Hi, I've been asked this a few times about why we chose to have a Knight on the cover of The Build Master. Here is my explanation that for some unknown reason was left out of the book: By definition a Knight is a nobleman or noblewoman, a seeker of...

Hello, it’s been a long while. The two major reasons for my absence is the amount of time needed to get The Build Master book completed and the birth of my son! I am happy to say that both events have gone well and now I hope to have more time to...

Robert's a great resource for setup (especially WIX ) and build topics...

I have had a couple of good questions from my previous blog entry on versioning of which I will address the first one here and the other one in another entry. 1) What should be used for a build number? Well I think as a rule-of-thumb a codeline in a source...

When people talk about versioning this can be a very broad subject so let’s narrow this down a little bit… There really is only one version number that anyone should care about and that is the ‘file version’ of the files that you ship. I think this topic...

I get asked this question a lot when I'm with customers so I wanted to add a link to ScottGu's explanation , and how customers will see this(or similarities to the in-house Microsoft tracker) in VSTS.

Check out paint.net 2.0 for a great MS Paint replacement (since we're replacing notepad). This tool and the Image Resizer from the XP Power toys are a 'must download' for anyone sharing digital photos. I'll start blogging on more build topics after the...

I think most developers and testers will admit that when they need a 'quick-edit' tool they use notepad. If you want to use a notepad that is on steroids try this one: Tip of the day: If you save your file using "<filename> " notepad will NOT add...

I think it is pretty much common knowledge in the software world today that ‘Daily Builds’ are a good and necessary practice. I do not think that daily builds was that common a practice five years ago. I love this movement to building your product every...

Visual Studio Team Foundation (VSTF and some VSTS info)

This is the most common question I get when talking with customers. I think it is important to point out that Microsoft does not have specific rules that every product development team has to follow. Instead we have a lot of best practices or guidelines...

Education B.S. Engineering Physics, Oregon State University, 1989 - course work included several classes in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Employment Hired as an Hardware Support intern at Microsoft in 1989 as I was going to return to OSU for a...

Well I know I've been lame about getting this blog started but I have been very pre-occupied with writing a build book - "The Build Master" will be complete at the end of January 2005 and be available from Addison-Wesley in March 2005. (IN MICROSOFT FASHION...