You'd think this would be simple wouldn't you? Well, I liken it to trying to get out of a Casino - the doors are not clearly marked, for obvious reasons. Here's my scenario I have a domain (or two) registered at GoDaddy, because I purchased the domains from somebody and/or had a knee-jerk reaction to their cheap rates and/or wanted to use their heightened protection and affiliated Domains By Proxy service. In any event, I'd rather move them to my preferred registrar: DirectNIC. I've been with them for years and their services are exactly what I need and their UI is (ahem) easy to understand. First, I started by reading this guy's blog post, but it only gets me so far. I've updated the instructions to include steps for handling Domains By Proxy and the transfer to DirectNIC. Part 1 - Unlock/un-protect the domains 1. Login to GoDaddy using your customer # / login name and password. 2. Click on the Domains > My Domains link on the menu. 3. Check the box next to the domain(s) you want to transfer and click the Locking link on the menu bar. 4. Select Unlock and click OK. 5. Click OK again to confirm. 6. Click the domain link of the domain you want to transfer. 7. Verify Domain Ownership Protection is off. If Domain Ownership Protection is ON (i.e. you have the platinum registration), then you need to call GoDaddy and get manual instructions, involving an email exchange. Quite painful, but very protective. 8. Click the Authorization Code Send by Email link and then click OK to send the email 9. Monitor the email account associated with the domain registration and retrieve the 16 character authorization code. Part 2 - If you have registered privately using Domains By Proxy 1. Login to DomainsByProxy using your customer # / login name and password (which may not be the same as your GoDaddy ones). 2. Click the My Domains link. 3. Locate the domain(s) you want to transfer and check the boxes to "Cancel Your Private Registration" and click Continue. 4. Confirm by selecting Yes and clicking Submit. If you are stopped because of a "One or more selected domains have domain protection on." message, then see step 1-7 above. 5. Repeat for the other domains you want to transfer. Part 3 - Initiating the Transfer to DirectNIC 1. Login to DirectNIC using your username and password. 2. Click the Domain Transfers link on the left. 3. Enter the domain(s) you want to transfer and click OK. 4. Confirm the contact information and click Continue Purchase. 5. Specify how many years to register and click Continue Purchase. 6. Enter billing information and click Purchase. 7. Transfer request email(s) is/are sent to the administrative contacts for the domain(s) being transferred. Part 4 - Approving and Finalizing the Transfer 1. Monitor the email account of the GoDaddy domain administrative contact. 2. In the email sent from DirectNIC, click the link at the bottom to approve the transfer. 3. On the DirectNIC page, select Approve and enter the Authorization Info received in 1-9 above and a contact phone number. 4. Say goodbye to Daddy.
We all know the sedentary lifestyle of your classic IT person can lead to ... shall we say ... bloat. I regularly joke that the only thing bigger than your typical (Unix) system administrator is his beard. I jest. Anyway, we do what we can to avoid the bloat, including running (literally) some form of carbon-based defrag on a regular basis, to compact that extra space. ... and it may be working across the industry. Here's my evidence. When registering for a Microsoft developer event in 2005, notice the shirt sizes go to 6XL ... 
But, for this year's Tech-Ed Developer conference, only 4XL ... 
I'm going to assume that Microsoft has leveraged the cool data-mining features in SQL Server to determine that 5XL and 6XL sizes are vanishing.
It's generally known that if you want to run any tests, code analysis, or database project build/deployment that you need to install one or more Team Edition of VSTS on your build server. What's not so well known are the licensing ramifications around these scenarios. Fortunately Jeff Beehler, Team System Chief of Staff, has posted on this subject. To summarize: If the users creating the builds are licensed users of the edition in question (or Team Suite), that license extends to Team Foundation Build and you don't need to purchase an additional license. One way to think about it is: the people that are using the Team editions need to be properly licensed which in turn ensures the that the build machines are covered as well. Users who merely queue (execute) and review the automated builds are only required to have a Team Foundation Server CAL.
Back home now, and I have a moment to get the photos downloaded from my camera and uploaded to my blog. Next time I'll take my SD card reader with me. As you can see, registration was quite busy. I heard that there were 4000 people there, but didn't count them myself. The long lines delayed the keynote by about an hour: 
Douglas McDowell and I snuck into the press area. Well, he was officially press (SQL Server Magazine), but I wasn't - still I took more notes than most of the other pressies there. 
The main screen was huge, and 3D. We estimated about 80' wide and 20' tall. When no slides were on the screen, there was a spinning 3D Earth enclosed in curley brackets. Hey, what about VB? 
