Clark Sell

Join us for the maiden voyage of the Chicago Visual Studio Team System User group!

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System is the best integrated software development platform to build the mission-critical applications that businesses depend on. It extends Visual Studio's integrated and productive experience from the developer to the entire development team by delivering powerful new role-based tools for software architects, developers, testers and project managers. It also includes an integrated team server and customizable processes to help teams drive predictability, visibility, and control into their software development process.  Join us each month for new topics including how the different role based editions can help your team to finish your projects on time, on scope and on budget, dive into the many features included in the powerful and robust Team Foundation Server product, or speak to one of the many partners who have extended the platform to enable continuous integration scenarios, integrate into Microsoft outlook, even an Eclipse plug-in! 

Agenda for April 11th meeting:

• 6:00pm - 6:30pm Welcome, Introductions and Pizza
• 6:30pm - 8:30pm What is Visual Studio Team System?
• 8:30pm - 9:00pm Q&A, Raffle and Wrap Up

Click here to register

You may also access the registration site at: www.microsoft.com/events and reference Event ID 1032333482

You can read more about Virtual PC 2007, and download it, from the newly updated Virtual PC website.

Some key features of Virtual PC 2007 include:

• Support for x64 Windows as a host operating system
• Support for hardware virtualization support
• Support for Windows Vista as a guest and host operating system 
• Support for PXE network booting of virtual machines
• Support for the use of full screen virtual machines on multi-monitor systems

A long time ago Andrew Connell put together a great article HOWTO: Use Virtual PC's Differencing Disks to your Advantage. If you do anything with Virtual PC make sure you read this. Not only does it save you a great amount of disk space but it will save you a great deal of time when setting up new virtual images.

Team Foundation Server is happy to announce the release of version 1.2 of Team Foundation Power Tools (formerly known as Power Toys).  In this release we've added 2 new command line tools for the developer and 3 non-command line tools.   This version includes some bug fixes to previous Power Tools, support for Vista, and adds the following new functionality:

• Workspace Command (tfpt.exe) - Use the workspace command for additional workspace operations not supported in the currently shipping Team Foundation Server command line (tf.exe).
• Treeclean Command (tfpt.exe) - Use the treeclean command to see and optionally delete files in the current directory and all subdirectories that are not under version control.
• Process Template Editor - A tool to provide UI for authoring work item types and some of the associated Process Template components. 
• Check-in Policy Pack - A set of handy check-in policies to address needs customers have expressed.
• Build Test Tools Task - A tool that allows running unit tests by simply specifying the DLLs or even specifying a file name pattern in TfsBuild.proj, instead of using .vsmdi files to specify tests to run.

Please note that the Process Template Editor has some additional pre-requisites, they are identified on the download page. 

You can locate the Team Foundation Power Tools V1.2 release here and you can get help on the forums for these tools here.

From time to time I am asked where one can get their hands on case studies around VSTS. You can find all VSTS case studies here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/aa718812.aspx. Today we just released two new case studies focused around ROI.

Ever wonder what VSTS books are out there. Well wonder no more. The list is in no particular order:

• Professional Team Foundation Server
• Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System
• Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
• Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System
• Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System 
• Pro Visual Studio 2005 Team System  
• Pro Visual Studio 2005 Team System Application Development
• Global Outsourcing with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System
• Deploying .NET Applications with MSBuild and ClickOnce

Jeff Beehler and Buck Hodges both decided to tag me and I hear tag backs are not allowed. So it's time to kick off this new year of blogging with a few items you may have never guessed.

1. I have a 10 month old son, Ethan. It's amazing just how fast your life can change.
2. I love Motorsports. While there is number of different leagues, I most enjoy watching NASCAR. A few friends and I try to attend one race a year and so far I have been to Michigan, Charlotte, Atlanta, Memphis and Indy.
3. Given I love Motorsports you could imagine I also love cars. So much so I am actually doing my own body off restoration on a 1970 Camaro. Yes it's turned into a slow moving project but it's still a great time when I get to turn some wrenches and lay a few welds.
4. I didn't aspire to be a programmer when I went to college. In fact I really didn't aspire to do anything much with computers but I loved the internet. My father was a geek since the dawn of time so I had always grew up around them. At that point in time I would have just rather worked on cars. Once I got into college that quickly changed and I graduated with an IT degree. My first job out of college was actually working on the ole Y2K bug.
5. I am an Eagle Scout.

I am sure these guys don't read my blog but I read theirs. In the spirit of this now you've been tagged too: Kevin Hammond, Richard Turner, Paul Andrew, Keith Brown

As a consultant you find yourself all over the place.  Today I am headed to downtown Chicago via the good ole train.  It's roughly a 1:30 minute ride one way.  I normally travel with at least the following:

• Large cup of Dunkin Donuts ( you know America runs on it )
• 1 Verizon phone with EVDO
• 1 Vista machine, 2 batteries
• 1 set of headphones

Here is where things get very geeky:

I am currently using the phone as a modem.  Blogging, email, IM, banging code all while listening to URGE ( BTW URGE just rocks ).  All at 50 mph!  If that wasn't enough, the code I am working on is hosted on a remote TFS server I am currently checking things in and out of.  CRAZY, I just love it!!

So what does my current bandwidth look like?

Download Speed: 1118 kbps (139.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 119 kbps (14.9 KB/sec transfer rate)

It's pretty crazy how connected we really are today.

Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, and Testers. In addition, discuss what's new in the latest Community Technology Preview (CTP).

Join the chat on Wednesday, November 8^th, 2006 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time.

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That blasted VSMDI file.  Well Buck, Tom and crew did it.  They have finally given us the ability to run tests ( albeit all ) found in an assembly regardless of test lists.  http://blogs.msdn.com/buckh/archive/2006/11/04/how-to-run-tests-without-test-metadata-files-and-test-lists-vsmdi-files.aspx I am currently integrating this into TfsAlert and will post my findings.

After releasing TfsAlert 0.3.0.0 I realized I'd failed to mention how security works.  BIG OPPS, Sorry!!!  TfsAlert will not get into the business of managing your user account.  Windows already provides such a facility and I believe leveraging that is just a better more secure choice.  However TfsAlert will maintain knowledge about your TfsUserName.  It does so to properly create the Tfs event subscription.  Having said that you still need to properly authenticate just to subscribe, no different than any of the other Tfs tools.

So how do we manage security?  Simple, we just add the server\username \ password into Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Manage User Accounts -> Advanced -> Manage Passwords.  I do realize this may be shut down by a companies GPO but if not we have found this to work very nicely.  If your one of those people ( like I ) who use multiple Tfs servers at a variety of locations you would always be prompted for your credentials just to start up the IDE.  This all goes away once your account is loaded into that Windows facility.