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Ravings of a Developer TS

I have been with Microsoft as part of their Develop Platform and Evangelism team since July of 2006. As I go about my day to day, I often stumble across things I want to share out with the community. This is my soap box. I am based out of the Midwest District, so please don't be offended if you see most of the events I post being in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. If you are ever curious if the event will be in a city near you, just ask :)

July Indy TFS SIG meeting - Rosario TFS vNext

Rosario TFS vNext presented by Paul Hacker

Join us as we look at the TFS vNext codenamed "Rosario". We are going to be walking through the new features to the Architect tools, Testing tools and other enhancements being made to TFS for the next release.

Paul is a Principle Consultant at Lacerta Solutions, LLC in Indianapolis, with a passion for Team System. He has been working with the product since mid-2005. Paul has implemented Team System/TFS in numerous organizations. When not spending time with his family, you can find him presiding over the Indianapolis TFS SIG, Podcasting on Radio TFS, publishing the TFS Times monthly newsletter focused on Team System, or writing tools to enhance Team System.

8:00-9:00 PM Thursday July10th 2008 immediately following IndyNDA

The Gene B. Glick
Junior Achievement
Education Center
7435 North Keystone Ave
Indianapolis, IN 46240

Map and Directions

 

And in case you are interested in what is going on at IndyNDA...

Paul Schaeflein
presents
SharePoint for Developers


You've heard about SharePoint, eh? It is a framework that connects people, process, and information. 

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provides foundational features that are valuable for creating web based applications such as a web part framework, data lists, document libraries, workflow runtime, and web site templates. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 adds major application features on top of this, including user site provisioning, business intelligence features, forms services, content management, integrated search and social networking features. All of these features can be built on by developers to extend them. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is built entirely on ASP.NET so you use the same familiar .NET languages, the same .NET Framework and ASP.NET class libraries and the same development tools.

Paul will show, via sample projects, how web parts are developed.

About Paul Schaeflein
Paul Schaeflein is a developer with more than 20 years experience. Paul has been developing dynamic and interactive Web sites since 1996. Paul has worked on all of the versions of SharePoint and has worked with the .NET framework since its debut. You can reach Paul through his blog at
http://www.schaeflein.net/blog/.
 

 

by AngelaB | 2 Comments

Have You Checked Out Thirsty Developer Lately?

Some good friends of mine here at Microsoft, Dave and Larry, have a great pod-cast called Thirsty Developer.  They cover all kinds of great developer-centric topics, and manage to nab interviews with some seriously cool people, well cool in the IT world anyway :)  This latest show finds Larry at the QAI Quest conference with me in Wheeling Illinois, where he got some time to sit down with Ed Glas.  Ed Glas is a program manager on the Visual Studio Team System product team, based in Durham, North Carolina.  This interview is a high level discussion of load testing for web applications using Visual Studio Team Test, with some tips and tricks, best practices, as well as some great "war stories".

 

Take some time to listen to this great interview.  And don't forget to subscribe to their RSS feed and listen to all of their pod-casts!  They are giving away another Zune, and all you need to do is let us know how you think we are doing.

Submit your feedback and your entry for a custom Zune80.

by AngelaB | 1 Comments

Our Very Own ALM Tools "Myth Busters"

In case you missed it, June 2nd through June 6th was "Myth Week".  Mike and James from our DPE team in the Public Sector segment released these amusing videos that debunk several "myths" floating around the IT world in regards to software development.  Some of the humor is a bit over the top, but if you stick through to the end of each segment, you will get a good overview of the advantages of using an ALM product like VSTS.  Check it out!

Myth 1: My team is small, we don't need a collaboration tool!

Myth 2: Do I REALLY need a Software Development Process?

Myth 3: Do we REALLY need the latest development tools?

Myth 4:  Friday Status Meetings, Do we Really Need Them?

Myth 5: Well, I don't know yet.  Check their site regularly to see what's new!

 

For more general developer related topics, check out their team blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/publicsector/default.aspx 

 

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by AngelaB | 1 Comments

New .NET 3.5 Webcasts are Coming... Mark Your Calendars!

