Last week (december 5th) Microsoft announced the Volta technology preview, a developer toolset for building multi-tier web applications using existing and familiar tools, techniques and patterns.

Volta’s declarative tier-splitting enables developers to postpone architectural decisions about distribution until the last possible responsible moment. Also, thanks to a shared programming model across multiple-tiers, Volta enables new end-to-end profiling and testing for higher levels of application performance, robustness, and reliability. In effect, Volta extends the .NET platform to further enable the development of software+services applications, using existing and familiar tools and techniques.

You architect and build your application as a .NET client application, assigning the portions of the application that run on the server tier and client tier late in the development process.

After tier assignments, Volta's deep integration with Visual Studio debugger and testing infrastructure dramatically improves the deployment experience for developers.

• Volta automatically creates communication, serialization, and remoting code. Developers simply write custom attributes on classes or methods to tell Volta the tier on which to run them.
• Developers may base tier assignments on any criteria, such as load management, performance, or location of critical assets and capabilities. Because Volta automates the hidden plumbing code, it is easy for developers to experiment with varying assignments of classes and methods to tiers.
• Developers can use all the .NET languages, libraries, and tools they already know, including debuggers, profilers, test generators, refactoring, and code analysis tools.

Volta offers deep integration with Visual Studio 2008, including debuggers, profilers, and testing frameworks. Developers can step through code seamlessly from one tier to another, can set breakpoints on any tier, and trace flows of control across distributed systems.

What do you need to use Volta?

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There's no Gphone just yet, but Google does want a big piece of your cell phone. In November 2007, the company announced its Android mobile operating system, and 34 companies are on board to develop applications for the cell-phone platform as part of the Open Handset Alliance. The open software platform is hoped to go head-to-head with smartphone software from RIM, Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, and Palm. Will Google be your next mobile OS?

What's that all mean? The big motivation for Google is that it will likely have its applications such as Gmail and Google Docs & Spreadsheets automatically built into a major share of new cell phones in the burgeoning market.

What's interesting and exciting is that the platform--likely based on Linux--will be open to all third-party developers. With any luck, that means that consumers will finally be able to choose exactly which software apps they want to use on their cell phones.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt claims that "as a result of this platform you'll be able to do amazing things with your mobile devices that you've never thought of." We'll get a first peek at the possibilities for programmers with an early look at a software development kit for Google Android next week.

Gmail and Google Talk users can now chat with their AOL Instant Messenger buddies through the Gmail interface, Google announced today. Rolling out to all English-based users by the end of the day, the new feature will let you seamlessly jump from chatting with a Google contact to an AIM buddy without having to use two separate chat clients.

The AIM integration feels native to Gmail. The AIM log-in panel is behind the "Set status here" upside-down triangle under the Contacts list. Click there, and if the feature rollout has hit your account, you'll see a "Sign into AIM" option on the drop-down menu with AIM's yellow running man icon next to it.

A new window opens when you choose to sign in, so be sure that you don't have a pop-up blocker enabled for Gmail.com. Enter in your AIM username and password, or hit the link at the bottom of the window to create a new AOL account, and you're good to go. AOL buddies will appear in the Contacts list, mixed in with Google Chat contacts. The running man icon for AIM contacts appears on the right side of the chat list.

Click on the "Set status here" triangle again, and you'll notice the AIM login option has changed to a logout. Once you've logged out, your AIM contacts disappear, although the next time you log in you won't need to re-enter your password. To use a different AIM account, you need to go to the Chat tab under Settings.

Gmail's label colors make them easier to read.

(Credit: CNET Networks, Inc.)

This integration comes right on the heels of Google Chat rolling out group chats and more developed smileys last week. Individual chat and the ever-important smileys are there, but any other ancillary AIM features you might be interested in require the full AIM client.

Google was cagey about whether Gmail will feature other chat protocols such as ICQ in the future. Jason Freidenfelds, a spokesman for Google, said only that he couldn't comment on whether they were looking at including other chat programs.

Another new feature that Google added last night was colored tabs for labels. This feature, previously only available through plug-ins like Better Gmail, lets users assign colors to labels to make it easier to keep track of them. From the Labels panel, click on the square next to the label and a drop-down menu of colors will appear. Select a color and your e-mail list will refresh, with the label name on e-mails now in vibrant life-affirming hues.

The new colors are easily accessible from the Labels menu.

(Credit: CNET Networks, Inc.)

Besides making it easier to see labeled e-mails, when you click on an e-mail that's been labeled you can now search for all e-mails with that label or remove the label from the e-mail directly from buttons next to the e-mail's subject line.

While colored labels aren't a killer feature, they're small touches that make the interface that much easier to use. Combined with the AIM integration and other recent changes, it's hard to understate the usefulness to users of the recently rewritten Gmail source code.