17 Jan 2015

How/Is Visual Studio Online Protected?

Visual Studio Online
If you have been pushing your company, or even yourself, toward using Microsoft’s Visual Studio Online (VSO) cloud offering, you’ve no doubt been on the other end of questions such as: How does Microsoft project my data? How do I know it’s not going to end up in the wrong hands? What happens if a database fails? and on, and on, and…These are fair questions. If you are going to trust another entity with the very essence of the software solutions your company has put so much time, effort, money and, potentially, intellectual property into then you want to ensure…
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17 Jan 2015

Visual Studio 2015 CTP 5

Visual Studio 2015
In case you’re staying up to date with the latest releases of Visual Studio 2015 (still in CTP mode), the CTP 5 release is now available for download:Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2015 CTP (exe, iso) Remote Tools for Visual Studio 2015 CTP (x86, x64, arm) Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 SDK CTP (exe) Multibyte MFC Library for Visual Studio 2015 CTP (exe)This release contains some new features around debugging, diagnostics, the XAML language service and ASP.NET 5.XAML Language Service – this service now sits on top of the .NET Compiler Platform (“Roslyn”) providing you with a fast and reliable XAML editing…
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03 Jan 2015

Migrating WP 8.0 Apps to WP 8.1

Windows Phone
If you’re like me and have been developing Windows Phone apps for a while (several years in my case) then you just might have more than one app in the store. In my case, I currently have eight apps published in the Windows Phone store.At the moment, all of these target Windows Phone 8.0 (with a few of them also still targeting Windows Phone 7.1). As we get closer to the next release of Windows (Windows 10) and the unification of the Windows and Windows Phone stores, I want to start migrating my Windows Phone 8.0 apps to Windows Phone…
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29 Dec 2014

Visual Studio 2015 Tag Admin Extension

Add-ins & Extensions, TFS 2013, Visual Studio Online
If you are currently using Visual Studio 2015 Preview, and you make use of the Tag feature within Team Foundation Server (TFS) and/or Visual Studio Online (VSO), then you will want to give the Tag Admin for Visual Studio 2015 extension a go!This new extension is brought to you by the same folks that created the Team Rooms Extension for Visual Studio 2013 and supports both TFS (2013 Update 3 and greater) and VSO.The features enabled by this extension include:View Active TagsOnce you’ve installed the extension, click on the Tag Admin link on the Home hub of the Team Explorer…
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19 Dec 2014

Quick Edit in Visual Studio Online

Visual Studio Online
A couple of days ago, I wrote about the final VSO updates for 2014.  One of the new features discussed was the Quick Edit features in VSO. At the time of that post, the updates hadn’t been propagated across all VSO accounts. I still don’t know if the new features have hit all accounts yet, but it has at least hit mine :-) That said, here’s a quick run-through of the new Quick Edit features now available in VSO… Editing a File You can now edit a file directly with Visual Studio Online within your web browser. To do this,…
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17 Dec 2014

Visual Studio Online/TFS Features & Roadmap

TFS, Visual Studio Online
If you’ve been using and/or following Visual Studio Online and/or Team Foundation Server, you’re likely already familiar with the Features Timeline published by Microsoft. For those not familiar, it is essentially a running history of features that have been delivered via successive sprints (roughly every three weeks). Not only does it list available features but also shows what version of TFS the features is in (e.g. 2013.4) or whether it is VSO only (e.g. Future update). Here is a partial screenshot of the current timeline: The features in today’s release are shown at the top for 17 Dec 2014. You…
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17 Dec 2014

The Final VSO Updates for 2014

Visual Studio Online
It’s nearing the end of 2014 (where’d the time go?!) and Microsoft has pushed out the final updates for Visual Studio Online for the year (the next release will be near the end of January, 2015). However, just because it’s the last push of the year doesn’t mean it isn’t a great update. In fact, there are several great things in this update. Here’s the quick rundown… Quick Edit – With this update, you can now make edits to a file in version control (Team Foundation Version Control or Git) directly from within your web browser. You can use the…
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13 Dec 2014

It’s a Cross-Platform, Microsoft World!

Cross Platform, General News
If anyone would have suggested to me a couple of years ago that Microsoft was not only going to release one of its major cash cows (e.g. Microsoft Office) on both iOS- and Android-based platforms, but would also provide developers with some amazing tools to help them also build for and publish to non-Microsoft platforms, I would have likely questioned their sanity. However, in the past couple of years, we’ve had a changing of the guard with a new CEO, Satya Nadella, and we now have a brand new Microsoft playing in the new (read: current) world. With this in…
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23 Nov 2014

Build v.Next–What do we know?

Visual Studio Online
As announced at Microsoft’s Connect(); event a couple of weeks ago, the company is working on several enhancements to their ALM stack. One of the changes announced is a major overhaul to their build system, currently referred to as Build v.Next. Although pieces of the new build functionality has been demoed on stage, we do not yet have access to the bits to try things out for ourselves. With that said, what do we know today about Build v.Next? DISCLAIMER: The details below have been gleaned from various Connect(); sessions and blog posts. The bits demoed are in an early,…
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19 Nov 2014

MSDN Subscriptions and Pluralsight

General News
As announced at Microsoft’s Connect(); event last week, MSDN subscription benefits now include access to Pluralsight training. Depending upon your MSDN subscription level, you get a set number of curated Pluralsight courses, for 12 months, as follows: MSDN Subscription Level Pluralsight Courses Professional 10 Premium 20 Ultimate 30 You also get access to the more advanced Pluralsight features such as offline viewing via mobile apps, pre- and post-course assessments, downloadable course exercise files, and course discussion forums. To sign up for your Pluralsight benefits using your MSDN subscription, go to: http://aka.ms/mymsdnbenefits. Once you sign in, you’ll be greeted with a…
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