Microsoft is introducing a new suite of tools (code-named "Whitehorse") that will make it easier for you to design and implement systems that conform to a service-oriented architecture. Two of these tools -- the SOA Design Suite and the Class Designer -- support the graphical design of systems and components with support for code generation and support for bi-directional synchronization which lets you ensure that your diagram always represents your system design. This article introduces these tools and shows you how they'll improve your design and development efforts. Brian A. Randell and Rockford Lhotka

In this article the authors provide an in-depth examination of the architecture of SharePoint products and technologies: WSS and SPS. WSS provides the foundation for creating collaborative Web sites that support customization and personalization and SPS complements WSS by playing the role of a content aggregator. This article explains how. Jason Masterman and Ted Pattison

This article introduces 10 development tools that can increase your productivity, give you a better understanding of .NET, and maybe even change the way that you develop applications. The tools covered include NUnit to write unit tests, Reflector to examine assemblies, FxCop to police your code, Regulator to build regular expressions, NDoc to create code documentation and five more. James Avery

There are plenty of options out there for managing user preferences including custom configuration files, the Windows registry, and the isolated storage. But each option has its pros and cons -- and a bad choice can make life difficult. In this article, the author evaluates various options and identifies the characteristics of a good preferences API. Based on those characteristics, he introduces an API that is specifically designed for preferences management, one that offers the best of all the options. Ray Djajadinata

This article presents a general-purpose client quality reporting mechanism that can be used in any .NET-based transaction system that employs HTTP/SOAP. The design uses client response time and quality recording, upload of logs as SOAP headers attached to new transaction requests, and server handoff of these headers to a low priority queue for logging and analysis. This technique gives an enterprise near real-time information on actual end-user response times. These response times reflect network delays, client application overhead and server delays. By using this technique, enterprises can avoid the need to develop custom software to mine HTTP logs. Brian Connolly