02 Oct 2009

Another Year as a Team System MVP

General News
It was exactly one year ago today that I found out I was awarded with the Microsoft MVP status for Team System.  Since then I have had the opportunity to interact with many of my fellow Team System MVPs as well as many of the VSTS Rangers and have learned a great deal.  My first year as a Microsoft Team System MVP has been a great experience. Earlier today, I found out that my MVP status has been renewed for yet another year.  My thanks goes out to Microsoft for their support of this program.  I look forward to the…
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25 Sep 2009

Microsoft Announces “WebsiteSpark”

General News, Visual Studio
Up until yesterday, Microsoft had two “Spark” programs: BizSpark – a program for startup businesses DreamSpark – a program for students Yesterday, Scott Guthrie announced on his blog the new WebsiteSpark program.  This program is geared toward independent web developers as well as web development companies.  Here is a list of what’s provided with this program: 3 licenses of Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition 1 license of Expression Studio 3 (which includes Expression Blend, Sketchflow, and Web) 2 licenses of Expression Web 3 4 processor licenses of Windows Web Server 2008 R2 4 processor licenses of SQL Server 2008 Web…
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23 Sep 2009

TFSExamples.com – Part II

TFS, TFS API
A while back, I blogged about a new site that I created called TFSExamples.com with the intent that it serve as a community-based repository for examples showing how to make use of the TFS object model.  Several great examples were added by various supporters over the last year or so. Several weeks ago, the server hosting this site crashed and I have just now got the site back up and running again.  The down side – my latest backup of this particular site (that was actually usable) was about 14 months old.  I was able to restore a few of…
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22 Sep 2009

Check for Warnings/Errors Check-in Policy

Check-in Policies, Team System, TFS
A few days ago a fellow co-worker asked if I knew of a TFS check-in policy that checks for Visual Studio compilation errors and/or warnings.  I wasn’t aware of such a check-in policy (although it may exist out there somewhere) so I decided to go ahead and create it (who doesn’t love a challenge?!). When active, this check-in policy will evaluate the current Visual Studio solution to determine if any build warnings and/or errors are present.  If so, the check-in policy will fail and will prevent the code from being checked in (this can, of course, be overridden). To enable…
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29 Aug 2009

Speaking Schedule

Conferences
One of my favorite things about technology is having the opportunity to speak about technology.  For whatever reason, it always seems like this time of year always keeps me busy.  Here is a list of speaking engagements I’m scheduled for over the next few months: October 21st – presenting on Silverlight 3 at an internal user group within Farm Credit Services of America (my employer) November 3rd – presenting on VSTS 2010 – What’s in it for me? at the Dubuque, IA .NET User Group.  I gave this presentation for the Omaha Team System User Group last month and am…
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05 Aug 2009

Omaha Team System User Group RSS Feeds

User Group
Due to a recent server failure/web site makeover, the RSS feeds from the Omaha Team System User Group web site have changed.  The new RSS feeds are as follows: Announcements – OTSUG announcements Events – OTSUG and other events As always, please contact me if you have any questions regarding the Omaha Team System User Group or if you are interested in presenting a topic at an upcoming meeting.
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05 Aug 2009

Omaha Team System User Group Site is Back!

User Group
If you have visited the Omaha Team System User Group site within the past couple of weeks, you’ve probably noticed one of two things - the site was either down or the site looked a lot different than it used to. A couple of weeks ago, the server that hosts the OTSUG web site crashed and took everything with it.  Although I had various backups of various files, I did not have any (recent) backups of the entire partition.  After bringing a severely out of date backup on-line (it was four years old!) I had quite a bit of configuration…
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31 Jul 2009

VSTS: What’s in it for Me?

User Group, Visual Studio 2010
I just completed a presentation on “VSTS 2010: What’s in it for Me?” for the Omaha Team System User Group and Omaha .NET User Group (original post).  The venue was once again sponsored by Farm Credit Services of America and the food and give-aways were sponsored by QCI – thanks Jodi!  I haven’t reviewed the sign-in sheet yet to get the exact count but we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 attendees for tonight’s talk – a great turn out. There are so many new features in VSTS 2010 that it was a challenge keeping the presentation…
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31 Jul 2009

Windows 7 – Free Copy for Beta Testers!

Windows 7
This just in…  For those of you (myself included) that were involved in the Windows 7 Technical Beta program (available on Microsoft Connect), you will now be able to download a full (i.e. non-upgrade), not-for-resale, copy of Windows 7 Ultimate for your own personal use!  Thanks Microsoft! More details are available via this post.
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30 Jul 2009

Omaha Team System User Group

User Group, Visual Studio 2010
I have been somewhat behind posting lately (I hear new babies in the family will do that ) so it only seems right that I post about the next Omaha Team System User Group meeting 12 hours before it starts. This month, the Omaha Team System User Group and the Omaha .NET User Group are combining their efforts into a single meeting.  Tonight, I will be presenting on “VSTS 2010: What’s in it for me?”.  This will be a presentation that covers the major, new features that have been added to Visual Studio Team System 2010.  There are a LOT…
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