Visual Studio Comparison

"Do I get Visual Studio 2008 Pro?"

"Is the express version enough?"

"Do I get Team System what are the benefits?" 

These are a few of the questions I am sure you ask yourself when you are looking at which version of 2008 you should get your boss the buy.  Team System is very expensive and Pro is less but will you miss some features you counted on.

Help is at hand Microsoft have created a comparison chart, well several, which are grouped by feature areas and detail each Visual Studio version including Team System and which features they actually contain.  This should be a great help in making sure that you are getting your boss the buy the right version for your development team.

To see the chart for yourself go here

The Stay At Home Server - Funny

The Microsoft Publicity machine is great and with almost every new tool, OS etc comes a gimmick web site or interesting video.

The "Stay-At-Home-Servers" web site is all about how every person should have their own server running, you guessed it, Windows Home Server.  Although I am not advocating home server I did come across quite a funny book on their new publicity site, to have a little chuckle to yourself go here.

IIS 6.0 & 7.0 Deployment

As a web developer responsible for a web farm (in a small company) I have the task of deploying my web application updates to all the servers and when things do not work I have to go to each server and make sure that no one has changed any settings. 

I hear you cry "why not create a tool to deploy to my servers" and we did along time ago but like all internal tools, where no one is willing to back them with money, it does the job and nothing else.

In steps the IIS Web Development Team who have created a the first version of their new web deployment tool.  The tool is in its infancy so do not expect a great deal however I am sure it will go from strength-to-strength.  The tool is a command line tool which allows you to sync and migrate applications and sites between web servers.  This includes content, registry keys and most aspects related to you web application/site.

When you find the time to look further into this tool, by downloading the recent version, you will find that the development team already have a road map for how they wish to proceed so you can see already they have a long term plan for this, and if this tool helps you now then all the better.

To read the team blog entry and download the current version go here

Silverlight 1.0 Fire Starter

For those of you who are looking for some introduction into how to use Silverlight 1.0 but are not looking forward to reading one of the many tutorials then Silverlight 1.0 Fire Start is for you.  This is a set of eight videos created at a recent one day training event.

The videoed presentations are given by some of the industry experts and are available for view through the web site (using silverlight of cause) or for download in wmv.

You can find out more here

Bill Gates Last Day - CES Key Note Video

Here is a very funny video which covers the last day Bill Gates works for Microsoft as full time employee, first shown at the CES 2008 Key Note, the final one he plans on attending officially.

Bill's Last Day: The CES Keynote video

Visual Studio Team Foundation Tools

The follow is a list of tools for TFS available through codeplex, which also come complete with source code.

TFS File Sharer - Mimics SourceSafe like file sharing.

TFS Continuous Integrator - A TFS 2005 based continuous integration solution.  Of course, it's built in if you are using TFS 2008.

TFS Dependency replicator - A tool to make changes in the source tree when certain events occur (like copying files when a build completes).

TFS Build Virtualizer - Rather than having one physical machine for each team or build server configuration, manage a pool of virtual machines automatically.

Blog entry inspired by Brian Harry

Team Foundation Power Tools for VS2008

For those of you who have made the leap to Visual Studio 2008 and are using Team Foundations Server you may be pleased to know that there are a new set of power tools to help bridge some of those functionality gaps. Instead of recompiling the existing power tools for 2008 the development team at Microsoft have decided to create a new set of tool specifically aimed at 2008.

The new power tools include the following;

• Find In Source Control
  The ability to search source code from within the source safe database
  
• Team Build Notification
  Using this tool, which sits in the system tray, you can be notified of when specified builds are queued, started etc
  
• Updated Best Practices Analyzer

Plus many more updates.

To find out more form Microsoft or download the tools please go here

ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions

You would have thought that after the latest version of the .NET Framework packed with its many new features the Microsoft .NET team would have sat back to enjoy their accolade, but this is not the case as they are still developing and have produced a number of extensions to the framework which will help developers add some of the functionality that usually takes allot of time to implement

For examples they have crated a MVC (Model-View-Container) framework and a new AJAX version, to mention just a couple of the new technologies ready for you to take advantage of.

