It may have snuck up on some of you, but Internet Explorer 8 released last week and is available for download. If you haven't had a chance to take a look at IE8, there are a host of great capabilities (web standards mode, improved tab browsing, improved accessibility features such as Caret Browsing, increased security such as InPrivate browsing, automatic crash recovery and performance improvements) and some compelling new features as well (visual search and search buttons, accelerators, and web slices to name a few). Review the rest of the readiness toolkit to see what else is available.
Developers and IT ProfessionalsDevelopers should review the readiness toolkit for developers. IE8's developer tools are quite useful, featuring the ability to view the HTML source in a color-coded view (like how Visual Studio does), script performance profiler, and source inspection tools and property sheet view. The navigation buttons (back and forward) honor AJAX calls now, too, so site debugging is easier. There are some pretty interesting capabilities "in the box" with IE8.
IT Professionals should review the readiness toolkit for IT professionals. It covers a wide range of management, administration, group policy and deployment features.
Learning MoreIf you'd like to learn more, there are heaps of resources for developers and IT professionals from videos to articles and more. Here are some virtual labs you may want to explore to learn more in a more hands-on style format.