I just found out that I have been renewed as a Team System MVP for another year! Woo Hoo! And there was much rejoicing…
Any new or renewed Team System MVPs, let me know who you are, and I’ll put together a post on all of us.
Infoworld has published the article “Microsoft to push life-cycle collaboration in newest Visual Studio.”
In it, they say that “Rosario” has now been officially christened Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010.
Go check out the article for all kinds of Team System goodness.
So if you are like me, you want to be involved with User Groups, whether its speaking or just attending. And also, if you are like me, there isn't a user group anywhere close to you. The closest one for me is 1.5 hours away, and with rising gas prices, it just isn't feasible to make it there every month.
Well, two good friends of mine (who also happen to be Team System MVPs as well), Paul Hacker and Dave McKinstry, have come up with a great idea that helps out, not only people like me, but people everywhere. They have create a virtual Team System User Group. Here are some details, stolen directly from Dave's blog:
Chewing Glas (aka Paul Hacker) and Daven Finesmith (aka Dave McKinstry) are proud to announce a new users group forming in your area: the Team System User Group (Virtual Edition)!!!! In addition to the few user groups focused on Visual Studio Team System in major cities, now all Visual Studio Team System enthusiasts and users can join together to share stories and learn. Like most user groups, we will meet on a monthly basis, socialize a little, and have presentations. We plan to have demo-rich presentations and support an interactive format allowing attendees to participate and ask questions.
Unlike the ‘classic’ user group, you will be able to participate regardless of your location! You no longer have to live in one of the handful of cities world-wide to join and participate in a Team Systems community! In addition, we can now pull from a broader pool of excellent presenters from around the globe!
Our initial meetings will all be in English and are targeting an Americas-friendly time zone. But other times and places are possible. If you are interested, visit our web site: http://www.tsug-ve.com/. Sign-up and we’ll contact you with additional meeting information. It is free to join and none of the underlying technologies require fees beyond what you already pay for your computer and network access! We will not use your contact info for anything other than user group communications (approximately once per month). Our first meeting is September 18th at 6PM (Pacific Time / SLT). We hope to see you there!!
I am VERY excited about this. It's going to allow people from all over the world to come together and talk about Team System. And I can do it from the comfort of my home office.
The first meeting is September 18th, 2008 at 6PM Pacific Time. Make sure you hit the Team System User Group - Virtual Edition website before then though, and read the Before The Meeting instructions. The user group is going to use a combination of Second Life and Live Meeting, so you will want to make sure you have both configured before the meeting time. Also, feel free to tell them that Team System Rocks! sent ya!
I've extended the Team System Rocks Logo Contest to September 15, 2008. So you've still got two weeks! Here is all the info:
So, Team System Rocks is about to undergo a facelift in a couple of months. And I would LOVE to have a new logo for the site. However, I am "graphically impaired". So I thought I would see if there was anyone out there who could create me a new logo. And what better way to generate interest than with a contest?
So, here is the deal: Team System Rocks needs a new logo. I will use the logo on the site, and maybe on any materials I may make in the future (such as T-shirts, etc...). As far as what I want or don't want in a logo, I have no idea. Surprise me.
So, what do you win: A copy of Visual Studio Team Suite with a year subscription to MSDN Premium.
So, when does the contest end: September 15, 2008
Send all contest entries to me at mickey_gousset@.hotmail.com. I'll announce the winner and unveil the new logo with the new facelift of Team System Rocks.
Let the games begin!
As you know if you have attended any kind of session on Team Foundation Server (or attended any of my webcasts), there are numerous components that make up TFS. One of these is the work item tracking system, which gives you a centralized, customizable repository for tracking all the "stuff" that needs to get done on your project.
Back in the old days, when Team Foundation Server 2005 was first released, you had to use Team Explorer to access TFS and the Work Item Tracking system. There was a third-party product called TeamPlain which gave you access to your TFS through a web browser. Microsoft bought the product, and re-released it for free as the Team System Web Access power tool. When Team Foundation Server 2008 came out, the Team System Web Access power tool was also updated and released.
Team System Web Access (TSWA) is nice. It gives you access to everything in your Team Foundation Server, but through a web-based interface. This means you do not have to install Team Explorer on a person's desktop to allow them to access the Team Foundation Server. In fact, I believe one of the only things you can't do with TSWA is check items in/out of version control. To use Team System Web Access, you must have a Team Foundation Server Client Access License (CAL). This means, even if all you wanted to do was access work items using TSWA, you have to buy a CAL.
