Ponder .NET

Using Visual Studio 2010 yet?

dmckinstry — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:30:17 GMT

I am and its great! It is must faster, more stable and feature rich than Beta 1. Not using it? May I need to remind you that there is a “Go Live” license (nudge nudge).

If you are using it, Microsoft (via Jeff Beehler) wants to know you you think! Here is the link from Jeff’s blog to a simple survey.

Visual Studio Team System is Dead!?!?!

dmckinstry — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:48:52 GMT

Say what? I looked closely at the press release today with Visual Studio 2010 and… there is NO “TEAM SYSTEM”!?!?! Yes, it’s true. It appears that Microsoft is killing off Visual Studio Team System. The press release from Microsoft today and the download of Beta 2 on MSDN both confirm it! (Note: The public download for Beta 2 will be on Wednesday.)

But what about all the wonderful ALM tools we saw in Beta 1? What about all of the neat stuff I’ve been drooling over in anticipation of Visual Studio ‘Team System’ 2010?

Well, luckily the answer sounds like a rebranding effort. The tools are there but the names were changed. Instead of “Team Edition” we now have Visual Studio 2010 Premium. Instead of Team Suite we now have Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. Refer to press release for more details.

TFS still exists (Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010), so there is still some stability in my world. In fact, now not only is the TFS CAL included with your VS Pro/Premium/Ultimate, but also includes the server itself. And with the 2010 basic install you can install TFS on a client workstation if you wish (e.g., my Windows 7 notebook).

I have to say I was partial to the “Team System” name, but I’ll survive. And so, my friends, the king (Visual Studio Team System) is dead… Long live the king (Visual Studio 2010 Premium and Ultimate).

Tomorrow: Three online presentations for VSTS 2010

dmckinstry — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:14:00 GMT

Just a heads up. Tomorrow is the monthly online Team System User Group (http://www.tsug-ve.com). I will be presenting on the new Automated UI Testing features in the ‘EMEA’ meeting at 10AM Pacific time on Thursday October 15. Chris Kadel will presenting on the cool new Architecture features in the next version of VSTS for the ‘Americas’ meeting at 5PM Pacific time.

There is no cost for these live presentations. For more information, check out the user group web page: http://www.tsug-ve.com

Another resource for periodic free live presentations on VSTS topics is available on the home page of the Notion Solutions web site: http://www.notionsolutions.com. The immediate webcasts offered by Notion include:

October 15 @ 1PM Central: Webcast - Looking Ahead to Team System 2010
October 22 @ 1PM Central: Webcast - Improving Development Practices with Team System 2008
October 22 @ 3PM Central: Webcast - Looking Ahead to Development Practices with Team System 2010

Hope to “see you” there!

Team System User Group – Meeting Archives

dmckinstry — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:17:06 GMT

The TSUG-VE online Team System User’s Group has meeting archives supporting the recordings from our old meetings for the last several months. Here is a current inventory in case you’re interested:

August 2009 Americas: DB Pro, BIDS and Team Build with John Burns
August 2009 EMEA: Team System Custom Controls with Tiago Pasoal
July 2009 Americas: Reporting in Team System Made Easy with Steven Borg
July 2009 EMEA: VSTS 2010 New Architecture Features with Cameron Skinner
June 2009: Real World TFS with Ed Blankenship
May 2009: TFS 2010 Project Management with Ian Ceicys
April 2009 Americas: Advanced Developer Features in VSTS 2010 with Daryush Laqab [Slides only]
April 2009 EMEA: Lessons Learned through Dogfooding with Brian Harry
March 2009 Americas: Estimation Madness with Joel Semeniuk
March 2009 EMEA: Requirements Management with Thomas Schissler
And More!!!!

The EMEA meeting earlier today featuring “Build Automa5tion in TFS 2010 with Martin Woodward” will be posted soon. If you’re interested, the links are posted on the user group archives page: http://www.tsug-ve.com/Archives/2009Archives/tabid/62/Default.aspx.

You need to sign up and log in to gain access to the page but the sign-up is free, and the only thing we use your email address for is to send monthly meeting announcements and to let you know if you win a raffle prize.

Of course nothing beats being there and being able to ask questions of the presenter. If you’re interested, Omar Villarreal will be presenting an “Introduction to the TFS Programming API” in a few hours. (See the TSUG home page for details: http://www.tsug-ve.com.)

Notion Tools for Team System V1.1 Released

dmckinstry — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:38:52 GMT

For those of you who read my blog and don’t know (anybody out there?) I work for Notion Solutions. Today Notion announced v1.1 of the Notion Tools for Team System. In addition to a few bug fix, support in the primary tools (e.g., Timesheet and the Work Item Control Library) for VS 2005, we’ve added a new tool targeting prioritizing work based on business objectives and a web version of Timesheet for the non-Visual Studio users.

Development and testing of this new release has been one of our team’s primary focuses over the past few months. We do all of our time tracking and much of our other planning and work item activities using it. If any of this sounds slightly interesting, check out the formal release: http://www.notionsolutions.com/Products/Pages/NotionToolsforTeamSystem.aspx

It is relatively inexpensive and you can get free trials if you’re interested. Hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor!

