briankel

PDC2008 ShowOff Entry: Clipboard History for Visual Studio

briankel — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:52:00 GMT

This video is a sample of one of the entries from Microsoft PDC 2008 ShowOff.

Title
Clipboard History for Visual Studio

Author:
Mark Miller, DevExpress

Short 2-3 sentence description of your video
This video demonstrates the Clipboard History feature for Visual Studio. The video also briefly references a 12-part blog series containing complete step-by-step instructions showing how to build this feature for Visual Studio 2008.

I would like to emphasize that this submission is a two-part submission – part one is the feature itself – it’s a powerful and easy to use clipboard history. Part two is the actual series of blog posts, which show developers how to create this really cool feature for their Visual Studio 2008 environment. The code and design choices behind all the features you see demonstrated in the video are explained in great detail in the blog posts. By teaching developers how to build the feature, more Visual Studio customers can learn how to extend visual studio, and that’s a good thing for the VS 2008 ecosystem.

PDC2008 ShowOff Entry: Multi-channel Virtual Earth

briankel — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:00:00 GMT

This video is a sample of one of the entries from Microsoft PDC 2008 ShowOff. We recommend downloading the high-quality WMV of this video for the best experience.

Title of the video
Multi-channel Virtual Earth

Description
This video shows a multi-channel version of the Virtual Earth control running on a custom curved screen that provides a 180 degree horizontal field of view. The screen is created using eight high-end full 1080p projectors with a professional warping and blending system. The code is a modified version of a sample project with a custom camera class to properly adjust the FOV and camera offset for each projector and some code to synchronize the camera position across the network. The system is being controlled with a wireless Xbox 360 controller.

Names of people who should receive credit
Jon Wade

Name of your organization (if any)
ACE Lab, Carleton University

The developer and designer tools you used (both Microsoft and non-Microsoft)
Visual Studio 2008 Express
Virtual Earth Control/SDK
.NET Framework 3.5

PDC2008 ShowOff Entry: Silverlight 2 Spectrum Emulator

briankel — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:00:00 GMT

This video is a sample of one of the entries from Microsoft PDC 2008 ShowOff.

Title of the video
Silverlight 2 Spectrum Emulator.

Short 2-3 sentence description of your video
A quick demonstration of my Silverlight 2 Spectrum Emulator, playing a game, writing some Spectrum BASIC, looking at the code quickly.

Silverlight 2 Version Developed By: Chris Hay (me)
Original XNA version By: Jan Jones (http://www.codeplex.com/zx360)
Original Z80 ported from Jasper by Adam Davidson and Andrew Pollard.
PNG Encoder: Joe Stegman

Chris Hay
http://silverlightuk.blogspot.com/

The developer and designer tools you used (both Microsoft and non-Microsoft)
Visual Studio 2008, Silverlight 2, C#

PDC2008 ShowOff Entry: Brian the Build Bunny

briankel — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:00:00 GMT

This video is a sample of one of the entries from Microsoft PDC 2008 ShowOff.

Title of the video

Brian the Build Bunny

The developer and designer tools you used (both Microsoft and non-Microsoft)

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server

• Expression Media Encoder

• Windows Movie Maker

• Techsmith Camtasia

• Windows Vista

• Adobe Photoshop

• Eclipse

• Windows Live Skydrive

Short 2-3 sentence description of your video

A talking, robotic, wifi fuelled rabbit - just what every office needs to keep those pesky developers in check to make sure the Continuous Integration build is working. In this video we introduce you to Brian the Build bunny, and explain how he is connected to Team Foundation Server to notify you of developer check-ins and changes in the condition of your builds. Remember, keep those builds working. You don’t want a hot cross bunny.

For more information and the code to run your own build bunny see http://www.woodwardweb.com/vsts/behind_brian_th.html

To download hi-res images of Brian see http://www.woodwardweb.com/gadgets/brian_the_build.html

Microsoft Regional Directors make PDC Predictions

briankel — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:35:00 GMT

The Microsoft Regional Directors are fired up for another great PDC! Tim Huckaby threw a rockin' RD party at his house on Saturday and Scott Stanfield was there with his camera to capture some predictions from some of your favorite Regional Directors.

Brian Harry - "We WILL be shipping an updated CTP [this fall]!"

briankel — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:18:00 GMT

Even more good news today - Brian Harry reports that we are in fact shipping another community technology preview soon. Nice! He has also blogged about a bunch of Visual Studio Team System 2010 features. Check it out...

"I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that there was some uncertainty about whether or not we would be releasing another Rosario CTP this fall. I'm happy to report that the uncertainty has been cleared up. We WILL be shipping an updated CTP! There has been a tremendous amount of new work done since the last CTP (it seems so long ago). I think you are going to be really impressed with what you see."

A peek inside the p&p Team Room

briankel — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:37:00 GMT

You have heard about the facility at p&p and how it’s built for agile teams. Now get a view inside one of the team rooms at p&p. In this video, Ajoy Krishnamoorthy and Ade Miller gives you a walkthrough a team room and shows off the various features of it such as writable walls, configurable work space, speaker phones, projectors and a special purpose column. Check it out.

Countdown to PDC2008: Did somebody say Agile Pre Con at PDC? Chat with Mary and Grigori.

briankel — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:58:00 GMT

When Dilbert talks about Agile, you know it has become main stream. This is also evident from the increased adoption of agile techniques and practices in the software development industry. Mary and Grigori just finished their duties as the program chair of the recently concluded Agile Conference and now are getting set for the Agile Pre-Conference at PDC 2008. Ajoy Krishnamoorthy sits down with Mary Poppendieck and Grigori Melnik in Toronto to talk about who they are, what they do in their day jobs and what they have planned for the Agile Pre-Conference at PDC 2008.