There was a lot of grumping and griping about this. On one hand, Microsoft has a great product with Team Foundation Server, and they can't just give it away (as much as some people would like them to). On the other hand, it can get pretty expensive to buy a CAL for each team member, when that team member only needs to access the work item tracking system. And then if you want to open up your TFS so that users can submit bugs directly to the TFS so you can track them, then you are REALLY upping your costs.
Well, Microsoft heard the griping, and they have made some changes to the licensing options of Team Foundation Server 2008. And while these changes may not please everyone (I know of people who both like and dislike the changes), it does show that the Team System Team is listening to us, and trying to help. For more information on Team System Licensing, you should go download and read the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Licensing White Paper.
Effective with Team Foundation Server 2008, you no longer need a CAL to create new work items and view/update work items created by you in Team Foundation Server 2008 using Team System Web Access. This allows you to do things such as let your users submit bugs directly into your Team Foundation Server. They can then watch the progress of the bug, to see when it gets fixed.
So, how is Microsoft going to enforce this, you might ask. The honor system? Lock down the Team System Web Access tool? Actually, the answer is somewhere in between.
Enter the Team System Web Access Service Pack 1 power tool. First off, don't let the name fool you. This is not a typical service pack that you apply to your current installation of Team System Web Access. If you already have Team System Web Access installed, uninstall it, and then install this version. But you do not have to install TSWA, and then this. This will install the latest version of TSWA for you.
There is now a new tool, part of Team System Web Access called Work Item Web Access (WIWA). It installed automatically as part of the Team System Web Access install. WIWA is what allows the above scenario to happen, basically allowing unlicensed users to create and track work items in the Work Item Tracking System.
To access WIWA, you simply go to a specialized URL:
http://<TSWAServer>:####/wiwa
where <TSWAServer> is the name of the server where you have installed Team System Web Access and #### is the port number (by default 8090).
Once you hit the site, you see a list of all the work items that you have created. You can view the work items and make changes to them. You can create new work items, and search for a specific work item. Remember, though, this is only going to show you work items that you have created. If someone else creates a work item and assigns it to you, it will not show up on this list. To see that work item, you'll need the full functionality of Team System Web Access and a CAL.
So, Team System Rocks is about to undergo a facelift in a couple of months. And I would LOVE to have a new logo for the site. However, I am "graphically impaired". So I thought I would see if there was anyone out there who could create me a new logo. And what better way to generate interest than with a contest?
So, here is the deal: Team System Rocks needs a new logo. I will use the logo on the site, and maybe on any materials I may make in the future (such as T-shirts, etc...). As far as what I want or don't want in a logo, I have no idea. Surprise me.
So, what do you win: A copy of Visual Studio Team Suite with a year subscription to MSDN Premium.
So, when does the contest end: August 31st, 2008
Send all contest entries to me at mickey_gousset@.hotmail.com. I'll announce the winner and unveil the new logo with the new facelift of Team System Rocks.
Let the games begin!
GertD just announced that a new CTP of the upcoming 2008 update, Microsoft VSTS 2008 Database Edition GDR is now available. From Gert's blog:
You can download it from MSDN:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bb3ad767-5f69-4db9-b1c9-8f55759846ed&displaylang=en
Most important changes:
- Project upgrade is now in place. For those of you who were kind enough to donate their database projects, thank you!
- Mixed projects are no longer supported, from now on server projects represent only server creatable objects and user objects that need to be deployed to “master”. Another change is that server options will not get deployed; we only validate the settings as pre-requisites for a deployment. As such server options (sp_configure) have been added to the project system.
- The interpreter now understands temporary tables, table variables and select into column sources.
- The Static Code Analysis MSBuild task was added
- XSD Reference user interface support is enable, but it does not yet create XML Schema Collections
- And lots of fixes since CTP14
Please file bugs using Microsoft Connect and post questions on the MSDN forum.
And here are some of the details from the download site:
Overview
In addition to providing support for SQL Server 2008 database projects, this release incorporates many previously released Power Tools as well as several new features. The new features include distinct Build and Deploy phases, Static Code Analysis and improved integration with SQL CLR projects.
Database Edition no longer requires a Design Database. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to install an instance of SQL Express or SQL Server prior to using Database Edition.
