There is a new option for taking TFS for a test drive:

Free 6-week hosted trials of TFS are being offered by TeamDevCentral.  It includes:

·         Accounts allowing customers to experience different team roles and to collaborate within a project

·         Up to 4 hours of guidance and/or support for the trial can be used for any type of advice related to TFS or Visual Studio Team System

You can sign up for the trial at their website, or read the press release:  Press Release: TeamDevCentral Offers Free Trials of Hosted Microsoft Team Foundation Server

The awesome VSTS Rangers team published a new release WCF Load Test to Codeplex.

This tool takes a WCF trace file and a WCF client proxy, or a WCF interface contract, and generates a unit test that replays the same sequence of calls found in the trace file. The code generated is easily modifiable so that data variation can be introduced for the purpose of doing performance testing.

The tool generates code for both Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008. It also installs a wizard into both editions of Visual Studio for creating the trace and processing it from inside Visual Studio. If both editions are present the tool is installed into both editions. The source code is a Visual Studio 2005 project.

Latest Release June 2009

A new beta was released in June 2009 adding support for ASMX web services. You can download it HERE.

Features

The tool has the following main features:

• Replay of captured scenario in a unit test that can be included in a load test.
• Support for the DataContractSerializer.
• Support for message contracts.
• ASMX support (beta)
• Support for proxies generated using svcutil.
• Support for clients that create proxies at run time from contract interfaces. 
• Supports calls to multiple services in a single scenario.
• Supports multiple calls to the same service operation.
• Filtering by SOAP action of which messages in the trace to replay.
• Readable and modifiable code is generated.
• Automatic association of trace message with proxy method (requires all operations to have a unique SOAP action).
• Support for client and server side traces.
• A command line tool for processing traces and generating code.
• Visual Studio 2005/2008 integration (Team Developer, Team Test, Team Suite and for 2008 also Professional)) that can be used instead of the command line tool.

Congrats to Rob Jarratt on this impressive solution!

For full details, I'll let you go here:  http://www.denvervisualstudio.net/#lab

But here's the jist:

• Topic:  Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition (VSTSDB) is a paradigm shift in how databases are managed in the application development lifecycle and how databases are integrated into Agile / Continuous Integration projects (or any project for that matter).  We will cover the full lifecycle of a database using VSTSDB Database Projects in this  hands-on lab, including: importing and managing database schemas, configuration management, database deployment, integration MSBuild and TFS Team Build, and database unit testing.
• Date/Time:  This is a 2-part lab series
• Part 1:  July 24th, 7-9PM
• Part 2:  August 21st
• Location:  LeaderQuest - 6825 South Galena St., Englewood, CO 80112, Phone: 303-832-4665
• Lab Sponsor: LeaderQuest (formerly named Hensmann Learning),
• Led by:  Brian Shurley, Business Intelligence Consultant, Robert Half Technology

Should be great!

If you’ve been on the web at all in the last few days, you know that Microsoft has announced Bing, the latest version of its search engine.  Give it a try!

Here’s a video that really dives into the new search experience.  Experiment with different types of searches, including travel planning and shopping.  I think you’ll be impressed!

Of course, with any launch of a new product (or version of a product), it gets shoved down your throat.  Case in point on the MSN homepage:

There are FOUR references to Bing, without even scrolling:

• In the search bar
• As the featured “Video Highlight”
• In an ad just below “Today’s Picks” in the center column
• In an ad to the far right

Bing!  Get it, Bing!  Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing!