Last week Microsoft made available Internet Explorer 9 Beta for public availability and it has a host of new features and some of them are interestingly tied to the OS as explained in a previous blog entry.

As it is beta software it is best to install it on non-productive desktops so as to minimize the risk of corrupting the desktop when your important day to day applications are installed and vital data is there.

I thought to give it a try on my Windows 7 computer but as soon as the download finished I was redirected to this website http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2399238 and asked to install a couple of updates.

This has not been mentioned before you download the application and I wonder why this is so. So to be on the safe side, I installed it on Windows 2008 R2 hosted in Oracle Virtual Box. but strangely enough I was not redirected to this KB article even though there is an update for Windows Server 2008 R2. Wonder what is going on.

As most of you know that there is a critical flaw in the Cryptography library for .NET and it affects the websites hosted on IIS.

Scott Guthrie had explained about this issue here.

The latest is that he has raised all questions/issues in a FAQ. Read it here.

Best for all of you (ASP.NET Web developers) to ensure that your web config maps all custom errors to a single error page.  It is not enough to simply enable customErrors.

The exciting news on the Microsoft Platform is the release of the beta version of Internet Explorer 9.

Yes it is now refreshed and comes with a new set of intuitive features which will appeal to all.

“People go to the Web for sites, not the browser, much as they go to their PC for apps, not Windows.”

That’s what Microsoft Corporate Vice President Dean Hachamovitch told attendees of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 9 beta launch in San Francisco this week.

One of the new features is that IE 9 Beta integrates tightly with the desktop and the change is more evident in Windows 7 and that is because the Task Bar acts as an application launcher and that is where the beauty of IE 9 shines.

To read on how to make your website work well with the Task Bar on Windows 7 (a.k.a. make your website an application on Windows 7) see this link.

Have you wished that you wanted to know what (Azure) cloud computing is all about but can’t find the information in simple layman’s language.

Look here for this article that explain in a clear precise way.

Do you love the 5GB (soon to be 25GB) of free online storage provided by SkyDrive, but wish you could access it browser-free? That’s the promise of a new application called Gladinet, a desktop software program that delivers web applications and online files to your desktop. With Gladinet installed, online storage sites like SkyDrive and others become available through Windows Explorer, where they exist as a virtual drive.

Gladinet provides an application on your desktop that enables you to map SkyDrive to your list of networked drives.

Well the silence for the past 1 week was due to the floods in Tamil Nadu. A cyclone brought its due of rains and filled up the reservoirs in the state but left a trail of destructions and havoc.

And worse to add to all this misery was the power shut down in the entire state to prevent electrocution. Low voltage coupled with high voltage was enough to destroy some of the electrical appliances in most of the houses.

Flooding of the roads and streets in the ground floor as well as water entering the houses made up the complete story and showed the inefficiency of the Corporation and Metro water.

Now that the rains have stopped completely but the wounds inflicted on the common man hasn’t gone away and the news papers are all carrying out news showing the ire of the common man against the government.

It was a great time to host the Community Tech Days 2008 on Saturday 22nd November. We had the event in 2 places on the same day (one for developers and another for IT pros). I managed the IT pro session in Anna university and we had some cool sessions.

In spite of raining on that day, the event had a good reasonable turn over. The sessions also had something new in store for the audience.

At the end of the day, we had a quiz contest and some of the attendees walked away with cool prizes. Also since I had to host the IT Pro event, I missed out being at the developer’s event.

Have you wished that you knew something about the internals of Silverlight but didn’t know where to look and what is good to know about.

Now there is a blog that is written exclusively for tips in Silverlight. Good one and I encourage you to read it. It even has a list of blogs to refer to in the Silverlight community.

Dear Friends,

The Community Tech Days 2008 has been updated as follows. Both events (IT Pro and Developers) will happen on a single day (22nd November 2008). All IT Pros are requested to note this and attend on Saturday 22nd November 2008.

Harish Ranganathan has compiled a list of all the informative blogs which are pretty active, precise and more importantly straight from the people of the ASP.NET Team in Microsoft.

You can get the list here and then subscribe to the blogs that are of interest to you.

Now the developer and technical evangelists from Microsoft India are blogging exclusively for you.

Here are the links for the 2 categories.

Tech Net (IT Pro)

MSDN (Developer)

The latest articles include all your questions asked in Virtual Tech Days 2008. If you had asked any questions there you can find the answers in these blogs.