To get the full information on these extensions please see Brad Abrams blog entry which also includes direction to tutorials.

DDD5 Videos

Unfortunately for me I missed the last DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper (DDD) day, personally I think a DDD is a good excuse to miss clashing family events although my wife does not hence I did not attend.

If you are like me and could not attend than do not fear as most of the presentations where videoed and they are now available at the web site, so although you missed out on the event at least you can watch the presentations.

You can find the videos at the DDD web site here

P & P Team System Guidance In Print

The Patterns and Practice team at Microsoft have been the driving force behind many of the additional framework which have eventually found their way into the full .NET recently this includes the new MVC framework which is due to be release early next year. 

Besides frameworks they also have a number of documents outlining best development practices, recently I have been responsible for the maintenance and implementation of Team System within my organisation and have used the P & P guidance documents within CodePlex, these have been an invaluable resource for the best way to use and run Team System. 

For those of you who prefer to read your document in physical form the Team System guidance is now in print and can be purchased from Amazon, find it by clicking here

You can also get the performance testing guidance for web application in print too, find it by clicking here

[Original Information from Jeff Beehler's blog]

Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit

Every version of Visual Studio has been accompanied by a suite of presentations, demos, and hands-on-labs and Visual Studio 2008 is no different.

This latest training kit takes you through the new buzz features including LINQ, WCF, WPF, WF etc and most of the new language features.  This is a great place to start if you want to really investigate what is new and great about Visual Studio 2008 download this kit.

You can download the 120MB kit from Microsoft here.  After downloading the kit, simply run the installation program to extract the contents to your local machine.  Once the installation process is complete, you will see an HTML page that allows you to navigate through the contents of the kit.

[Original Information from Eric Nelson]

.NET Framework 3.5 Poster

Ok this may sound a bit geeky, well in fact it is very geeky, but I like to put .NET/development posters around my desk this includes information on the MSF development cycle and coding mantras.  I find that they help me keep all those little bits of very useful information at the front of my memory especially as I seem to have a really bad one.

Recently I came across another poster to put by my desk, this one contains an overview of the .NET 3.5 common namespaces and types.  I am sure you will agree this is information no developer should be without!

Seriously you may find this useful to find your way to some of the nice new 3.5 features.

You can find the poster in XPS format here

Windows Live Writer

Up until recently my blogging experience has been, come up with an idea, write up the blog entry in an Outlook email (so I can spell check), copy-and-paste to Blogspot and format the text and insert links using HTML mark up.  This process has worked very well except I have to hand craft my links and double check that they are all working before I post.

I have seen Windows Live Writer around for a while and had the usual thought 'I should look at that', well finally I did and WOW!

I installed Live Writer, pointed it at my Blogspot account (a google site) and it signed-in checked the account took some settings from the site to configure my experience and here I am writing this blog from inside Live Writer.

The experience is everything I could hope for its a complete Word-like experience with the usual spell checking, something I greatly need, font formatting, tables, bullet points etc, insertion of links and also difference media (pictures, videos etc). Once I have finished formatting my blog entry I click 'publish' and it appears in my blog, the experience of the interface means that I could stop physically logging into my Blogspot account from now on, if I so wished.

If you write a blog or are thinking of writing one but are held back by the process of having to use another web interface then give Windows Live Writer a go I am sure that once you start using it you will suddenly realise that the only thing stopping you from blogging now is time and ideas.

To download Windows Live writer go here

Microsoft Marketing - Win A Dream Office

We all know that the Microsoft marketing machine is big and strong, they have come up with some interesting ways to promote their products.  For example to promote the use of Visual Studio the Defy All Challenges web site was created which seemed to serve no other purpose than to tell you something we all know, Visual Studio is great!

