Yesterday, Microsoft's Developer Division (DevDiv) released beta 1 of Visual Studio "Orcas", which corresponds with the Connected Systems Division’s beta 1 release of the .NET Framework 3.5. Soma blogged this yesterday morning. Visual Studio "Orcas" enables developers and development teams to rapidly create Software + Services on the latest platforms, including the Web, Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System, and Windows Server "Longhorn".

As usualy, one of the most common questions about Orcas is, "When will it ship?". Well, here's Microsoft's official/public timeline:

Trainers and presenters have been wanting a sample database that is less complex than AdventureWorks, but more interesting than Northwind. Thanks to my friends at SolidQ for letting me know about AdventureWorksLT (Light) ...

You can download AdventureWorksLT from CodePlex or Microsoft.

Microsoft just launched "The Region", a global hub for the 140 software architects, developers, trainers and other professionals selected as Regional Directors. The site is designed to help RDs circulate insights, information, inspiration and inquiries among each other, and among the broader developer community.

Check out The Region today.

Just to catch you up, Microsoft's Team Foundation Server v1.0 (released March 2006) only works with WSS 2.0. WSS 2.0 is the old version. WSS 3.0 is the new version, and launched with Microsoft Office 2007. It's full of great new features, but alas TFS won't integrate with it naturally. Even installing TFS SP1 won't get you there.

Thanks to Brian Keller, a Technical Evangelist for Team System, who has published a document on how to integrate TFS with WSS 3.0. As Brian explains, keep in mind that this is a "release candidate" of guidance that will eventually be posted to MSDN.

Now I've heard of a lot of things, but an RC of a guidance document?

If you did sign the petition, then you should probably get out more, and check out a cool technology called .NET.

If you did not sign the petition, be proud and show it ...

What a better way to spend Tax Day eve, than helping the (Boise) public with their variety of computer problems.

Boise State University Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) will be hosting their fifth PC Repair Fair on April 14, 2007.  This is a community service event where we will be fixing computers for the community for free. Oh, and they need volunteers.

Saturday April 14th * 8:45am to 2pm (first shift) Saturday April 14th * 1:00pm to 7pm (second shift).

Learn more about the fair, including how to volunteer, here.

You've probably heard of "Web 2.0", but what is it? According to Wikipedia and O'Reilly, Web 2.0 "refers to a perceived second-generation of Web-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies." I love that last word!

Here's a cool, short video from Michael Wesch, assistant professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State Univerisity, which puts it into terms we can all understand.

Thanks to Joe Healy (Florida DE for Microsoft) for this nugget. Check out his community site DevFish.net.

PEX = Program EXploration (a Microsoft Research project). I'm not really sure what this is, but a fellow RD, Barry Gervin, pointed it out to some of us MVPs recently after he visited a Microsoft Research "science fair".

Apparently, PEX automatically generates unit tests, allowing developers to find bugs early. In addition, it suggests to the programmer how to fix the bugs. Sounds too good to be true, but since it will enable "a new development experience" in Visual Studio Team System, I should probably keep an eye on it.

Maybe this will keep the TDD purists off of VSTS' back.

SQL Injection attacks are a well know exploit of insecure database systems. If you don't know about SQL Injection, you can change that by visiting Wikipedia.

If you feel like injecting some SQL into your site, you should visit the SQL Injection Cheat Sheet page for all of the approaches. As the author mentions, only MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, (some) ORACLE, and (some) PostgreSQL are supported and that most of the samples are not correct for every situation.

Happy hacking!

I'm a bit late to the party, but I wanted to recognize a couple of cool 2007 Jolt Award winners ...

• Microsoft and the VSTS/Database Professionals product group for "Database Engines and Data Tools" (read more here and here)
• Scott Ambler for his awesome book, Refactoring Databases.
• stpBA Storyboarding for VSTS 

In fact, here are all the winners.

I've been in Orlando this week, speaking at SQL Connections and have been derelict in my blogging duties, especially with regard to VSTS.

• Microsoft announced on Monday that they had acquired DevBiz (the company that produces TeamPlain), which has been the leader in browser-based access to Team Foundation Server, further boosting cross-platform access (and adoption). TeamPlain Web Access also enables a peripheral team member to browse project information and manipulate work items, source code, etc. I believe the new, official name will become "Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Web Access" (another mouthful). This acquisition also means that we will get to use TeamPlain for FREE (assuming we have a proper client access license for TFS). Read more about the acquisition on Brian Harry's blog and Microsoft PressPass.
  
  
• Microsoft published their Visual Studio Team System "Future Releases" roadmap, even beyond Orcas. So now, we can all speak the words "Rosario" in public. Rosario is the codename for the version of VSTS beyond Orcas. The roadmap is very thorough, even listing service packs and power tools, so you know exactly what delivery vehicle your feature or fix will be arriving in.
  
  
• Gert Drapers (the data dude) announced Service Release (SR) 1 for VSTS Edition for Database Professionals. He says that it's "in the works" and will be published sometime in Q2 of 2007 (let's hope April). He lists a few of the fixes and features that will be in the SR in a recent blog posting.
  
