I've been working on a custom process template for a client in TFS and came across some things that I didn't know. Now I am not an Analysis services guy so this was a little new to me. It took me forever to find decent definitions on how to correctly set "reportable" in TFS.
The docs on this, how to use it, and what it should be set to, etc can be a bit tricky to find. It wasn't until I picked up Professional Team Foundation System that I got a clear answer. After a little bit of tinkering and some quick pivot tables in Excel, I became an OLAP master. Now that is a total fabrication and basically a tall tale. I do highly recommend this book to those using TFS.
The TFS SDK documenation has a decent description on what the settings can be and what they mean.
Here are the pictures and video of surface at the WPC. Very cool! If they would just make the SDK available to the dev community...
That's right, at the WPC they had 3...3 Surface machines. And yes...its as cool as it looks in the videos Interesting bug, the expo center lights directly overhead casued the "touch interface" to get a littly whacky. Apparently the cameras that detect the touch get too much reflection and get a little confused.
I'll post the pics as soon as I get them off my phone.
So this is my first year attending the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. and about 10 months into my new position as Microsoft Technology Center of Excellence lead for Excella Consulting. I really did not know what to expect from this conference. I knew it would be more on the business side rather than the technical side, but I thought "Hey, the sell sofware there has to be some development stuff". Well...there was, about 6 total sessions. I few of the same old Silverlight demos, but again this was about business development and marketing.
What I really realized was that I was seeing a whole new side of dealing with Microsoft. A new part of the business that I am just learning at the advanced level. I haven't taken notes at a TechEd Session in a LONG time. I took 8 pages of notes in the first 1/2 day session at the WPC. That's just silly.
Now they could learn a thing or too from the TechEd community. The whole partner focus is on community, yet the only social aspect (other than insane non-stop parties) is the WPC Connect area. This is where you get random meeting requests from people that you don't know yet and filled out a wizard that says they are just like you. Reality is that many of the folks don't show for the meetings and no one really talks until they are either eating lunch or out at parties. Not bad, but they could do better.
I, of course, went right to the blogs to see what was up. What's going on. There were about 3 pages of postings since May, about 75 entries. That's just sad. I realize that TechEd is a completely different target, but come on. If you are in tech, you can post on a community blog. Just look at the success Jeff Palermo has had with his "Party with Palermo".
I found out recently that I was awarded MVP in C#. This is an honor and a privilege. I wanted to thank Microsoft, Brian Noyes, and Andrew Duthie for the nomination and the award. See you all at the MVP Summit!
I've been working heavily on creating a custom Process Template for XP development in TFS and came across a very basic task: Add the process template source to source control. After hours and hours of tweaking, editing, and debuing the core process templates I would hate to lose them. Not to mention the process itself its an iterative process therefore should be versioned and managed by some control system.
Well, of course it is not quite as obvious as it seems. In VSS it was pretty simple to add "non-project" files. In TFS anything that is not Visual Studio 2005 is considered "non-project". Here are the step:
1. Open Source Control Explorer - Also not quite as obvious as it should be - View...Other Windows...Source Control Explorer
2. Select a project from the TFS Server - You have to have a workspace in order to add files to the project.
3. Add files - Again, not quite obvious - File...Source Control...Add Files.
Documentation says that if you don't have a workspace cofigured you won't see the add files option. How can you create a workspace if you don't have source control project folder? Say I want to add "TFS Process Templates" as a source control folder add it to a workspace. Doesn't seem quite obvious to me yet...stay tuned.