Tune in as we explore the new features in the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 that developers will love. We detail the new assemblies added to the .NET Framework 3.5 to avoid breaking changes, including deep integration with Language-Integrated Query (LINQ); ASP.NET Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX); and full tooling support in Microsoft Visual Studio for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

 

Live Webcasts

MSDN Webcast: ADO.NET Data Services Overview (Part 1 of 2) (Level 100)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008  11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time

 

MSDN Webcast: Beyond the Endpoints with Windows Communication Foundation with Juval Lowy (Level 100)

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 10:00 A.M.–11:30 A.M. Pacific Time

 

MSDN Webcast: geekSpeak: Workflow Services in .NET 3.5 with Jon Flanders (Level 200)

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 12:00 P.M.–1:00 P.M. Pacific Time

 

MSDN Webcast: Calling Services from Silverlight 2.0 with Jon Flanders (Level 300)

Monday, June 23, 2008 9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

 

MSDN Webcast: ADO.NET Data Services Overview (Part 2 of 2) (Level 100)

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time

 

MSDN Webcast: Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation Integration in Depth with Jesus Rodriguez (Level 400)

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 10:00 A.M.–11:00 A.M. Pacific Time

 

MSDN Webcast: Windows Workflow Communication in Depth with Matt Milner (Level 400)

Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

 

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by AngelaB | 1 Comments

Join Microsoft and Pluralsight in a timely discussion on Next Web

Date and location

Friday, June 13, 2008

Microsoft Office - Chicago
77 W. Wacker Drive, Suite 2300
Chicago IL 60601

Register

In this seminar, you will take part in a technical exploration of the latest technologies Microsoft has to offer, and how you can take advantage of those technologies to provide a truly next-generation user experience in you Windows and web client applications. During the seminar, the instructor will guide you on a technical walkthrough of each technology, demonstrate the technologies' capabilities, and show the tools and techniques used to provide those capabilities.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) -- WPF is Microsoft's next-generation presentation platform. WPF is built into Windows Vista and also runs on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. WPF allows rich client applications to take full advantage of the graphical capabilities of a modern PC. Its powerful and flexible programming model integrates support for flexible layout, high-quality text, resolution-independent graphics, animation, video and 3D. While it is designed to exploit the full capabilities of today's high-performance graphics cards, it offers high-level abstractions that offer great power to the developer for less development effort than ever before.

Microsoft Silverlight -- Silverlight is the Microsoft's latest technology for delivering rich, cross-platform, interactive experiences including video, audio, animation, and graphics for the Web and beyond. Utilizing a subset of XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language)-based Windows Presentation Foundation technology, Silverlight enables the creation of content and applications that run within multiple browsers and across multiple operating systems (Windows and Macintosh) with a standard programming model. Consistent with Web architecture, the XAML markup is programmable using JavaScript (in version 1.0), or any .NET language (in version 2), and is able to work in tandem with ASP.NET Ajax.

ASP.NET -- ASP.NET has established itself as one of the most productive environments for building web applications and more developers are switching over every day. The 2.0 and 3.5 releases of ASP.NET builds on the same componentry of 1.1, improving productivity of developers even further by providing standard implementations of common Web application features like membership, persistent user profile, and Web parts, among others. With more than 50 new server-side controls and many new pieces of web infrastructure, ASP.NET brings more new features than any web development technology in recent memory.

Pluralsight

Pluralsight is a premier Microsoft .NET training provider and home to many of the top authorities on .NET today. Pluralsight instructors can be seen speaking at the top conferences, writing for the leading journals, and delivering professional training classes on .NET topics to companies around the world. http://www.pluralsight.com

Speaker

Mike Henderson is an instructor for Pluralsight specializing in the .NET framework, WPF, and Silverlight. He also works as an independent consultant (operating as DotEverything, LLC -- http://doteverything.net), providing design, system engineering, and technology migration in WPF and Silverlight along with additional expertise in Windows kernel mode development and reverse engineering.

 

Register

by AngelaB | 0 Comments

My Software Development Meme (or tag I am next)

Larry Clarkin tagged me for this meme.  Seems like a fun one so I am going to oblige.

 

How old were you when you started programming?

I was actually a late bloomer.  My brother started programming in Basic when he was 9 on his Activision system.  He tried to get me interested several times in high school, but I was too busy making my hair big and hanging out at malls.  What?  I was a girl in the late 80's, what do you expect.

After my brother graduated from NIU, and I was still floundering in Community college deciding what to do with my life, he sat me down and asked me if I REALLY wanted to be a school teacher and have kids.  I was unsure.  He then challenged me to take just 2 programming classes at said community college and see if I liked it.  I did, and I did.  I was actually a natural.

What was your first language?

Pascal was my first, followed by Fortran

 

What was the first real program you wrote?

