Etienne's VSTS World

I have been working on a scripted install of Team System for a few weeks now on and off, I was using Notepad++ to edit vbs files and my hta controller app.  With the release of Visual Studio 2005 I installed it on my host laptop (It's the first time I install it on my host machine I have been using VMs for the last 2 years).  Well I know a lot about VS and have developed with it for a while now.  So what was not my surprise when I opened vbs file with VS2K5 and it colored all my vbscript code and even gave me some intellisence.  I was all happy about that and decided to open the hta controller with VS as well.  Well that also worked very well but a bonus was that the design view (since an hta is an html application) showed me all the layout of my app and kept my html exactly like I modified it (thanks to VS2K5 not messing with custom HTML).  Very cool, I wasn't this...

Great work VS Team!

I'm very happy VS and SQL 2005 have finally shipped and we'll be able to use those fine product to develop our fine application.

Cheers,

ET

"It's all good"

My good friend Joel Semeniuk from Winnipeg has just release the first alpha of his VSTS Process Editor read his post here the tool is on a moderated GotDotNet community.

If you have made ANY customization to the TFS methodologies and edited the xml files by hand well you'll love Joel's tool it's all GUI and you can visually see your work item forms as opposed to have to upload the process and create a new project and see if it worked or not.

I highly recommend it if you plan on doing any kind of Process Template editing.

Cheers,

ET

“It's all good!”

When you get your renewal note from MSDN which you either already got or should get very soon, make sure you verify which SKU you would like to take and know that VSTESA 2005 is not the FULL version of the Team Tools, Team Suite is.  There is plenty of debates and information out there on the the pricing scenario and upgrade paths please look at this great two part series from Rob Caron available here and here.

Also look here for a view of the various Team SKUs and what you are getting in each of them.

Finally my good friend Joel (from Canada) talks about an article he wrote for MSDN entitled A Lap around Team System you can read his post and follow the link to the article from his blog.

This phone view rock! it's the best phone I've ever owned bar none!

I have a colleague in England that just loves mobile phones, in fact he loves them so much he changes to the latest and greatest phone as soon as one ships (well close to as soon).  So he had a tablet full of "old" phones ;-) that where gathering dust.  We meet through a training program in Seattle and became good friends.  One day he was looking at his tablet full of phones and decided that it would be great if his old phones could live long and prosperous lives in the hands of care and loving geeks since they weren't used anymore.  So he stared a hand-me down program where he gave his "old" phones to colleagues that would use them.  What you need to understand is that the MS mobile phones in the UK are way less expensive than in the States or Canada so it's great to be able to have this kind of hardware.  The first phone I got through the program was the e200 which was great I very much enjoyed it and it is now in the hands of another geeks happily using it since last Tuesday.  The new phone I got is the I-mate Jam and well it's a great phone

THANK YOU Steve for actually thinking of doing this you are the BEST!!

Cheers,

ET

"It's all good!"

Well, it's official I'm now a Microsoft MVP... VSTS MVP to be exact! You can view my profile here, I'm super excited about this recognition, I've spent countless hours with VSTS last year giving Microsoft feedback and studying how my company will adopt it in the next year.  This is an awesome entry in the field of configuration management for Microsoft and I predict a ton of adoption when it ships early next year.  I have done many talks both internally and externally about VSTS and a lot of people are very exited about the new possibility this product will bring to the table and can't wait to see RTM status for it.

I look forward to the coming year where adoption and education will be the major challenges we will face in order for VSTS to be the best that it can be.

Although MVP might not seem like much, it means a lot to me.  I feel honored to be part of the select few that Microsoft recognizes as community leaders

"it's all good!"

Cheers,

ET