SQL Server Support
- SQL Server 2008
- All new data types:
- Intrinsic (date, datetime2, datetimeoffset, time)
- Built-in SQL CLR types (geography, geometry, hierarchyid)
- New DML
- Merge, table parameters, …
- SQL Server Configuration Options
- Server option settings will be verified prior to deployment or set during deployment
Additional 1st Class Object Type Support - Rules, defaults, Asymmetric keys, symmetric keys, certificates, …
Projects - Server Projects
- Server objects and option settings may be implemented in a separate Server Project
- This enables a team to define a standard a configuration for their SQL servers and reference it from their Database Projects
- Partial projects
- Allowing code sharing between projects by including files from a different project, where the code is included as-is from the originating project and the source code control ownership remains with the originating project
- This enables code reuse and single sourcing while having a single deployment unit
- Composite projects
- References to other database projects or .dbschema files that contribute to the same deployment unit.
- This enables the separation of development roles and responsibilities and composition of Databases using multiple projects.
Single sourcing of external artifacts - SQL-CLR references allow the user to create a reference to a SQL-CLR project or SQL-CLR assembly. This automatically becomes an ASSEMBLY type in the Database Project
Build and Deploy - The Build process now produces a separate portable schema output that is fed in to a redistributable deployment engine
- A redistributable deployment engine. For example, to implement a setup application that deploys the Database Project.
Refactoring - Preservation of Intent
- Enables the deployment of refactoring changes as intended by the user (renames are deployed as renames not as drop/add statements for example)
New Refactoring Operations - Wildcard Expansion
- Move Schema
- Fully Qualify
- Extensibility point which enables the ability to develop and deploy custom refactoring types and targets
Schema Compare - Now supports comparing Projects, Databases or dbschema files in any combination. For example, Project to Project, which has not been possible until now.
- Object Type Filtering
- Additional ignore filtering options
T-SQL Static Code Analysis - Including the ability to develop and deploy custom rules
Dependency Viewer - View the dependency relationship between objects in your schema
Unit testing - Supports execution with other ADO.NET providers
Data Generation - Design-time enhancements
- Smaller .dgen file
- Support for undo/redo
- Foreign key replacement
- Separation of population status into new display window
- Runtime enhancements
- By default uses SqlBulkCopy to populate target tables
- Capability to register different outputs for generated data – i.e. generate to Excel or to file so you can use BCP to load
- By registering a custom output we have the capability to execute scripts at different points during data generation (i.e. before start/after completion or before/after a table
Extensibility - Data Generators
- Statistical Data Distribution
- Test Conditions
- Static Code Analysis Rules
- Refactoring Types
- Refactoring Target
As you can see from the Team System Rocks Breaking News section, Teamprise 3.1 is now available. Martin Woodward has a great blog post on some of the highlights. These include:
- Improved Offline Support
- TFS 2008 SP1 New Feature Support
- Command Line Client Improvements
- 64-bit support on Windows
This is a maintenance free release to everyone that has a valid Teamprise 3.0 license.
As long as I can remember to update it.
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You may be wondering why I haven't been posting my VSTS Links lately. Part of that has to do with Tech Ed 2008. I was there all last week, and presenting for the first time (for more on that, see my personal blog at http://www.teamsystemrocks.com/blogs/mickey_gousset), so I got a little behind in my reading.
This weekend, when I went to catch up, I noticed something odd. FeedDemon was not synching up with blogs.msdn.com or weblogs.asp.net. I tried updating to the latest version, and still no dice. So I didn't have easy access to all the information from the MSDN bloggers, which provide a good bit of content for VSTS Links. I did some searching, and come up with the following links about the problem:
Looks like the work-around for the time being is to move these feeds into a folder that does not synch with NewsGator. That's going to be a major pain, but I like FeedDemon, so I'll deal with it for the time being.
I'll get the VSTS Links back on track in a couple of days. Thanks for your patience!
So I'm done! I did it! I have now officially presented my first Break Out Session at Tech Ed. And it feels good!
I had a nice crowd, probably around 60-70 people. I only saw a few people leave during the presentation, so a majority stayed. I spent about 5-10 minutes before the session started talking with people, about Team System, Tech Ed, and whatever else came up.
I felt like my presentation went well. All my demos worked the way I wanted them to, and I felt like I communicated the points I wanted told. I had several people come up and ask questions afterwards. All in all it was a great time.
I'll blog more about it later. Right now its time to relax...
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