Shut-Up and Smile

Get rid of U3 on your USB stick

2008-07-04T06:08:00Z

I have a few SanDisk Cruzer USB sticks. One thing that annoys me is the U3 app. I appreciate what they're trying to do ... OK ... wait ...maybe I don't.

No, really, I just want it off my stick.

Go to SanDisk's site and get their U3 Launchpad Removal Tool.

Happy removal!

End of line.

I have the power

2008-07-03T03:40:00Z

No, not time for He-Man, just time for a mobile hardware upgrade.

I spend a good portion of my time working with virtual machines. And in doing so, I'm always looking for more power when I'm on the road.

This week I was able to make three great updates to my Lenovo T61p.

First, I upgraded my RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB. I had no issues. Just removed the old RAM and installed the new, rebooted and there it was in all its glory. FYI, you won't find 8 GB listed as an option on Lenovo's site yet or on many of the 3rd party RAM sites. However, just about any laptop using an Intel chip that truly supports 4 GB of RAM and uses the Santa Rosa platform or newer should support 8 GB just fine (YMMV).

Second, I upgraded to a new hard drive, Hitachi's 320 GB, 7,200 RPM monster. I always go for the fastest drive, then size. Watch when you go to upgrade your own. Some of the larger drives out there now are 12.5 mm, not the more common 9mm size used in most laptops.

Third, I installed a fresh copy of Window Server 2008 x64 and the RTM version of Hyper-V. Hyper-V is Microsoft's next generation virtualization technology (I'll blog more about it soon and why you care).

Now I just need to upgrade my VSTS VPC to Hyper-V and I'm ready to go.

I got my RAM from Kingston (FYI, it's on sale right now).

I got my hard drive from OWC (Currently has a $30 rebate)

So, get out there and pump some coin into the economy and feel the power.

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Cross-posted to my Pluralsight blog.

A New Year Starts

2008-07-02T04:37:00Z

Yes, it is July 1, 2008. and while it's not the traditional New Year, for me it is for two reasons. First, Microsoft has decided I didn't cause too much trouble over the last 12 months so I get to continue being a VSTS MVP. Thanks! Second, Microsoft starts their new fiscal year which means there's work to get busy on, now!

Speaking of new work this, I'll be doing a VSTS pre-con at the PDC this year in Los Angeles. Over the next few weeks, I'll expand on what I'm going to be talking about so if you're not busy on Sunday, October 26, come on down!

Also, I'll be flying down to South Africa for Tech Ed so if you're going to be in Durban, stop on by and say Hello.

Links from today's VSTS workshop at VSLive! Orlando

2008-05-16T14:00:00Z

Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server and Team Suite VPC Image (Trial)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c7a809d8-8c9f-439f-8147-948bc6957812&displaylang=en

Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server VPC Image (Trial)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=72262EAD-E49D-43D4-AA45-1DA2A27D9A65&displaylang=en

Brian Harry's Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry

Licensing Whitepaper
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8883276

Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2005 Power Tool
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2105C9EE-565E-47B9-A5AC-9A8FF8A07862&displaylang=en

Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2008 Power Tool
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c568fba9-3a62-4781-83c6-fdfe79750207&displaylang=en

Spec available for "Codename TFS Bug Submission Portal"
http://blogs.msdn.com/hakane/archive/2008/03/25/spec-available-for-codename-tfs-bug-submission-portal.aspx

Teamprise 3.0: provides access to TFS from Windows, Mac OS/X, Linux and more
http://www.teamprise.com/

Team Foundation Server Administration Tool
http://www.codeplex.com/TFSAdmin

Team Project Limits
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa974183(VS.80).aspx

Rules changes: Static Code Analysis 2005 to 2008
http://blogs.msdn.com/fxcop/archive/2008/01/07/faq-which-rules-shipped-in-which-version.aspx

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VSTS 2008 VPC Images are available now

2007-12-21T16:20:00Z

Get the details on my Pluralsight VSTS blog.

