Once of the nice things about having moved to Charleston, SC is being relatively around the corner from half of the Team Foundation Server team in Raleigh, North Carolina. I get plenty of opportunities to talk with the TFS product team in Redmond, WA but rarely get the opportunity to talk with the side that’s in Raleigh. It’s good being close now.

Yesterday, I had the privilege and honor of talking at the TFS Product Team’s All Hands meeting at the Microsoft Office in Raleigh, North Carolina. Each quarter, the entire team split between Redmond, WA and Raleigh, NC get together to talk about different topics to review the last quarter and looking forward to the future about work they want to do. It’s very similar to some “All Hands” meetings that each of our companies put together. They have had a tradition in the past to invite a customer in to talk about how they have used TFS in their daily work and I imagine that gives the entire team some insight into how people outside of Microsoft are actually using the products they spend every day creating. I was invited to be that customer for this quarter.

They also really like for you to spend some time talking about what your feature requests are for the product. I had the opportunity to discuss some of my personal areas that I’d like to see some investment made. Normally when going to events like the Microsoft MVP Summit or providing other private feedback, I take the approach of being objective and provide feedback on behalf of the people I took to and the customers that I help. I rarely bring up anything that I personally would like to see since some of the things I want are things that most people would never even touch or appreciate. However, this was my one time that I didn’t feel bad about being totally subjective and asking for my personal feature desires :)

I also had some time to spend talking with the Build team and Version Control team about problems areas that I think people will run into when TFS 2010 launches next month as well as discussing some of those things that some people really hate about TFS version control. You know who you are on Twitter :) It was a really great conversation about the problem scenarios really are that people face before arriving to frustration with the product.

I’ve said this before but I really admire and appreciate the team for the amount of effort they put into listening and acting on feedback. I promise and can tell you that they’re listening. There are plenty of features and changes even coming out in TFS 2010 that were things that I know that one of the MVPs, customers, or I had originally suggested. That means they’re not only listening but they are doing something about it.

Anyhow, it was a very productive day and really enjoyed the time. I’m so glad to be an MVP that is tied to such a great product group.

Ed Blankenship

Tomorrow, I’ll be presenting in this month’s geekSpeak about migrating from Visual SourceSafe to Team Foundation Server 2010.  I’m sure we’ll get through the VSS content pretty quickly so with the time left we’ll talk about new branching & merging features, branch visualization, and gated check-in.

In this geekSpeak, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Ed Blankenship discusses migrating source code from Visual SourceSafe, including the history. There has not been a better time to migrate to the newest Microsoft source control offering, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server, because Microsoft Visual SourceSafe support is ending soon and Team Foundation Server will be part of Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscriptions in 2010. Ed discusses specific version-control features to help you become more productive like branching and merging visualization, annotate, shelving, and gated check-in. This geekSpeak is hosted by Glen Gordon and Brian Hitney.

Registration for the event available here:  http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032438525

BTW – The end-of-life support date for Visual SourceSafe is mid-year 2011.  Don’t get stuck on an unsupported product :) especially one that’s holding your source code!

Update :  The recording of this presentation is now available on Channel 9 here:  http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/geekSpeak/geekSpeak-Recording-Migrating-to-Team-Foundation-Server-from-Visual-SourceSafe/ .  Sorry about the dropped call in the middle of the presentation.  Also, here’s some links that I mentioned during the talk:

• Whitepaper – “From VSS to TFS”:  http://sstjean.blogspot.com/2006/10/document-from-vss-to-tfs-introduction.html
• Whitepaper – Exposing TFS to the Internet:  http://blogs.msdn.com/ablock/archive/2009/08/24/exposing-tfs-2010-beta-2-to-the-internet.aspx
• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 Training Kit (Labs, Videos, Slide Decks, etc.): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=752CB725-969B-4732-A383-ED5740F02E93&displaylang=en

Ed Blankenship

Tomorrow, I’ll be presenting in this month’s geekSpeak about migrating from Visual SourceSafe to Team Foundation Server 2010.  I’m sure we’ll get through the VSS content pretty quickly so with the time left we’ll talk about new branching & merging features, branch visualization, and gated check-in.

In this geekSpeak, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Ed Blankenship discusses migrating source code from Visual SourceSafe, including the history. There has not been a better time to migrate to the newest Microsoft source control offering, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server, because Microsoft Visual SourceSafe support is ending soon and Team Foundation Server will be part of Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscriptions in 2010. Ed discusses specific version-control features to help you become more productive like branching and merging visualization, annotate, shelving, and gated check-in. This geekSpeak is hosted by Glen Gordon and Brian Hitney.

