Readify, one of our partners here in Australia is offering a one day workshop focusing on Team Foundation Server, Agile Development and technologies such as Silverlight, WCF, LINQ and others. The training is not free but it will be delivered by excellent MVP's - so I have no doubt its a worthwhile investment. Here are the dates/locations:
SYDNEY: Thursday 30 October 2008, 8:30am – 5:30pm | Cliftons, 190 George Street, Sydney
MELBOURNE: Friday 31 October 2008, 8:30am – 5:30pm | Cliftons, 440 Collins Street, Melbourne
BRISBANE: Friday 7 November 2008, 8:30am – 5:30pm | Cliftons, 288 Edward Street, Brisbane
PERTH: Tuesday 11 November 2008, 8:30am – 5:30pm | Cliftons, 191 St George’s Terrace, Perth
Usually I don't blog about product futures, but I make an exception... Microsoft released a few videos on Channel 9, showcasing new features among other things.
I watched a couple of them demonstrating UML modelling capabilities you will see in VS2010. It is great to see Microsoft finally joining the UML bandwagon (and the OMG).
Now I can dig out my old UML Primer which has been gathering dust over the last three years and re-energise my passion for modelling :-) Here are a couple of videos you might find interesting: top-down, bottom-up.
Well I said we announce something today - and we did ! All well and good, but much more importantly anyone with a valid MSDN subscription and Team Editon for Developers or Team Edition for Database Professional will receive ALL these products for FREE:
| - Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition
|
| - Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition
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| - Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Software Developers
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| - Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Database Professional
|
In other words if you have Team Edition for Developer you'll get Team Edition for DB Pro for FREE or vice versa! If that isn't enough incentive to offload some of your financial shares for more valuable assets, I don't know what is :-)
A few weeks ago my colleague Jihad Dannawi joined us from the French sub, to help with the Australian Development Tools business. As you'd expect from a sophisticated Frenchman he brought along a few popular fashion items currently en vogue in Paris.
If you are interested in some of these items feel free to contact Jihad directly - if you are interested in Visual Studio you can contact me!
Vive la Grande Nation!
Now I understand why I haven't heard much from our product groups lately - they have been cutting a lot of new code! Three (3) service packs are available for you to download:
Don't be fooled by the name "Service Pack" this is not just a collection of bug fixes but includes significant new features as well.
Selected highlights in TFS SP1 include:
- TFS support for SQL 2008
- Improved source control features simplifying how to add file to source control
- Office 2008 Ribbon for TFS 2008 / Excel integration
- Significant performance improvements when dealing with large amounts of data in TFS
- simplified e-Mail notification
Highlights in VS SP1:
- improved WPF designers to take advantage of changes made to .NET 3.5 SP1
- full support for SQL Server 2008
- tooling for ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services in .NET 3.5
Highlights in .NET 3.5 SP1:
- up to 45% performance increase for WPF based applications - without writing a single line of code!
- WCF improvements to simplify accessing data and services
- extensive support for SQL2008 features
For more information you may also want to check out Brian Harry's blog
If you are responsible for managing a Team Foundation Server check out the Team Foundation Server Administration Tool. It'll make your life with TFS even easier :-)
I get asked this question a lot - usually when TFS stopped working because the trial license expired..... If you are in this situation don't panic and don't call me - the answer is right
here.
If you are using one of the technologies listed below and want to use TFS 2008, you may want to check out our new MSSCCI provider we just released. You can download it here.
Visual Studio .NET 2003
Visual C++ 6 SP6
Visual Visual Basic 6 SP6
Visual FoxPro 9 SP1
Microsoft Access 2003 SP2
SQL Server Management Studio
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect 6.1
Sybase PowerBuilder 10.5
Toad for SQL Server 2.0
The VSTS2008TFSPT (short for Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Power Tools) have been released.... It's a mouthful but there are some interesting features, check it out here.
If you plan upgrading from TFS 2005 to TFS 2008 you may want to have a look at this migration tool. Make sure you understand the limitations of the tool.
Every now and then I get asked whether or not VSTS 2005 bits work with VSTS 2008 bits and vice versa. Grant Holliday put a great matrix together to answer all these questions. Check it out.
... and available now for those with an
MSDN subscription! Check
here to find out what's new in VSTS 2008.
So you think we can't do this in VSTS? Steve Lange has written an elaborate 4-part series about how you can(with and without partner add-ons). Check it out here.
Have you ever wondered why specifying requirements continues to be a major challenge for most organisations? Well there are many legitimate reasons, but using the term "Requirement" in the first place isn't helping ....
Read this paper if you want to fix this.
Microsoft has created a Test Center community website for anyone interested in the quality aspect of software development. You will find best practices, videos, blogs and other information. We also would like to encourage you to share your experiences - good and bad!