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On my way to Tech Ed EMEA, Developers

2007-11-02T16:35:00Z

I'm sitting on UA 934 waiting for them to tell me to "turn that thing off". :-)

In either, case I fly to London, then on to Barcelona, Spain. I'm doing four VSTS talks this year (one with the bright Mr. Woodward).

More details to follow. If you're there, say hello.

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No Rest for the Wicked

2007-08-03T13:30:00Z

Well, last weekend they released Orcas Beta 2.

Today, Rosario. Rosario you ask? Yes, this is the post-Orcas version of Team Foundation Server and related bits. Rosario is “built” on Orcas so this isn't a new CLR, .NET Framework, etc.

So, skip the BBQ or getting the kids ready for school. Download this first CTP and let Microsoft know what you think. After all, they're releasing early so you can give them feedback.

Oh, here's the download URL. Also, here's a link to a paper about Rosario.

FYI, they're only posting a VPC for this first release. So what are you waiting for? Download away.

One more thing: Jeff Beehler, VSTS Chief of Staff, has info on his blog blog.

Edit: messed up the URLs. Too excited. :-p

Edit 2: added link to Jeff's blog.

Cross-post from my VSTS blog.

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Of Dates and Blog Posts

2007-07-07T22:50:00Z

It’s funny how human beings relate to dates. For example, every 365 days or so (give or take a leap year), many of us on this planet feel a sense of renewal with the coming of a new year. I tend to be this way. It provides a way of tracking one's life. With today being 7/7/7, I couldn’t help but see this as a good “date” to start blogging again. In fact, not only am I going to start blogging more here (really, I mean it :-) ), but I’ve started two new blogs (nothing like going for the trifecta)!

The first blog is over at Pluralsight. Last year, I joined up with the boys to teach VSTS and now I’m going to blog about it (primarily) over there.

The second blog is about trying something different. Go take a look if you’re interested in my journey with a new piece of hardware and its software.

More to come at all three locations. For now, I’m just happy to get writing again. Talk to you soon.

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Tech Ed 2007, Orlando--Monday Morning

2007-06-04T04:35:00Z

What was I thinking? :-)

Yes last night was late; mostly due to it being Ted Pattison's birthday today.

In either case, Richard, Rocky, and I are in the main hall waiting to see if Microsoft has any secrets to reveal. We shall see.

8:35am Eastern.

Update One: 8:49am Eastern

BobMu's keynote started with a video making a parody of Back to the Future with Christopher Lloyd making fun of past "failed" Microsoft technologies like Hailstorm, Cairo, Storage Plus, "Bob", and even Clippy.

Christopher Lloyd just drove on stage with BobMu in a Back to the Future Delorian.

Update Two: 9:00am Eastern

Bob’s been doing his intro but hasn’t said much. “Doc Brown” said he would call BS if he heard Bob laying out some weird vision.

Update Three: 9:02am Eastern (I think you’ve got part now)

It’s all about “The Journey towards Dynamic”. Tom Bittman from Gartner just came out after a video about Energizer. So far all “IT”, all vision, no meat. WTF. Why did I get up this early?

Update Four: 9:05am

Tom’s talking about IT and agility and hot thi is the “major business differentiator in a connected world”. <sigh> I’m not saying I disagree but tell me something I don’t know.

Update Five: 9:10am

Tom’s still talking. Sheesh. He’s using the A word—agile. Now IT pro’s will be using this and so will all the CIO’s where listen to Gartner.

