[NOTE: This post has been depricated you can find the new post here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/zainnab/archive/2012/06/26/visual-studio-2012-new-features-quick-launch.aspx]

I’m very excited about the new Quick Launch feature!  You can catch my latest post on this feature on the Visual Studio Team Blog here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2011/09/27/visual-studio-11-developer-preview-quick-launch.aspx

I’ll be posting some of my material to the various team blogs and, of course, this blog throughout the VS 11 cycle but will always have pointers to the information from here for reference.

We are almost done with our Visual Studio 11 Roadshow so I wanted to make the mats available for folks that wanted them. 

SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT)

You can get general info about SSDT here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/gg427686

My good friend Erik Leaseburg has some great slides that he presented on SSDT at one of the gigs here:

http://www.tinyurl.com/msvs11alm  (look for the ppt entitled Database Development with SQL Server Data Tools)

You can find my content on here:

http://cid-3dc455e4300aedb6.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public (look under Visual Studio 11)

I recently had the pleasure of reading a great book and wanted to share.  Entity Framework 4.1:  Expert’s Cookbook gives insight into reliable usage of EF in real-world environments.  Here is a blurb from Amazon on the book:

===

This book takes a step-by-step problem solving approach that leads you through a problem and explains each step in detail to accomplish the goal. This books gives you concrete code examples as well as detailed information on the decisions involved. This book is for intermediate to advanced .NET developers who have used LINQ to SQL or Entity Framework in some form but want to have more control over the implementation.

===

You can get your hands on the book by going here:

http://www.amazon.com/Entity-Framework-4-1-Cookbook-ebook/dp/B007OUPOXC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1335581882&sr=1-1

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did

Sara Ford (http://saraford.net) and I had a long talk the other day and are considering a revision to the Coding Faster book (possibly even a title change).  Here are some basic thoughts we are pretty sure we want in the update (if we decide to do it):

• Rip out all the summary info and just indicate version and SKU as appropriate.  The summary info was my idea and it went over like a lead balloon so, instead of wasting that space, just rip it out and put info in the body of the content as needed.

• Rip out all but the most critical tips.  We want to take just about everything out of the main body of work and put it in the appendix so that what remains is the absolute distilled top line tips.  Sara and I both think there is just too darn much info and the top stuff gets lost in the noise.  To be clear, ALL the info will still be there we are just moving it to the downloadable appendix instead of the main body of the book.

• Change the way we present the content.  Instead the current approach which is just basically documenting the feature we will provide a solution statement about the feature.  For example, “Make IntelliSense transparent” would become something like “Viewing code when IntelliSense is in the way” with the content changing as well to a problem-solution pattern.

• Only cover VS2010 and VS11.  Since the previous book covered versions back to 2005 we feel we can focus on current and forward versions in this update.

• Include more info on Extensions in the appropriate locations.  Since extensions have become a natural part of our Visual Studio lives it just seems to make sense that we include more info on the top most extensions to make life easier.

• Include new content on Ultimate and TFS features.  I think we should have sections on things we have left out in the past like IntelliTrace, Dependency Graphs, agile features, etc…

So these are some of the things we discussed.  If you have an opinion post it here or email me at zainnab@microsoft.com 

I get tons of questions from customers on when support will end for a variety of products.  I frequently refer them to the MS Support Lifecycle Homepage so thought I would share.  If you are not familiar with it the home page allows you to ask questions and get information on when product support will end.  For example, I looked up the lifecycle information on the .NET Framework versions by going to the products listed by family.

Then selecting .NET Framework in the Developer Tools area:

Which resulted in a table laying out all the details for .NET Framework support lifecycle (click on image to go to the table):

Rinse and repeat for the product you are interested in

For those that don’t know yet, I’ve switched roles in Microsoft and am now more focused on Visual Studio as well as Team Foundation Server features.  I recently had a customer want an overview of branching and merging based on the ALM Rangers’ guidance found here:

http://vsarbranchingguide.codeplex.com/

I created a deck to present and am making it available as part of the launching my new section on the right-hand navigation for TFS.  To get my deck you can just click on the new area in the right-hand navigation off my main blog page or you can go here:

http://sdrv.ms/IOx4AM

In case you haven’t heard Jason just announced the new RC is available:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2012/05/31/announcing-the-release-candidate-rc-of-visual-studio-2012-and-net-framework-4-5.aspx

You can download the bits here:

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/downloads

I’m on the road right now but more details to follow soon

Gartner doesn’t allow us to show the famed Magic Quadrant in posts like this but, if you are into these kinds of things, definitely check out how much butt we kicked in this article from them:

http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1ASCXON&ct=120606&st=sb

Jonah Lehrer the author of “How We Decide” has written an article for the New Yorker showing how people take mental shortcuts to arrive at wrong answers.  Most surprisingly was the finding that more intelligent people make this mistake more often than others.  You can read the entire article here:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/daniel-kahneman-bias-studies.html#ixzz1xgvsJzj5

Also, if you haven’t read “How We Decide” and are interested in a nice high-level look at the cognitive decision-making process then you should absolutely read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0547247990

Folks,

I'll be on vacation until Aug 6th so there will be no posts until the week after I get back.  We will resume our regularly scheduled posts at that point :)

Z