  
• Yesterday, Microsoft announced that unit testing will become a feature of the Professional edition of Visual Studio Orcas. This has been a passionately-requested feature by everyone in the world not running Dev, Test, or Team Suite editions. Finally, everyone who has Professional edition and up will be able to write and run unit tests. What about code coverage, that's still a question.
  
  
• The Patterns and Practices team has released updated prescriptive guidance on VSTS. JD Meiers lists many of the improvements on a blog post and you can find the guidance itself on CodePlex.
  
  
• Speaking of guidance, Microsoft recently published a 40-page branching guidance document which does a very good job of explaing branching and merging strategies for various size teams.

The next Ask An Expert Live Chat is scheduled for Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 12:00 PM PDT. 
  
Mark your calendars (or click this ICS link). For more information, visit Microsoft Technical Chats.

John Backus, whose development of the Fortran programming language in the 1950s changed how people interacted with computers and paved the way for modern software, has died. He was 82.

We all have our favorite database structure generator or schema reporting tool. Maybe we have built one of them in the past. I always tell my clients that it's a great "first application" to build when learning SQL Management Objects (SMO).

I just found out about SqlSpec.

SqlSpec generates documentation in two formats: HTML or CHM. I particularly like the CHM format, especially when you want a single, compact file containing all your documentation about one or more databases. The CHM is indexed so it is easily searchable for any keyword. If you visit their Samples page, you can see what these CHM files look like.

Naturally, SqlSpec supports SQL Server and Analysis Services, but also other legacy databases like Oracle, MySQL, and Access. It's $149 and they have a free trial version.

Pretty slick.

Next week there will be a two-day seminar on Visual Studio Team System (VSTS). Unfortunately, I won't be delivering the event.

If you attend, you can see how VSTS includes an integrated team server and customizable processes to help teams drive predictability, visibility, and control into their software development process. This seminar will provide an overview of features for project managers, business analysts, software architects and developers, database professionals, and software testers.

Agenda

• Day 1 - VSTS core concepts, work item tracking, architecture, and development
• Day 2 - VSTS databases, testing, reports, and customization

Register now; limited seating. Please call 1.877.MSEVENT (1.877.673.8366) or visit http://www.microsoft.com/usa/events and search on Event ID. Breakfast and lunch will be provided.

March 26-27, 2007
Microsoft Corporation
250 S. Fifth St., Suite 180
Boise, ID 83702
Phone: 208.345.3860
Event ID: 1032329394 

Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032329394&Culture=en-US

For some time, I've been sharing a neat hack that I came up with for finding files using Google. Here's how it works:

Assume you are looking for a specific file, such as northwind.mdb.

• If you enter "northwind", you'll find 1,666,000 hits.
• If you enter "northwind.mdb", you'll find 186,000 hits (mostly articles talking about northwind.mdb)

To find pages that have the file itself, type the following underlined search ...

"index of" northwind.mdb

This returns 712 pages, and you want to look for the ones that begin with "index of", such as Index of /english_examples/exceltmm/22.

These "index of" pages are simply directory listings from Web servers where directory browsing was enabled. This is generally considered a security hole, but some sites (like .edu sites) leave them open because it's an easy way to share files.

So, here's an update to my hack, sent to me anonymously:

intitle:index.of "mp3" +"Jack Jones" -htm -html -php -asp "Last Modified"

As you can see, this sample is looking for MP3s, and includes "Last Modified" and excludes some noise. It's a little cleaner and reduces the chances you'll return pages that aren't really directory listings.

Update: Here's yet another blog posting on how to do this, from Amazon's official blog ...

Note: you shouldn't download licensed/copyrighted material that doesn't belong to you.

Recently, Microsoft and IESC Geekcorps have teamed up to send Microsoft developer experts to participate as volunteers in the “Access to International Markets Through Information Technology” (AIM-IT) project in Lebanon. They are currently in search of volunteer experts with expertise in Visual Studio 2005 Team System & Team Foundation Server, as well as MS Solution Framework, and general software development project management.

Those that volunteer with Geekcorps on this project will receive airfare, accommodations, insurance and a living stipend – all paid for by Microsoft. Volunteers’ only out-of-pocket expenses come from any incidentals or personal purchases. Arrangements will be made for you to travel from home to Lebanon (a passport is required) and you will be met at the airport by a program representative. The project’s duration will be approximately 6 weeks.

If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, visit this page.

It took me a couple of days to go through my photos, but I found a good one of the various Visual Studio Team System MVPs who attended Basta!

Here's Martin Kulov, me, and Ognjen Bajic. But, where's Neno?

One of the coolest controls that Visual Studio 2005 includes is the report design and view functionality of the ReportViewer controls. What used to be a server-only function, .RDL (now .RDLC) files can be rendered client-side by Web or Windows applications with this control. Reports can contain tabular, aggregated, and multidimensional data.

Thanks to Peter Myers for pointing me to this site to answer all of my (and your) questions and help unlock the hidden potential of the ReportViewer control.

If you are running Vista and VS 2005, you need to install this SP1 update.

It's referenced by KB929470, and you can download it here.