Ozzie Rules Blogging

Hyper-V VHD from Virtual PC

I was in the process of installing Windows Server 2008 64 bit to be able to run Hyper V when I realized this is not a requirement.

Turns out you can run Hyper V created VHD’s with Virtual PC as long as you have installed Virtual PC additions installed into your image (in Hyper V it is called Integration Services (IS). - which changes the HAL to ACPI multi-cpu HAL

James Whittaker joins the blogging ranks - and analyses the relationship between pubs and testing

Arguably our most influential tester at Microsoft has just created a blog. The reason i would put James at the top of the tester leader board has nothing to do with his three books on testing but rather the fact he managed to talk the XBox team into giving him access to the XBox Live Servers  where he proceeded to hack the physics for the HALO game play so his character could see through walls and have bullets that had gravity characteristics that caused them "fall" into his opponents.  (Think of the bullets as being magnetized) -All under the guise of helping them test their software!

(Funny thing is he still managed to lose almost as badly i typically do!)

In either case checking out his blog it is definitely worth the time!

http://blogs.msdn.com/james_whittaker/default.aspx

 

Chuck

PS I will be adding James blog to the Team Test Blog roll as well!

Brisbane Biztalk User Group Meeting: Server Side Apps

Server Side Applications

This month, we wrap up our series of presentations on the WAVE Launch products with a demonstration by Dean Robertson (Shared Information Solutions) of how server-side applications can take advantage of the new features within Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET 3.5 framework. Those of you who have seen Dean's previous talks know that you're in for an exciting and informative discussion!

After that, we break out the video camera and wind up with our final round of contestants for the Heroes Community Demo Competition. By presenting and recording short demos of one or more Launch 2008 products, these folks hope to be in the running for some great prizes, including a trip to Tech-Ed 2008 in Sydney, and (for the national champion) an all-expense paid trip to Tech-Ed 2009 in Los Angeles, USA! So come along and support your colleagues, and see some great demos as well!

The contestants:

Dean Robertson with a demo on Visual Studio 2008 extensibility, showing how to use a custom tool window (+ LINQ) to monitor production log files in real time! 

Marty Gnanananthan with a LINQ, MS Office and ASP.NET 3.5 demonstration.

Nivesh Jaiswal with a presentation on new BI features in SQL Server 2005, including the new adhoc report builder which will include TABLIX, Dundas Charts & Gauges and how Report Models are utilised  by business users to create adhoc reports..

Who Should Attend?

Solution Architects, Developers, Integration Specialists, IT Administrators

About the Presenter

Dean Robertson has been implementing enterprise-scale integration solutions with BizTalk since 2004, and has learned a thing or two in that time about how to design, develop, deploy and manage BizTalk-based applications that really work.  He is currently a Technical Architect at Shared Information Services (SIS), where he is using BizTalk Server 2006 R2,  BizUnit, and other Microsoft tools to develop the Information Exchange Framework (IEF) component of the Queensland Government’s Integrated Justice Information Strategy (IJIS) program.

Tentative Schedule

Here’s the game plan (presentation times are approximate):

5:30 PM            Meet & Greet (free pizza & drinks!)
6:00 PM            Introduction and Welcome (Daniel Toomey, BrizTalk Coordinator)
6:05 PM            Server Side Apps (Dean Robertson, SIS)
6:45 PM            Heroes Demo Competition Entries

Remember to arrive before 6:00pm or the lifts will be locked!

Please be sure that you RSVP so we know how many to expect (you don't want us to be short on pizzas!) You can use the voting buttons in this message if you have Outlook, otherwise just reply with a yea or nay.

Upcoming Events

• RDN Dev Day - Readify Developer Network is offering a discount to BrizTalk UG members to attend their Brisbane Dev Day on 25 July, a great opportunity to learn more about .NET and TFS. Registrations close soon so be sure to book here.
• BizTalk Deep Dive Course - Stargate Global Consulting in partnership with Quicklearn will be delivering this course in Melbourne in the week starting 28 July. Led by Microsoft MVP and BizTalk expert Bill Chesnut, this is sure to be an outstanding opportunity to learn more about BizTalk! Register here.

