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A first look at Codename: Windows 8 OR "Will there be Silverlight in Windows 8?"

Today at D9, Microsoft opened up about Windows 8 with a bang.  Not only does does Microsoft FINALLY have a viable operating system for tablets/slates, but they also announced that the gorgeous new Windows Phone 7/Xbox 360 UI will heavily leverage HTML 5 and Javascript.  This really comes as no surprise since IE9 has hardware acceleration and can push beatuful HTML 5 graphics just like a desktop application.  To coincide with this, Microsoft has also announced that their wildly popular Professional Developer’s Conference (PDC) will now be rebranded to Build.  The new UI looks absolutely gorgeous and I can’t wait to play with it live on a tablet.  Take a look at the video to see it in action:

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Articles Software

JavaScript Best Practices for Increasing Website Performance

If you’ve done any web development before, you’ve probably had to work with JavaScript.  It’s the secret sauce that makes the web come alive and has in recent years gone from a language that was looked down upon as 3rd rate to one that is taking the web by storm.  With AJAX and JQuery the key pieces of interactive web design, and users becoming more performance-demanding every day, it’s important to know how to tune your site for speed and efficiency.  Luckily, Nokia (yes, the old school cell phone company!) has a great cheat sheet to help prune JavaScript and make your code scream.