Elementiks put together a huge list of mostly 'free for commercial use' tools – literally a huge a list. Feel free to play around:

http://elementiks.com/web_resources.php

Two of the same kind – allows searching for filenames inside VS.NET:

http://www.huffs.us/blogEngine/page/VS-2008-File-Finder.aspx
http://jens-schaller.de/sonictools/sonicfilefinder/index.htm 

To play around the AJAX APIs from Google, a playground was created as a 20% project:

http://code.google.com/apis/ajax/playground/

Have a nice play 🙂

A (hopefully frequently) updated list of SDKs for anything Microsoft:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dd299405.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0178e2ef-9da8-445e-9348-c93f24cc9f9d&displaylang=en – 32 bit version

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E0052BBA-2D50-4214-B65B-37E5EF44F146&displaylang=en – 64 bit version

It searches your (or somebody else's :P) compiled code for:

• Cross Site Scripting
• SQL Injection
• Process Command Injection
• File Canonicalization
• Exception Information
• LDAP Injection
• XPATH Injection
• Redirection to User Controlled Site

I just stumbled upon this small free gem:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/sharepoint/SPScheduedReminders.aspx

Easy to set up (from IT perspective :)), easy to use, and very useful.

 A full cumulative update for .NET 3.5 in a form of a service pack. But be carefull – it may break all your bases belongs to us like .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2, .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 2 or .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 1. The problem resides in the fact, that it no only contains many new features building incrementally upon .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, but also includes cumulative servicing updates to the .NET Framework 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.0 subcomponents, which lead to these problems. So this is -1 for installing it. But… not only performance improvements are inside, but service release flavor ones as well, like opting out of strong-name verification for fully trusted assemblies, ClickOnce opt out of signing and hashing, filestream and date support for SQL2k8 in LINQ to SQL, etc., this would be a ++1. So – test your applications throughfully, it worths upgrading, but may hide many obstacles…

Here are a list of useful links to start with:

Silverlight

·        To learn more about Silverlight visit the Silverlight Community site. This site includes tons of tutorials, videos, getting started information, samples and a showcase where you can see the latest sites created with Silverlight

·        One of the best online resources is the library of videos from the latest MIX event in Las Vegas. These are many dozens of hours of videos that talk about Silverlight and User Experience – http://sessions.visitmix.com/

·        The Silverlight Reference includes the nitty gritty of Silverlight. Covering both versions of Silverlight you will find detailed information on all functions, events, properties and objects as well as useful examples – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb404708.aspx

·        Microsoft Learning has also created some fun Silverlight Snacks that provide you with high level information on Silverlight

·        Mike and Mike’s Silverlight Webcast series is great (mainly aimed at developers but also useful for you as a designer) – http://www.miketaulty.com/SLVideos.html

·        Tim Sneath is one of the most popular bloggers in Microsoft. He is a developer but his posts will be very useful for you too: http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/

·        Lynda.com has produced a free Silverlight series. Please note this is Silverlight 1 but might still be useful for you in order to understand some basic concepts of Silverlight – http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=473

·        Silverlight 1 and Silverlight 2 Feature Matrix. Learn more about the differences between Silverlight 1 and Silverlight 2 – http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/overview.aspx

Expression

·        Visit the Microsoft Expression site for more information about the Expression tools, video tours, feature lists, trials, preview versions and to purchase the products.

·        Visit the Expression Community site for more learning and technical resources for designers. Visit the forums, download the samples and check out the blogs from some Expression product team members.

·        The XAML-Ready agency session at MIX will help you speed up in understanding Silverlight and Expression concepts from a Flash designer point of view – http://sessions.visitmix.com/?selectedSearch=C01

·        To learn more about DeepZoom check out this post which talks about the latest version of DeepZoom Composer.

Microsoft UX and Design    

·        Microsoft Design site. Learn more about different designers who work for Microsoft in different areas.

Community

·        Kirupa is a Program Manager in the Blend team. You will enjoy his blog and will found lots of great tricks in there: http://blog.kirupa.com/?cat=13

·        Arturo is a Product Manager for Expression. You can also get news and announcements in his blog: http://ux.artu.tv

·        All the Expression product teams also own and post news and tips & tricks in their blogs:

o   Expression Blend and Expression Design

o   Expression Web

o   Expression Encoder

o   Expression Media

(src: http://ux.artu.tv/?page_id=70)

 Anyone ever designing, architecting or understand a project (whether it's .NET or not) should check out these guidelines. And you should never ever hire anyone without knowledge of this 🙂

 I don't want to repeat a press release, but quite a lot of interesting things happened to Silverlight today:

• H.264 support announced
• AAC support announced
• MP4 container support announced

As Scott Guthrie has written – this doesn't mean Microsoft is getting further from WMV. It just means – we give you the choice.

And a lot of interesting website starts SL based video delivery (sports fan are especially welcomed):

• French national public broadcaster – Catchup TV service
• Leading UK commercial TV network – Preview of SL-based “Catch up TV” service
• New Silverlight homepage “Viewer” – Includes new MSN Network SL video player
• Largest entertainment network in Europe – New Sl-based VoD Service
• Major Dutch broadcaster – SL Wimbledon coverage
• Leading French VoD service – Launching new Silverlight VoD service with DZ content navigation and playback
• L’EquipeTV (SI of France) sports service, powered by YaCast – Live and On-Demand Silverlight DRM

And a few words about our spons… sorry, about the NBC Olympics website, which in 17 days scored:

• 1.3 billion page views
• 50+ million unique visitors
• 70 million streams
• 10 million hours of video watched
• 35 million mobile page views
• Hundreds of highlights produced every day, which were delivered to every possible platform