Wow, I wrote lots of dinky little programs in the various Computer Science courses that I took.  The first one I would consider REAL, was when I wrote a compiler in IBM 360 assembly language.  I know, IBM - gasp!  Followed by an operating system that I wrote in the same class.  That was SO COOL!  Also, made all of those S0C errors I used to get in COBOL make WAY more sense.

 

What languages have you used since you started programming?

::takes deep breath::

Logo, Pascal/Turbo Pascal, Fortran, BASIC, COBOL, Assembly, Bourn Shell, Sed/AWK, JCL, Delphi, Java, Power Builder, Visual Basic (classic and .NET), Javascript, XML, HTML, ASP (Classic and .NET), C, C#, C++, T-SQL  (I know there are a few more obscure ones, that is what I remember...)

What was your first professional programming gig?

OK, this is where I gain a +4 bonus on Charisma checks.  Since I was a Comp Sci student taking honors physics, I got the hookup.  My first internship was working with an experimental multi-core processor for Fermilab that had a proprietary C++ based language.  I was testing out how well the processor and their language could handle making calculations against the output of the Tevatron particle accelerator.  Oh yeah, I had way more street cred back then :)

 

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

Oh yeah, I would have started sooner too, cause I have loved my career in IT.  Well except that getting into it sooner might have changed the course of events that got me here, and might have prevented me from ever getting to Microsoft.  Plus the dotcom bust might have affected me a lot more than it did.  Ah, messing with the time space continuum.

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

Similar to Larry, it is WAY more than just writing code.  I don't think it was EVER just about code, but with the changes I have seen in the industry, anyone who thinks they can get by with their slick coding techniques and complete lack of presentation, negotiation and compromise skills won't last long/

What's the most fun you've ever had ... programming?

Wow, I got lucky.  When I was a consultant with Software Architects, I got to work on a lot of really great projects with fun and amazingly talented people.  I think the most fun I ever had, was when I was working on a compact framework project back in the .NET CF Beta days for Ace Hardware.  I was working with Jim Morrison (yes that is REALLY his name) who was the lead architect, I was the lead developer.  Our group was a lot of fun, and Jim and I put in some crazy hours, but I learned a lot and it was my foray into the .NET world.  And hey, I got to play with barcode scanners and pocket PCs!

Who am I Calling Out?

Chris Kadel

Clark Sell

Mario Rodriquez

Paul Hacker

 

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by AngelaB | 0 Comments

New Edition of TFS Times Focuses on the Testing World!

 

Paul Hacker, our rock star MVP from Indianapolis, has done it again.  He just released another quality issue of TFS Times.  This month, well June actually, focuses on the testing side of the Team System world.  Check it out!  http://www.tfstimes.com/news/

 

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by AngelaB | 1 Comments

PDC 2008 Site Launched

So before coming to Microsoft, I had never gotten the opportunity to actually go to a PDC.  Yeah, more 3 letter acronyms.  That would be our Professional Developer's Conference.  This year, I am very happy to say that I am finally going :) 

 

So, here are some details in case anyone out there is interested in sharing Oxygen with some of the most brilliant minds in the tech industry, and learning about what's new, cool, and what's still coming as far as the Microsoft Platform.  Hey, if nothing else, it's in Los Angeles!  Also, if you sign up now you even get a discount:

Experience the Future of the Microsoft® Platform

Since 1991, the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) has been Microsoft’s premier gathering of leading-edge developers and architects. Attend the PDC to understand the future of the Microsoft platform and to exchange ideas with fellow professionals. You’ll learn about upcoming products, meet Microsoft’s leaders and top engineers, write some code, and be inspired! Unplug for a few days and think about the future.

  • Explore the full breadth of the Microsoft platform in more than 160 technical sessions
  • Roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, and explore the latest technology for yourself in the hands-on labs
  • Attend a day-long pre-conference seminar to get deep training, best practices, and insightful advice from industry experts (*additional fee required).
  • Take the opportunity to interact with your peers and Microsoft staff in a variety of community-focused events like Ask the Experts and in the PDC Lounges

Register now and save $200

PDC2008 registration is now live.  Take advantage of the Early Bird discount and save $200 on your registration. Join us in Los Angeles October 27-30, 2008 and hear details about Microsoft’s services platform, the future of Windows, mobility and our next generation of developer tools. Register at www.microsoftpdc.com

 

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by AngelaB | 0 Comments

VSTS User Group Talks about SCRUM Tonight in Downers Grove, IL

Please join us in DG this month for a great SCRUM with TFS discussion and demo.  Feel free to invite anyone else who may be interested as well.  **This month we're in Downers Grove and NOT in downtown Chicago. We flip periodically to show the suburbs some love.

