The ASP.NET MVC team recently announced their roadmap for v4 . The roadmap contains a lot of topics but the general themes for the next release include: Development and deployment : We want to smooth out the development and deployment workflow to...

To say that Microsoft is a huge company would clearly be an understatement. There are tens of thousands of softies so connecting and navigating the organization structure is, what’s the word I’m looking for…Difficult. Never the less...

Brandon Satrom (a developer evangelist here at Microsoft) has a great article on HTML5. It's a very detailed oriented piece that explains what HTML5 is, the interaction between it and Internet Explorer (IE) as well as the Microsoft developer tools that...

As mentioned previously I’ve been knee deep in Team Foundation Server (TFS) related work, specifically around build and release management . Build automation is usually a pain point so I decided to start there first though I will admit to creating...

After a recent conversation with a few folks on the AppFabric (AF) team and them saying to me “ What? You’re not using AF? Really? Well what are you waiting for ?” I figured it was about time I looked into it. Truth be told I’ve...

If you’ve been doing software development and haven’t heard of Scrum than shame on you because Agile methodologies have a lot to offer. To that end, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, co-creators of Scrum, have recently updated the official...

Developers worldwide get All-In-One code relief Every day, developers scour the Internet to make short work of typical programming tasks, only to find questionable, if not unreliable, sample code. Enter the Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, a free...

The Windows Phone 7 platform contains great out of the box integration with SharePoint under the Office Hub. But what if you want to create your own custom applications on the phone that leverage SharePoint 2010 data and services? This training course...

Today’s world is more connected than ever and team collaboration can easily be accomplished provided the right tools are in place and are being utilized to their fullest extent. Having used Office Communicator (OC) 2007 R2 for instant messaging...

Lately I’ve been spending a of time within Team Foundation Server (TFS), specifically around deployment and release management so when I got an email from Brian Blackman (Principal Consultant here at Microsoft) that said that the Rangers created...

Architecting even the simplest of systems nowadays can be a significant and complex undertaking and therefore a review of the current/proposed architecture is generally warranted. I’ve often been asked “ What does a review of this type consist...

A quick post to mention that the Office Sustained Engineering and Release team has released the first service pack (SP) for Office and SharePoint 2010. Note : For SharePoint customers planning to deploy Service Pack 1, it is also recommended to install...

Today a colleague of mine asked me for some help with a problem revolving around Team Foundation Server (TFS) so of course I said “sure, no problem.” I figured it’d be a no-brainer but as anyone will tell you, life often has other plans...

If you ever have the pleasure of working here at Microsoft you’ll find that there is certainly no shortage of passionate people who have great ideas and want to share them with you. I was recently introduced to such a team that was comprised of...

If you’re like me then you probably dream about ALM and wake up running to get your laptop to update a work item. Wait, what? You don’t? OK, so maybe there’s a bit of hyperbole in the aforementioned statement but in all seriousness,...

This version of the quick reference guide (QRG) is a PDF file with a total of 241 articles (51 of these are either new or updated from version 3.5) that are all meant to provide quick information about various aspects of performance testing with Visual...

Putting aside the debate on whether or not developers should use Silverlight or HTML5 with regards to Windows “8” ( BUILD will be here soon enough), if you’re currently using Visual Studio and are trying to implement some HTML5 features...

Successful software projects manifest themselves when teams work together. When a team has good communication and transparency, it tends to find problems sooner. Teams want to come to work and are excited about what they’re building when things...

If you’re coding with the Visual Studio 2010 Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for hours and hours on a daily basis then you should definitely download and install this free extension . There’s quite a lot of functionality that’s...

Our friends at TechNet Edge captured some great conversations on the ground at TechEd North America 2011. Check out Jason Zander talking with Richard Campbell about Visual Studio vNext, specifically the upcoming ALM features. Jason talked about bringing...

If you haven’t used the reporting capabilities of Team Foundation Server (TFS) then you’ve certainly been missing a big piece of the product. There are standard reports but more importantly you have the ability to customize and extend those...

Ahhh, I remember it just like yesterday; my first Professional Developers Conference (PDC). It was a week of geeky tech talk, gallons of soda and lots of great information to be had. Who could ask for more? Well a date with Halle Berry might top that...

Even though most people dread hearing the words “a new version of Windows is soon to be released,” I on the other hand think of all the possibilities that a new operating system (OS) brings with it. Having a lessons learned meeting at the...

Our friends “across the pond” seem to have the right idea as they’re conducting numerous in-person and Live Meeting seminars on all aspects of software development using Visual Studio (VS). If you’re passionate about ALM (and you...

Good managers know 2 things – 1) surround yourself with knowledgeable personnel and 2) enact processes to enable support when things go south. Whether you use a pure Microsoft stack for your application development or a heterogeneous one, Premier...