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Microsoft Acquires Teamprise technology

Today, November 9, 2009, we announced that we’re acquiring Teamprise. Teamprise is both the name of the a company as well as technology that allows non-Visual Studio developers to connect to Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server (TFS).

As a software developer, there are time when you need to use a development environment other than Visual Studio to write code (I know…I’m just as surprised as you are). In some cases, that development environment is Eclipse. Rather than having different source controls for .NET code as well as non .NET Code, Teamprise allowed you access TFS three different ways: through an Eclipse plug-in, the Teamprise Explorer, or through a command-line interface.

These different access methods also can be used on non-Windows operating systems. In other words, if you’re using the MacOS or Linux, you can access TFS as if you running on Windows from within Visual Studio.

Details of the acquisition are available on Microsoft PressPass. For more information about Teamprise itself, click here. To learn more about the transition that happening, check out this link.

Excelsior!

New MSDN and Visual Studio 2010

More and more information is becoming available every day on the new MSDN and Visual Studio 2010.

For starters, the entire MSDN site has gotten an entirely new look. It has three different views: Classic, Lightweight Beta, and ScriptFree. You can switch between the different views by either select the Switch View option at the bottom of the screen or along the upper right-hand side.

The site redesign is just the beginning. On October 19th, we announced the availability of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, we also outlined the Ultimate Offer that will take effect on the VS 2010 Launch Date of March 22, 2010. This offer makes sure that every MSDN subscriber gets equal or greater value (in many cases, a lot greater) as we transition subscriptions into the new and simplified VS 2010 product line.

Here’s how subscription levels will transition :

If you noticed, TFS 2010 and the TFS CAL are included with Visual Studio editions that includes MSDN (with the exception of MSDN Embedded). TFS 2010 can be installed multiple ways: Basic, Standard, and Advanced.

Basic Edition is a way to replace your Visual SourceSafe source code repositories. Rather than using a file system and database to maintain deltas of your source code, it will use SQL Server 2008 Express. It’s more than just source code control, it also provides Work Item Support and Automated Build Engine. This also means that you can install and run Basic on a workstation as well as a server.

Standard Edition is just like before where you’d install it running it with SQL Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise Edition onto a single server.

Advanced edition is more like installing TFS onto a dual platform environment.

Unlike previous versions of TFS, the installation experience has been greatly improved as well. After you install the bits, you’re prompted to launch the configuration wizard. That’s right, a configuration wizard. When I installed and configured TFS 2010 Basic on a Win7 workstation, I was able to install configure it within about 20 minutes. That includes getting IIS and SQL Server Express configured. When I installed TFS 2010 Standard Edition on a Windows Server 2008 R2 box, The configuration tool slightly longer…45 minutes. That includes answer the questions, letting it configure IIS, create the SQL databases, and installing/configuring WSS 3.0. Also, Team System Web Access is now included as part of the installation process. No separate download/install here.

Another feature of the MSDN subscription you get with VS 2010 is access to Windows® Azure. In case you’re not aware, Windows Azure is Microsoft’s new cloud computing platform. If you want to see it now, you can sign up for a Windows Azure CTP account today. When Windows Azure becomes commercially available, MSDN Premium subscribers will get a lot of free services as part of the subscription. Click here for more details.

As more information becomes available and as I discover how the new features in VS 2010 work, I continue to post about them.

Until next time…Excelsior!

More on Visual Studio 2010 and the Ultimate Offer

On Oct 19, 2009, Dave Mendlen, director of Developer Tools and Marketing did a quick press video explain the benefits of Visual Studio 2010, what’s coming in MSDN, and the Ultimate Offer.

There’s also a Fact Sheet from the Microsoft PresssPass announcement that contains the current SKU offering and what the new SKU offering looks like, including suggested retail prices. Remember, suggested retail prices are just that, suggested. There are a number of buying vehicles available to make this more affordable.

Excelsior!

VS 2010 Ultimate Offer!

