Here are a bunch of links that I routine share with folks; I’ll update this post as I discover other worthy links.

The Team System Home Page

Visual Studio Team System

Installation

TFS 2008 Installation Guide (download)

Troubleshooting Team Foundation Server (I love this one – absolutely come here first if you run into any problems not answered in the installation guide.)

Administration

Administering TFS (Online)

TFS Administration Guide (download)

TFS Setup, Administration and Operations Blog

Work Item Tracking and Reporting blog

Maintenance

How to Move Team Foundation Server (In here you’ll find how to do 3 types of moves: One Hardware Config to Another, From One Environment to Another and From a Single-Server to a Dual-Server.

Developer Support for TFS blog (awesome tips and tricks)

TFS Migration Blog (Discusses how to migrate data from other systems into TFS, and how to integrate TFS with other systems.)

General

Brian Harry’s blog (The Man for TFS)

Buck Hodge’s blog

Jeff Beehler’s blog (Team System and Visual Studio)

Jim Lamb’s blog (Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Build but were afraid to ask)

The economy may be down, but your access to free training has never been greater!  Once again, our good friends at Tallan are coming to town (Waltham, MA) for another one of their ALM events.  This time around it’s Adopting ALM with Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server.  These events are well received, so don’t miss out on your chance to attend!

Copied liberally from the invitation:

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) synchronizes business goals and IT investment priorities, provides valuable insight into the software development lifecycle at each stage of the process, and can enable organizations to get the most value out of their IT investments. Companies like yours that have embraced ALM have already realized greater productivity. With Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) and Team Foundation Server (TFS), Microsoft has the tools to help you adopt ALM and realize the benefits.  This intensive one-day workshop will show you how.

Adopting Application Lifecycle Management is brought to you by Tallan and Microsoft. The workshop will be held from 8:30 AM until 5:00 PM on April 28, 2009 at the Microsoft Northeast Office at 201 Jones Rd., Sixth Floor Waltham, MA 02451.  Meals will be provided.

To register, use the link below or call 860.368.3083

http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=137247

This event is appropriate for organizations looking to learn more about Team System and those which has purchased Team System and want to get more out of it.  And it never hurts to be face-to-face with an expert and have an opportunity to ask them questions.

Showing a little love to our friends in Connecticut – Tallan is holding a complimentary full-day workshop entitled “Adopting ALM with Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server” on February 26th at Microsoft’s Farmington office.  Tallan always does a nice job with this workshop; worth the trip.

Learn more and register here: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=135430.

I’m very excited to announce that we’ll be hosting a free Scrum and Team Foundation Server event in our Waltham office on March 6th.  Dynamics Research Corporation, a leader in Scrum training, has put the event together and I personally think the agenda and speakers looks amazing.  (If you take a quick peek at DRC’s website, you may get the impression that they only service the government.  This is no longer the case.)

The speakers are not just DRC folks, by the way.  You’ll be educated from some of the very best agile and TFS folks around.  People like Dan Mezick, head of the AgileCT user group.  People like Ben Day, TFS expert extraordinaire.  Heck, even I’ll be there (not presenting, mind you, but more than happy to talk to you about Team System, the Red Sox, all this snow, etc.  Whatever floats your boat.)

Who should attend?  If you want to learn more about Scrum, you should be there.  If you know Scrum and want to see how to manage it via TFS, you should be there.  In fact, anyone interested in agile development methodologies and how they can be implemented via TFS should be there.

Head on over to www.scrumtfs.com for all the details and to register.

Although you hardly needed another reason to attend the MSDN Developer Conference (MDC) in Boston on Jan. 22nd, seeing how I’m one of the speakers, but now we’ve got late-breaking news that Roger Sessions of www.objectwatch.com fame will be participating, as well!  He’ll also be speaking at the IASA New England Chapter meeting (the night before the MDC).

Lately Roger has been talking about simple architectures for complex enterprises.  In fact, that’s the title of his talk:

Simple Architectures for Complex Enterprises

It is common to hear of massive IT failures; projects that are over budget, late, poorly aligned to business needs, or all of the above. Often, the resulting losses are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The cause is almost always the same: uncontrolled complexity. The solution to complexity is simple — or more specifically, simplicity.

We need to understand what makes systems simple with as much critical reasoning as we do what makes systems fast, secure, or reliable. This talk is about the mathematical models of complexity and the methodologies needed to control it. Complexity is the most insidious problem facing IT architects. Control it, or it will bury you! This talk will be thought provoking and open new areas for exploration.

I hope you’ll take advantage of this fantastic opportunity.

I have personally recommended to nearly anyone with whom I discussed Team Foundation Server the value of reading the Branching Guidance whitepaper published on codeplex.com.