VSTS Big Event - “It works on my machine”

dmckinstry — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:12:39 GMT

If you attended the “VSTS Big Event” in Phoenix last week, I promised anyone interested a copy of the slides. So, here they are! If you’d like the complete day’s contents, check out Steve Lange’s blog.

Brian Harry speaks…

dmckinstry — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 13:47:00 GMT

The Team System User Group (TSUG) is proud to welcome the TFS Product Unit Manager, Brian Harry. You may have read Brian’s popular blog or seen him present on the big stage. This is the opportunity to hear him speak and ask him questions in a more intimate user group setting.

Brian will be presenting on Visual Studio Team System Internal Adoption at Microsoft during the online EMEA TSUG-VE meeting. Come hear how one of the largest software companies in the world is using VSTS from one of the biggest names!

TSUG-VE is a free online user group catering to Visual Studio Team System. Participation is through Second Life and/or Live Meeting, so you can attend from your desk, your house, or even your local coffee shop. All that is required is a compatible computer, a decent Internet connection, and membership at TSUG-VE.com. You may have noticed that this specific meeting is in our EMEA (Europe/Middle East/Africa) time zone. That doesn’t limit attendance to that geography… it just means that the meeting is held after work for EMEA participants, during the work day for the Americas and in the middle of the night for Asia/Pacific.

Feel free to email info@tsug-ve.com if you would like more information.

Team System Users Group “EMEA” meeting moved to weeknights

dmckinstry — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:38:00 GMT

Effective this month, the TSUG-VE monthly meetings targeted at Europe / Middle East / Africa (EMEA) participants is being moved from Saturday to Thursday. This should make it easier for Team System enthusiasts across Europe and through related time zones to more easily attend and participate. Even if you aren’t able to participate, sign up to gain access to the recorded Live Meeting presentations portion of the meetings.

The meetings for this month include:

Joel Semeniuk presenting on Estimation Madness

Thursday, March 19
5:00 PM PDT (UTC-0700)
Add to calendar

Joel is a founder of Imaginet Resources Corp; a Canadian based Microsoft Gold Partner. He is also a Microsoft Regional Director and an MVP in Visual Studio Team System.

Thomas Schlisser presenting on Requirements Management

Thursday, March 26
1800 UTC
Add to calendar

Thomas is a Project Lead and Software Architect for Artiso Corp. in Germany. He is the leader of the Ulm .NET Developer group and a Microsoft MVP in Visual Studio Team System.

For both meetings, the pre- and post-meeting participation will be available in Second Life. Meeting presentations will be simulcast on both Second Life and Live Meeting. Demonstrations will be provided solely in Live Meeting. The Live Meeting content will be recorded for future review by TSUG members.

Install Live Meeting from: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90703

Install Second Life from: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft%20Island/190/73/22

“See you there!”

VSTS “Big Event” for the Western US

dmckinstry — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:44:14 GMT

If you’re interested in Visual Studio Team System and you live in the western United States, you should consider attending the Team System Big Event! Steve Lange and other Microsoft Tech Specialists, Microsoft Evangelists and community specialists are coming together to bring a great full-day event at several locations, including: Denver CO, Mountain View CA, Irvine CA, Portland OR and Phoenix AZ. I’m planning on attending and speaking in one or more of the different events. It should be a great time to learn more about Team System and ALM. Registration is being handled through Microsoft events. See Steve’s blog for more information, to download the related PDF and for the registration links.

Tech Trifecta presentation

dmckinstry — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:09:00 GMT

Last Saturday, members of the developer community in Colorado put on a fantastic event. It appears that over 400 people convened in downtown Denver to participate in the Rocky Mountain TechTrifecta. The event featured great speakers such as Scott Hanselman, Kathleen Dollard, Tim Huckaby, Joe Mayo, ... over 30 in all. Congratulations to Julie Yack and all the organizers for a great day.

If you attended my Unit Testing in Visual Studio 2008 presentation, I promised the slide deck for anyone interested. So, here it is... UnitTestingWithVS2008.zip

February is “Build Month” at the online Team System User Group

dmckinstry — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 04:50:50 GMT

This week, the online Team System Users Group (TSUG-VE) is hosting two great events focused on MSBuild and Team Build. If you’re interested in how automated builds can help your team, plan to attend both! Don’t forget… TSUG is an ONLINE user community focused on Team System and development practices. You can attend regardless of where you are in the world!

The first meeting features Canadian Team System MVP Wes MacDonald focusing on Deployment Strategies with Team Build. The second meeting features Team System consultant and trainer Steve St. Jean who will focus on the foundation of .NET builds with his Introduction to MSBuild. Both sessions will include a quick introduction to custom work item controls with Israeli Team System consultant, Shai Raiten.

