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In VS 2010, extension manager is part of a nice new generation of VS plug-in system. One of the great features of it is how it can go online talk to Microsoft Visual Studio Gallery website to retrieve list of extensions there, automatically discovering updates for installed extensions, and allowing me to add new extensions directly from within Visual Studio.

The Problem:

However, in my company I could not take benefit of that for long time. Reason is, the company uses Blue Coat proxy, with some active directory based authentication. We cannot access the Internet unless we use that proxy, no direct connection allowed, most other proxies are also blocked (by blocking the common proxies port 8080 and many other common ports).

Although I have the proxy set in Internet Explorer, and I have the username/password stored in my Windows Credentials store  (Start–> Run–> Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Credential Manager) -since my primary work laptop and user account on it are not part of the company domain-, Visual Studio did not seem to be able to use that.

Anything that requires online communication not directly using the browser is not working. The main feature missed by this is Extensions Manager integration with the Visual Studio Gallery online.

Hey all,

Just in case you have not noticed it already, early last night (before I woke up near midnight our time!) Microsoft released public betas of some new and fancy stuff…

1- IIS Express

Remember when I mentioned it before? A nice alternative to Visual Studio built-in dev server.

Supports SSL and other nice stuff, works even on Windows XP but simulates IIS 7.5, no admin privileges required

2- SQL Server Compact Edition

A file-based database engine, just like SQL Server Express, except that when you develop your website with it, you don’t need it to be installed on the server to get running (or anything else installed)

3- New ASP.NET Pages Syntax code-name Razor

This is a new syntax that is going to replace the old <% … %> ASP-Classic-like style we write ASPX/ASCX pages

It’s going to be mainly for ASP.NET MVC, but watch out, I smell like it’s may reach web-forms also

I just noticed this now, and it’s really GREAT.

In previous versions of Outlook, you could add multiple Exchange accounts, but it’d create different “Profile” for each of them. When you open Outlook it would force you to choose only one profile to start with., An Outlook Mail Profile could handle any number of email accounts (HTTP, POP3, …) but only one Exchange account.

Now with Outlook 2010, you can add multiple Exchange accounts also and use them at the same time.

Two Things To Note

This works great and it has no special catches at all, except:

If you are upgrading from Outlook 2007 and you have two or more Exchange accounts, Outlook 2010 will NOT merge them together

If you think about it, it sort of makes sense. Each account already sits in its own profile. There is no way that Outlook 2010 will know whether you wanted to separate the two profiles intentionally or not.

You need to add the other exchange accounts from outside outlook

You need to close Outlook and add the other Exchange account from outside it. Otherwise you’ll get this message:

Microsoft has recently opened a new sub-site of MSDN, MSDN Code Gallery. Here’s their main statement:

Download and share sample applications, code snippets and other resources

MSDN Code Gallery is your destination for downloading sample applications and code snippets , as well as sharing your own resources.

Usually, people would go for community sites for code samples sharing, or create some open source area like CodePlex, creating projects that only work as sample base. Others would use those or the sample codes available in different MSDN dev centers from time to time for downloading code samples.
Now, we have the place for those little snippets :).

Start Downloading Code Samples and Create Your Own Right Away!