After the keynote, there was a short walk to the LA convention center, where the breakout sessions, chalk-talks, exhibitor area, etc. Fortunately, we had these interpretive dancers along the way to keep us from getting lost. 
The line to lunch was too long, so we ducked inside to check out the exhibitor area. 
I was there (where it says "You Are Here") 
Attendees attending one of Doug Seven's chalk talks on Team System. 
Doug was all about the writing quality code and the 3 C's in his talk (Code Coverage, Code Analysis, and the new Code Metrics) 
After I turned in my evaluation form, I picked up the attendee bag, which had lots of goodies, including a hard-bound, coffee-table style book called "Heroes Happen Here" which contains IT heroes from all around the world, photographed by Carolyn Jones. And yes, I got my book signed! 
10:35 AM (Los Angeles) A fictitious developer, from the fictitious company "Fourth Coffee" is demonstrating the new, agile development features in Visual Studio 2008. She's showing off how to manage team development projects (a.k.a. team projects and work items), giving her tasks to make some changes to her code. Mostly she is showing off the split-screen editor, synchronization of code and designer, integrated design tools, and the new JavaScript debugger. 
Oops, she just called it "Team Services" as she closed out her work item. Well, we get the idea. 
In this, my first post of (hopefully) several today, I'm sitting in the keynote session (next to Douglas McDowell), listening to Tom Brokaw warm up the audience. What a nice surprise. It definitely stopped all the geeks in their tracks, to listen to his wise words, gathered from years of experience in all matters mankind.  I loved his opening line "I'm not here to write code, or wire this room". He did, however, wax poetic on the future of technology, the spirit and energy of the types of people who will drive it, and how we must handle it to get their safely." Some of his quotes during the keynote (some paraphrasing): - "The test or our place in this world is not yet complete. We don't want to become Easter Island or the Mayan civilization. The use of this technology is not just a virtual experience. If we develop capacity and leave out common sense, what then is the reward to each of us, collectively or individually? If speed overruns reason, what else gets trampled?"
- "We will not solve climate change by hitting backspace. It will do us little good to wire the world if we short circuit our consciousness, our souls and if we don't use this technology to advance mankind."
- "When I left Nightly News I said that I'm not only going to spend my time at suites in the four seasons ... but to spend time in the trenches to meet people who make a difference"
- "One day I woke up in Pakistan in a packing container with Americans who had been there for six months, trying to assess medical and health needs. When they hiked out, they put their hands on the keyboard and distilled what they had learned ... and in so doing, made a big impression ... of those of us in the West who have so much, while they (people in Pakistan) have so little."
- "This technology takes a guiding hand, an imaginative approach, and a hope ..."
- "We have the opportunity to become the next, greatest generation."
Steve Ballmer came on stage next to thank the many platinum sponsors, and discuss how "Dynamic IT" can help manage complexity and achieve agility (especially in the realm software development) 
I heard the term "Agile" about 10 times in the span of 3 minutes. More to come ...
I just got sent this announcement from AppDev . I was about to delete it when I noticed a familiar looking face of my friend (and second-time, new dad) Scott Cate! 
Time flies. It's been a year since Dr. Gray, a Microsoft research fellow and Turing Award-winner, went missing while sailing off San Francisco. A year ago, at Boise Code Camp 2.0, I hosted a session on finding Jim Gray, using Amazon's Mechanical Turk.
Now, a year after Dr. Gray went missing, the Association of Computing Machinery (the organization that holds the Turing Awards), the IEEE Computer Society and the University of California-Berkeley have joined to announce a tribute to Gray, planned for May 31 at the UC Berkeley campus. Jim Gray attended UC Berkeley from 1961 to 1969 and earned the school's very first Ph.D. in computer science. Fittingly enough, the tribute will also feature technical sessions for registered participants.
You can find more information about the tribute here: 
I know. I know. This doesn't sound like a very interesting post, but it saved me time, and hopefully it can save you some too. When you install Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft creates a "Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt" shortcut, under that program group. 
I like to take this shortcut and drop it on my Quick Launch toolbar: 
The problem is that when you install the Team Foundation Server Power Tools (or other new command line utilities) you need to put them in the path. Well, if you look at the file the shortcut calls, it's vcvarsall.bat, but don't bother editing that file because it calls vcvars32.bat, but don't bother editing that file, because it calls vsvars32.bat. If you go ahead and edit that file, you can find where the PATH is getting set, and add the Power Tools path to it: @set PATH=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\BIN;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\VCPackages;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2008 Power Tools;%PATH%
One is an award winning anti-virus writer, and the other is an expert in .NET architecture and ALM tools ... 
Do you know your geeks?
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.
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