As you know, Visual Studio Team System tracks many different work item types, such as requirements, tasks, and bugs. Many agile teams like to use "sticky notes" to post on the wall to organize their backlog of requirements and tasks and plan their iterations. Even Joel on Software's company is doing this.
Since I have no life when I travel, I wrote 3M yesterday to see if they manufacture Post-It note sheets that can be fed through a laser/inkjet printer ... and they do!
They come in 25, 100, 300 or 500 sheet quantities and I checked a couple of sites, such as CDW, #1 Online Catalog, and Computers Unlimited. The prices range from $0.40 to $0.85/sheet, which might be cost prohibitive. Another cool option might be to use the stackable/sortable cards from 3m, although they are not sheet-fed, some printers might be able to "grab them". They come in a few different sizes.
Over the weekend Microsoft released some cool add-ins for Excel 2007 and Visio 2007:
- Table Analysis Tools for Excel - this add-in provides you with easy-to-use tasks that leverage SQL Server 2005 Data Mining under the covers to perform powerful analytics on your spreadsheet data.
- Data Mining Client for Excel - This add-in allows you to go through the full data mining model development lifecycle within Excel 2007 using either your spreadsheet data or external data accessible through your SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services instance.
- Data Mining Templates for Visio - This add-in allows you to render and share your mining models as annotatable Visio 2007 drawings.
Download the new add-ins here.
There are way too many Crystal Reports out there in the world and I would love to see more of them converted to Reporting Services. Therein lies the problem. I had heard that Crystal (now BusinessObjects) had blocked companies, like Hitachi, from building converters, because they would be reverse engineering (or using the APIs to reverse engineer) the .rpt files, and that would violate the license agreement.
Microsoft only provides migration guidance, but I see that one company, KTL Solutions, has a conversion product available, and another company, Jeff-Net is offering a $25/report conversion service at rpttordl.com.
Occasionally I'm asked about the business value of VSTS and TFS. I think it's pretty obvious, but I guess others need more convincing than just my word.
I've pulled together some links below that will help with this.
How's this for my next writing project? 
Just kidding. I happened upon this site, and thought I would get creative.
Wow, what a great 'camp! We had over 200 attendees (207 was the last number I heard) and many, many great sessions. Thanks to all of you who attended, helped coordinate, and SPOKE at the event!
Rob Anson (BSU) welcomes students to the College of Business and Economics.
Personally, I enjoyed showing off PowerShell and getting some good feedback from fellow developers on how they might use it and what they thought the really cool featuers were. You can download my demo files here. Also, the demo script for my SQL Server 2005 for Developers talk can be found here.
As for my third talk, co-presented with Jason Mauer, it didn't go as planned. We had intended to show off Amazon's Mechnanical Turk in the search for Dr. Jim Gray, Microsoft's missing researcher from Silicon Valley. When we got to the session, however, we read the announcement "Satellite Image Examination Done! We've examined more than 560,000 images from 3 satellites, covering nearly 3,500 square miles of ocean! We currently do not need help here." Thanks to everyone (around 20) who showed up to the session to help! Instead, we spent some time discussing Mechanical Turk, S3, and other popular web services.
Jason Mauer exploiting his dog for money on Mechanical Turk.
After the final session and closing "ceremonies", most of the attendees broke off and headed over to the Allen Noble Hall of Fame building for a great dinner and some giveaways. Thanks to the sponsors: Micron, Microsoft, Keynetics, Treetop Tech, and healthwise! 
Friday night's presenter's dinner was a good time, and a good place to relax and prepare for the day ahead. About thirty of the presenters and coordinators of 'camp met at Murphy's on Broadway and enjoyed some good food, and presentation tips and tricks from veteran campers. 
I'm sitting through a good presentation on mock objects in .NET presented by Tim Shakarian (TSHAK). Tim gave a great overview of why we should care, and how mock objects it can simplify our TDD lives.
He listed the following Mock frameworks:
I was honored to learn that I had achieved the Bronze, Silver, and Gold awards for 2006. 
Thanks to all of you who read my blog, attend my classes, and generally listen to me ramble on about Microsoft's tools and technology. Without you I wouldn't have these giant coins to carry around!
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, February 7th, 2007 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time.
As many of you may know, Dr. Jim Gray (Microsoft Researcher and Turing award recipient) went missing a week ago, on his sailboat Tenacious off the coast of San Francisco. I've had the pleasure, on several occasions, of speaking with Jim and learning more about his research. If we cannot find him, it will be a huge loss.
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The search for Tenacious (and Jim) is underway, in a big way. Many news agencies are calling it the largest private search for a missing person ever. This blog is aggregating all of the latest information.
Best of all, YOU CAN HELP!
Visit Amazon's Mechanical Turk site dedicated to finding Jim, and help by searching new/updated high resolution satellite imagery. All of the instructions are provided, you just need to donate some time. |
Tired of building boring corporate applications? How about working on an application to accelerate the cure for cancer?
A friend of mine, Steven Forte, is the hiring manager for this effort. Read more about it on his blog posting.
The much anticipated and eagerly awaited Analysis Services 2005 Performance Guide has been released and is available on the Microsoft download site.
If you've got some extra miles burning a hole in your account, cash them in to get to Frankfurt, Germany at the end of February and attend Basta! 
Surprise ... I'll be speaking on Team System at the conference!
Hope to see you there!
Ok, Chris Kinsman caught me flat-footed when he tagged me earlier this month. I know I'm a slow learner, and now that I fully understand what's going on, it's time that I sit down and post the "five things you didn't know about me" ...
- I fell in love with computers in 1977, when I first saw a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. I started programming two years later on a Level II version of the same computer. Turbo Pascal hooked me in 1984 and I've been in/out of compiler-rehab ever since.
- I own a Harley Davidson (2003 Fat Boy/100th anniversary) but don't ride it much. My biker friends think I'm weird. I am.
- My favorite TV shows are The Shield and The Office. Oh, and I'll watch those car chase police video shows too. I guess I need help.
- I'm a freak about soccer. I love to play it (indoor and outdoor) and love the World Cup and all its fanfare. I'm indifferent to MLS, and especially Beckham coming to the US.
- I've only had three jobs in my life that did NOT relate to software development in some way: working at my folks' video arcade Excalibur (Twin Falls, Idaho) in 1983, working at the Elk's Lodge setting up parties in 1983, and working at the new Wendy's cooking burgers in 1984 (6 weeks/never got paid).
Ok, so that's probably TMI at this point, so I'll stop, and pass the baton to Steven Borg, Peter DeBetta, Scott Cate, Peter Kellner, and Jason Mauer.
Richard Waymire has publishes his long-anticipated whitepaper on permissions, security objects, and other security concerns centered around using the Database Professionals edition.
Over the years, we've had a few clients automate their build process by using Final Builder by VSoft Technologies. Much like Team (Foundation) Build, Final Builder is a powerful build & release management tool. Unlike Team Build, Final Builder has a slick UI allowing a build master to quickly design the builds.
Last summer, a new Final Builder version (4.2) was release which included more support for MSBuild and Team Build tasks. With that version, and following the guidance in this article, you can get the two products working together!
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