I have lost count of the number of Team System chats I have missed because they have been running around 3am local time. I usually end up reading the transcripts but its not the same as being able to participate and ask questions. Well that has changed! The next Team System chat is being scheduled to run twice with the second session being much better for those of us in Australia/New Zealand. It’s a Saturday morning here but a 9am start is so much nicer than 3am   Thanks for thinking of us guys.

Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, and Testers. In addition, discuss what’s new in the in the Visual Studio code name “Orcas” Beta 1 releases for Team Suite and Team Foundation Server.

Chats shown in local Australian Times

Join the chat on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 from 3:00am – 4:00am Eastern Standard Time. Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

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Join the chat on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 from 9:00am – 10:00am Eastern Standard Time. Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

In exciting news, Microsoft have shipped Visual Studio codenamed “Orcas” Beta 1. You can download the ISO images or the preinstalled VPC if you prefer.

From the MSDN Visual Studio Futures site

**Visual Studio Code Name “Orcas” Beta 1
**

Visual Studio code name “Orcas” is the next generation development tool for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office system, and the Web. Beta 1 consists of multiple releases including, Visual Studio Professional Edition, Visual Studio Team Suite and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, which are available as installation media ISO images you can use to install the products. Alternatively, you can download VPC images with the software pre-installed. In addition, you can download prerelease versions of Visual Basic Express, Visual C++ Express, Visual C# Express, and Visual Web Developer.

Download the ISO’s or VPC images from http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspx

Reading Soma’s blog post, the .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 1 has also shipped.

I read with interest this morning, Sean Lumley’s blog post entitled “Enhanced web test support in Fiddler“. I have had my fair share of headaches recording web tests using VSTS and I have known for a while that Fiddler is your friend. The ability to save Fiddler tests in the VSTS .webtest format is fantastic. After reading Sean’s post I know that has never been more true than now with the updates to version 2.0.8.8.

Some of the new features (from Sean’s blog) include;

• Ability to filter out dependent requests
• Only first request in a redirect chain will be saved.
• Automatic correlation of view state and event validation fields
• Plug-in architecture that allows you to write your own custom code that can change how a web test is saved.

If you’re working with Web Tests in VSTS, be sure to read Sean’s full blog post and download Fiddler 2.0.8.8 or later here.

One of my favourite utilities for TFS is a little program called Fissum. Developed by Michel Perfetti, Fissum sits in the system tray and provides quick, convenient access to your work items without the need to startup VSTS or the TFS Explorer everytime you want to create and check your work items.

Michel has released a new version of Fissum which is well worth the download. Get it now from Codeplex.

* Click the thumbnail for a closer look

I am happy to announce that the Queensland VSTS Users Group that I started in December last year has reached its 100th member over the weekend.

If you’re in the Brisbane, QLD area and would like to keep informed of our upcoming presentations, simply email anthony@qvstsug.org and I’ll add you to our email list.

In related news, I have uploaded the powerpoint slide deck from the user group session last Friday (13th April). A big thanks to all those members that turned up to hear me talk about What’s coming up in VSTS/TFS “Orcas”. All our previous presentations can be downloaded from the QVSTSUG website.

For anyone that sat the beta exam “71-510: TS: Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server”, it might be a good time to check your transcript or the exam providers web site to see how you went.

Once the beta exam results start appearing, the final release is usually not too far away. Now’s probably a good time to start studying if you plan on sitting this exam.

Preparation Guide for Exam 70-510: TS: Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server

I was very happy to read this morning that my friend Grant Holliday has been awarded the MVP award and joins Adam Cogan and I as Australian Team System MVPs . Grant is someone that has been very active in the VSTS community in Australia with not only his Blog but his OzTFS mailing list and the Canberra VSTS Users Group.

For those of you that made the trip down to CodeCampOZ on the weekend, you would have also seen Grant deliver an informative session covering many of the great VSTS/TFS utilities you can download to make life with VSTS much easier.

Congratulations Grant & well deserved!

In exciting news today, Microsoft have announced that they have acquired DevBiz Business Solutions, makers of TeamPlain Web Access for Team System. I have been a big fan of TeamPlain since its beta release and this purchase addresses one of the most frequently feature requests for VSTS – a Web UI.What’s more, it is now available as a FREE download!!!

Brian Harry reports that

TeamPlain will become Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Web Access.  Effective today, TeamPlain is available, at no additional charge, to users who own a Team Foundation Server and can be downloaded from here.  It will be accessible by any user properly licensed with a TFS CAL.  Support will continue to be provided by the current staff via the DevBiz online forums.

Over the next few months, we will be rebranding TeamPlain as a Microsoft product and running it through our release process.  When that is complete, we will be releasing it as a VSTS Power Tool, transitioning support to the Microsoft forums and beginning CSS (phone) support.  In the Orcas timeframe, we will be releasing Team System Web Access as an official, documented, localized, and officially supported component of Team Foundation Server.

For more information, read Brian Harry’s full blog post Microsoft Acquires TeamPlain!

You can also read the Press Release where this was announced.

Congratulations to Hakan and all the team at DevBiz. I now know why we’ve not heard much about TeamPlain v2.0

One of the issues I have heard most often when I am introducing TFS Version Control to a development team is that of “Checkout does not automatically get latest”. Many teams have come to know this as standard behaviour, especially those from a Sourcesafe background, and despite strong reasoning for changing this behaviour, many teams just want to continue doing things the “old” way. If you simply can’t live without “Get Latest on Checkout” then here are a few options for you.

MSSCCI Provider

The MSSCCI Provider has had the “Get Latest on Checkout” option for a little while now so if you’re using this provider you can easily enable this today.

Visual Studio 2005

There have been a number of solutions proposed to provide a “Get Latest on Checkout” workaround for VS2005 including a macro option but nothing has been quite as easy to use as a new addin from Evgeny Panor. This new addin works by performing a silent GetLatest function when the user requests Checkout. Configuration of the addin is very easy as shown in the following screenshot. Evgeny does point out that it is currently only a beta release so you should be a little cautious before deploying this too widely in your team.

Read more about the addin on Evgeny blog post and download the beta addin here.

Visual Studio “Orcas”

Based on the widespread feedback requesting GetLatest on Checkout, the product team guys have added support for “Get Latest on Checkout” to the Orcas release (See screenshot)

 

Update: Buck Hodges has provided the following extra information.

For the feature in Orcas, we actually modified the server so that there’s only one roundtrip.  It’s all done as part of pending the edit (checking out the file), rather than having to do a get latest followed by a checkout.

Fortunately, in all cases shown above, the Get Latest on Checkout features is provided as a configurable option so you can configure this in a standard way throughout your specific development team.

It dawned on me that I am blogging about the business side of the MVP Summit and completely overlooking the more social side of the event. While there is lots of great information dissemination through the sessions and plenty of feedback for the product teams, the networking with other MVPs is also a very important aspect of the Summit.

At the summit I managed to get along to the following;

• A Regional Dinner with all the APAC MVPs at the Westin hotel. The MVPs from Korea did a great demonstration of Tae Kwon Do to start the evenings entertainment.  
  

  • The SupportSpace party at Gameworks.    

    • The MVP Dinner at the Museum of Flight   

      • The DevDiv Product Team dinner at the Redwest Cafe on Campus</ul>