Update Six: 9:20am

Bob’s talking about new System Center tools and virtualization. Finally some I care about. Bob just announced that Windows Server 2008 “Server Core” will support IIS 7. However, he didn’t mention ASP.NET at all. Jeff Woolsey from the Microsoft VM team is on stage demoing a bunch of VMs running on “Viridian” (Windows Virtualization) and using SCVMM to manage things. He’s showing a V2V conversion—a VMWare VM to Windows Virtualization. He’s talking about SCVMM’s support for Power Shell (everything’s scriptable AND the tool generates scripts for you). He’s demoing a big 64-bit box with a VM with 6 GB of RAM and quad “virtual” processors. Now he’s showing “Quick Migration”—moving a running VM from one machine to another server. Nice. Now he’s showing SC “MOM” 2007 for monitoring. Pretty pictures. :-p

Update Seven: 9:41am

A new demo of System Center 2007. Showing so cool stuff based upon SML-based models. Big step up from NT 4.0 Server. He’s showing the tool monitoring a custom application (web service). He’s showing the “Distributed Application Designer” for IT folks. It has a DSL interface similar to TFS’ Whitehorse. Well, Katmai has a new name—SQL Server 2008. The guy doing the demo is showing tools to manage Katmai .. uh SQL Server 2008 servers. They’re building “modeling” into server products.

Update Eight: 9:50am

Service-Enabled Application Platform is the new slide. Maybe we’re getting to some developer stuff? Mike Woods from the BizTalk team is onstage. The reason I got up. My buddy Jon Flanders is supposed to get some time on stage (he did some of the keynote code). Let’s see. He’s showing BizTalk Server 2006 R2. He’s just published a WCF Service into an application. He’s showing SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services. Showing Dundas controls—a map control—in the report designer. Hey there’s Jon on stage bringing a “box” on stage with a RFID. Jon didn’t say a word but he carries a box really well. Alternate career path?

Update Nine: 10:00am

User-Focused Software is the new slide. Brian Goldfarb’s coming out to show Visual Studio 2008—ah Orcas has name. He’s doing a VSTO 3.0 demo, showing Outlook Form Regions for Outlook 2007 and the new Visual Designer designers. He’s putting a custom WPF control on the region. A picture of Jay Roxe and Eric Carter was on the WPF control. LOL. Only one line of code needed to make this work according to Brian. :-p He’s hooking to Excel Services and building a second custom form region. Only two lines of code here! :-p He’s now pimping the Ribbon via the new Visual Studio designer. And guess what, only ONE LINE OF CODE to enable things! Nice demo overall. But only four lines of code. Yeah right. I’ve got some property to sell you if you buy that!

Update Ten: 10:07am

Jamie Cool is here to demo Silverlight. He’s showing the media player playing the Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer trailer in 720p HD. He’s now playing two videos playing at once in FireFox (wait now 10 videos at once). He’s now showing the Silverlight installation experience. New pretty shining interface. It installs in “seconds”. :-p He’s showing a Silverlight Chess App. He’s comparing a version written in .NET and JavaScript—.NET and JavaScript “play” each other in the game and of course, the AI Engine in .NET works. Now he’s showing “Top Banana”—a next-gen video editing application built in Silverlight—all running in a browser (IE7). Total download size of the application is 50K. And they wrote the application in three weeks. :-p Pushing how it was built using tons of things you already know--.NET, the CLR, C#, etc.

Update Eleven: 10:10am

Microsoft’s committed to “heterogeneity”—is that a word? Orcas and Windows 2008 are shipping “late this year” according to BobMu. SQL Server 2008 ships in yes, 2008. We’re in warp up mode. Lots of new stuff shipping.

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Virtual PC 2007 has RTM'd--get it while it's Hot!

2007-02-20T08:20:00Z

Yep, it's here.

Main page. [0] (Shiny and new).
Download page. [1] (For both x86 and x64 hosts--two seperate downloads)

What's new?

x64 host support (but only x86 guests)
Vista host support
Vista guest support

End of line.

[0] http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en

NewSID and Vista

2007-01-04T21:09:00Z

The other day I was working with a virtual machine image running Windows Vista and I wanted to see if NewSID would work. Well it didn't. In asking around, I got a tip from an old friend, Michael Kaplan—try running elevated.

