VB.NET and C# Comparison

Sometimes we need a simple VB.NET & C# side by side comparison. This sheet doesn’t include all features, but its great place to start with.

TFS Check-In Validation Tool

New tool was released on CodePlex called TFS Check-in Validation Tool.

This tool provides the ability to have a checkin validating by a build prior to being checked in.  This is similar to a feature in TFS 2010 called Gated Checkin, which is integrated into VS and TFS (more info in this video). With both of these the goal is to prevent build breaks from being checked in by validating them beforehand.

If you really like it and are interested in doing something similar with TFS 2008 (before TFS 2010) comes out, you can check out this new project on CodePlex: http://www.codeplex.com/BuddyBuild.

It is not a part of TFS and the implementation is unrelated to the TFS 2010 Gated checkin feature.

How to set up TFS 2008 SP1 to use TSWA links in checkin notification emails

Buck Hodges has created a great post on this commonly issue here.

Scrum for Team System – Version 2.2 released

Version 2.2 for TFS 2008 is out:

• Task Board for Team system has hit Gold Master and is coming out of Beta
• Task Board for Team System now supports SfTS 1.2 on TFS 2005

Version 2.2 of the free process template is now available for download:

http://www.scrumforteamsystem.com/en/download.aspx?key=A23E296BA97DA7410F496F650C41AC26&site=UK&version=v2.2

Version 2.2 supports:

• TFS 2008 / TFS 2008 SP1
• SQL Server 2005 / SQL Server 2008
• WSS 3.0 / MOSS 2007

It features a new "Report Flicker Mode", a velocity report, ten new engineering focussed report along with numerous bug fixes, performance tweaks and other enhancements.

Task Board for Team System hits Gold Master:

http://www.scrumforteamsystem.com/en/TaskBoardBeta/Default.aspx

Road to Rosario Special: VSTS 2010 Development

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RadioTFS is going to be doing a series of shows on the new Features in Visual Studio Team System 2010 – In this edition they catch up with Habib and the developer features!

Habib is a Lead Program manager on the VSTS Development group.  His main responsibilities include the Visual Studio debugger, profiler, code coverage and pretty much anything related to troubleshooting and diagnosing applications.  He joined Microsoft in 2000 and has been in Developer Division ever since.  Before joining Microsoft, Habib studied computer science at the Australian National University in Canberra.  While not at work, Habib spends his time playing with robots, shooting hoops or chasing that elusive Yellowfin.  One of his favorite possessions is a Washington state license plate with the label "RUNTIME".

MSBuild Extension Pack Brings 170 Build Tasks

When MSBuild was first released, it was seen as a stopgap measure. Prior to its introduction, building a non-trivial .NET project from the command line was a daunting challenge. Either command line options have to be carefully laid out or third-party libraries like NAnt have to be brought in.

Recently MSBuild Extension Pack was released on CodePlex. Run by Mike Fourie and a team of 5 developers, this successor to FreeToDev MSBuild Extensions has over 170 different tasks for MSBuild. Many of these tasks support a MachineName argument allowing the actions to be performed on a remote machine.

The team summarizes the tasks into these categories:

• System Items: Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound
• Code: Assemblies, CAB Files, Code Signing, File Detokenisation, GUID’s, Mathematics, Strings, Threads, Zip
• Applications: BizTalk 2006, Email, IIS7, MSBuild, SourceSafe, StyleCop, Team Foundation Server, Visual Basic 6, WMI

Israeli ALM UG – November 2008 Meeting

The next meeting of the Israeli ALM UG will be focused on VSTS/TFS extensibility.

Save as Outlook Appointment:

VSTS is a great ALM platform. One of the main advantages of VSTS is it’s API which gives us the ability to write tools to make our daily work more productive.

We will talk about what parts and how we can customize and extensible VSTS.

The agenda:

17:30 – 18:00 : Assembly

18:00 – 18:45 : Part 1 – TFS API fundamentals

18:45 – 19:00 : Break

19:00 – 19:45 : Part 2 – Hands-On & code samples

 

Please register here.

 

The lecturer:

Shmulik Segal works as ALM group manager in Sela Group. Shmulik is a software engineer with rich and varied technical experience. In the past 3 years Shmulik assimilate many TFS projects and has proved experience in writing tools to VSTS.

Preview Of The Next TFS Power Tools Release

For a preview of the next TFS Power Tools release, please read Brian Harry’s blog.

The next version is really amazing!

From Brian’s post:

There are 3 major new components to the October Power Tools release and the usual incremental improvements.

• Team Members – We’ve added a new node to the Team Explorer called "Team Members".  It appears under each Team Project and is used to identify who are the people who work on the project.  It serves as a "pivot point" for information about and operations on people and teams.
• Windows Shell Extension – We’ve built a Windows shell extension that allows you to do the core version control operations directly inside the Windows Explorer without using the Team Explorer.
• PowerShell Support – We’ve started working on a PowerShell pipeline and commandlets for TFS.  Our initial set support basic version control operations but over time we plan to add work item tracking, administration, build and more.

This is one of the best Power Tools releases so far.

Read Brian’s post for full details.

I'm a Microsoft MVP!!!!

There are few emails that one will receive in his lifetime that will render him completely speechless. I am delighted to find out that I have been awarded with 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award.
This is the email I received:

Subject: Congratulations 2009 Microsoft MVP!

Dear Maor David,
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others.

I am really very excited and I want to take this opportunity to thank the community that supported me over the past year. Special thanks goes to Guy Burstein who has nominated me for the MVP program. Off course I’d like to thank to my company – SRL, that encourage excellence and sharing the knowledge with the community.

My MVP Profile page: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Maor.David-Pur

Thanks!!!