For our May meeting, Chad Thomas of Neudesic will be presenting Team Foundation Server 2008 and then discuss Agile in general and Scrum in particular. There will be a focus on the tools available for TFS 2008 (largely applicable to TFS 2005 too) such as eScrum, Conchango Scrum, TFS Sticky Buddy, Scrum Manager and TFS Power Tools. The talk will focus more on 'showing' than 'telling', as well as a *slightly* unbalanced case for Agile/Scrum.  Pizza will be at 5:30 PM and the presentation will start around 6. We hope to see you there!

When:  Wednesday May 28th at 6PM

Where: Microsoft's DG office:
3025 Highland Parkway, Suite 300
Downers Grove, IL
Map Link

Our website is here: http://vsts.sogeti-chicago.com/default.aspx
Also, online sign-up is not functioning. If you would like to attend this event, please email Laskowski.Dave@gmail.com.

 

Chad Thomas joined Neudesic in September 2007. Prior to that, Chad worked for JPMorgan Chase, BMW, and as an independent developer. While at JPMC, Chad managed a team that built the loan origination system for Chase Auto using BizTalk 2006 and .Net 2.0, and introduced Agile to the Retail Financial Services division. For BMW, he worked on the core framework and integration teams. He also managed a team that built a proprietary management portal for Chase Mortgage's call center which was patented by JPMorgan Chase. Chad's primary skills lie in Connected Systems and Custom Application Development with a focus in the Financial Services vertical.

by AngelaB | 0 Comments

End to End Scenario Articles Released for VSTS 2008

Global Bank: A Scenario for Visual Studio Team System 2008

Are you wondering what you can do in Visual Studio Team System 2008 that you couldn’t do before? We’ve created a series of articles to show you. In this series, we'll explore how Global Bank uses Visual Studio Team System 2008 to help design and implement a new online service. Global Bank is a fictitious, mid-sized traditional bank that offers limited services online. The company is working to determine which services it should add to its online offerings, based on competitor analysis and customer feedback.

During this series, you'll meet several of the Global Bank employees who work on this project and learn how they use Team System to complete their assigned part of the project. Here's a brief introduction to the online services team at Global Bank.

Global Bank: Adding New Services to an Existing Web Site

The first article in the series. Follow along as Alan creates the list of requirements for the new service and Ken uses these requirements to design the system.

Global Bank: Updating an Existing Database to Support New Services

The second article in the series. See how Alice implements the new table and stored procedure that are required for the new service.

Global Bank: Coding the New Service, Part 1

The third article in the series. Follow along as Martin begins coding, debugging, and testing the new service.

Global Bank: Coding the New Service, Part 2

The fourth article in the series. See how Martin uses unit testing and profiling to test the accuracy and robustness of his code.

Global Bank: Testing the New Service and Fixing Issues

The final article in the series. Follow along as Ellen uses web tests and load tests to check the performance of the new service.

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by AngelaB | 0 Comments

Kanban meets TFS at the Indianapolis TFS SIG in June

Kanban meets TFS

Start Date/Time:  Thursday, June 12, 2008 8:00 PM

End Date/Time:    Thursday, June 12, 2008 9:30 PM

Presented by Eric Landes

Join Eric as he shows us how he has developed a way to use the Kanban process in Team System. Eric will explain what Kanban is as well as demo the tools and workitems that he has created that will allow dev teams to hit the ground running with Kanban in TFS.

Eric is currently the project lead for a large global corporate IT development department.  Eric is a Microsoft MVP Visual Developer ASP.NET, and a member of the aspinsiders.  He also has published many articles on aspalliance.com.  Eric is the president of the Michiana Area .NET Users group (MADNUG) in South Bend, IN.  He has been working with TFS since January of 2007.  Eric has been working with Agile methodologies for over 3 years.  As any good developer would, Eric owns all the Star Wars movies.  He loves playing hoops, and 80's music also!

http://www.indytfs.org/sig/Events/tabid/63/ModuleID/414/ItemID/12/mctl/EventDetails/Default.aspx?selecteddate=6/12/2008

BTW the new TFS Times is out  www.tfstimes.com

 

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by AngelaB | 0 Comments

New Training Options for VSTS (yoinked verbatim from MSDN)

Expand Your Opportunities with Online Training Resources

This page provides an extensive guide to advancing your skills using Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite.

