After months of hard work by the WebMatrix team, it's exciting to introduce the release candidate of WebMatrix 2. WebMatrix 2 includes tons of new features, but today I want to give an overview of the work we've done to enable building applications with Node.js.
If you want to skip all of this and just get a download link (it's free!), here you go.
Frink! is a mobile client for the web site Reddit. It is designed specifically to be used with tablets, taking advantage of gestures in a unique user interface. Right now the app is available in the BlackBerry App World:
When a student takes a course in chemistry, it is often accompanied by a hands on lab. After sitting through a lecture, and performing homework, students need to reinforce the learned concepts by doing. Why should technology education be any different? VTE Virtual Labs provide a sand-boxed environment for students to practice interacting with simple or complex ephemeral computing environments. These environments may be designed by a course instructor or instructional designer to promote learning by interacting with a real (as real as it needs to be) system. Especially useful for security research, these systems may contain full environments including domain controllers, mail servers, web servers running various versions of Windows or Linux. You can even configure internal routing and switching between virtual hosts. Students can install malware, viruses, bots, hacking tools, anything they want - and when they're finished, the environment is completely disposed, with no harm done.
Designed at the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, students and interact with the system entirely over the web, in the browser. It combines an ASP.NET MVC back end with client elements including JQuery and Adobe Flex. The back end infrastructure includes a BigIP F5, NetApp SAN, Cisco ASA, and vSphere cluster.
RECast is a video playback system designed at the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. This system focuses on providing students with a with an experience as close as possible to sitting in the actual classroom. Let's face it - training is a hassle. On site classes are expensive, require travel, and require everyone to learn at the same time. RECast aims to fix this problem by providing the same material online with a unique learning experience. RECast combines an ASP.NET MVC back end with client elements including JQuery and Adobe Flex.
The Virtual Training Environment (VTE) is a Learning Management System designed at the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. This system is designed to provide students and instructors with a self managed ecosystem, including user generated content and aspects of social networking. It may be used for independent learners, synchronous instruction, or semi-synchronous instruction. Courses may be built using SCORM content, RECast presentations, podcasts, demos, quizzes, surveys, assignments, or virtual labs.
I am going to do a detailed writeup on this system in the future, but until our launch, here is a gallery of screen-shots:
