07 Jul 2014

Enterprise Architects User Group–Omaha

User Group
The next (2nd) meeting will be held Tuesday, July 8th at BCBSNE offices (1919 Aksarben Drive) from 6:30-8:00pm. This meeting will focus on how different organizations are executing Enterprise Architecture. Aside from general information sharing the goal of this meeting is to use this information to gauge interest in deeper dives for future meetings. We will have two presenters to share their organization’s EA practice: Aaron Long - Blue Cross Blue Shield of NebraskaJeff Bramwell - Farm Credit Services of America Dinner will be provided at 6:30pm along with a networking time and the presentations will start at 7:00pm. The…
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02 Jul 2014

Visual Studio/TFS 2013 Update 3–Release Candidate

Visual Studio 2013
Microsoft released today Visual Studio 2013 (and Team Foundation Server) Update 3 Release Candidate (RC). There is a great video on Microsoft’s Channel 9 site covering many of the features and enhancements in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 RC. If you don’t have the time (or desire) to watch the video right now (it’s about 50 minutes in length) then keep reading… Here is a summary showing some of what’s new in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 (RC): CodeLens Probably the biggest change with CodeLens is that it now supports Git-based repositories. Since it works against a local Git repository,…
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16 Jun 2014

Application Security Chalk Talk

Security, User Group
At Farm Credit Services of America, where I am employed, we go through great lengths to ensure our development teams have plenty of training opportunities to help ensure we can develop the best possible user experience for our customers. These opportunities might come in the form of local or national conferences, self-paced learning – such as with Pluralsight – or in-house training – some of which is taught by employees and others taught by outside experts. Starting this week, we have the pleasure of bringing in two top-notch security experts from TrueSec to provide application security training to all of…
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05 Jun 2014

Running Visual Studio 2014 CTP on Azure

Azure, Visual Studio 2015
Yesterday, I posted about Microsoft’s recent release of Visual Studio 2014 CTP. Whereas most developers are eager to download, install, and try out new software releases, there was one caveat mentioned in this post that is worth paying attention to: NOTE: It is recommended that you install the CTP on a machine that has no other version of Visual Studio installed. In other words, don’t install this on your primary/production machine! Since we can’t (shouldn’t) install the CTP release on our primary machine, a common approach would be to setup a virtual machine (VM) with Visual Studio 2014 CTP installed…
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04 Jun 2014

Visual Studio “14”– CTP Released

Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2015
Right on the heels of the Visual Studio 2013/TFS 2013 Update 3 CTP 1 announcement, Microsoft releases the first CTP for Visual Studio “14” (final name TBD). Although the final version of Visual Studio “14” isn’t likely to be released until next year, you can install the CTP now to get an early look at some of the changes going into the next version of Visual Studio. NOTE: It is recommended that you install the CTP on a machine that has no other version of Visual Studio installed. Although there a many features available in this CTP, some of the…
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18 May 2014

Extending TFS and Visual Studio Online eBook

eBooks, TFS, TFS API, Visual Studio Online
Last week, at TechEd North America, Microsoft announced the availability of a new API being provided by Visual Studio Online. This API is based on REST, OAuth, JSON, and Service Hooks. While this new API is still in preview mode there is still a lot of functionality that can be taken advantage of by your custom applications. While a great deal of documentation is being provided by Microsoft, I and Mike Douglas (a fellow Visual Studio ALM MVP) have started writing a book on this very topic titled “Extending Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Online”. The primary focus of…
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02 May 2014

Windows Unplugged Events Coming Soon

Events
How many times have you wanted 10 minutes with someone from the Microsoft Windows team to ask a question, share a thought, get a best practice or maybe just better understand a feature? Well here is your chance. Many of you remember Stephen Rose as the previous owner of the Springboard Series. One of the many programs he lead were the Springboard Series Tours across the US, Canada, Europe and South America.  “I’m excited to announce our Windows Unplugged Tour. Windows Unplugged is similar to the Springboard Series Tours we did in the past but scaled down since it’s just…
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13 Apr 2014

Build 2014–Quick Links

Conferences, General News, Visual Studio, Windows Phone
The Build 2014 conference ended just over a week ago and many of us are still sifting through the various announcements and downloads. This post provides a list of some of the various links to sessions and downloads that you might find handy. Sessions You can find the links to all the session videos and slide decks here. Visual Studio / .NET .NET Foundation – There were several open source announcements at this year’s Build event. The .NET Foundation will be the steward of a growing collection of open source technologies for.NET, Microsoft’s comprehensive development framework. Here is a snapshot…
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13 Apr 2014

Migrate from Visual Studio Online to On-Premises TFS

TFS, Visual Studio Online
If you have logged into your Visual Studio Online account recently you might have seen the notice in the image on the left. Essentially, what this is telling you is that if you would like to move your Visual Studio Online team projects to an on-premises version of Team Foundation Server, then you have until May 20th, 2014 to get it done. As might be expected, there are a few caveats: The on-premises version of TFS must be Team Foundation Server 2013 Update 2 This is a one-way move (from Visual Studio Online to an on-premises TFS). You cannot move…
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04 Apr 2014

A Professor and a Former Student Walking Into Build…

Conferences, For Fun
TL;DR -  This is simply a recollection of a random event at Build 2014 this week. If you have no interest in reading about random events in my life I won’t be offended if you click the Back button now So, in the early 1990’s I was working on my Computer Science degree at Hawaii Pacific University (I happened to be stationed in Hawaii at the time while service in the United States Air Force). Like many CS students, I had many instructors. Also, like many others, I had my favorites… One of which was James McCaffrey. What I liked…
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