Countdown to PDC2008: Pre-cons

briankel — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:16:00 GMT

We've heard a lot about PDC2008 which promises to bring a boatload (official term) of information and announcements about the future of the Microsoft development platform. But before you rush out to book your trip you should also check out the list of PDC2008 pre-conferences for 11 reasons to come to Los Angeles a day early!

So what's a pre-conference? What can I expect to learn? In this Countdown to PDC2008 video we will explore pre-conferences with Jaime Rodriguez, Brian Randell, and Ajoy Krishnamoorthy.

Pex - Automated Exploratory Testing for .NET

briankel — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:56:00 GMT

Pex is a tool being developed by Microsoft Research which has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of software testing while requiring minimal, if any, effort on the part of the developer. Pex can automatically generate a set of inputs for a paramaterized unit test which can effectively excercise most, if not all, possible code paths.

I visited Nikolai Tillmann and Peli de Halleux on the Pex team for a closer look at this cool technology.

New GDR Announced for Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition

briankel — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:52:00 GMT

We caught up with Gert Drapers to get the inside scoop on the new General Distribution Release (GDR) for Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition. The GDR was announced this week at TechEd Developers and provides the following added capabilities:
- Support for SQL Server 2008
- Partial / Composite project types
- New Build & Deploy model
- All prior Power Tools releases
- Dependency Viewer
- and more...

A Community Technology Preview for this GDR may be downloaded from here.

For the highest quality viewing experience of this video+screencast we recommend viewing the high-quality WMV.

This Week on Channel 9: XNA Community Games Beta, New "Pointing Device," Algorithms and Optimizations, "Desert Island Tools"

briankel — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:28:31 GMT

This Week on Channel 9, Brian and Ed cover:

- Channel 9 v4 beta (0:35)
- Beta of Community Games on Xbox LIVE (2:10)
- Silverlight 2 beta 1 screencasts by Mike Taulty and Mike Ormond (4:35)
- Innovative Pointing Device, "Place to Pee" (5:35)
- Ed Kaim, Scott Hanselman, and Clint Rutkas: (9:25)
Ed: (11:40)
1. Script#
2. Firebug
3. Sandcastle
4. Reflector
5. IE 7 Developer Toolbar
Scott: (13:07)
1. ZoomIt
2. FeedDemon
3. del.icio.us
4. Live Mesh
5. Dark Room
More of Scott's favorites here.
Clint: (15:35)
1. ReSharper
2. Ultramon
3. Firebug
4. Synergy
5. Windows Live Writer
More of Clint's favorites here.

- Ed's pick of the week, Mike Swanson's Mladen Jankovic's Genetic Algorithm Library. (22:50)
- Scott showing off his awesome monitor rig (27:00)

- Low res version
- MP4 version

James Whittaker on Software Testing

briankel — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:13:02 GMT

I recently sat down with James Whittaker who is a Principal Program Manager Architect on the Visual Studio Team System Test Edition team. James is tasked with helping to shape the next wave of testing tools coming out of the Visual Studio Team System family of products. And since software testing is one of the major "pillars" of for the "Rosario" release of Team System, James has been hard at work.

James isn't able to comment on specific features of Rosario just yet, but instead we got his insights about how he sees software testing evolving over the next few years to help testers become more effective at finding bugs... before the customer does.

For more information on software testing techniques featuring James and company be sure to check out the MSDN Tester Center.

Better Project Management with Team Foundation Server

briankel — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:29:28 GMT

Reader's of Brian Harry's blog will be familiar with the "dogfooding statistics" he posts related to how we use Team Foundation Server at Microsoft. Brian has blogged about our deployment topology, the number of teams using TFS, the sheer scale of the number of work items and check-ins, and so on.

But a question which frequently comes up is related to how Microsoft uses Team Foundation Server to really drive business decisions. How do you know if you're on schedule? When will a feature be "done"? Where might additional resources be required? What are the latest roadblocks being faced across your teams? Answering these questions across a team of even ten people can be a challenge, let alone the hundreds or even thousands of people who work on products of "Microsoft scale."

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jeff Beehler who is the "Chief of Staff" for Visual Studio Team System. In addition to having a really cool title, Jeff is responsible for overall coordination of the teams who build Visual Studio Team System. Jeff has spent his career at Microsoft inventing better processes for managing large software projects, and he shared with us some of the ways he relies on Team Foundation Server every day to help him make project management decisions.

Testing the Zune Content Ingestion Pipeline

briankel — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:02:07 GMT

You've seen the Zune, and you've seen the newly remodeled Zune Markeplace, but have you ever wondered about the magic which goes on behind the scenes to get the music from the artists and studios into the Marketplace?

We visited Meher Daud on the Zune team whose job is to ensure that the Zune Content Ingestion Pipeline keeps flowing. It turns out that she uses Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals (aka "DBPro) to help her in her job, so I also brought Mairead O'Donovan with me from the DBPro team to find out more.

(And sorry, the yellow Zune was a special ship gift that members of the Zune team got so it's not available for purchase. Believe me, I tried!)

Personify TeamSpec with Juan Perez

briankel — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:34:16 GMT

Did you know that Microsoft Word is the most popular "requirements management" solution in the world? But while popular, it's not without its drawbacks. How do you prevent documents from becoming outdated? Where do Word documents fit in with SCM tools like Team Foundation Server?

I had a chance to sit down with Juan Perez of Personify Design and talk about how they chose to solve this problem with their new product, TeamSpec, which integrates Word documents with Team Foundation Server. Check it out...