At last ASP.NET AJAX v1.0, formerly known as ATLAS, is shipping. This new Web development technology from Microsoft integrates cross-browser client script libraries with the ASP.NET 2.0 development framework - making it easier to develop Web Applications with a rich GUI, and improved user experience.

Complementing ASP.NET AJAX, the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit offers developers a rich variety of client-side controls and extenders through a compilation of code samples and components.

I've been using ATLAS since the early CTP's, and are looking forward to integrate this technology into future Web Applications.

Update: www.aspnethotel.dk now supports ASP.NET AJAX on all web-servers - check out ajax.thinktwice.dk to see it in action!

Deploying all the .aspx, CSS and image files of a website to the hosting environment is not that big a deal, however making sure that the whole database including data is created correctly is sometimes more difficult.

At CodePlex they've launched a new project called "Database Publishing Wizard" which aid in deploying a SQL Server 2005 database (both schema and data) to a shared hosting environment on either a SQL Server 2000 or 2005 server. Also Scott Gu has written a detailed post about this nice tool, be sure to check it out.