Thank you for the good time last night at the Iowa .NET User Group meeting. I enjoyed spending the evening with these easy-going, but tech-savvy folks. 
We had a good turnout, great questions, and a fun time afterward at the 801 steak and chop house!
If you are looking for my SQL Server 2005 script of love. You can find it here.
The Kickstand Board of Directors is hosting a holiday celebration at a special location - the Discovery Center of Idaho.
- What: Holiday Party & New Member Invitation
- When: Thursday, December 14th, 5:30-7:30pm
- Where: Discovery Center of Idaho, 131 Myrtle Street, Boise
- Why: Networking, fun, entertainment - BSU Robo Wars
- Cost: Free to members and guests
Please RSVP if you are wanting to attend.
If you know me, you know my fascination with Tradesports.com.
Well, it seems that the parent Company of TradeSports has developed an Application Programmable Interface ("API") that all members of the Exchange are entitled to use subject to satisfying the eligibility criteria. A monthly fee for API access may be charged which may in turn be refunded in full if the member generates sufficient trade volumes.
Visit this page for more information.
I was recently reading Geoff Koch's article in Software Test and Performance magazine on SCM: More Than Code Check-In, Check-Out. It was a short, but good article talking about how CM is similar regardless of whether you write articles or software. I would agree. I believe that i just becomes a matter of complexity.
I found a couple of interesting points in his article:
- Wikipedia has an exhaustive list of revision control software.
- Money magazine lists software engineer as No. 1 in its Best Jobs in America (which I knew), and that release engineers are hailed as having the top-paying jobs (which I didn't know).
- Google's Dan Bloch recently stated that they have more than 3,000 users accessing a single Perforce repository running on an HP 4-way Opteron server with 128gb. Wowsers!
Side note: have you checked out Google Code? Apparently, Google will crawl publicly accessible source code, such as (.tar, .gz, .tar, .bz2, and .zip archives) and CVS and Subversion repositories. You can block Google from crawling by using a robots.txt file. Read more here.
I'm honored to be speaking at the Iowa .NET User Group this week. My topic will be on SQL Server 2005 for Developers. If you are in the area, please stop by. Visit their site for more information.
You might have heard, and it was such a tragedy that the group's founder, Eric Jacobs, and another member, Josh Trainor, were killed in a plane crash last Month. My prayers go out to the family and friends of Eric and Josh.
Bill Essary, software architect at Microsoft just posted this MSDN article on new team project limit and monitoring recommendations for Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server.
The article includes a downloadable Excel spreadsheet (TeamProjectLimits.xls) containing experimental data which you can use to estimate the maximum number of team projects per server when you use customize work item types.
My good friend, Dr. Michael Pavelec, history professor at Hawaii Pacific University has written another book on WWII military aviation ...  |
"In the 1930s, as nations braced for war, the German military build up caught Britain and the United States off-guard, particularly in aviation technology. The unending quest for speed resulted in the need for radical alternatives to piston engines. In Germany, Dr. Hans von Ohain was the first to complete a flight-worthy turbojet engine for aircraft. It was installed in a Heinkel designed aircraft, and the Germans began the jet age on August 27, 1939. The Germans led the jet race throughout the war and were the first to produce jet aircraft for combat operations. In England, the doggedly determined Frank Whittle also developed a turbojet engine, but without the support enjoyed by his German counterpart. The British came second in the jet race when Whittle's engine powered the Gloster Pioneer on May 15, 1941. The Whittle-Gloster relationship continued and produced the only Allied combat jet aircraft during the war, the Meteor, which was relegated to Home Defense in Britain.
In America, General Electric copied the Whittle designs, and Bell Aircraft contracted to build the first American jet plane. On October 1, 1942, a lackluster performance from the Bell Airacomet, ushered in the American jet age. The Yanks forged ahead, and had numerous engine and airframe programs in development by the end of the war. But, the Germans did it right and did it first, while the Allies lagged throughout the war, only rising to technological prominence on the ashes of the German defeat. Pavelec's analysis of the jet race uncovers all the excitement in the high-stakes race to develop effective jet engines for warfare and transport."
You can pre-order the book at Amazon.com.
Plan now to attend the launch of Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Exchange Server 2007 in Boise on January 30, 2007. There will be two tracks throughout the day: IT Professional and (wait for it) Developer!
Click here to sign-up for the Developer track.
Click here to sign-up for the IT Pro track.
The event will be held at the Boise Centre on the Grove. See you there!
If you're like me, then you've probably seen a lot of "Lorem Ipsum's" around various Websites, demonstrations, and presentations. Have you ever wondered the origins? I always thought it was what the Monks were chanting in the Monty Python cartoons.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
Learn more about Lorem Ipsum here.
InfraGard has posted all of the presentations (as PDFs) from their 2006 conference.
InfraGard is an FBI program that began in 1996 to gain support from the information technology industry and academia for the FBI’s investigative efforts in the cyber arena. InfraGard and the FBI have developed a relationship of trust and credibility in the exchange of information concerning various terrorism, intelligence, criminal, and security matters. Boise is working on getting their own chapter, but until then we are part of Salt Lake's chapter.
You can also keep up with local Information Security issues at the Boise chapter of the ISSA.
I just noticed that both the .CHM files were recently updated, and available for download.
- The Installation guide (TFSInstall-v61004.chm) is now version 8.0.61004 (10/6/2006) - 261 kb
- The Administrator's guide (TFSAdmin-v61101.chm) is now version 8.0.61101 (11/1/2006) - 2.2 mb
You'll find the updated hyperlinks at the bottom of our Widgets page.
I'm back home now, but had a total blast at DevConnections in Las Vegas this week. I saw many friends and colleagues who I hadn't seen for awhile. I was surprised that there were ~4700 attendees at the show, with quite a large exhibiter hall too. It's really become a mini Tech-Ed.  From left to right: Richard Hundhausen, Andrew Kelly, Dino Esposito, Peter DeBetta,
Brian Moran, Stacia Misner, Rushabh Mehta, Jeff Jones, Douglas McDowell.Visit my personal photo album for more photos (Conferences > Dev Connections 2006 Las Vegas).
You may have read my previous post about a company in Phoenix who connected their build process to an orb. Others use lava lamps.
Well, this professional geek used something a little more meaningful - an LCD-TV screen, which actually conveys useful information. Download the source code from his article (TV not included).
Although I don't have their newest (7th edition) book yet, I plan on picking it up. From what I've read at the site, the Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server (7th Edition) seems to be just what the industry needs for the critical intersection of technologies.
Nice work Bill and Peter!
Although the venue was changed at the last minute (to better digs at DigiPen) and my colleague Steven Borg bailed out to have a kid (that still hasn't come yet), Seattle Code Camp 2.0 was awesome! 
If you attended my talks on SQL Server 2005, you can find my demo bits here.
Microsoft has made the difficult decision not to hold Tech·Ed 2007 in New Orleans. With this event drawing a large number of attendees from around the world and with the airlines only servicing the city with about half of their pre-Katrina flights, the logistics of moving that large a group into and out of the city is challenging and would likely result in travel and logistical challenges for attendees.
Instead, Tech·Ed 2007 will be held on June 4-8, 2007 in Orlando at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC).
Here is the official site.
Join Borland for a free educational breakfast seminar on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 to learn more about their Software Delivery Optimization (SDO) – A Vision for Software Development. Borland has been slowly evolving into a company that provides Application Lifecycle Management tools, as well as a process consulting.
Specifically, they will be demonstrating
- Borland CaliberRM® and DefineIT® for Requirements Definition & Management
- Borland SilkCentral® Test Manager™ for Requirements-Based Testing
- Borland StarTeam® for Configuration and Change Management
Who should attend? Directors and Managers of: Application Development and Quality Assurance, Program and Project Managers, Architects and Business Analysts
The breakfast seminiar is on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 8:30am (until noon) at the Grove Hotel, 245 S. Capitol Blvd, Boise, ID 83702.
I'm guessing you can probably just show up, if you are interested.
A PowerPoint deck introducing .NET 3.0 has been uploaded to the presentations area of the .NET Framework 3.0 site.
Although it's still pre-release (release candidate 1 is available for download), the new .NET Framework 3.0 looks very promising as the new managed code programming model for Windows. It will combine the power of the .NET Framework 2.0 with new technologies for building applications that have visually compelling user experiences (WPF), seamless communication across technology boundaries (WCF), and the ability to support a wide range of business processes (WF).
Here's a direct link to the slide deck introducing .NET 3.0, as well as intro decks of WF, WPF, WCF, and CardSpace.
As a follow-up, you can also find some good .NET 3.0 presentations at .NET University.
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 latest Community Technology Preview (CTP).
Join the chat on Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time.
That's right. Seattle Code Camp 2.0 is upon us, with a late-breaking venue change ...
Camp will be held at Nintendo's DigiPen Univeristy, which is very near the Microsoft Campus.
Consultants from our company will be doing talks on SQL Server, Team System, and Ruby. See you there, this Saturday and Sunday (October 28 and 29).
... to make it cooler in our training room.
Ok, here's the formula: Take 2 HVAC technicians ... 
A laptop, network cable, one hour of time, and one of these funky things ... 
and before you know it, our training room (and less grumpy students) are cool!
That's right, John Lam, a respected developer, and partner of ObjectSharp in Toronto will be joining Microsoft in January 2007. Could it be all of his hard work creating RubyCLR has paid off? He won't say.
Congrats on the "friendly takeover" of Microsoft, John. Good luck, and make cool things!
Read John's announcement here.
EBay always makes me laugh. What some people will do to sell their product!
Take this example of an auction for Team Foundation Server ...
Look what the seller is throwing in to "sweeten" the deal ... "USA Customers get FREE Maple Syrup and Crystallized Honey samples from Vermont. USA Customers get one 1.7 oz. sample of 100% Proof Grade A Maple Syrup from Maple Grove Farms and one 2 oz. sample of Grade A Crystallized Honey from Champlain Valley Apiaries."
If you want to run a free diagnostic and inventory report on your system, then check out Belarc Advisor.
The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.
I downloaded, installed, and ran the report in under a minute. It breaks it down by area: operating system, system model, processor, main circuit board, drives, memory modules, users, local drive volumes, network drives, printers, controllers, display, bus adapters, multimedia, communications, other devices, virus protection, missing Microsoft security hotfixes, installed Microsoft hotfixes (by product), software licenses, software versions, and a System Security Status score (x.xx out of 10) with details!
Best of all, it's free!
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