Random .NET Ramblings

Last night I was able to present to the San Diego ASP.NET Users Group about Visual Studio 2010 and after some difficulties in downloading the Beta 2 the day before I was able to show the latest Beta.

On the cool factor I think the editor Zoom was a hit and many of the new debug features were also a big hit. If you were there let me know what your best feature you saw was. There was just not enough time to go through everything, I did not get to show some of the cool demos around ASP.NET and site deployment. I have posted my slides to SildeShare and embedded to below but for more information checkout The 10-4 Show on Channel9 and the VS 2010 / .NET Framework 4.0 Training Kit.

Your crazy! Please please please stop it? it hurts for me to say that but it?s true. I have a long history with Visual Source Safe starting with it when it was a One Tree Software product and it rocked but we must recall this was 1992 or so when I started using it. Now it is so easy to get much better source control software there is little excuse for still using VSS.

And now we have announced a great alternative to VSS it?s TFS (Team Foundation Server). Yes I am hiding under my desk right now as I expect every one is about to throw something at me but let me explain. In TFS 2010 the team has made some big strides in how easy it is to setup and maintain. For full details you should read Brian Harry blog post on the subject TFS 2010 for SourceSafe Users the rest of his blog is pretty good as well ;).

Just in time for my presentation to the San Diego ASP.NET group tomorrow we have released the second beta to MSDN subscribers today and everyone can get it on the 21st.

Go get it! Visual Studio Beta 2 Page 

The Windows product group has launched a contest to get people  started with coding Windows. There will be several winners from around the world and everyone who submits something by 8/15/2009 will be eligible to win a $1000 gift card.

There are 7 guiding principles that the submitted applications need to address:

• Simplify My Life
• More Media, More Places
• Gaming
• Work from Anywhere
• Safeguard Your Work
• Applications for a Better Tomorrow

• Libraries
• Windows Touch
• Shell Integration
• DirectX 11
• Sensor and Location Platform

Check out the site for all the rules The Code⁷ Contest.

So go! I would suggest you get the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1 as there are some new Namespaces to help with new Windows 7 features.

I almost forgot you could get a free trip to the PDC

Good luck!

Local VSTS for Database Professionals workshop around SoCal…

Overview
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition provides advanced tools for database change management and testing and offers functionality to enable database developers and administrators to be more productive and increase application quality in the database tier.

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition delivers a market shifting database development product that provides a foundation for managed database evolution through the use of an offline, Visual Studio project-centered source code control system together with a suite of tools designed to help understand the impact of proposed changes. Schemas, DML and metadata can be versioned, code can be automatically reviewed using static analysis, unit tests can be created and executed to ensure quality, and comparisons can be made with test and production systems prior to deployment. Integration with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server helps increase the productivity of the database professionals by enabling them to become an integral part of the application team.

Please join Microsoft and Adventos for this one-day course to learn how the Developer and Database editions of Team System work together in the application lifecycle.

Course Outline

I. Core Features of TFS

II. Team Projects

III. Source Control and Team Foundation Build

IV. Managing Databases in a Team Environment

Who Should Attend?

Database Administrators, Database Developers

The schedule for each event is:

Welcome: 8:30 PM

Seminar: 9:00 AM-4:30 PM

Los Angeles, CA
March 3, 2009
Click here to register with invitation code: 31A402

Irvine, CA

March 4, 2009

Click here to register with invitation code: E4995A

San Diego, CA

March 5, 2009

Click here to register with invitation code: 3B9F3B

To Register by Phone –

Call 1.877.MSEVENT (1.877.673.8368) with invitation code.

The West Region Visual Studio sales team and Neudesic are hosting 6 events where customers are invited to come see how Visual Studio Team System and Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 can be used to implement the Agile method known as "Scrum".

8/26/2008 - Mountain View, CA Register

8/28/2008 - Phoenix, AZ Register

9/9/2008 - Irvine, CA Register

9/10/2008 - Los Angeles, CA Register

9/23/2008 - Denver, CO Register

9/25/2008 - Salt Lake City, UT Register

The US Public Sector DPE group has started a cool set of videos myth busting issues that people have about Visual Studio, check it out!

www.mythweek.com

@shanselman pointed out an interesting blog post titled "Building a web app the Microsoft way" where the author Jeremy Baines dose a good job of giving the facts that he and his team found while developing ‘Meet with Approval’. I could not find the case study that was mentioned but that is because the case study site sucks, I will try to find it internally and find the external link.

I know that I have tainted opinion but I don't see why more people\companies\startups don't evaluate the MS stack. From all of the comments only one that I saw was accurate and that is that Windows hosting is quite abit more expensive than LAMP hosting but I think that price will be coming down with the new support we have in Windows Server 2008 for hosters. I also think that a company looking at long term success and would want to look at the cost of self hosting, there are a lot of reasons that Windows for self hosting can be more cost effective but the big one for me is support.

From all that I have seen Brad Abrams as the best wrap up of what is in SP1 at hi blog post Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 "SP1" Beta. It did not hurt that I stopped looking after I found it ;).

OK I know everyone in the .NET community reads Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com but just incase you missed this you need to checkout this cool new tool RockScroll in him post titled Introducing RockScroll. It is a way cool to visualize where you are in your code page!