Here you can access comprehensive resources—from introductory to expert – that include both online and self-paced training, the latest technical articles, 5-15 min videos, evaluation downloads, webcasts from Visual Studio Team System experts and more. Take the first step to improve your skills and expand your opportunities in software development!


Introduction

Are you new to Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite? Information on this page will help you build on your current knowledge of Visual Studio and get up-to-speed quickly


Intermediate

If you’ve already got started with Visual Studio Team System and want to learn more, the resources on this page introduce you to some more advanced topics.


Advanced

As you’re already at an advanced level with Visual Studio Team System, resources on this page will help you get more breadth and depth across the product.


Expert

As an expert in Visual Studio Team System, you’ll find resources here to customize and extend your application development environment and learn more about product extensibility.


Ready to get your certification?

Become a Visual Studio Certified Professional

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by AngelaB | 1 Comments

Looking to Get Certified on VS 2008 or SQL 2008? And save Money?

Register now and save 40% on Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 when they become available:  Register now

Get more details on this program and how to get signed up here.

 

Information about Visual Studio 2008 exams

There are three Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certifications now available (Exams 70-502, 70-503, and 70-504) and three more currently in development. To earn any of these certifications, you must first pass Exam 70-536: TS: Microsoft .NET Framework – Application Development Foundation. Next, you must successfully complete one exam to demonstrate knowledge and skills in one of the following key areas: Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, ADO.NET, or ASP.NET.

 

by AngelaB | 1 Comments

Chicago VSTS User Group: May Meeting in Downers Grove to discuss SCRUM and TFS

**This month we're in Downers Grove and NOT in downtown Chicago. We flip periodically to show the suburbs some love.

Spring is finally here, which means it's time to take a good, hard look at your Software Development Life Cycle. :) For our May meeting, Chad Thomas of Neudesic will be presenting Team Foundation Server 2008 and then discuss Agile in general and Scrum in particular. There will be a focus on the tools available for TFS 2008 (largely applicable to TFS 2005 too) such as eScrum, Conchango Scrum, TFS Sticky Buddy, Scrum Manager and TFS Power Tools. The talk will focus more on 'showing' than 'telling', as well as a *slightly* unbalanced case for Agile/Scrum. Pizza will be at 5:30 PM and the presentation will start around 6. We hope to see you there!

Chad Thomas joined Neudesic in September 2007. Prior to that, Chad worked for JPMorgan Chase, BMW, and as an independent developer. While at JPMC, Chad managed a team that built the loan origination system for Chase Auto using BizTalk 2006 and .Net 2.0, and introduced Agile to the Retail Financial Services division. For BMW, he worked on the core framework and integration teams. He also managed a team that built a proprietary management portal for Chase Mortgage's call center which was patented by JPMorgan Chase. Chad's primary skills lie in Connected Systems and Custom Application Development with a focus in the Financial Services vertical.
When: Wednesday May 28th at 6PM

Where: Microsoft's DG office:
3025 Highland Parkway, Suite 300
Downers Grove, IL
Map Link

The sponsor's website is here: http://vsts.sogeti-chicago.com/default.aspx.  If you would like to attend this event, be added to the mailing list (or heaven forbid, be removed) then please email Laskowski.Dave@gmail.com.

 

by AngelaB | 0 Comments

CNUG Presents CodeFest in Chicago this Month!

CodeFest:  Microsoft is supply Labs and Microsoft and CNUG will be supplying proctors to assist you walking through the Labs.

What to bring: A laptop.

 

Sponsor: Microsoft

Date: Wednesday, May 21st

Time: Pizza/discussion: 6:00PM, Labs 7:00PM-9:00PM

Location: 3025 Highland Parkway, Suite 300 (Microsoft Office)

 

If you already have Visual Studio 2008 installed, great. If not, visit MSDN to download a 90 day trial (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/bb655862.aspx) or download the VPC available on MSDN (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c7a809d8-8c9f-439f-8147-948bc6957812&displaylang=en).

Then download the and install the Visual Studio 2008 training kit.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8bdaa836-0bba-4393-94db-6c3c4a0c98a1&DisplayLang=en

Registrationhttp://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=128767

Removal from list: please visit www.cnug.org and remove yourself from CNUG

 

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by AngelaB | 0 Comments

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