Talk about "community-driven", Lorin Thwaits and the other coordinators of the Desert Code Camp are wanting your input on when 'camp should be held this next year.

You can choose between dates in September and October.

Bookmark this page. For the next several weeks, Scott Golightly (Microsoft Regional Director from Utah) and I will be publishing several instructional videos around Team System.

Currently, there are two videos posted:

• How Do I: Customize TeamPlain?
• How Do I: Create Custom Work Items in Team Foundation Server?

More coming each week. Stay tuned ...

I saw a demo of these at Tech-Ed, and thought I would share with my friends.

Essentially, the Database Operations team at Microsoft uses a suite of jobs on all their servers for performing backups, automated database maintenance, improve performance , and improving disaster recovery. I'm sure every SQL Server expert/consultant out there has his or her own bag of tricks, but Microsoft is finally sharing theirs.

These SQL maintenance jobs provide automated tasks such as database or transaction logs backup, performing database optimization like Index defrag or update statistics, cleaning MSDB backup history and recycling the SQL error log. Each of these jobs runs stored procedures that are installed when the jobs are created.

The following are the jobs get installed with this package.

• SQLBackupAll
• SQLBackupDiffAll
• SQLBackupTranAll
• SQLBackupChecker
• SQLDBCCAll
• SQLIndexDefragAll
• SQLUpdateStatistics
• SQLCleanupMsdbBackupHistory
• SQLCycleErrorLog

Download the automation jobs here, and then refer to the Word document inside.

This week Microsoft released the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server – Project Server 2007 connector as a CodePlex project. The project has been up for a few weeks, but is now being broadly advertised.

The TFS-PS2007 connector is designed to integrate the project management capabilities of TFS with Project Server 2007. It's been developed by the Visual Studio Team System Rangers in response to significant customer demand for a connector solution. Future versions of Team System will have native integration with Project Server, in the meantime this Connector solution is the best way to integrate the two Microsoft products. This solution builds on the previous PS2003 VSTS Connector, published on GotDotNet.

I apologize for the delay, but if you attended our PRCN05 pre-conference last week at Tech-Ed, you might be interested in downloading our demo files.

I just learned about this neat editor for creating and editing Windows Installer packages (.msi files) and merge modules (.msm files). Orca is just one of many cool installer tools by Microsoft. It provides a graphical interface for validation, highlighting the particular entries where validation errors or warnings occur. This KB255905 article explains more.

Orca is part of the platform SDK and locating the correct download was difficult - a lot of redirected pages and dead ends, but I found it as part of the Vista SDK download as well as the Windows Server 2003 SDK download. Once you install the SDK, look for Orca.msi and install it separately.

Here is a screenshot of running Orca on the Orca.msi file ...

What a great week. I saw many friends ...

attended many parties ...

and learned a few new things ...

One of the technologies I heard about was Windows Live Writer, which provided me the ability to write blog posts offline, such as I'm doing right now!

Please plan on attending the 14 June meeting of the Greater Idaho SharePoint User Group.

This month’s topic is Workflow in SharePoint. We will be having a presentation by Ben Hickman of Microsoft on the built in WorkFlow functionality and then some presentations by K2 around using K2 Workflow in SharePoint and more specifically about Administrative enhancements in the latest K2 release as it applies to MOSS 2007. They will also be highlighting the administrative aspects of their new product BlackPearl. There will be more in depth developer discussions after the main block for those interested in diving deeper into workflow development concepts, as interest merits.

Visit the Meetings page for the agenda and other logistic details.

If you go, be sure to say hi to Scott Shepherd and thank him for coordinating the user group!

Have you seen this yet? I caught a quick news story this morning on TV about Microsoft Surface.

Here's an article from the July 2007 issue of Popular Mechanics. There's a really cool video of Microsoft Surface on page 1 and on the interface on page 3 of that article.

BTW - I understand that the technology behind Surface is WPF.

Microsoft (and others) had announed that its Fall Professional Developer's Conference (PDC) would be October 2-5, in Los Angeles. Yesterday, they canceled the event and are in the process of rescheduling it.

From their site:

We are currently in the process of rescheduling this fall’s Professional Developer Conference. As the PDC is the definitive developer event focused on the future of the Microsoft platform, we try to align it to be in front of major platform milestones. By this fall, however, upcoming platform technologies including Windows Server 2008, SQL Server codenamed “Katmai,” Visual Studio codenamed “Orcas” and Silverlight will already be in developers’ hands and approaching launch, which is where we’ll focus our developer engagement in the near term. We will update this site when we have a new date for the PDC that is better timed with the next wave of platform technologies.

Welcome to Camp! Portland Code Camp 3.0 (as was 2.0) is being hosted at the gorgeous WSU Vancouver campus.

There are quite a few attendees here. I counted around 90 at this morning's welcome session.

Click the above to zoom-in

As for my SQL Server 2005 Worst Practices talk, if you'd like to download the slides, code, or sample project, please click here.

Google Analytics has been re-designed to help you learn even more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. The new Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your results online. Best of all, Google Analytics is free to all advertisers, publishers, and site owners.

All you need to do is paste some tracking code (a small snippet of Javascript) into each Web page that you want tracked, and you're done. You can then track your activity through the built-in reports.

Read more about the makeover here.

I posted a few case studies and other VSTS business value items in an earlier blog posting. There are a couple of new ones out now:

• Microsoft Visual Studio Team System ROI Case – KBC
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team System ROI Case – Social Networking

GUIDs have always been a passion of mine. I guess it's that they are so ugly, you've got to feel sorry for them.

As some of you remember, I tried to make a quick buck selling a GUID (pic1 & pic2) on ebay a few years ago. That may be a venture I fall back on when I retire. In the meantime, some technologists, using the latest presentation foundation (WPF/E) have built GuidMarket. Check it out.

(You'll need to install WPF/E to view the site).

Today's chats were well attended, with many experts and well over a hundred guests. The quests came fast and furious, with some great answers given by the experts. It seems people are really anticipating Orcas (and Rosario) for those features that didn't make it into v1.

I have captured the entire transcripts (both expert and guest chats) in this PDF document (for the 10am PST chat) and this PDF document (for the 4pm PST chat).

Note: this is the raw content, copied and pasted from each chat, so you are getting it "as is".

Pack up your compilers and IDES, because it's camping time in Portland!

Portland Code Camp 3.0 is back May 19th and 20th!

Location: Washington State University - Vancouver, 14204 NE Salmon Creek Ave, Vancouver, WA 98686

Visit the site for more information.

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.

Join the chat on Friday, April 27th, 2007 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time | Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones