I read with some interest this morning about a new Outlook 2003 TFS Addin from the MS Israel Community. After their release of the TFS Permission Manager, I have been keeping more of an eye on their blogs and that’s how I came across this new Outlook 2003 Addin.

Let me start by saying I’m a big fan of TeamLook. The ability to interact easily with TFS from within Outlook has proven quite convenient on many occasions. While the product is well worth the investment, not all clients are prepared to invest the extra money, especially so soon after paying for the VSTS/TFS licenses. That’s where this new addin comes in. It’s Free!

Download the 2.68Mb msi (TfsOutlookAddinSetup.msi) and run it to kick off the installation. The usual prerequisites apply as does the licensing requirement for most TFS addons. (1 TFS CAL per user)

UPDATE: Leon from the SRLTeam added this in a blog comment that I thought might be interesting… “Jeff, you do not need TE installed to use our Addin. It is coming with all necessary assemblies. Obviously you need CAL to use it from TFS licensing point of view.”

Once installed, you will see a new toolbar in Outlook 2003 as shown below.

A quick click on the TS Options button highlighted above allows you to connect to your TFS server of choice. The following TeamSystem Options dialog box allows you to specify TFS Projects and configure mappings between your email and TFS work items.

Once configured, it is quite easy to then create Task work items using the buttons conveniently located on the toolbar. I’m off to see what else the tool does…

Download the Outlook 2003 TFS Addin from the MS Israel Community site.

Note: They expect to release an Outlook 2007 version in the next few days.

I was working with a new client recently who was interested in trying out Team Foundation Server. As MSDN subscribers, they downloaded the trial version of the TFS CD and had it sitting on the desk ready for me to install. I kicked off the install as I’ve done many times but unfortunately the installation kept failing. It soon became apparent that their CD was the problem. They assured me that they had only downloaded it a few days before and it should be fine. As it turns out the CD was not fine and they had managed to burn a corrupt disk image.

So how can this be easily avoided?

1. Copy down the checksum value from the MSDN download site when you grab the ISO.
2. Check this value once the ISO has been downloaded using a tool like HashCalc or similar. SlavaSoft’s HashCalc is a great little freeware utility that does many things including calculate the CRC Checksum (SHA-1 HASH) that Microsoft displays on the MSDN Subscriber download site.
3. When you burn the image, don’t use the maximum buring speed of your device. I always turn it down to about half just for good measure for images I particularly care about.
4. Use the verify feature on your burning software to confirm that there have been no errors while writing the disk.

These steps might take a few extra minutes but it is usually nothing compared to the time wasted with corrput disks/ISO images.

Here’s a screenshot showing the SHA-1 Hash on the Microsoft MSDN Subscriber website as well as a screenshot of the result in HashCalc.

As with most version 1.0 products, VSTS/TFS has its fair share of rough edges. These will undoubtedly be ironed out and made nicer over subsequent releases as is usually the case. 

I am always on the lookout for little tools/utilities and workarounds to help make using VSTS and TFS a little easier and it was during one of my little searches around the blogsphere this morning that I noticed a post on Richard Berg’s blog entitled New TFS tool – TFSProxy which caught my eye.

Richard’s blog post was about a handy little utility hosted up on CodePlex. Here’s the description from his post.

This little plugin will allow you to switch tfs proxy servers or disable the tfs proxy. It’s also possible by installing a webservice to enable the add-in to be automatically configured.

Like Richard, I like the idea of not getting TF15013: The requested Team Foundation Server is not registered with the proxy server popups if I can avoid it.

On the subject of making things easier for VSTS/TFS users, the Accentient, Inc Widgets page is a fantastic source of all manor of plug-ins and utilities, listing both free and commercial products. If you’re a VSTS/TFS user, it is well worth checking out some of the widgets.

The next meeting of the Queensland VSTS Users Group is scheduled for this Friday, 2nd February 2007. The group meets at the Microsoft Office in Waterfront Place. The breakfast meeting starts at 7:30am (30 min light breakfast) followed by an hour session between 8am and 9am.

This month’s topic is “Introduction to Work Item Customisation” which will be presented by William Bartholomew.

Overview

Work items form a fundamental part of Visual Studio Team System and despite Microsoft shipping a number of templates with the product it is often necessary to customise these to fit existing business processes.

In this session we will look at;

• Modifying existing work item types to include new fields.
  • Modifying existing workflows.
    • Defining new work item types from scratch. </ul> For more information or to RSVP for the event, visit www.qvstsug.org or email anthonyb@qvstsug.org

    BONUS: One lucky attendee will also walk away with a free license of Teamprise 2.0 valued at USD$499.

    PS. Congratulations to the Canberra VSTS User Group which successfully kicked off last week! Well done! Here’s Coatsie’s account of the meeting.

The investment that organisations make in VSTS and TFS is often quite significant, not just the big dev shops but also the little ones where the cost of the product suite is often more hard felt. Once the decision to go with the technology is made it is always very important to be able to quantify adoption of the product and how well it is performing. Brian Harry has been creating a fantastic little utility over time that provides a wide range of information about your TFS Servers and TFS Proxies. While he states it is not really a management tool, I’m sure people in quite a few roles would find various bits of the data very useful.

