Jim Blizzard's Blog

musings from a snowstorm...

RDP to Ubuntu Linux VM in Azure

Wanting to try out some of the cross-platform support available in Azure (https://azure.com) and...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 02/25/2015

Sleuthing a BSOD

Last week I (intentionally) paved my Carbon X1 by reinstalling Windows 8.1. I thought it would be...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 06/04/2014

Microsoft’s shift to agile

Why has Microsoft adopted agile practices? Is it working? Has it been successful? A couple of weeks...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 06/03/2014

C++ and SQL Server

A customer asked me this morning about connecting to SQL Server from C++. Had to dig a little, but...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 06/03/2014

Keep up with the latest Team Foundation Service releases

Here's an always up-to-date list of all the releases that have been pushed into Team Foundation...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 08/22/2013

Porting a simple Silverlight game loop to Windows Phone 8

We’re going to have a Game Hackathon tomorrow at the Microsoft Office here in Tampa. For a...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 12/20/2012

Rolling with Team Foundation Service

This summer I had the chance to work on a Windows 8 Store reference app with a few of my colleagues...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 12/13/2012

Windows 8 Dev Camp materials now available

The slides and hands-on labs materials (both JavaScript and C#) are now available for download. Trot...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 05/18/2012

Curious about how to get your app into the Windows Store?

My Orlando Windows 8 Dev Camp co-presenter, Dave Isbitski, has written an excellent post about it....

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 05/15/2012

Windows 8 – Sharing and Searching

At the Windows 8 Developer Camp last week in Ft. Lauderdale, a couple of people asked me if...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 04/26/2012

Want to keep up with Visual Studio 11 Beta news and info?

Here’s your must-have list of sites regarding Visual Studio 11 Beta. The Visual Studio team...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 03/14/2012

Sneak Preview of Visual Studio 11 Beta .NET 4.5 Beta

If you haven't already heard the news, take a look at Jason's blog, Soma's blog, the Visual Studio...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 02/23/2012

Have techie friends in Europe?

Let ‘em know that the Microsoft TechEd Europe session list has been posted here:...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 02/15/2012

VS11 Developer Preview training kit now available

In case you haven't already heard the news. You can download it from here:...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 10/18/2011

WcfTestClient.exe is missing???

If you’re trying out some WCF programming, there’s a nice little WCF test client...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 09/04/2011

Team Foundation Server workspaces

Many developers who first start working with Team Foundation Server find it easy to get wrapped...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 08/05/2011

Another “be what’s next” moment

In yet another instance of getting real, I just swapped out the backend database for...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 07/29/2011

Have something you’d like to see in a future version of Visual Studio?

I just found out about the Visual Studio UserVoice site, located here:...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 07/28/2011

How to: Visual Studio web performance tests – not using Internet Explorer

A client asked me how to create and run Visual Studio web performance tests using something other...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 05/18/2011

Q: So, what does the Visual Studio ALM Roadmap look like? A: Sweetness

Jason Zander just posted a blog entry about the ALM roadmap for Visual Studio vNext. Read and enjoy....

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 05/16/2011

Fabulous resource for performance testing

If you’re into performance testing – and who isn’t these days? – and you...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 05/13/2011

Hyper-V settings for a rocking fast VM

The other day I was doing a presentation in the Microsoft Tampa office. Unfortunately my display...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 05/10/2011

Walking the walk. . .

In my job I do a lot of presentations. I try do to demos as often as I can, to make things a bit...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 05/10/2011

Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2 is now available for MSDN subscribers

It’s here! There are updates to both the testing features and the code visualization & modeling...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 11/16/2010

Day of Silverlight!

In case you haven’t already heard the buzz, there’s going to be a Silverlight Firestarter on...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 11/12/2010

VS 2010 productivity power tools update

Somehow missed this from a couple of weeks ago. There’s a new version of the Visual Studio 2010...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 11/09/2010

Hotfix for Microsoft Test Manager. . .

. . . is available. A number of bug fixes, some memory leaks plugged, etc. Download it from here.

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 11/07/2010

Setting up video recording for Microsoft Test Manager

A while back I posted a blog entry detailing some of the steps that were glossed over in the MSDN...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 11/07/2010

Want to be part of the coolest team in the world?

We’re hiring in the New York City area. Job Information Requisition number: 737673 Position title:...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 10/20/2010

Not an infrastructure person?

I’ll admit it. I’m not. Never have been. Reading about TCP/IP, subnets, etc, makes my eyes glaze...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 10/07/2010

Microsoft Test Controllers and Agents – where’s the CD???

If you’re setting up a test environment for the new Microsoft test products, sometimes the MSDN...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 09/28/2010

SharePoint developer? Here’s your one-stop shop

The SharePoint 2010 developer center at MSDN. Tons of links. Loads of resources. From there you can...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 09/27/2010

So you need to move from the TFS 2010 Release Candidate to RTM bits?

Take a look at these links on migrating from the Release Candidate to RTM: TFS installation and...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 04/27/2010

How can you move to VS 2010?

Now that VS 2010 has launched, you might be wondering how you can move on up to the latest and...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 04/12/2010

MSDN downloads is just a bit busy today. . .

Typically I can download from MSDN at about 1,500 KB/sec. Today? Not even close. . . I wonder if...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 04/12/2010

Getting started videos for Silverlight and Expression

Just ran across these getting started training videos. They’re all between 10 and 20 minutes long....

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 03/31/2010

ASP.NET MVC 2 released

Excerpt from Scott Guthrie’s blog: I’m happy to announce that the final release of ASP.NET MVC 2 is...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 03/12/2010

So you’ve been using VS 2010 and have something to say?

Here are some ways to provide feedback: A survey:...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 03/04/2010

Slides from South Florida Code Camp Session

Thanks to everyone who attended my Code Camp session this morning. Sorry some of you had to sit on...

Author: jim blizzard [aka bliz] Date: 02/27/2010

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