Microsoft has a nice little
password strength checker.
The
ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit (previously codenamed Atlas) has a similar control.
A new but low-level addition to Vista is the support for
symbolic links in the file system. These are more than the previous junction points.
So why might you want this? Well, alot of *nix-based operating systems have grown up using the technology to give a level of indirection and thus make dependencies and deployment easier.
For example, you could create a symlink to version 1.0 of your application that you tell users to run your application from - but 1.0 really points to 1.0.4558 of your application.
Got a new release, just update the symlink to the new version and the clients don't know anything. Much better option than the usual copying new versions over the existing code.
Take this further and if you have multiple subprojects that you need to release as a whole, you can symlink dev, qa, prod to 2.0, 1.1, 1.0 and a turnover release is just switching the symlink and rollback the reverse.
Junfeng Zhang explains how to set them up via the command line and Yves Dolce uses them for
shortcuts to common directories.
As the move to higher resolutions displays and smoother vector icons we can see the final Vista icons in their 256 x 256 format.
If you are on the lookout for some design icon sets for your application, try IconShock and IconExperience.
Also if you need a quick site template, don't forget Cool Home Pages and Template Monster for inspiration.
Looking at the Coding4Fun redesign it's interesting to see how the same site can have totally different style.
Don't forget if you are building 'Web 2.0' (whatever that means this week) sites to follow these tips.