Read about ASP.NET MVC 3 RC, Google mod_pagespeed, a free WP7 development book, a comic about the bloat/speed conundrum, and more.
Language/library updates
Changes to Google APIs Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit - November releaseThe Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit is updated and is available on CodePlex.
MEF 2 previewThe Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a way of allowing your applications to be added onto by third-party developers. The preview for the next version of the library is now available.
ASP.NET MVC 3 release candidateThe release candidate for ASP.NET MVC 3 is available. It includes the new Razor view engine.
F# November 2010 releaseF# has received a minor update, but it is important if you are working with F# on Mono or WP7.
Prism 4.0Microsoft released Prism 4.0. Prism is essentially a starter kit for WPF, Silverlight, and WP7 applications.
Tools and products
Major Zend updatesZend released Zend Studio 8 and Zend Framework 1.11. Zend Studio 8 is a major upgrade, with VMWare Workstation integration to enable local testing within a Linux VM, and improved AJAX support (jQuery, Dojo, Prototype), JavaScript debugging, and a Web request profiler. In addition, the price has been dropped from $399 to $299. The changes to Zend Framework include simple cloud APIs and mobile support.
Google mod_pagespeed slashes page load timesGoogle released a free Apache module called mod_pagespeed, which can reduce page load times by as much as 50%. If you host on Apache, you need to take a look at this module.
Intel updates tools for parallel, cluster developmentIntel released Intel Parallel Studio XE 2011 and Intel Cluster Studio 2011 for working with parallel code and cluster code, respectively.
Quova Developer Portal opensQuova opened its Developer Portal, a free tool for working with its IP geographic location APIs.
Morphlabs offering hourly Zend ServerIf you are looking to work with PHP apps in the cloud, Morphlabs has announced that its mCloud offering can now provision Zend Server instances on an hourly basis. Good for testing and "spiky" traffic patterns.
CloudBees provides Hudson continuous integrationA new company called CloudBees is selling the Hudson continuous integration system as a service.
SmartBear's four new tools, two of which are freeSmartBear released QAComplete and DevComplete. QAComplete is test case management software, and DevComplete focuses on requirements gathering, defects tracking, and other project management tasks. SmartBear also released QAPlanner and DevPlanner, two online free tools that are lightweight versions of QAComplete and DevComplete.
Eclipse Virgo 2.1 releasedThe Eclipse Foundation released Eclipse Virgo 2.1, an application server for deploying OSGi applications.
m-Power improvedThe m-Power development tool has been updated to improve the creation of executive dashboards.
rPath Builder 5.8rPath updated its rPath Builder product to version 5.8. rPath Builder allows you to create automated deployment and update packages for Windows applications.
Nuxeo CMS updatedNuxeo's flagship enterprise content management system has been updated to version 5.4.
Editorial and commentary
The bloat/speed conundrumSMBC has a comic that perfectly summarizes the race between computer horsepower and code bloat.
New Microsoft awards programMicrosoft has started the Community Contributor awards program to reward those who are especially active in the Microsoft community doing things like moderating message boards.
Tips and tricks
New Silverlight data QuickstartsMicrosoft released some new Quickstarts showing you how to work with data in Silverlight.
BizSpark clarifies "graduation" Free WP7 development bookEvents
PHP'n Rio 10 conferenceThere is a free PHP event in Rio de Janeiro on November 20. The site is in Portuguese, so it is tough for me to get more details.
EclipseDay in Valencia, SpainEclipseDay is coming to Valencia, Spain November 30 - December 1.
J.Ja
Disclosure of Justin's industry affiliations: Justin James has a contract with Spiceworks to write product buying guides; he has a contract with OpenAmplify, which is owned by Hapax, to write a series of blogs, tutorials, and articles; and he has a contract with OutSystems to write articles, sample code, etc.