31
May
May 31, 2011 – Visual Studio and TFS Daily
Here in the States we had a three-day weekend to memorialize those who have fought and lost their lives in the defense of the freedoms we enjoy. A hat tip to those who have served and those who continue to serve. On with the links…
Renaming a Branch with Shelvesets from Bill Heys
Bill has an important post cautioning TFS users on renaming branches that have shelvesets as you will likely not get a result you are happy with. Bill walks you through a couple of scenarios and the end results of a rename given those scenarios.
May 27th What’s Happening Around Visual Studio from Jason Zander
Jason has a great set of links to a number of important Visual Studio-related news items and links to a number of important TechEd sessions, some of which were already linked here. There’s lots of great stuff in this link dump so take a look.
Visual Studio ALM Rangers … “5” Years Already? … the Highlights 
from Willy-Peter Schaub
The Rangers have been hard at work for five years and their progress continues to pick up. This post takes a look at what the Rangers have done, how they’ve grown, and shows us some of the fine folks that work so hard for the community.
Would You, Could You with TFS? by Richard Hundhausen
I really like this post from Richard that shows how TFS addresses a myriad of ALM activities and offers up a few third-party solutions where software vendors have filled a few gaps that TFS address.
27
May
May 27, 2011 – Visual Studio and TFS Daily
Friday and not a moment too soon. On with the links…
Build Content 2011 Spring Cleaning from Andy Lewis
Andy has links to new TFS Build content on MSDN. Included are topics on build triggers, using build with test, managing build information and control verbosity, and working with build workspaces. He also identifies a few other areas that have changed or consolidated.
Getting Started with the TFS SDK for Java from Martin Woodward
Some of the big news last week was the release of the TFS SDK for Java, which is essentially the same core code that is used in Team Explorer Everywhere to talk to TFS from Eclipse. The SDK includes a number of sample applications, check-in policies, custom work item controls, code snippets, and an Ant build script to build the samples that are in the package. Martin has added to that with a nice post showing you how to get rolling. Lots of details and code at the link.
Configuration Matrix Testing Using Visual Studio Lab Management from Visual Studio Lab Management Team Blog
The Visual Studio Lab Management Team has a nice post that walks through the scenario of running automated Coded UI Tests in a build workflow that test web applications in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. This same scenario could be expanded to deal with other scenarios that require running the same tests with different configurations. It’s really an excellent example of the power and capability of an automated build coupled with Lab Management.
Retrospective Meetings: Agile Learning from the Past from Aaron Bjork
Aaron has a nice article in MSDN Magazine on using retrospectives to get better. While retrospectives are an Agile concept, all teams can benefit from a regular review of what’s worked, what hasn’t, and how things can get better.
26
May
May 26, 2011 – Visual Studio and TFS Daily
Sunny days. Finally. On with the links…
ALM for C++ in Visual Studio vNext at TechEd NA 2011 from Visual C++ Team Blog
Rong Lu from the Visual C++ team has a nice post walking through some of the new ALM features in Visual Studio vNext for C++. As Visual C++ coders know all too well, many of the sexy new ALM features that are released with Visual Studio often neglect C++ teams. The gap is closing.
TFS Integration Tools – Where Does One Start? … Part 4 (Mapping Users the Easy Way) from Willy-Peter Schaub
Willy-Peter continues his series on getting started with the Team Foundation Server Integration Tools by talking about how to effectively map users so that the data you’ve migrated has context. He also provides a few tips to help you overcome common problems that many face when mapping users.
Getting Started with HTML5 from ALM and Beyond
Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ll know that HTML5 is kinda a big deal. At MIX11, there was lots of talk about HTML5 and a number of those sessions and information relating to how developers using Microsoft development tools can build HTML5 sites and applications. This post links to a number of videos and content related to HTML5 and how you can get rolling with HTML5 in Visual Studio.
An Obsessive Compulsive Guide to Source Code Formatting from Phil Haack
I really liked this post on source code formatting and ways to better format your code. As Phil points out, more than a few are juuuuuuust a bit obsessive about how source code should be formatted so he provides a number of tips and tools you can use to better format your code. It’s definitely worth a read so check it out. Read the comments too.
25
May
May 25, 2011 – Visual Studio and TFS Daily
My wife’s car got the worst of the bad storms that rolled through Dallas last night. It looks like the moon and the back window is gone. Hail sucks. On with the links…
Application Lifecycle Management: Microsoft Project Server 2010 and Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010, Better Together
Ed Blankenship and Christophe Fiessinger had a nice presentation at TechEd on the integration of TFS 2010 and Project Server via the Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack. Direct download to the high-quality WMV is here.