Along the same line of slightly pointless marketing web sites Microsoft are running a new competition to win £500 worth of office equipment.  To gain your entry to this competition you first have to navigate around a virtual office  and click you way through a number of clues to find the keys, all while being told how great the Microsoft suite of office products are.

If you have the spare time you can find the web site here

WPF Boot Camp - FREE

WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) is a fantastic new UI technology available to the .NET developer, which also appears as a sub set in Silverlight.  So you can see that WPF will soon surround every .NET developer.

The biggest issue with a new technology is finding the best resource to learn it, and for those of us with tight IT budgets, the backing to learn it.

The Internet always has resources to allow you to learn these technologies for free and there have been a number of articles on Codeproject, MSDN and Nibbles however these articles and tutorials fall short of providing the complete information from end to end for the beginner.

Microsoft  have addressed this shortfall by providing a complete online boot camp.  The boot camp was originally run for a number of selected individuals who attended it in Redmond, but as the organisers brought the speaker list together they realised that they had got together the WPF cream.  The list of speakers included, among others, Ian Griffith who presented at the Bristol VBUG last year.

The online presentations are structures in the same way as if you had attended the boot camp, opening with a keynote followed by presentations to teach you the entire WPF technology.  You can view the videos online, through Silverlight, or download them as WMV.

As an additional bonus you also have two hands on labs to complete at your leisure.

To get hold of this amazing resource go here

Visual Studio Team System Widgets

VSTS is a large application and contains a number of interest areas for all users, some need to watch the check in rate or code churn (the count of code lines changes) and some just need to make sure that they have the latest version of their files when they check them out.

For those of your who know VSTS you will know that although you can get hold of the information you need or perform the necessary actions you do have to go through some hoops, the power tools power tools for VSTS help a lot but there is still some gaps.

Now as most of us are programmers we could use the VSTS SDK to write our own Visual Studio add-in. The SDK is very well documented and you can create great a very powerful tool to do any number of VSTS related functions, however if you are like me you most probably have a number of other project on the go and no time for anymore.

Never fear there is a website called Team System Widgets to help you find the widget you are after bringing together a list of developed widgets from commercial, community and Microsoft sources. The web site contains tools for build monitoring to VSTS event subscription.

Click here to find out more

Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

To use and make software correctly you need guidance, a manual for how the makers suggest you use it. I am very keen on getting hold of the guidance produced by Microsoft whenever it is available especially when it comes to Team System. The amount of work to get Team System correctly set up is quite a lot, although it’s a great product, it is very easy to get lost in its implementation.

To help bridge the knowledge gap the team responsible for the development of Team System have created a WIKI on Codeplex and also created an overall guidance document which has recently been put on MSDN.

Each document encompasses a lot of information for users and administrators of Team System, if you have not already looked at both of these sources I suggest you do so now to avoid misconceptions and incorrect implementations into your SDLC.

Speed up Visual Studio 2005

Like most developers I hate waiting for my PC especially once I have hit F5, in Visual Studio, I do not want to wait for it to compile all 20 projects I want it done NOW! Ok maybe I am a bit impatient, for those of you who find Visual Studio 2005 to run a little slow there are a few little tweaks you can do to make it run that little bit faster.

You can find these very helpful tips here

10 types of programmers you’ll encounter in the field

When working in the IT industry it is hard not to pigeon hole your fellow codes by their actions. Normally the only people I tend to categorise are the ones who do not work efficiently and without passion for doing a good job, these people I tend to categorise as the ‘9-to-5ers’ for their commitment to fitting all IT related learning and working to the hours between 9am and 5pm.

However there are many other categories you can use to identify the type of programmers you are surrounded by and a recent article by Justin James gives you the top ten, by his own experience. It’s a very interesting read as I have worked with nearly all 10 types of people and I am sure you have too.

Read it here

DDD6 Registration

You can now register to attend DDD6. The event is on Saturday 24th November.

Registration link : http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032357828&Culture=en-GB

The aganeda will be posted shortly on the DDD site.

If you are thinking of going register NOW