Well, I can no longer make that recommendation…because there is a newer guide available – Branching Guidance II!  Find it here: http://www.codeplex.com/TFSBranchingGuideII

Why a 2nd Edition?  Here’s a quote right from the codeplex project page:

Since the first release, we have received lots of feedback and change requests. Most feedback indicated a desire for a more practical approach to branching compared to the first release which is more theoretical. With that in mind, we decided to reduce the conceptual part and focus on branching practices with Team Foundation Server.

I can only agree with that – the theory is nice (and important to understand), but real-world usage is where the rubber hits the road and is where you’ll get the most actual bang for the buck.

I’m not sure how I missed this one when it came out several months back.  But, man, we should include one of these in every box of TFS!

Brian the Build Bunny - Martin Woodward

In case you missed it, Gert sent word last week that the newest version of the Visual Studio Database Edition has been released.  I’ve been talking to you a lot about this release and you’ve been patiently waiting for it to be delivered.  Wait no longer.  Hop on over to Gert’s blog for all of the details + download links.

Data Dude : Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR - RTM

The Northeast Roadshow is comin’ back ‘round for the “winter” sessions.  (They obviously use a different calendar than mine…but, granted, it is cold out there lately…)

These are some of the best local, technical sessions you’ll find, and you cannot beat the price.  Head over to Chris’ blog for the details:

Chris Bowen's Blog : Join Us for The Winter Northeast MSDN Roadshow!

The nature of software development is radically changing... Are you ready?

Prepare yourself for a demanding future. Attend the MSDN Developer Conference.

1. Experience Microsoft’s Cloud Computing Platform
   Create applications that seamlessly bridge the gaps between PC, Web, and phone
2. Be among the first to see Windows 7
   See the latest advances in Multi-Touch Application Development
3. Take your .NET skills to the next level
   See sessions on WPF 4.0, Silverlight 2, ASP.NET 4.0, Parallel Programming, Live Mesh and more

The Cost? Just $99.
Did I mention that attendees will get some cool giveaways?

Check out the session line up…

Register for a city near you…

Online Community

Find our tag cloud under #MSDNDevCon. Join the buzz!

 MSDN Social

 Facebook - Join the group

Twitter - follow the feed

Flickr - post your MDC pictures

del.icio.us - share your bookmarks

Twemes - global twitter tags

A lot of you have been asking me when VS 2008 SP1 will ship.  I tended to respond with vague answers, including ‘probably soon after SQL 2008 RTMs’.  Well, SQL 2008 RTM’d last week and you may have said to yourself ‘Todd said SP1 was coming soon…’

Well, I’m happy to report that SP1 has shipped – and this includes SP1 for Visual Studio 2008, TFS 2008 and .NET 3.5.  Plenty of bug fixes and tons of new goodies.  Hop over to Brian Harry’s blog for more info and download links.

bharry's WebLog : VS/VSTS/TFS/.NET 3.5 SP1 is shipping!

Oh, how we just love getting new Team System Power Tools!  Grab ‘em while they’re hot!  Details from Brian Harry here :

bharry's WebLog : July '08 Power Tools are available!

Or, if you just can’t wait another second, download right from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=00803636-1d16-4df1-8a3d-ef1ad4f4bbab&displaylang=en.  Enjoy!

If you are not familiar with Sandcastle, it is a tool which takes your source code XML comments and produces beautiful MSDN-style documentation.  Not so long ago, Sandcastle was pulled off of Codeplex because it was in violation of the Codeplex rules (in particular, the project didn't include source code).

There was a lot of debate about this (both externally and internally).  Personally, I was an advocate that we should maintain Sandcastle on Codeplex and include the source code.  I'm extremely happy to report that this is exactly what we decided to do:

Sandcastle : Sandcastle Source Code published in Codeplex

I know a lot of you are interested in SharePoint development, especially with respect to Visual Studio.  I'm happy to tell you that there's a new team blog in town, right from the Visual Studio Business Applications SharePoint Tools QA team (wow -- try fitting that on a business card).  Check it out: http://blogs.msdn.com/vssharepointtoolsblog/archive/2008/07/01/welcome-to-the-visual-studio-sharepoint-tools-blog.aspx

David Scruggs will be presenting a fantastic webcast on integrating TFS and EPM.  From the session abstract:

Project Managers and Development teams may be the “Odd Couple” of the 21st century, working together but having different approaches and perspectives. Integrating Project Server and Team Foundation Server helps them work better, together. We’ll show how to link two different processes running side-by-side in each system, and cover some of the reasons to integrate the two systems, including:

1. Project Management is tracking more than application development, but not all of application development. Integrating lets each camp focus on what's important to them.

2. EPM is getting more formal, with more documentation. Application development is getting leaner. Integrating lets you loosely couple EPM and application development so that they can work together while working differently.

3. Integrating means project managers have real data to “manage to”. Since project managers are often pulling real data from ERP and CRM systems, having real data from application development fills in the missing gaps.

Interested?  Then register for this Friday, August 15th event.  As always, if you cannot make it to the live broadcast, register anyway so you can watch the recording of the event on-demand later. 

Click here to Register Now!