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When managing a client in a ConfigMgr 2007 hierarchy, it can be difficult to determine what certificate the client is registering with and the client's registration status. This information is stored in WMI and is sometimes difficult to get access and...

Do you have an existing .Net binary you are trying to use with an existing project that uses strongly named binaries? If the pre-existing binary is not strongly signed too, you can't use it. Doh! I found this nice tutorial that shows you how to de-compile...

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and wish everyone a wonderful Christmas! :)

I'm on the news

I had one reader from Germany contact me regarding porting a sample section of my blog posting on using the MpApi in .Net . Unfortunately, I don't use VB.net that often and my time to port it to VB.net is limited, however I found a great online tool that...

These are some great talks from the best minds on agile software development giving their talks at this years agile convention in Toronto. A lot of them are being posted online free to view! "We Suck Less!" Is Not Enough

I adapted this from the SMS Client FAQ section since I get so many questions on how to do this. Debug and Verbose provides additional information on error conditions for clients and servers. Setting this flag automatically triggers more information in...

Hahahaha! It's the little stuff like this that takes me back to the days I wish I was a kid again..

Microsoft recently released a new paper on Tools and the Visual Studio Team System. It's a great read regarding tools development and how they support the Scrum framework. Microsoft Visual Studio Team System : Tools for Agility

Although it's a bit controversial, Jeff Sutherland posted an article citing that Scrum makes you smarter . Although I tend to agree with that finding based on my personal experience, I think it's a bit controversial! Looks like this article was also on...

I'm now officially a certified ScrumMaster! And, I'm certified by the famous Jeff Sutherland , Co-Creator of Scrum, and Mitch Lacey . It was a great honor to meet him and I cannot stress how important it is to hear it from the source. If you are considering...

For those of you that are waiting for the RTM version of the ConfigMgr 2007 SDK, it was just released today including an updated version of the MP API. System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Software Development Kit (SDK) v4.0

The Lansing State Journal covered the Microsoft Job-Cuzzi at Michigan State University. I was attending to help with running the event to help students understand what working for Microsoft is like. The actor in the job-cuzzi was hilarious and reminded...

In case you are doing Internet Based Client Management (IBCM), Adam has a great article on configuring ISA for IBCM. It's not an easy task to accomplish and his tutorial really sheds some light. Firewalls and Internet Based Client Management : Part...

In case you bump into some of the more obscure error codes, there is a large list available on the TechNet documentation page . It helped me out quite a bit.

The MP API is a SDK component that can be used to communicate with a ConfigMgr (Formerly SMS) Management Point to: Register clients Send Data Discovery Records Request Policy Assignments Send Status Messages and more... ...

Straight from the horse's mouth. there is a fantastic talk by Ken Schwaber on Scrum and it's principals, hows its used and some great stories mixed in there too. If you are already familiar with Scrum, you will love the stories and the idea of "producing...

This is a great article that outlines the 10 signs that a project is going to fail . For myself, I tend to review the checklist and for each item I schedule a work item to work against the problem. http://www.projectmanagerplanet.com/leadership/print...

There has been a real lack of good examples of upgrading your applications using ( Windows Installer XML Toolkit ) WiX and John has an excellent example. How to Upgrade Software with a Windows Installer Package

The former newsgroups used for support have now been setup on the TechNet forums to help reach a wider audience. You can now find TechNet forums for System Center Configuration Manager at http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=488&SiteID...

It's not quite the same as growing plants, (project running late? use some miracle grow!) but feature growth is an interesting topic among agilists. This is a great chart on how features are grown into products. The growth of a feature

This is a great article on h ow Microsoft assembles feature crews for success . It's kind of interesting because you can see bits of agile development in there. :)

This is a great article on how software development is not like bricks. It sort of reminds me of Barry Boehm paper on the essence of software and how it's difficult to make great software.