As part of the VS 2010 announcement we made at the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas (Monday, October 19), we also announced what we’re calling “The Ultimate Offer.” Depending on what Visual Studio 2008 edition you have when Visual Studio 2010 ships, you might be eligible to step up to a more advanced edition of Visual Studio. Click on the image below to be taking to the roadmap site for more details.

The short of it is: If you have Visual Studio 2008 Professional with MSDN Premium, you will be eligible to step up to Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN. If you’re a Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition users (Architecture, Test, Development, and Database) will be eligible to step up to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN. So for the price of the current offers, when VS 2010 ships, you’ll end up with a “bigger” product with more bells and whistles.

The fact that you evaluate each edition of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (MSDN Users only) right now is fantastic because you’ll be able to see what differences are between VS 2010 Professional, Premium, and Ultimate. If you’re not an MSDN subscriber, you download the VS 2010 Beta 2 Professional edition now for evaluation.

So between now and launch date (March 22, 2010), check with your licensing specialist to see if you can save some money by upgrading now to get more product later.

Excelsior!

VS 2010 / .NET 4 Beta 2 Now Available

This was big news yesterday (Oct 19). I was traveling so unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to see any of the official announcements. But as you can see from this article, Visual Studio’s logo has a new look and you’ll find that the MSDN site also has a new look.

We got feedback from sides of the .NET Development community about how complicated it was to figure out which version of Visual Studio is best for them. So what we’re doing with VS 2010 is simplifying the names which are more aligned with other Microsoft brands. So you’ll see VS 2010 Express, Professional, Premium, and Ultimate.

The DevDiv General Manager, Jason Zander, provides a pretty through run down what’s in Beta 2 in his blog as well as descriptions for each of the editions. On subtle thing he’s added to his blog sidebar is a widget that provides a countdown until VS 2010 launch. And that launch is March 22, 2010.

With VS 2010 / .NET 4 Beta 2 now being available for download exclusively for MSDN subscribers until 10/21, after which time, it will be made to the general public. For the first time that I can recall, this is the first time you’ll actually be able to download a beta version that you’re specifically interested in evaluating. What do I mean by that? Historically, the VS betas were usually the upper most version of the product, in this case Visual Studio Team Suite. If you wanted to test what a VS Pro users would have, you’d have to walk lightly and not try out things like the Data menu or go crazy with the Test menu because those features were for the Role Based versions or Team Suite version of the product.

Technical Evangelist, Brian Keller, has a really good article on how to download the bits for the beta as well as a Channel 9 video on installing it.

As I start getting my head around all the latest bits, I’ll start adding more of my perspective on all the new features. In the meantime, check out ScottGu’s blog on the VS 2010 and .NET 4 on the Beta 2 announcement and check out his series of blog posts that cover a lot of the new features.

Excelsior!

TFS 2010 Beta 2 comes with a “Go Live” opportunity

If you’ve been keeping up some of the other Microsoft blogs that cover Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server, you’ll have seen hints that TFS 2010 Beta 2 is going to be available very soon. So what does that mean? It’s going to available for you download and try as soon as it ready. Sorry, like all other MS bloggers, we’re not allow to say any more.

But what we can talk about is the fact the Beta 2 will have a “go live” license, which means that you can use it for your day-to-day application building and that there will also be some limited support available to help you adopt Beta 2.

For more information Go Live and what it means, check out Brian Keller’s blog about this. If you have questions about it, you can contact him directly.

Excelsior!

Free Win7 Developer Boot Camp @ PDC09 in LA

Whether or not you’re attending to the Microsoft PDC09 in Los Angeles on Nov 17-19, 2009, Microsoft is offering a free (that’s right no cost at all) Pre-Conference Windows 7 Developer Boot Camp workshop on Nov 16th. This boot camp will feature some of the top Win7 engineers like Mark Russinovich, Landy Wang, and Arun Kishan.

Check out this link for a full description of the workshop. Definitely check out the comments as to how to actually register for this workshop if you’re not attending the PDC.

Share and enjoy!

Excelsior!