The tool is not publicly available yet, but Brian’s interesting in hearing from the community as to how valuable we’d find the PowerTool and based on feedback he’ll adjust the priority. Read Brian Harry’s blog post (TFSServerManager PowerTool) and make sure you leave a comment to let him know if you’d like to see this PowerTool.

My feedback for Brian… “Yes Please – Bring it on!”

Australia’s latest VSTS User Group kicks off in Canberra next week for anyone able to get along and show your support. Here’s the details from Grant’s post to the OzTFS mailing list…

The purpose of the VSTS User Group is to form a community of practice for Canberra-based IT professionals interested in the use of Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) to support the Software Development Lifecycle. The group meetings will not be used to deliver marketing or sales content, but instead will focus on knowledge sharing on effective use of VSTS (tips, tricks, traps).

Migrating from VSS to TFS (Andrew Lynes based on experiences at DEWR)

Source Code Control – Approaches to branching, shelving etc (Sean Ferguson and AFP experiences)

</ul>

The INETA APAC newsletter was released yesterday and I’m happy to say that our very own Queensland VSTS Users Group (www.qvstsug.org) was featured along with an interview with yours truly. It is great to see what other user groups in the APAC region are doing and the newsletter is a great way to help spread this information.

I had the pleasure of meeting the editor of the INETA APAC newsletter, Wee Hyong (SQL MVP

Blog) recently at the Singapore DevCon and he shares a passion and enthusiasm for the developer community that makes being part of it very worthwhile. Check out his Channel 9 session entitled “A Chat and Demo about LINQ with Wee Hyong”.

The Microsoft Partner Readiness team is running a series of 2-day .NET 3.0 workshops around Australia over the next three months. The training represents exception value to Microsoft Partners and gives you to chance to learn more about the exciting new technologies available in .NET 3.0.  Training is scheduled for Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

.NET 3.0 Workshop Overview

This two-day workshop focuses on building user capability on the new technologies for building applications such as Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Windows CardSpace (formerly code named “Infocard”).

Registration details  (2 day event)

Brisbane	29 January 2007	Register Now
Sydney	19 February 2007	Register Now
Melbourne	26 February 2007	Register Now
Perth	1 March 2007	Register Now

Visit the newly redeveloped Microsoft Training and Readiness Centre website for a full list of new Readiness events.

I’ll blog about the Advanced VSTS (level 300/400) training that the Microsoft Readiness team have scheduled in the next few weeks!

In my consulting roll with VSTS/TFS, one of the things I often work with clients on is how to setup and configure their development environment on their developer PCs. With the size and complexity of developer SOEs these days, it can be quite a time consuming process to install and configure all the software a developer will need to use.

In searching for ways to improve and automate the installation of much of the Microsoft software, I have come across Aaron Stebner’s blog. There are some GREAT TIPS and instructions for automating the installation of many of the VS2005 generation products including Visual Studio 2005, MSDN, Express products and more. His posts include steps on how to script unattended/silent installs and how to suppress unnecessary reboots when installing VS2005 and the Team Foundation Client.

Have a look at a number of great articles listed in Aaron’s blog post below;

• Visual Studio 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0 deployment guide

Heath Stewart also has a couple of really helpful blog posts

• Save Time and Space for VS 2005 SP1 by Disabling the Patch Cache
• Slipstreaming Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1

I first noticed the tagging frenzy when Frankie was tagged back on 28th December. Now Dugie has done the deed and I’ve been tagged!

In short, “Someone tags you and asks you to reveal 5 things that folks probably don’t know about you and then you tag 5 other bloggers with the same task.”

So Five things that people don’t know about me eh?

1. I was one of the youngest people in Australia to receive the Certificate of Proficiency in Public Radio Broadcasting. (I was 11yrs old)
2. I presented a radio show called “Anthony’s Selections” when I was 11. I played a mix of country and western music and made myself a promise never to divulge this in my adult life. (Now a broken promise)
3. I grew up in northern NSW and spent quite a lot of time on the beaches around Byron Bay. The fluorescent lights I tend to spend my time under now, don’t give you quite the same tan.
4. My current “No. 2 all over” haircut wasn’t always my haircut of choice. In the past I have let it grow quite a bit longer. Saddly it grows out like an Afro and is a *very* different look from today. I think I have tracked down and burnt all photos.
5. I have a 17yr old stepson who graduated from high school in 2006.

And now I tag the following bloggers;

• Mick Badran – Magic Mick the Biztalk/Sharepoint guru!
• Boon Tiong – Good mate and VSTS MVP from Singapore
• Richard Angus – Coding guru and landscaper extraordinaire (Get blogging buddy)
• William Bartholomew – Fellow Brisbane VSTS dude and presenter
• Geoff Appleby – .NET champ from Canberra (Bummer about the wrist man!)

I look forward to reading your posts