster, this sounds like a great way to get involved in a network of your peers across Government organizations. 

I have no affiliation with NAGW.  I'm just here to present.  However, I thought many of the people who pay attention to this blog would appreciate the heads up.

Joel Reyes has been doing Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) presentations at our dev conferences and as webcasts.  During our conference in Juneau, AK, someone in the audience asked him something to the effect of:

"The new Office 2007 file formats are just compressed files.  Why can't VSTO based documents just package all of the assemblies necessary for the solution inside of the file?"

Joel explained that embedding the assemblies inside of the document opens up a number of security risks.  Therefore, direct embedding is not an option.

When I introduced myself I promised to follow up with anyone who had follow on questions.  Of course said customer took me up on the offer:).  As promised, here are the MSDN Library links for further exploration:

Visual Studio Tools for Office - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d2tx7z6d(VS.90).aspx

Deploying Office Solutions - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb157879(VS.90).aspx

Security in Office Solutions - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386278(VS.90).aspx

Thanks to everyone who attended.  Jack's deck is available here.  I've asked Jack to come back and do some code focused deeper dives on the foundational topics he covered today.  Stay tuned in the coming months for announcements.  I've added today's webcast to my recording list here.  The recording should be available soon.

This question came up at the Public Sector Developer Conference in Anchorage, AK.  I'm trying to answer all customer questions like this via my blog so everyone has the benefit of the answer.  There are a number of ways to do it, but my favorite (because it so darn easy) is to use an ASP.NET AJAX control extender Dan Wahlin built.  I love reusable controls that make common tasks easier:).  The details and download for the extender is here.

Jack Bradham will be presenting on my behalf.  I'll be on the webcast to introduce Jack and help out.  I'm looking forward to this one myself:).

September 18th 2:00P-3:30P EST (11:00A-12:30P PST)

This session will present new features in SQL Server 2008 that make it one of the most exciting releases ever for Developers.
Topics include: Expanded language support (Filestream support, New Types, and Statements), XML and Web services, Deep Tools and Runtime integration.
Technologies covered: Data Engine, Reporting Services, Integration Service, Notification Services, and More.

Register at this link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032349825&Culture=en-US

Click on the links below to register!

September 18, 2007 / 14:00 -15:30 EST

What’s New in SQL Server 2008 for Developers?

Jack Bradham / Marc Schweigert

September 21, 2007 / 14:00 -15:30 EST

Office Business Applications (OBA) E-Forms processing in the Public Sector

Lamont Harrington

September 26, 2007 / 14:00 -15:30 EST

What's New in Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation in Visual Studio 2008?

Marc Schweigert / Joel Reyes

My team is delivering a Virtual Earth Road Show together with the US Public Sector Virtual Earth team.  I'll be presenting the last two sessions of the day. 

October 3, 2007 9:00 AM – 15:30PM | Denver, CO

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032352189&Culture=en-US

October 5, 2007 9:00 AM – 15:30PM | Sacramento, CA

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032352192&Culture=en-US

October 23, 2007 9:00 AM – 15:30PM | Reston, VA

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032352194&Culture=en-US

More details here.

I get emails from people periodically asking for recordings of my previous webcasts.  I decided to go ahead and create a list so I can just point people to a single URL.  The list is here and the RSS feed for the list is here.  I'll keep updating the list as webcasts are recorded.

I just caught this over on the SharePoint Blog.  This is HUGE for the US Public Sector!

"Microsoft has hired HiSoftware as a vendor to develop the Accessibility Kit for MOSS 2007, also known as Accessibility Kit for SharePoint or AKS. The decision was made primary based on HiSoftware’s in-depth expertise and broad industry experience in providing tools and services for improving accessibility to the point of compliance with various standards and beyond. The contractual Statement of Work calls for HiSoftware to deliver a kit that can significantly reduce the time, knowledge, and effort required to implement a SharePoint-based web site that conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints, which are collectively known as WCAG 1.0 AA. The AKS can also be used to address the exceptions that have been identified in the U.S. government’s Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act’s Voluntary Product Accessibility Template or VPAT documents for MOSS 2007. While most of our customers find the improvements in accessibility (more info at Office Online) over previous versions of SharePoint to be adequate for their needs, a growing number has asked us to provide even more."

Details here.

"Pictures Services is a simple Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service that is returns pictures from the computer in which the service is being hosted.  The Picture Services 1.1 sample demonstrates the following:

• How to build a Syndication Service using WCF and the .NET Framework 3.5
• Expose syndication feeds in both RSS and ATOM format
• Build RESTful services using WCF and UriTemplates
• Expose documentation from a WCF Syndication Service
• Load and process an RSS or ATOM feed from another site using the System.Syndication APIs
• Customize RSS feeds using the Syndication APIs to support IE Simple List Extensions
• Include enclosures within an RSS feed using the System.Syndication APIs
• Use services in a variety of hosts including IIS, Windows Forms, and a console application
• Integrate with Windows Desktop Search
• Retrieve custom metadata from the file system including ratings and tags
• Implement a custom provider model
• Build unit tests for WCF syndication services"

I've been spending some time over the last month digging deeper into what's new in the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) & Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) in the .NET Framework 3.5.  Picture Services was put together by the same team of folks who put together http://www.DinnerNow.net.  I've looked through the sample.  It's a nice showcase of the REST & Syndication features of WCF 3.5.  Check it out here.

I know everyone and their sister will be blogging this today so sorry if you've already read this a bagillion times.  Scott Guthrie has the details here.  The coolest thing is that we are officially endorsing the Moonlight project so that:

"we are announcing a formal partnership with Novell to provide a great Silverlight implementation for Linux.  Microsoft will be delivering Silverlight Media Codecs for Linux, and Novell will be building a 100% compatible Silverlight runtime implementation called 'Moonlight'.

Moonlight will run on all Linux distributions, and support FireFox, Konqueror, and Opera browsers.  Moonlight will support both the JavaScript programming model available in Silverlight 1.0, as well as the full .NET programming model we will enable in Silverlight 1.1."

If you originally installed the Silverlight RC, then you should already have the RTW update (due to auto updating).  However, the 1.1 bits DO NOT auto update.  You should install the latest 1.1 bits from here.  To figure out what version you have, just right click any Silverlight content and select "Silverlight Configuration."

1.0 RTW = 1.0.20816.0

Latest 1.1 Refresh = 1.1.20816.0

Also, check out www.silverlight.net for links to some of our launch partners sites to see what they've done with Silverlight (HSN, WWE, AOL, Halo 3 on MSN, MLB, and more).

It's been a long time since I have looked at certifications.  The last tests I took were for my VB6 based MCSD and SQL 2000.  Recently, a customer asked me for advice about getting the MCPD certification.  Since it's been a while, I surfed around a bit and found the following links that might be helpful:

Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD)

Prepare for an Exam

I've been told by one of my teammates, specifically for the MCPD: Web Developer certification, that MCPD Self-Paced Training Kit (Exams 70-536, 70-528, 70-547): Microsoft .NET Framework Web Developer Core Requirements  is pretty good.