Technorati Tags: PDC09,Boot Camp,Microsoft,workshop,Mark Russinovich,Landy Wang,Arun Kishan

TFS 2010 Beta 1 Installation Experience

I had been using an internally build of a VSTS 2010 Beta 1 virtual environment for quite awhile so I never installed the Beta 1 bits myself. Recently, my external hard drive decided it was going to start have some issues, and that eventually lead to the corruption of my virtual image. I needed to get a new image online so that I could continue to do demos for my customers as well as continue to test out the product.

I had been told by several colleagues that TFS 2010 installs a lot faster than previous version. Having done a number of TFS 2005 installations which took an average of 4 hours from beginning to end, it was nice to see that a TFS 2008 installation process was a bit faster…by 30 minutes (not that much faster). So when they said it install a lot faster…let’s just say I didn’t hold my breath.

When I say “beginning to end,” I’m talking about installing Windows (and configuring it), SQL Server (and configuring it), and TFS. Installing Windows and SQL Server pretty much take the same amount of time regardless of which version of TFS you’re planning to install.

Unlike installing TFS 2008, TFS 2010 is designed to work with Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 from the start. With TFS 2008, you could use Windows Server 2003 or 2008 and SQL Server 2005 or 2008. The caveat with SQL Server 2008 is that in order to get TFS 2008 to install properly on a single-server instance with SQL Server 2008, you need to create a new TFS 2008 install disc with TFS 2008 SP1 slipstreamed into the bits.

So once you get Windows, IIS, and SQL Server installed per the instructions in the TFS Install help file, you’re ready to go install TFS. One thing that’s really nice about the installer is that it does a pre-installation scan of your system to make sure it has all the information you need up front to do the installation. No more multi-wizard screens prompting you for information each step of the way only to realize either you pressed Next too fast and missed a step or you didn’t have all the information you need to install, like the user accounts to execute the reports and services and in which you’d have to abort the install all together.

Also, during the installation, you can have TFS configure Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) or not. That’s right…not! In TFS 2008, you’d have to install WSS or point the installation which Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) you wanted to use. With TFS 2010, if you don’t install WSS, you’re not required to use MOSS, because you have the option when you create your Team Project to use either your default WSS instance, MOSS environment, or not setup a team site at all (see picture). This may change when TF2010 ships, but as of now, this is how it works right now.

The Install Help file doesn’t take you all over the place for one part of the information and then force to click back just to click on another link for more information. No hyperlink-hell. Overall, the experience setting up TFS 2010 a lot more straight forward than previous releases and painless. I’ll revisit the installation process when Beta 2 becomes available.

Until next time…

Excelsior!

Official Microsoft Team Blogs

There are thousands of Microsoft blogs out in the blogsphere and many don’t talk about just one technology. This can make it difficult to decision which blog to add to your RSS feed if you were interested one specific technology. Is Brian Harry’s blog really the best for all things TFS? Is Scott Guthrie’s blog really the best for all things development related? IMO, yes they are.

BlogMS recently posted an official list of the 252 team blogs that focus specifically on a Microsoft product or technology. Definitely worth checking out.

Share and enjoy!

Excelsior!

Changing your VSTS Test Projects defaults

The other day while I was writing some code (yeah, I still do that occasionally) and added a Test Project to my solution, I thought it was odd that although I was writing my solution in C#, the default Test Project is always VB? So I poked around the Options setting within VSTS and found that there’s a Test Tools section for custom settings, and one of the settings underneath it is Test Project.

The first option setting is the Default test project language. I don’t recall ever setting a default, but it was set to VB. So you can change it from VB to C# to even C++ if you’d like.

Now for the items within the Test Project, you can set which items you want a new test project to include by default. If you’re new to VSTS’s Test Projects, I can understand the need to include the About Test Projects introduction file, Manual Test Word format file, and a Unit Test file. But after you’ve used Test Projects for any length of time, you probably don’t want to include the About Test Project and Manual Test files anymore. In the settings for each type of Test Project, just uncheck the items you don’t want (and mark the ones you do), and now every time you create a new Test Project in your solution, you’ll only get the items you want. Why I didn’t think about checking for these settings sooner is beyond me, but I’m glad I did.

Excelsior!

