Last week I had a chance to meet some of the brains behind gridGISTICS - a .NET development company in Atlanta that gets it. Not only are they up to speed on the latest .NET 3.x technologies, but they have some killer products as well. The one that struck me as the coolest was their Aware Server product, which is a grid-computing based deployment and management environment. In other words, the missing pieces to Team Foundation Server's build and (ahem) deploy automation. Packaging up applications by system and version into manifests, these binaries can be automatically deployed, registered, launched, and monitored by various Aware Agents installed around a company's environment. From the development side, they provide many Visual Studio 2008 templates and add-ins to help generate Aware-compatible applications very quickly. 
Follow their story here.
Man, I need to keep a closer eye on the work product over at .NET Rocks. I had meant to link up this transcript last Summer, but I dropped the ball. Apologies. So, what this was was a VSTS panel discussion at Tech-Ed in Orlando last June, with Mike Azocar, Steven Borg, Doug Seven, Joel Semeniuk, and the hosts Richard Campbell and Carl Franklin. Here's the panel (with Barry Gervin running the microphone)
 And some of the audience (you can see Rob Caron and Mickey Gousset in the back).
 There's some pretty good questions in there, especially those asked by yours truly!
This month’s meeting topic is Blogs and Wikis in SharePoint - what’s available out of the box and interesting ways to extend and use Blogs and Wikis presented by Ben Hickman of Microsoft. They will also be having a presentation by Certeon around their S-Series Application Acceleration Appliances, which provides the industry’s only solution with Application Intelligent Networking to deliver application acceleration, security and scalability from the desktop to the data center. Meeting Date: Wednesday, December 19th, 2007, 11 am – 2 pm Meeting Place: 250 S. 5th Street, Boise, ID 83702 Meeting Agenda: 11:00 - 11:15 - Arrive at the meeting...visit with other users. 11:15 - 11:20 - Announcements and other group administrative topics by group coordinator 11:20 – 1:45 - Presentation by Ben Hickman and Certeon (Lunch will be ready at about 12:00 so help yourself when it arrives). Find more meeting information on their web site.
Microsoft announced today that PDC 2008 is on! October 27–30, 2008
Pre-conferences October 26, 2008
Los Angeles, California PDC is the definitive Microsoft event for software developers and architects focused on the future of the Microsoft platform. Mark your calendars and save the date. More information coming soon. http://msdn.microsoft.com/pdc2008
In addition to adding support for the .NET Framework, Microsoft is taking the next version of Silverlight farther by adding a comprehensive control model, powerful skinning and “theming,” data binding, and over 20 controls in the box. To better capture the scope of the feature set for the next version of Silverlight, Microsoft will rename Silverlight 1.1 to Silverlight 2.0. Microsoft will also commit to delivering a Silverlight 2.0 Beta with a Go-Live license in Q1 2008. As for customer evidence, the NBA began engaging with Microsoft to deliver key interactive applications on NBA.com deploying Silverlight. By utilizing Silverlight, the NBA will be able to further broaden the scope of its online experience across video and photos. From a broader Web development perspective, Microsoft will also release a preview of the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions in early December. Key features of the preview include MVC, Dynamic Data Controls and REST Services. Silverlight and ASP.NET are core technologies enabling better user experiences on the desktop, Web and beyond. Microsoft’s user experience approach is part of the broader Microsoft Application Platform strategy, formed with the goal of helping customers realize the benefits from more dynamic applications. For more information on Thursday, please check out Scott Guthrie’s blog, Jesse Liberty’s blog, and the Silverlight homepage. Also, feel free to check out the new Microsoft Download Center Beta, now powered by Microsoft Silverlight.
Come chat with the Visual Studio Team System group on Wednesday, December 5th. Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Team Foundation Server, Team Suite, Architecture Edition, Development Edition, Database Edition, and Test Edition. In addition, discuss what's new for these editions for Visual Studio 2008. There will be two sessions that day:
Wow, I found this old photo of me at COMDEX in 1990. It was my first such event, and I was completely blown away by the size of it - and who was there. I remember Borland had a giant quiz-show, asking questions and giving away prizes if you got the answers correct. I met Jeff Duntemann, who was the editor of PC Techniques magazine. I also met Phil Katz (think "PK") at the event. He had become a hero to the BBS community, because his PKXARC/PKARC software was good at compressing files for transfer over 300 baud modems. After he was sued by SEA, he released an even faster PKZIP and became everyone's best friend. Most everyone in the world still uses PKZIP, or a derivative today. 
Unfortunately, Phil Katz lead a troubled life and he died from alcoholism at age 37. Here is an article on his life. 
I've been so involved with the VSTS RTM yesterday, that I almost didn't notice this one. Click here to download the latest SQL Server 2008 Community Technology Preview (CTP) and try out the latest features of SQL Server 2008.
Hmmm ... it still has that fresh .ISO smell. Seems that we'll have something extra to be thankful for this week. VSTS 2008 Team Suite is available for download today! 
I hope you are an MSDN subscriber, so you can access the subscriber downloads.
It seems that the US Tech-Ed is following Europe's lead, by breaking up the one large conference into two: one for developers and one for IT professionals. - June 3-6, 2008 - Developers (developers, solution architects, designers, and testers)
- June 10-13, 2008 - IT Professionals
Both events will have a similar format with the past Tech·Eds, but will focus on a single audience instead of a mixed audience, which was the case with the previous Tech·Ed model. Visit the main Tech-Ed site for more information, including some FAQs.
I just came across this download at Microsoft. It provides an introduction to the concepts and step by step instructions for creating and customizing TFS reports. The zip file contains instructional PDF documents as well as several sample reports.
Way to go Microsoft, and SQL Server 2005! 
For the first time in the report’s history, Microsoft is positioned in the Leader quadrant in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse DBMS. The analysts say that SQL Server 2005 is expected to grow in the data warehouse space and Microsoft’s vision for SQL Server 2008 makes clear the company’s intent to become a major presence in the data warehouse market. Read more about this great announcement here.
One of my students forwarded this to me this week. I thought it was hilarious. 
Thanks to the Team System Rangers (an elite squad of TFS experts inside Microsoft) for putting together this document, which serves as a single point of entry into the world of TFS Operations as well as Microsoft's recommended operational best practices. 
So, start learning/mastering TFS operations by clicking here.
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