Please Note: This early release of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta is not available for home users. The SP1 Beta does not provide new end-user features, and installation is not supported by Microsoft.

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta helps keep your PCs and servers on the latest support level, provides ongoing improvements to the Windows Operating System (OS), by including previous updates delivered over Windows Update as well as continuing incremental updates to the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 platforms based on customer and partner feedback, and is easy for organizations to deploy a single set of updates.

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta will help you:

 

WebMatrix is everything you need to build Web sites using Windows. It includes IIS Developer Express (a development Web server), ASP.NET (a Web framework), and SQL Server Compact (an embedded database). It streamlines Web site development and makes it easy to start Web sites from popular open-source apps. The skills and code you develop with WebMatrix transition seamlessly to Visual Studio and SQL Server.

In this video, Brian Goldfarb and Brett Brewer stop by to discuss the new Silverlight PivotViewer control release. In addition to discussing its immediate availability, they talk about tech transfers between labs and product groups like Silverlight. For those of you who haven’t heard of it yet, PivotViewer is a new visualization technology delivered as a Silverlight control. It helps visualize large collections of items in a more useful and organized way. Below are links to resources which will help you get started with the PivotViewer today:

· Silverlight PivotViewer Download and Technical Documentation: 

· Collection Building Tools by Live Labs: here

· PivotViewer Community Forum: here

At long last, it's time for everyone to step into the future of voicemail and phone calling. Google is teasing us with the groundbreaking voicemail and portable phone numbers of Google Voice. It's finally out of beta and offered to everyone in the U.S., without the need for one of those pesky invitations. Is it time to jump into Google Voice? Maybe not.