Apologies for the rather short edition this morning, having some internet connectivity issue, combined with a required early start has resulted in a short one today.

Software

  • Kinect for Windows is now Available! – The Kinect for Windows team announce the release of Kinect for Windows, along with the version 1.0 of the Kinect for Windows SDK and runtime. These new devices have close focusing capabilities and will work with Windows 7 and 8, with the SDK providing for raw sensor streams, skeletal tracking, speech and audio and also offering an improved API.
  • Why Serenade.js? – Jonas Nicklas introduces Serenade,js, a new client side MVC implementation in JavaScript. In the post Jonas discusses why he created the library, and looks at some of its key features
  • Say hello to Bootstrap 2.0 – Mark Otto introduces the next major release of BootStrap, the Twitter front end toolkit for developing websites. V2 responds to the feedback on the previous version, updates documentation completely, introduces a 12 column grid system, adds new JavaScript plugins, and much more.
  • jQuery 1.7.2 Beta 1 Released – The jQuery team announce the first beta release of jQuery 1.7.2, which addresses bugs reported in previous versions. This latest beta is available via the jQuery CDN.

Information

  • The Web is the new Terminal: Are you using the Web’s Keyboard Shortcuts and Hotkeys? – Scott Hanselman discusses the use of keyboard shortcuts in web based applications, showing how you can add hotkeys to your web application, and looking at how a number of well known sites have implemented their hotkeys.
  • Get Started with Node.js + Windows Azure: Resources – Peter Laudati shares a nice collection of resources about all aspects of working with Node.js on the Windows Azure platform, covering getting up and running with Node,js on Azure, the sue of online IDEs, MongoDB, IISNode, and a number of more general Node.js resources.
  • MSDN Magazine – February 2012 – The February edition of MSDN Magazine is now available online, featuring articles on Async Programming in C++ using PPL, Building consumer device applications using Windows Azure, ASP.NET MVC Model Binding, HTML5, Windows Workflow 4.5, Nuget, Knockout.js, and much more
  • February’s PragPub magazine – The Pragmatic Programmers have released their February edition of PragPub magazine, with articles this month looking at tips for agile leaders and freelancers, Scala, and all the usual editorial content
  • Prompts and Directories – Even Better Git (and Mercurial) with PowerShell – Scott Hanselman also looks at how you can improve your use of command line version control systems using Powershell, and some community extensions.