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

06 Mar 2009

TFS Admin Tool v.Next

TFS, Utilities

For those of us who use the Team Foundation Server Administration Tool, we know how much of a time saver it can be. If you have not used the TFS Admin Tool, hosted on CodePlex, here’s a quick description: The TFS Admin Tool allows a TFS administrator to quickly add users to all three platforms utilized by Team Foundation Server: Team Foundation Server, SharePoint, and SQL Reporting Services, all through one common interface. The tool also allows administrators to change the current permissions on any of the three tiers, identify any errors, and view all of the users and their…

01 Mar 2009

Microsoft MVP Global Summit

Conferences

Microsoft MVPs from all around the world have began their descent on Seattle. Tomorrow starts the 2009 Microsoft MVP Global Summit which will run from March 1st thru March 4th. Having been a Microsoft MVP (for Team System) for only a few months, this is my first Summit and I am happy that I am able to attend. I am not completely sure what to expect but what I hope to get out of it is the opportunity to meet a lot of other software professionals with a passion for technology and learning. Based on my conversation with the first…

25 Feb 2009

Install Partner

Utilities

If your development shop is anything like ours, then you probably have dozens of various development tools, utilities, etc. In our case, we have multiple development teams which utilize a common set of tools but also make use of specific tools that apply to the types of projects each team supports. There are two common issues that arise because of this configuration: When we re-image our development machines we still need to install most of the developer tools that we make use of. Again, some of this is common across teams but most of it varies by team and developer.…

11 Feb 2009

Team System Live

Team System

I came across a (relatively) new site yesterday called Team System Live. This site is built on the Ning platform and was put together by Chris Tullier. It provides a great view into various live events related to Visual Studio Team System. There are various event types, including: In Person events such as workshops and user group meetings On-line events hosted by Microsoft Office Live Meeting On-line chats You can add your own events or you can search for existing events by keyword or browse based on event type or date. Once you locate an event of interest, you can…

09 Feb 2009

VS 2008 Project Template for TFS Utilities

TFS, Visual Studio

If you’re like me and create a lot of simple, “one-off” TFS utilities, you’ve probably followed steps similar to these multiple times: Create a new “Windows Forms” (or “Console”) project in Visual Studio 2008. Add various TFS assembly references which can range anywhere between one or a dozen references. Add some “using” statements to your code. Finally, start coding the utility. Apparently, Neno Loje (a fellow Team System MVP) has done this a time or two as well and decided to create a Visual Studio 2008 Project Template to alleviate some of the repetitive tasks. After installing the template, you…

31 Dec 2008

Get Files Associated with a Build

Code Snippet, TFS API

One of the greatest features of Team Foundation Server is it's extensibility via the TFS Object Model. A short while back I received a question asking how to retrieve a list of all files included in all the changesets associated with a build. The intent (of the person asking the question) was to deploy only those files that had been modified in one of the changesets. The following code example is what I came up with. I can't say it's the only way, or even the most efficient way, to achieve the desired result, but it's at least one way…

04 Dec 2008

Microsoft Learning & Hands-On Labs

Training

If you've never checked out the Microsoft Learning site I would recommend giving it a look. This site provides a great deal of training-related information for various Microsoft products. You can easily find training for a variety of products based on the learning resource types, technologies, or subjects. You can also search for a specific exam and get detailed information on what materials are available for use in preparing for the exam. It will also give you other useful information such as what certifications does the exam apply to. Another cool feature of the site are the Learning Plans. There…

26 Nov 2008

How To: Skip Actions When Queuing a Build

How To:, Team Build, TFS

One of the tasks we commonly build into our Team Build scripts is the ability to run FitNesse tests along with other tests (such as unit tests). If any of the tests fail, we do not deploy the product for user acceptance testing. The advantage to this approach is that we find out relatively quickly if we have "broke" the build if we have failing tests. The down side to this is two-fold: 1) the build takes longer to run (not that big of an issue in our case) and 2) Sometimes we refactor code that should break the FitNesse…

26 Nov 2008

Omaha Team System User Group

TFS, User Group

After having to postpone the session from September due to scheduling conflicts we had a great turnout for the Omaha Team System User Group meeting last week. The speaker for our November meeting was Russ Wagner, an Enterprise Applications Architect at Farm Credit Services of America. After having some tasty pizza and enjoying a little socializing, Russ presented on the TFS command line utilities and TFS Power Tools related to Team Foundation Server. The presentation went very well (despite some pre-demonstration glitches) and proved to be very informative. Although I've had the opportunity to use the majority of the command…

27 Oct 2008

VSTS 2010 + .NET Framework 4.0 CTP

CTP, Team System, Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Community Technology Preview (CTP) has been made available for download (as of 26 Oct 2008). You can get the latest bits here. It is about a 7.5 GB download so be prepared for it to take a little while, especially since it was just released. There is a ton of new functionality in VSTS 2010, far too much to enumerate in this post. However, you can check this previous post of mine as a starting point for getting more details. Download VSTS 2010 .NET 4.0 CTP