TFS and Project Server Resources from Brian Harry
Speaking of integrating TFS and Project Server, Brian Harry has a great list of resources including online videos and upcoming webcasts on the topic. It should be more than enough to get you started.
Copy Test Suites from One Test Plan to Another (MTM) from Eran Ruso
Eran has a nice tip showing how to copy test suites from one test plan to another so they can be reused. I could see this being especially useful if you use a different test plan for each iteration but want to preserve regression plans from previous iterations.
Adding All of the Controls on a Page to the UIMap - be careful! from Paul King
Paul offers a word of caution to Coded UI Test user’s that want to add all controls on a form or page to the UI Map. His post is a comment on Mathew Aniyan’s post on how to quickly add all controls on a page to the UI Map via a simple bit of code. For some pages, this can mean a LOT of code, so exercise care.
24
May
May 24, 2011 – Visual Studio and TFS Daily
Mowing through the backlog of goodness from last week. On with the links…
Demystifying Debugging with Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate and IntelliTrace from Mickey Gousset
Mickey Gousset gave a great talk at TechEd on IntelliTrace that will provide a nice introduction into how IntelliTrace works and the value it can provide you and your team. Many teams have IntelliTrace but have no idea how to use it effectively. Mickey also published a post answering a few questions that popped up at his talk.
TFS API Part 37 – Create Builds from Shai Raiten
Shai has completed his series on manipulating Build Controllers by demonstrating how to create new builds and set the build result using the Team Foundation Server API. He also has published an index to his entire 37-part (so far) series of TFS API posts that you should definitely check out if you intend to program against the TFS API.
Basic Design Patterns from Mark Pearl
While not TFS or Visual Studio related, this post on Design Patterns is an excellent introduction into the design patterns space. I’m a big fan of the computer science classic book, Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software from the Gang of Four. This post does a great job of quickly getting you rolling with 5 common patterns, and includes the C# that will implement the patterns. Getting your head around design patterns is critical to take your engineering skills beyond hacking and API knowledge.
The 7 Levels of Continuous Integration from Dror Helper
I really like this post on continuous integration and the maturation of continuous integration within an organization. Continuous integration can be a significant step for teams looking to positively influence quality, so if you aren’t yet on the bandwagon you need to get to it.
23
May
May 23, 2011–Visual Studio and TFS Daily
Lots of links to catch up on. Traveling last week (and the wonderful arrival of a new niece) put me in a serious energy bind, but after a lazy weekend I’m rested and ready for the week ahead. On with the links…
Update on TFS on Azure from Brian Harry
Mixed in with all the TechEd news was an update from Brian Harry on the status of Team Foundation Server running on Azure. It’s been no secret that Microsoft sees a future where TFS will be hosted on Azure which will allow the team to offer TFS in the cloud (and scale to massive enterprises), and with this update Brian shows that the future is at our doorstep.
“To the Cloud” with TFS from Brian Group
This post provides a bit more clarity on the business opportunity and business value that TFS running on Azure can provide. TFS on Azure, in my opinion, offers more for small teams looking for a reliable ALM solution without the hassle of setup and maintenance than it does for big teams that struggle to find an ALM solution that will scale.
Debugging a Dysfunctional Team from Richard Hundhausen
At TechEd, Richard talked about dysfunctional software development teams (video here) and he’s been nice enough to provide a few links on some of the topics he discussed as well as his slides. Talks like this are great, because they typically apply universally no matter what types of software you are developing.
I Need to Attach files Larger than 4KB to My Work Items in TFS 2010 from Donovan Brown
Donovan has a nice tip showing how to increase the limit on the size of the attachments that can be added to your Team Foundation Server work items. It’s a simple configuration change, but is buried in the web services settings. If you want to attach items larger than 2GB, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.
19
May
May 19, 2011 – Visual Studio and TFS Daily
I’m doing more traveling, but don’t think that changes anything. On with the links!
Enabling UI Testing for Third Party WinForms Custom Controls – 1 from Mathew Aniyan
Mathew has a nice post (the first in a series) showing how to enable the Coded UI Testing tools for custom Windows Forms controls. It’s also a nice peek into how the Coded UI Testing tools work.
VS2010: Just My Code from Visual Studio Profiler Team Blog
The Profiler Team has a great post showing off the “Just My Code” feature in the code profiler that will show you profiler information exclusively for the sampled code you’ve written and included in your solution. Also included are details on configuration settings and how to toggle this feature on and off.