February Evening Meeting

Meeting Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009
Time: 5:00PM PST/SLT (UTC-08:00)
Location: Microsoft Island in Second Life
Intro Session: Introducing Work Item Custom Controls with Shai Raiten
Keynote: Deployment strategies with Team Build with Wes MacDonald
Second Life URL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft%20Island/190/73/22
LiveMeeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=RFR4H7&role=attend&pw=g6%22q%29mK6n

February Weekend Meeting

Meeting Date: Saturday, February 21, 2009
Time: 9:00AM PST/SLT (UTC-08:00)
Location: Microsoft Island in Second Life
Intro Session: Introducing Work Item Custom Controls with Shai Raiten
Keynote: Introduction to MSBuild with Steve St. Jean.
Second Life URL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft%20Island/190/73/22
LiveMeeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=TG29DD&role=attend&pw=swp%5DMm4%26H

Need an excuse to visit the Rocky Mountains this weekend?

dmckinstry — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 03:50:01 GMT

Denver is hosting a great tech event this weekend… the Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta! The event is being held from 8:30AM to 5PM this coming Saturday, February 21st. I’m going to be presenting on Unit Testing with Visual Studio 2008, but don’t let that stop you. There are separate tracks for .NET development, SQL and Windows Server with many great speakers including Scott Hanselman, Kathleen Dollard, Tim Huckaby and many more. If you’re in the area, this is a not—to-miss event. If you’re not in the area, this is a great excuse to hop a plane, stay an extra day and hit the slopes!

Hope to see you there!

Outlook Add-in for TFS Work Item Alerts

dmckinstry — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 03:04:00 GMT

If you’re someone who (like me) makes extensive use of Team System’s ability to send emails when work item’s change, you might like a new Outlook add-in that a friend of mine, Shai Raiten, has released. This free VSTO add-in for Outlook 2007 allows you to directly view or edit work items referenced in alert emails in one of three ways:

Using a standard Work Item Tracking edit form – just like you’d see in Team Explorer
Using a browser to directly view the underlying event XML
Using Team System Web Access to view or edit the work item in a web browser.

The add-in is extremely easy to install and use. It is configurable to handle many (perhaps all?) alternate TFS configurations . Here is a screen shot…

I expect Shai will post more details on how to use it soon! But for now, here is the download link: Wit-It! Outlook 2007 addin

UPDATE: Here is Shai's own post describing WIT-It.

Scrum at TSUG – Be There!!!

dmckinstry — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:27:47 GMT

Sorry I’ve been so lax in posting for awhile. I have a few nice posts drafted but never managed to hit the publish button… But I do have a time-sensitive post for you.

Are you interested in Scrum and/or agile development practices? Are you using a Scrum-like process or trying to adopt one? Perhaps you’re wondering which of the available Scrum-based process templates is right for your team? If so, or even if you’re just mildly curious, plan to attend the Team System User Group (Virtual Edition) in Second Life. Trent Nix is giving a repeat performance of his VSLive presentation on real-life Scrum and TFS.

The meeting is at 5PM Pacific time, 8PM Eastern time online in Second Life. Refer to my previous post for information on how to attend or the official TSUG Website. In addition we’re going to do a repeat at 9AM (Pacific time = UTC-0800) on Saturday for people outside of the Americas in different time zones.

As an added bonus, Steve St. Jean will briefly introduce us to something few mortals attempt with Team System - - How to extend the TFS Data Warehouse through custom adapters!

We hope to see you there!

How to participate in the "Team System Users Group - Virtual Edition"

dmckinstry — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:47:37 GMT

After asking fellow MVPs to help us drive visibility to the new Team System User Group (Virtual Edition), we ran across some hosting issues. Last night we had a router issue and this morning we've had a cable cut. The provider has an 8-hour response time so hopefully we'll be back soon. But in the mean time, http://www.tsug-ve.com is down! Please be patient and check-back. We hope to see many of you at our inaugural meeting tomorrow!

The TSUG website has instructions and I will generally send our an invite before the meeting. In case you're not able to sign-up at the site before then, here is what you need to do to participate:

Make sure you have SecondLife and LiveMeeting installed and configured.
The meeting is ~~Thursday, Sept 18th~~ [Update: the third Thursday of each month] at ~~6PM~~ 5PM (Pacific time = GMT-08:00). [Update: There is an additional meeting on the third Saturday of each month at 9AM Pacific time, catering to European and Middle-Eastern time zones.]
Sign into both LiveMeeting and SecondLife a little early - we will try to start on time and you may want to socialize with fellow VSTS enthusiasts. If you haven't played with SecondLife, plan to spend a few minutes going through the tutorial before you get started.
Be prepared to switch back-and-forth (Alt-Tab) between SL and LM. We will do demos in LiveMeeting and many slides and interaction in SecondLife.

Important links:

SecondLife System Requirements: http://secondlife.com/support/sysreqs.php
SecondLife Installation: http://secondlife.com/support/downloads.php
LiveMeeting System Requirements: http://main.livemeeting.com/support/sys_req.cfm
LiveMeeting Client Installation: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101733831033.aspx
SecondLife meeting location - for this meeting:
Microsoft User Group Island - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft%20Island/190/73/22
LiveMeeting invite - for this meeting:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join?id=F8C6DP&role=attend&pw=PN6.%3CQ%5Drb

We hope to "see" you there!