So, I did. I re-ran it as the 'real' Administrator and guess what, it worked. It seems I was bitten by something that will bite many of us as Vista adoption grows: User Account Control (UAC). The problem was even though I was running as a local Administrator (a member of the local Administrators group), I wasn't the über-Admin. When an application runs that needs certain administrative privileges you should get a UAC dialog. NewSID however doesn't provide a manifest telling Vista it needs higher privileges so it just ran and failed.

If you have trouble with a program on Vista, a quick way to see if it's a UAC problem is to right-click on the item and choose the Run Elevated option from the context menu.

End of line.

Don't make resolutions, refactor

2007-01-03T22:10:00Z

Over the last few days I've been working on a whitepaper about building VSTO 2005 SE add-ins and how to factor the design. Today while eating lunch, I pushed away from the sweets and selected a fresh banana (or nana as my three year old would say).

That got me thinking? Too often people start off on a quest to make dramatic changes to their life each new year only to fail by the end of January. I think we all can learn from the Agile Community and just learn to be persistent and constantly strive for a better implementation off ourselves.

That's my only goal for 2007—to constantly refactor myself to be better in everything I do.

End of line.

Virtual PC 2007 RC is available now on Connect

2007-01-02T23:30:00Z

Get it here.

See my earlier post for what's new for Virtual PC 2007 in general.

Ben Armstrong has a list of what's new for this release. A key item is a fix for users running laptops that have a key repeat problem.

Make sure you read the updated Release Notes (a separate download). One issue I that was having with an earlier build was drag & drop from a guest to a Vista host would fail.

From the Release Notes:

Drag and drop after upgrading Virtual Machine Additions on a Windows Vista guest

On a Windows Vista guest, when you upgrade from any of the earlier versions (including 13.709 and 13.715) of Virtual Machine Additions to the current version of Virtual Machine Additions, drag and drop between the host and guest does not work. To resolve this issue, uninstall any earlier version of Virtual Machine Additions installed. Then install the version of Virtual Machine Additions provided with this release.

I've not had a chance to test it out, but I'll follow up once I've given it a go. For now, I'm running the x64 edition of Virtual PC 2007 on my Vista Ultimate box only and keeping VPC 2004 SP1 on my main boxes. After all, it is still a beta.

The version number of this release is 6.0.142 and the additions is 13.802 (13.724 being the Beta additions).

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2007, what will it bring?

2007-01-01T21:30:00Z

As I prepare to shutdown on this New Year's Day, I started thinking, “Where did 2006 go?”

Looking at my United Mileage Plus statement I see that I flew 100,232 miles. Well, that answers part of my question. Six VSLive shows (SFO, YYZ, MCO, LAS, BOS, and DFW) and two Microsoft shows (Tech Ed US in Boston and Tech Ed EMEA in Barcelona, Spain) and I was on my way. I also had a few trips to the mothership, some VSTS training, and a two weddings to attend and more.

But it wasn’t all travel. I was able to spend almost three months at home without getting on a plane. As part of that time home, my wife, son, and I welcomed our new daughter to the world in September. One of the things I did quite a bit of in 2006 was writing. I’ll post some links later this week. For now, it’s time to get some rest. Having a baby in the house as well as a 3 year old seems to be a recipe for colds. I think I’ve been sick more this December (and now this January--I was in bed by 10pm on New Year's Eve) than I have in an entire year. Oh well, at least I’m home.

Happy New Year to all and I hope your 2007 is better than your 2006.

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.NET 3.0 Goodness via .NET U

2006-10-16T09:05:00Z

Found this today via Gunderloy, .NET University, a project setup by my old buddy Doug Turnure. In a previous life, Doug and I travelled around teaching those who would listen the love that was COM and VB. Go Doug!

Check it out and and let Doug know what you think. And did someone say free t-shirt?

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