I finally got around to downloading the latest bits for dasBlog over the weekend, and I was pleased to see that the problem I posted about last December has been fixed.  I can now display "pretty" urls instead of the nasty GUIDs and not have to worry about funky characters in the title.  Sweet!

...well, not dead, just renamed.  Here's the new naming for "the technology formerly known as Atlas" (from ScottGu via Brian Goldfarb):

1) The client-side “Atlas” javascript library is going to be called the Microsoft AJAX Library.  This will work with any browser, and also support any backend web server (read these blog posts by Shanku Niyogi and Brad Abrams to see how to run it on PHP and ColdFusion).
 

2) The server-side “Atlas” functionality that integrates with ASP.NET will be called the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions.  As part of this change the tag prefix for the “Atlas” controls will change from <atlas:>to <asp:>.  These controls will also be built into ASP.NET "Orcas"


3) The “Atlas” Control Toolkit today is a set of free, shared source controls and components that help you get the most value from the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions.  Going forward, the name of the project will change to be the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.

I like that they plan to RTM Atlas v1.0 this year and that it will be included with the next release of ASP.NET.  I'm looking forward to seeing the final bits.

If you're planning on exploring the Atlas Control Toolkit, don't download the July CTP.  In that release, there are problems with the toolkit's designer support for control extenders.  To see one discussion of the problem, check out this thread on the ASP.NET forums.  The fix to this problem was released in change set 2691 on CodePlex.  Simply download any version after that, and you should have no problem.  The fix will, of course, be included in the next CTP as well.

If there was only one reason to download Tab Mix Plus right now, this would be it:

 

Fortunately, there are many more reasons.  Read more here, or for the simplified picture book style list of options, see below:

When adding or removing items from the Visual Studio toolbox, remember that the last process in wins.  Visual Studio saves your toolbox settings to the C:\Documents and Settings\ <username>\ Local Settings\ Application Data\ Microsoft\ VisualStudio \8.0 \toolbox.tbd file when it shuts down, so if you have multiple instances open (on average I have three), make sure you close the instances that have the unmodified toolbox first.  After closing the others, then close the modified instance; if you don't, you run the risk of loosing your changes. 

As a best practice, I have only one instance of VS open, make the changes, and then immediately close to save.

Optimistic concurrency with automatic conflict resolution - the best of both worlds, right?

Unfortunately, this behavior is also the same for Visual Studio settings.  For more on that, check out secretGeek's Concurrency Bug in all editions of Visual Studio.