Quality Center 11 and Test Director are Now Supported by Scrat from Shai Raiten
Shai provides a heads up that Scrat now supports all HP Quality Center versions included the latest version, Quality Center 11. For more information, check out the ALM Tools page at Sela.
Effective Sprint Planning from The Life and Times of a Dev
I really liked this post on Sprint planning and really believe many of the points apply on projects that aren’t Scrum or even Agile. Truth is, most planning problems (and software problems, for that matter) are people problems. People problems require people solutions, and when you get to brass tacks that’s really what this post is about.
18
May
May 18, 2011 – Visual Studio and TFS Daily
Lots of news out there this week, ready for you to digest. On with the links…
Files from Implementing Scrum Pre-Conference at Microsoft TechEd by Richard Hundhausen
Richard taught a Implement Scrum course at TechEd and has kindly published a number of files and resources that he presented and resources that he recommended. It’s a terrific list of Scrum resources and is definitely worth your while.
What’s Coming with TFS vNext from Richard Banks
Richard has a nice breakdown of some of the TFS and Visual Studio vNext information out there and focuses specifically on some of the ALM and TFS-focused features.
New ALM Tools for Visual C++ Developers from Visual C++ Team Blog
The Visual C++ Team has linked to a Channel 9 video demonstrating some of the ALM-related tools for Visual C++ developers. Also included is a peek at what’s coming in the future and how the C++ tools are moving closer to parity with the C# tools.
TFS Integration Tools – Where Does One Start? … Part 3 (Dust has Settled …. Did It Work?) from Willy-Peter Schaub
Willy-Peter continues his series (here’s part 1 and part 2) on getting started with the TFS Integration Tools and helps you resolve conflicts with work item migrations, resolve conflicts with version control migrations, make sense of the migration log, and check the end results.
17
May
May 17, 2011 – Visual Studio and TFS Daily
TechEd continues, and so does the party. On with the links…
Outercurve Foundation: Partnering with the Open Source Community from S. Somasegar
Soma has some details on Microsoft’s Outercurve Foundation (previously known as the Codeplex Foundation) that contributes ideas and projects to the open source community. Other projects under the Outersource label include Project Trident, MVC Contrib, the ASP.NET Ajax Library, and more. Specifically, he highlights Orchard and NuGet. Microsoft has come a long way, and it’s appreciated.
Running Load Tests in Lab Management: Perfmon Issues from Colin Dembovsky
Colin has a nice post explaining how to overcome the “Access Denied” errors in order to run load tests using Lab Management. It involves running the Remote Registry Service and dealing with permissions issues. Details at the link.
TFS 2010 – Application Tier Version Control Cache Configuration from Girish's Blog
This post dives into how the TFS Application Tier cache settings affect how the Application Tier caches version control items. These settings can affect disk performance and Girish offers a few important considerations and cautions to help you set the cache settings appropriately if it’s necessary.
TFS API Part 36 – Create Build Definitions from Shai Raiten
Shai continues his excellent series on the Team Foundation Server API by showing how to create or delete build definitions under a specific Team Project.
16
May
May 16, 2011 – Visual Studio and TFS Daily
TechEd starts today, and along with it comes lots of Visual Studio vNext news! On with the links…
Announcing ALM Roadmap in Visual Studio vNext at Teched from Jason Zander
Jason has lots of great details of the ALM goodness will be contained in the next version of Visual Studio. So far, we’re only getting a small peek and, as anticipated, new tools to encourage collaboration with stakeholders and operations are included. Details on new Agile Planning tools, requirements tracking tools, stakeholder feedback tools, continuous testing tools, exploratory testing tools, and System Center integration is included at the link.
Visual Studio Roadmap
Microsoft has published a new whitepaper demonstrating the Visual Studio roadmap that includes some insight into the thinking behind Visual Studio vNext. Everything is focused around collaboration, timely and actionable feedback, excellent tools, and transparency.
Visual Studio ALM and TFS vNext Announcements at TechEd 2011 from Ed Blankenship
Ed has a nice bullet-point rundown of everything that was announced this morning if you want to avoid some of the details. He also mentions a few items neglected elsewhere, such as new code review tools, IntelliTrace logs from production, and rich text in work items including screenshots and pictures.
Announcing a Java SDK for TFS from Brian Harry
In other big news today, Brian Harry has announced the release of a Team Foundation Server SDK for Java. This will enable extensibility using Java tools and will allow extensibility of Team Explorer Everywhere, so those custom controls you’ve written for your work items in Visual Studio can be brought to parity over in TEE. The SDK is available as a public download, so feel free to dig in.