 

Wednesday, 30 July 2008
5:30 PM
Microsoft, Level 9
Waterfront Place
1 Eagle Street, Brisbane

Introduction to Rosario by Mitch Denny (Melbourne Aus)

Introduction to Rosario

In this session Mitch will be providing a guided tour of some interesting new features coming in Rosario (the codename for the new version of Visual Studio Team System). This includes looking at the new workflow-based build system, the completely new features for testers as well as some of the enhancements for database administrators and developers.

Mitch Denny works as a Principal Consultant at Readify and is a Team System MVP

If you are planning on coming, please RSVP to help us organise drinks and catering.

To register, simply send an email to info@victoriadotnet.com.au. It is a FREE event and there is no charge for attendance but space is limited so you'll need to let us know you're coming so we can make sure there's space. We are also trialling a Live Meeting version of the presentation. You can register for the online event at https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/8000181573/Registration.aspx?PageName=qsctv8s6w2vn8g2b

 

 

Tuesday 22nd July 2008
5.30pm (Pizza and drinks served); 6pm (presentations start)
Microsoft Theatre, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank

Demos Happen Here

If anyone would like to do a 10 minute demo for the Demos Happen Here contest on the 22nd, please send us an email. There are some exciting prizes on offer - such as trip to Tech.Ed 2009 in Los Angeles, a Media Center PC and Visual Studio Team Suite 2008 plus MSDN Premium Subscription. More details for the competition can be found here

An easy way to demo recording Ajax calls with the VSTS 2008 Web Recorder

At Tomorrows .NET Usergroup meeting i want to demo a couple of the new features of Visual Studio Team System Test Edition.  Namely the ability for the Web Test Recorder to Record AJAX requests and JavaScript pop-ups. To do this i needed to find an Ajax enabled site and an easy way to find a way of showing off recording Ajax calls.  The easiest way i found was to create my own Ajax enabled page and compare the calls in the web recorder with the same page that isn't Ajax enabled.   Starting  with the non Ajax enabled page:

 

1.  Create a New ASP.NET Web Site.   File>New Web Site>ASP.NET Web Site.  I left my website with the defaults for my machine: Location = File System and Language Visual Basic.

2.  Add a Button and a Textbox to the default.aspx

3. In the click event handler of the button (just double click on the button) add the code Button1.Text = TextBox1.Text.

Protected Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

Button1.Text = TextBox1.Text

End Sub

4. Run the Website to determine the URL for the page.  For the mine it was: http://localhost:53814/WebSite2/Default.aspx

5. Create a web test and record clicking the button on the page.  Test Menu>New Test>Web Test.

6. Looking at the Recorder - you can clearly see the HTML being recorded (See image below)

 

 

Converting this page to Ajax is as easy as easy as adding two controls - the ASP.NET Script Manager and the Update panel.

7. Open the page Default.aspx and from the toolbox  and add a script manager above the button and an Update Panel

8. Move the Button and the Textbox into the UpdatePanel

9. Run a new Test Recording on the modified page. Menu>New Test>Web Test recording. Test Menu>New Test>Web Test.

10.  You can see the exact same functionality is now being executed through Java Script -and being recorded whereas in 2005 the recorder would not have recorded those calls.

.NET DA Usergroup meeting tomorrow: Testing with Visual Studio Team System 2008 (and a sneak peak at Rosario)

Come Early for Pizza! 
The .NET Developers Association will provide pizza before the event.
The beverages and meeting site are provided by the Microsoft Corporation. Meeting Room Opens @ 6:00 PM Pizza served at 6:30pm

Announcements Introductions, Announcements, & Job Offers @ 7:00 PM by Brad Connell
A brief description of the upcoming events and happenings within the .NET Developers Association. Opportunities to announce job offers and work requests are given to audience members.

 

Testing tools for Quality Software in Visual Studio Team System 2008. 
@ 7:15 PM by ME!

