Category Archives: Software Updates

Visual Studio 2013 Update 5 is now available

On July 20th 2015, a new update for Visual Studio 2013 by Microsoft became available for download.

Visual Studio 2013 is an integrated development environment from Microsoft with a comprehensive collection of developer tools and services, used to create apps, as well as web sites and web services.

The latest update features cumulative series of technology improvements and bug fixes to enhance and expand both Visual Studio 2013 and Team Foundation Server 2013 to support the latest software development innovations for building and managing modern apps.

Here are some changes:

  • Cloud-based load testing from Azure datacenters worldwide – allows you to perform cloud-based load testing from any of the supported Azure datacenters
  • Current iteration query token – allows you to run queries with the @currentIteration on Visual Studio Online or Visual Studio Foundation Server
  • Team Project Rename support for Local Workspaces – allows you to update local workspaces after a team project is renamed
  • Bug Fixes & Known Issues – fixed a few known issues

If you would like to try something new, the new Visual Studio 2015 has also been released on July 20th 2015, together with .NET Framework 4.6. You can download it here.

If you wish to learn more, a detailed description of the update for Visual Studio 2013 can be found here.

Please note, that the Visual Studio 2013 RTM will only be supported for one year after this update, then it will be discontinued.

PhpStorm 9 has been released

PhpStorm 9, the new major release of JetBrain’s professional PHP IDE, is now available for download!

PhpStorm 9 is a cross-platform IDE for PHP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Sass, Less, CoffeeScript, and many other languages. Recent release of PhpStorm 9 brings us improvements and bug fixes. We shall look closely on them below.

PHP language and editing experience

  • Advanced code understanding – including:
    • Advanced PHP type inference
    • Parameter refactoring
    • Numerous new inspections and intentions
    • Support for persistent language injections
  • Postfix code completion – helps to reduce backward caret jumps
  • Partial PHP 7 support
  • Other PHP related enhancements – including:
    • Color settings for brackets, braces and parentheses
    • Ability to use PHP surrounds for HTML in PHP files
    • Improved structure view for PHP
    • Formatting, constructor and PHPDoc improvements
    • Support for fluent setters creation
    • Separate PHP constructor editable template

New debugging experience

  • Inline debugger for PHP – all live debugging data are now shown directly in the editor
  • Debugging workflow – new features include:
    • Import from Deployment action
    • Enhanced debugger config validation
    • PJP servers config shared on project level
    • php.ini can be opened from settings

Remote development

  • Remote edit – individual files can be opened directly from the remote host without adding / downloading them to the local project
  • Remote tools via remote PHP interpreters – allows you to run your application and tools on a production-like environment

Frameworks, tools and more

  • Solarized editor scheme is bundled
  • Support for Xdebug 2.3+ profiler
  • Improved support for Blade templating engine
  • Support for the latest Behat
  • Enhanced Twig templating engine
  • Additional options for PHP Code Sniffer

Visual Studio 2013 update 3 is now available.

Microsoft has released update 3 for Visual Studio 2013. The new update includes the latest software updates, feature additions, and bug fixes.

For more detailed information about the new changes and the current known issues visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2933779#MT4.

You can download the ISO file directly (4.0GB) from Microsoft’s website. I would recommend using the online installer instead if you have limited bandwidth as it will simply download only the information you will need instead of just everything.

Firebug 2 is now available

Firebug v2 has been released. The new Firebug version adds support for Firefox 30 and up to Firefox 32.

For those that are unaware what Firebug is, Firebug is a Firefox plugin that enables you to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. A must have plugin for web developers that want to troubleshoot their websites under Firefox.

Firebug 2 introduces a few new features, such as:

You can download Firebug 2 by clicking the button bellow.

Download

Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 is now available

Microsoft has released update 2 for Visual Studio 2013. The new update contains various fixes that address bugs, performance and reliability improvements.

With the new update Microsoft also created an iso image that contains Visual Studio 2013 as well as all the updates up to and including the update 2. The iso file is 3.5GB and can be downloaded from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=393220.

Here are some of the new capabilities that are part of this update:

  • Universal Apps – With this release you can now build universal apps that can run on Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 while sharing code and assets through shared projects.
  • TypeScript – The TypeScript language is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript. As a typed language you can define classes, modules and interfaces that compiles to JavaScript and runs in any browser.
  • Web Tool – Our web development tools have many new features like SCSS support, a new JSON editor, updated ASP.NET templates, and an improved URL picker.
  • Azure tools – It’s easier to take advantage of Azure with options to create websites and SQL Azure databases directly on Azure for simpler deployment to a development / testing environment.
  • Diagnostics – Our diagnostics tools also got some enhancements. Performance events now let you navigate to user code for MVC Methods or jump to the SQL command for database queries. It is also possible to view the Windows Store diagnostics tools at the same time to see all your diagnostics information on a shared timeline.
  • Slipstream install – You can download Visual Studio with all its latest features from one install that includes Visual Studio 2013 RTM and Update 2 for Visual Studio.

You can download the new Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 using the download button below.

Download