Η Manning Publications προχώρησε σε μία πολύ κίνηση και σε όσους αγοράσουν κάποιο από τα επιλεγμένα της βιβλία (είτε σε ηλεκτρονική , είτε σε έντυπη μορφή) θα πάρουν δωρεάν μία ηλεκτρονική έκδοση του βιβλίου σε μορφή (mobi ή epub). Έτσι θα είναι πολύ εύκολο για οποιονδήποτε να διαβάσει το βιβλίο του σε ένα Amazon Kindle, iPhone ή Sony Reader.

Οι τυπικές μορφές των e-Book, όπως για παράδειγμα τα PDF, δεν έχουν σχεδιαστεί για τις μικρές οθόνες των φορητών συσκευών. Οι νέες λοιπόν μορφές, τα epub και mobi, δημιουργήθηκαν για συσκευές όπως το Kindle, iPhone και Sony Reader.  Οι σελίδες έχουν αλλάξει μέγεθος και οι εικόνες έχουν βελτιστοποιηθεί για να φαίνονται καλά σε μία μικρή οθόνη.

Μέχρι στιγμή μερικοί από τους πλέον δημοφιλής τίτλους που υπάρχουν διαθέσιμοι είναι :

• "ASP.NET MVC in Action" by Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman, and Jimmy Bogard
• "Grails in Action" by Glen Smith and Peter Ledbrook
• "iPhone in Action" by Christopher Allen and Shannon Appelcline
• "Unlocking Android" by W. Frank Ableson, Charlie Collins, and Robi Sen
• "jQuery in Action" by Bear Bibeault and Yehuda Katz
• "The Well-Grounded Rubyist" by David A. Black

ενώ μέχρι το τέλος της χρονιάς θα έχουν προστεθεί και άλλοι.

• Windows Azure Service Runtime managed library: The latest version of the Service Hosting Runtime API includes support for enhanced communication between roles and for runtime notification of service configuration changes. Direct communication between role instances enables new application development scenarios, including applications that distribute state across role instances. Service configuration changes include an increase or decrease in the number of request role instances and changes to the values of configuration settings.
• Windows Azure Diagnostics managed library: The new Diagnostics API enables logging using standard .NET APIs. The Diagnostics API provides built-in support for collecting standard logs and diagnostic information, including the Windows Azure logs, IIS 7.0 logs, Failed Request logs, crash dumps, Windows Event logs, performance counters, and custom logs.
• Certificate Management: Enhanced support for SSL certificates in Windows Azure and in the Windows Azure SDK enables the secure automated deployment of certificates to services hosted on Windows Azure.
• Variable-size Virtual Machines : Developers may now specify the size of the virtual machine to which they wish to deploy a role instance, based on the role's resource requirements. The size of the VM determines the number of CPU cores, the memory capacity, and the local file system size allocated to a running instance.
• External endpoints for worker roles: A worker role may now define any number of external endpoints for HTTP, HTTPS, and TCP, and specify the desired port number for any external endpoint.
• Persistent local resource storage: Developers can now choose to persist data written to a local storage resource at runtime when the role is recycled.
• Windows Azure Storage Client managed library: The Storage Client library provides a .NET API for accessing the Windows Azure storage services.
• Improved Development Storage: Development storage provides a high-fidelity simulation of the Windows Azure storage services in the cloud. Tables can now be created dynamically in the development storage Table service and are no longer required to be generated in advance.
• Updated samples: The samples included with the Windows Azure SDK have been updated to demonstrate new features. The samples now include both C# and Visual Basic versions.

Μπορείτε να κατεβάσετε το SDK απο εδώ, καθώς επίσης και τα Visual Studio Tools απο εδώ.

Κυκλοφόρησαν οι νέες εκδόσεις των Windows Azure SDK (July 2009) και Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio.

Οι αλλαγές που υπάρχουν και όπως αναφέρονται στο Windows Azure Blog είναι οι εξής:

Windows Azure SDK

• The Windows Azure SDK supports developing and deploying services containing multiple web and worker roles. A service must include at least one role, of either type, and may include zero or more web roles, and zero or more worker roles.
• The new PowershellRole sample hosts the Powershell runtime within a Windows Azure role. It demonstrates a simple remote console web role as well as a worker role whose implementation is a Powershell script. The host also includes the CloudDrive sample snap-in to provide access to Windows Azure Storage from script.

Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio

• New project creation dialog
• Support for developing and deploying services containing multiple web and worker roles. A service may contain zero or more web roles and zero or more worker roles with a minimum of one role of either type.
• Ability to associate any ASP.NET Web Application project in a Cloud Service solution as a Web Role
• Support for building Cloud Services from TFS Build
• Enhanced robustness and stability
  

Μπορείτε να κατεβάσετε τις νέες εκδόσεις εδώ