In this session Charles Sterling will do a level set of what Visual Studio Team System has to offer testers, what was introduced in 2008 and finally a sneak preview of what will be in Rosario by demoing the latest Rosario CTP Charles has committed to giving away a Visual Studio Team System branded 250GB hard drive to one lucky attendee and will be offering free Rosario Test Edition hands on training for the for the first 5 RSVP’s for this session.

Raffle and Conclusion @ 9:00 PM ( I am pretty certain i will NOT be going till 9:00pm!)

Informal Gathering at Red Robin @ 9:15pm
After the meeting, everyone is welcome to gather at Red Robin in Redmond, near the Bellevue Fred Meyer and Redmond Sears on the corner of 148th and NE 24th. Click here for directions.

Microsoft Building 40, Steptoe Room #1450   Map

Event Date:

Monday, July 21, 2008

Andy Leonard talking about Team System Database Edition

If you wanted to know more about Database Testing make sure and check out Andy Leornards show with Greg Low @ http://www.sqldownunder.com on Testing with Team Sytem Database Edition

Gert and the Data Team Releases Team System Database Edition GDR July CTP

When i left the office a couple of hours ago the entire Data team was still there...I am betting they are all at the bar now!

Congrats Guys!

From Gert's Email:

Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR July CTP

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bb3ad767-5f69-4db9-b1c9-8f55759846ed&displaylang=en

Most important changes:

• Project upgrade is now in place. For those of you who were kind enough to donate their database projects, thank you!
• Mixed projects are no longer supported, from now on server projects represent only server creatable objects and user objects that need to be deployed to “master”.
• Another change is that server options will not get deployed; we only validate the settings as pre-requisites for a deployment.
• As such server options (sp_configure) have been added to the project system.
• The interpreter now understands temporary tables, table variables and select into column sources.
• The Static Code Analysis MSBuild task was added XSD Reference user interface support is enable, but it does not yet create XML Schema Collections
• lots of fixes since CTP14

Free Hands On Testing Training for Rosario (Redmond)

The next Team Test Special Interest group will take place on Monday July 28^th from 3-5:30PM in the Microsoft Building 25 training room (map).  This session will feature a hands on lab of the latest functioning code that our developers have been hard at work developing.  From the time when we first started holding the SIG meetings, you have been asking us for an opportunity to try out Rosario, so the team is excited to provide you with an opportunity to play with the latest builds firsthand and provide feedback on the product in development. 

In addition to the hands on lab, the session will feature a brief presentation from Amir Kolsky from NetObjectives on how Fit can be leveraged within an organization to make Agile Testing possible.   As a coach and trainer in lean and agile software processes, Amir is no newbie to the agile testing world as he is routinely recruited from companies around the world to revamp their development and testing methodologies so that they can better respond to customer demands and produce higher quality software.  Amir is a proponent of “test first development” and feels this it is best practiced when the testing team compliments a development org who practices test driven development by using automated tests specify what will be developed.  The overview of his presentation is as follows:

Testing takes on a new importance in agile development. Automated acceptance test, test-driven development, and other techniques are rising in both importance and practice but while these practices are necessary, finding errors in only half the problem.  Testing must improve the development process so that errors found late in the cycle are avoided in the first place. Errors are often more than bugs in that they represent communication errors, errors in understanding, in addition to functional defects. Amir will seek to explain how these errors can be avoided through an Agile Testing methodology that not only improves software quality but improves the entire software development process of an organization.

The event will follow the following schedule:

1. Amir Kolsky Presentation on Agile Testing

2. Hands on Lab walking through the various Rosario scenarios including:

· Automating portions of Manual Test Cases

· Coded UI Tests (in .net)

· Executing Manual Test Cases

· Test Case Management

3.  Book Giveaway

As the lab can only accommodate so many people, please reply to this message indicating your attendance so that can have an idea of how many computers to set up, how many books to purchase and how many computers to double up.  To get to the lab, after parking in visitor parking, please sign in at building 25 front desk.  I or one of the members from the team will meet you in the lobby and bring you to the lab.

Another Aussie joins me in Redmond-Michael Kleef

Next Wednesday long time good friend Michael Kleef will be leaving Australia to join me here on campus -He is joining the Group Policy Group! - Just hope he gets a house in my neighborhood!