Visual Studio 2008 sales promotions

In case you’re still on the fence as to whether you want to upgrade your Visual Studio Professional Edition to a Visual Studio Team Edition (Architecture, Development, or Test) or Visual Studio Team Suite, how does saving 30% and 45% off when you step up from Professional Edition with MSDN Premium to either Team Edition or Team Suite respectively sound?

If you go from Professional Edition to Team Edition Developer, you really are getting a lot for you money because you’ll also be getting Team Edition Database as well. With Developer, you get code analysis, unit testing with code coverage, application profiling, and code metrics for helping determine complexity and maintainability. With the Database features, you can refactor your database objects, compare schemas and data within tables, generate repeatable test data, and write unit tests against your SQL stored procedures.

And by getting the Developer Edition now, with VSTS 2010 ships, you’ll be able to use these database features against non-Microsoft database management systems like IBM DB2 and Oracle.

This promotion is for a limited time and ends September 30, 2009. For more information about the promotion, check out:

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/offers/default.mspx

Excelsior!

Microsoft Retail Stores are hiring

You may have read the Microsoft is going to start it’s own retail stores, kind of like the Apple Stores. The first one in Southern California is going to be in Mission Viejo at The Shops at Mission Viejo and and the first one in Arizona is going to be in Scottsdale, at the Scottsdale Fashion Square. There are other locations opening up around the nation, but these are the first two that I’m aware.

With that, Microsoft is looking to hire people for the retail stores from sales associates to trainers to technical advisors to customer service associates. If you, family, or friends are interested, check out our Microsoft Careers site for more information for job descriptions in these and other locations. Use keywords like retail, mission viejo or retail, scottsdale, or just retail to find the listings.

Excelsior!

VB Team and Mobile GPS sample

I recently bought a road bike to get outside more and breath more of the smog filled Southern California air. Being a gadget guy, I’ve been looking at getting a GPS-enabled speedometer, like the Garmin Edge 305 or above. I track my workouts using MapMyRide.com and while using that site, they offer a number of free iPhone apps to use the device’s internal GPS to almost do the same thing the Garmin units do. So being a programmer, I’ve been trying to come up with my own similar application for my Windows phone. Not having coded any serious applications in a couple of years, I’m not as fast I use to be, so I’m constantly looking for sample applications to piece things together.

One site that really inspired me was Windows Mobile MVP Chris Craft’s 30 Windows Mobile apps in 30 Days. There are a number of applications he wrote that could make up the applications I wanted to build.

However, just recently, on the Visual Basic Team Blog, Matt Gertz, wrote a couple of articles about writing a GPS application in Visual Basic [.NET] for the Windows Phone.

• It’s a Small World, After All, part 1 – VB, C#, and GPS (Matt Gertz)
• It’s a Small World, After All, part 2 – VB, C#, and GPS (Matt Gertz)

After reading them, I’m definitely inspired to finished the application. You never know, after I finish rebuilding one of my systems with Windows 7, I just might finish the application. Stay tuned.

Excelsior!

PDC Workshop Announced: Developing Quality Software using Visual Studio Team System 2010

If you’re thinking about attending PDC09 this year, we just announced a pre-PDC workshop on “Developing Quality Software using VSTS 2010.”

Its a full-day workshop and they will be going through entire lifecycle of building quality into your software development process.

More information is available at Brian Keller’s blog on the topic.

If you’d like to attend the workshop but aren’t attending the PDC, you can sign-up for just the workshop.

Remember, if you register for the PDC before Sept 15, you’ll save $500 off registration. With the money you save, you can sign up for the workshop.

Excelsior!

PDC 2009 Registration Now Open

Registration for the PDC 2009 (Professional Developers Conference) is now open. This year, it will be held on November 17-19 in Los Angeles, CA.

If you register by September 15, 2009, you’ll get $500 off the registration fee.

To see what sessions are available, check out the session list.

if you’re not familiar with the PDC, is a Microsoft event that we show off future, non-release products at. Some stuff could be pre-alpha, alpha, or early beta products. Some technology that we still haven’t quite figured out where it fits in yet.

You can following PDC updates via Twitter @PDC09.

Excelsior!