A Developer's Life » Software Development, 42, and everything in between

05 Mar 2011

March 2011 Team Foundation Server Power Tools

ALM, TFS, Utilities

The latest version (March 2011) of the Team Foundation Server 2010 Power Tools are now available and can be downloaded via the following links: Main Power Tools Build Extensions MSSCCI plugin (unchanged from previous release) The primary enhancements in this release include: Addressed reported issues in the Backup/Restore Power Tool (yeah!). After the initial release of the Backup/Restore Power Tool, there were several issues that made the tool questionable to use in some cases. These issues have now been resolved (over 40 bugs fixed!). Fleshed out the Windows Shell Extension for version control (double-yeah!) The Windows shell extension for TFS…

03 Mar 2011

MVP Global Summit 2011 Comes to a Close

ALM, Conferences

This year marks my third consecutive Microsoft MVP Global Summit. Each year seems to be a little bit better than the last. However, this year was a lot better than last year’s summit – mainly due to the timing of products and content of the sessions. Although there was lots to see and discuss, the content is under NDA so not much can be discussed. However, one thing is certain, working with the Visual Studio/ALM product groups is nothing short of amazing. Having been an MVP for close to three years now (first a Team Foundation Server MVP and now…

04 Feb 2011

Free Visual Studio/ALM Training

ALM, Visual Studio

A fellow Visual Studio ALM MVP, Martin Hinshelwood, who also happens to be an employee of Northwest Cadence, recently posted a list of training (“coffee”) talks offered for free. Here is the currently scheduled list of talks: Coffee Talks These coffee talks have some superb topics and you can get excellent interaction with the presenter as they are kind of informal. Date Day Time Topic Register Here 01/04/11 Tuesday 8:30AM – 9:30AM PST Real World Business and Technical Benefits of ALM with TFS 2010 150656 01/28/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio…

28 Jan 2011

Visual Studio Code Metrics PowerTool 10.0

Visual Studio

Visual Studio Code Metrics (Current Functionality) Code Metrics was introduced in Visual Studio 2008. This feature allows developers to calculate various code metrics for projects and solutions. This feature calculates five separate metrics: Maintainability Index [higher=better]– Calculates an index value between 0 and 100 that represents the relative ease of maintaining the code. A high value means better maintainability. Color coded ratings can be used to quickly identify trouble spots in your code. A green rating is between 20 and 100 and indicates that the code has good maintainability. A yellow rating is between 10 and 19 and indicates that…

22 Dec 2010

My First Published Windows Phone 7 Apps

Windows Phone

Like many other developers out there (there’s over 18,000 registered developers so far) I decided to take a try at writing some applications for Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7. I decided to create two simple applications (to start with) – one for free and the other to (try to) sell for $0.99 (USD). The details for each application is included below. But first, a few lessons learned. Lessons Learned All the tools necessary for creating Windows Phone 7 applications are FREE! Check out this link to get started. Being able to utilize existing Silverlight skills is a huge plus. I…

16 Dec 2010

ALM Summit Videos Available On-line

Conferences

If you were not able to attend the ALM Summit this year, the session videos are now available on-line. You can view the session video links here as well as in the table below. Currently, the videos are available only in streaming format for on-line viewing. It is hoped that off-line (i.e. downloadable) versions will be made available in the near future. Speaker Session Title Downloads Day 1 Ken Schwaber (scrum.org) Keynote: Scrum: The 3rd Decade The inventor of Scrum describes his collaboration with Microsoft to create the Professional Scrum Developer training for VS 2010 customers. Watch video David West…

08 Dec 2010

Visual Studio 2010/TFS 2010 SP1 Beta

TFS, Visual Studio

The Visual Studio 2010/TFS 2010 SP1 Beta has been released to MSDN Subscribers. The SP1 Beta will be released to the general public this Thursday. The SP1 Beta does come with a “Go Live” license which basically means it can be installed in a production environment and an upgrade path to the final release version will be supported. There are several new features included in this service pack beta (some of which were previously available as a separate download) as well as quite a few bug fixes. Some of the new features include: Local Help Viewer Silverlight 4 Tools Unit…

20 Nov 2010

Free Microsoft Press eBooks

eBooks

If you’re looking for a set of free eBooks (PDF and XPS formats) to catch up on some light reading, you might want to check these out: Free eBook: Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (10 chapters by Patrice Pelland, Pascal Paré, and Ken Haines) Free eBook: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (10 chapters by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner) Free eBook: Petzold’s Programming Windows Phone 7 (24 chapters by Charles Petzold) Free eBook: Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft (8 chapters by Katherine Murray) Free eBook: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions (Second…

16 Nov 2010

Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2

Visual Studio

Not too long ago, Brian Harry posted that Feature Pack 2 was imminent. As of yesterday, Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2 is available for download (here). This feature pack is cumulative in that it will also install the features previously available in Feature Pack 1. The highlights of Feature Pack 2 include: Testing features: Use Microsoft Test Manager to capture and playback action recordings for Silverlight 4 applications. Create coded UI tests for Silverlight 4 applications with Visual Studio 2010 Premium or Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. Edit coded UI tests using a graphical editor with Visual Studio 2010 Premium or…

15 Nov 2010

Talks and Slides

Conferences

Over the past few weeks, I’ve given six talks (on three subjects) at three different conferences. Although the slide decks are pretty much the same between conferences, I thought I’d go ahead and post links to them all here in case anyone is looking for them. Tulsa TechFest, November 2010 What’s New in TFS 2010? Migrating to TFS 2010 – Lessons Learned Creating Quality Software: A Look at Visual Studio 2010 Testing Tools Tyson Development Conference, October 2010 VS2010 ALM – What’s In It for Me? Migrating to TFS 2010 – Lessons Learned Heartland Developer Conference, September 2010 Creating Quality…