Andrew, can you be and sure and turn out the lights when you leave?

(oh yeah my neighbor hood probably has a house for you too<G>)

Mickey at Teamsystem Rocks announces July Power Tools Releases

http://teamsystemrocks.com/blogs/team_system_news/archive/2008/07/16/26510.aspx

Big thanks to Ed, Bill and the MVP's that trialed and tested this release!

Real World WPF Presentation at the Brisbane MSDN Usergroup

This month at the Brisbane MSDN User group they are showcasing a Real-world WPF application. by Patrick Klug from Novamind.  I

Synopsis:
A Winforms/WPF real-world hybrid application showcase along with WPF goodness, development best practises and C# tips and tricks, all wrapped in a 'EntertainingTalkDecorator'.

The main focus will be on WPF and the real world value of an 'extended' WPF Command system and the odd bits of unrelated but useful information will be thrown in.

This talk will be interesting for beginners and experts alike.

About Patrick Klug:
Patrick is one of the guys behind the Windows version of the mind mapping software NovaMind (www.novamind.com) and is very comfortable with C#, GDI+, Windows Presentation Foundation and the Windows Vista DateTimePicker.

Dave Apelt will also be presenting his entry in the "Demos Happen {Here}" competition.

Date: Tuesday 15 July
Time: 17:30 for 18:00 - 19:30
Location: Microsoft Brisbane office, Level 9, Waterfront Place, 1 Eagle St, Brisbane

These details are also on our website at www.qmsdnug.org.

RSVP
If you haven't already done so, an immediate rsvp by email to mike@fitzsimon.com.au will help with planning.

Brisbane SQL Usergroup: Avoiding Stored Procedure Recompiles July 24th

This month my good friend Greg Low will be presenting a session on Avoiding Stored Procedure Recompiles.

In this session, Greg will describe the process by which SQL Server executes stored procedures and how it decides whether or not recompilations are necessary. He will discuss how to monitor recompilations and explain in detail the specific triggers that cause recompilation. Greg will then discuss techniques to be used when writing database code to help avoid the need for recompilations and to help keep systems performing well.
About the Presenter

Greg is an internationally recognised consultant, developer and trainer. He has been working in development since 1978, holds a PhD in Computer Science and a host of Microsoft certifications. Greg is the country lead for Solid Quality, a SQL Server MVP and one of only three Microsoft Regional Directors for Australia. Greg also hosts the popular SQL Down Under podcast (http://www.sqldownunder.com), organises the SQL Down Under Code Camp and co-organises CodeCampOz. He is a board member of PASS (the Professional Association for SQL Server).

WHERE Microsoft Brisbane Office, Level 9, Waterfront Place, 1 Eagle Street

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/technet/usergroups.aspx

WHEN Thursday, 24th July | 5:30PM for a 6:00PM start (finishing at approximately 7:30PM)

The QSSUG website can be found at www.qssug.org and contains a repository of materials from past meetings as well as details of upcoming meetings.  Other Australian SQL Server related material can be found at www.sqlserver.org.au.

If you will be attending, please RSVP via email to peter@wardyit.com to help us plan refreshments (normally pizzas and drinks).

Netflix to Stream to XBox Live Subscribers

Grant just pointed out that we announced a partnership with Netflix today where existing Netflix  subscribers will be able to use their XBox Live Subscribers to stream movies!

I can not wait!

Hopefully the DRM will work a little better than it does on my computers.  Due to the fact most of our computers are in a constant state of upgrade I am always having DRM issues.

Team System Templates

In my post Team Foundation Server Process Templates? I mentioned where you could find some of the existing templates.  A couple of weeks ago some of our MVPs Martin, Ed and Joel created a codeplex site to share templates and best practices: The description from their site:

Project Description
Set your templates free! Share and discover Team Foundation Server process templates and other goodies here.
This CodePlex projects serves as a repository for open source Team Foundation Server (TFS) process templates, work item type definitions and report definitions. TFS uses process templates to configure new team projects.

Thanks Guys!!!