Forrester Research did a product-based evaluation of 11 leading SCCM solutions across 123 criteria: " The Forrester Wave™: Software Change And Configuration Management, Q2 2007 ". Software change and configuration management (SCCM) solutions permit IT organizations to manage the changes that they make...

Today highlighted on the MSDN homepage : PackageThis! Created by the MSDN development team, PackageThis! allows you to choose documentation sets from the MSDN Library to save as HXS or CHM format files. Simply select nodes in the MSDN Library Tree View to package as your own local mini-library, or to...

Tim Sneath posted the first end-to-end reference sample on his blog. The Family.Show application - developed by Vertigo Software - is a genealogy explorer that allows you to create or import a family tree and explore, annotate or save it to XPS. A couple of weeks ago I had installed a early internal...

About a year ago at our Dev & IT-Pro Days 2006 Steven Wilssens delivered a session on advanced version control and branching strategies with Team Foundation Server . Despite Steven was announced as a speaker this year , he just notified me that - due to an overload of work for Mix07 - he won't be...

Earlier this week version 1.2 or the February 2007 Community Technology Preview of the Guidance Automation Extensions (GAX) and the Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) was released to the web. The Guidance Automation Extensions (GAX) enable you to run guidance packages, such as the Guidance Automation...

I came across this post from Mark Seemann " Service Locator 2 Released ". This post caught my attention as it was a while ago that I thought of it. The "service locator" mainly reminds me to the period I was still working as a consultant. Being a technical architect at that time I was deep into the J2EE...

Serge Luca - who recently decided to make a move from Guidance to u2u - wrote an article on starting and killing a workflow with the Windows Workflow Foundation . This was published earlier today on www.msdn.be . Here's the summary of the article: The Windows Workflow Foundation is a programming model...

... from the Microsoft Download Center . Microsoft Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" is the next generation development tool for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System, and the Web. Visual Studio code name “Orcas” delivers on Microsoft’s vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly...

During last TechEd in Barcelona , Jan and Patrick delivered a session " Building Web Parts the Smart Way ", where they showed the power of the SmartPart . As we launched ASP.NET AJAX during the conference - which resulted in an AJAX pre-conference and 7 AJAX related sessions - there was quite some interest...

If you're looking for some evidence on the ROI of deploying Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server than these 2 case studies on VSTS are some great evidence from and for customers, showing the high return customers can get by deploying VSTS. These 2 studies include an ROI analysis- one...

Gert Drapers reports that Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals - codenamed Datadude - has gone RTM and is now available on MSDN Subscriber Downloads . Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals delivers a market shifting database development product that provides a foundation...

As part of the ISV training series, you can take advantage of MSDN Virtual Labs . This series of hands-on labs are hosted by Microsoft—so there's no need to format hard drives or dedicate computers, and nothing to install. With 35, no-cost lab modules to choose from, you're sure to find the training...

I picked this up from the Public Sector DPE Team blog : Microsoft will release in the next few weeks the second version of the Software Development Lifecycle-in-a-Box training kit . The purpose of the 3‐Day SDLC‐in‐a‐Box training program is to provide Microsoft partners, consultants and customers with...

Project Glidepath has been updated. I just noticed through Michael Lehman's Project Glidepath blog that now Windows Presentation Foundation packages have been added. Download it here . Project Glidepath is a Microsoft evangelism initiative. It provides you the step-by-step instructions for everything...

Join the members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, and Testers. In addition, discuss what's new in the latest Community Technology Preview (CTP). Join the chat...

Next Wednesday - October 25 - there's Customer First which I won't (unfortunately) be attending because I promised a long time ago (long before Customer First was announced) that I would deliver a presentation for AIESEC , an international association of students in economics, on Microsoft and the Next...

It looks like 2 of the Belgian INETA user groups decided to make it a User Group Wednesday on October 25. Both FxUserGroup and VISUG are organizing a free event. The VISUG meeting , with Wim Verhaeghen as guest speaker, will be covering the Security Development Lifecycle . More details on the meeting...

The FxUserGroup - the Belgian French-speaking INETA User Group - is organizing its second event next Wednesday October 25. The announcement from their web site (in French): Vous vous y perdez dans les nouveautés technologiques ? Alors rejoignez le FxUserGroup pour profiter de véritables retours d’expériences...

The last 2 to 3 weeks I delivered a number of presentations on the .NET Framework 3.0 . When talking through the different pillars I often receive questions on the business value of some of these technologies. This is especially true for the Windows Presentation Foundation . To show off some of the concepts...

Tonight I'll be speaking for the Java Web Applications Study Group of the " Vlaamse Ingenieurskamer " in Antwerp. The study group plans to launch a VIK .NET study group which Microsoft wants to support. Announcement (Dutch) from the VIK site : De studiegroep Java Web Applicaties kijkt even over de muur...

Last Friday we had our quarterly Enterprise Series briefing covering the Microsoft Application Platform . This events is an invitation-only event for Microsoft partners and customers managed by the Enterprise Partner & Customer Group . At the event my colleague Gunther Beersaerts and myself each...

A new collection of 3 2-hour premium clinics that teaches about the new capabilities provided by the .NET Framework 3.0 is now available for free: Collection 5134 : Developing Rich Experiences with Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.0 and Visual Studio® 2005 These clinics are for experienced Developers and...

Today I gave a half-a-day talk on "Managing the Software Development LifeCycle with Visual Studio 2005 Team System" to partners and customers of Microsoft Luxembourg . Though the TDD demo failed the other demos and the rest of the presentation went fairly well. A lot of interaction and questions of the...

Last week I noticed this post bink.nu : " Getting Started on Microsoft Windows Web Hosting ". " Microsoft Getting Started on Windows Web Hosting is a subset of the complete Web hosting details found in The Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting version 4.0. In order to help hosters quickly grasp...

Come and join members from the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Architect , Developer and Tester editions and Team Foundation Server . There will be experts on hand to answer all your questions! Join the chat on Wednesday September 6th, 2006 10:00am...