Registration for the event available here:  http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032438525

BTW – The end-of-life support date for Visual SourceSafe is mid-year 2011.  Don’t get stuck on an unsupported product :) especially one that’s holding your source code!

Ed Blankenship

Just wanted to take a few seconds to post the slide deck I’m using for my Real World TFS sessions.  I’ll post a link to the recording of the MVP TV session earlier today when it’s made available!

Ed Blankenship

Also really excited about doing my first ever MVP TV set up by the Microsoft MVP program.  Hope to see you there!  We have an extra thirty minutes at the end so be sure to bring your questions.

MVP TV: Real World TFS: Tips for a Successful Team System Implementation

Wednesday, July 15^th, 2009 | 9:00am – 10:30am (PDT, Redmond time) or 12:00pm – 1:30pm (EDT, New York City time)

Targeted: This Product Group Interaction is open to  all Developer MVPs in all Technical Expertise and  public audience.

So you’ve decided that Visual Studio Team System & Team Foundation Server is going to bring your organization added value (because it will :)) but what do you do now?  Please join Ed Blankenship as he covers the 2.5 years of successful implementation of VSTS and the experience of that journey at Infragistics, the world’s leading maker of software development tools.  The session intends to cover each phase of the implementation of all affected areas for a smooth adoption:  Version Control, Builds, Work Item Tracking, global deployment, moving multiple teams, training, automated testing, migration from legacy systems, and integration with other systems and TFS.  The goal will be to go through at a high-level of what it takes to make you successful by learning from the challenges and obstacles overcome.  We’ll also look in the future with VSTS 2010 and see how strategic planning will help make a successful adoption of the new features in the upcoming 2010 release.  The session is led by a Microsoft MVP (Team System) & Champ who has been in the trenches during the whole implementation.

Prerequisites:  A healthy attitude in learning from other peoples challenges and a strong desire to make real change within your organization!

About Ed Blankenship: Ed is a Microsoft MVP, Microsoft Certified Application Developer, and works as the Release Engineering Manager at Infragistics, makers of the world's leading presentation layer tools and components. His expertise consists of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server. He is also a technical evangelist for Rich Client applications (primarily Windows Forms & Windows Presentation Foundation.) He has been a technical editor for several Silverlight books, an article author, and has spoken at various user groups, events, and conferences.

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Ed Blankenship

While I’m up in New Jersey working at the Infragistics headquarters office, I’m going to have the privilege of speaking at the New York City VSTS User Group on July 28, 2009 at 6:30 PM.  Come see me if you’re in the area!  Because of security concerns at the building, you do need to register ahead of time if you’re planning to attend.

Real World TFS: Tips for a Successful Team System Implementation

Description:
So you've decided that Visual Studio Team System & Team Foundation Server is going to bring your organization added value (because it will :)) but what do you do now? Please join Ed Blankenship as he covers the 2.5 years of successful implementation of VSTS and the experience of that journey at Infragistics, the world's leading maker of software development tools. The session intends to cover each phase of the implementation of all affected areas for a smooth adoption: Version Control, Builds, Work Item Tracking, global deployment, moving multiple teams, training, automated testing, migration from legacy systems, and integration with other systems and TFS. The goal will be to go through at a high-level of what it takes to make you successful by learning from the challenges and obstacles overcome. We'll also look in the future with VSTS 2010 and see how strategic planning will help make a successful adoption of the new features in the upcoming 2010 release. The session is led by a Microsoft MVP (Team System) & Champ who has been in the trenches during the whole implementation.

Presenter: Ed Blankenship

Bio:
Ed is a Microsoft MVP, Microsoft Certified Application Developer, and works as the Release Engineering Manager at Infragistics, makers of the world's leading presentation layer tools and components. His expertise includes Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server. He is also a technical evangelist for Rich Client applications (primarily Windows Forms & Windows Presentation Foundation.) He has been a technical editor for several Silverlight books, an article author, and has spoken at various user groups, events, radio shows, and conferences.

Date/Time:  07-28-2009 6:30 - 8:00 PM

Location: Microsoft Offices in NYC at 1290 Avenue of Americas, 6th Floor

Click here to Register

Ed Blankenship

I’m up really early this morning.  I’m about to head to the airport to spend my Independence Day weekend in the Carolinas for some much needed beach vacation and visit with friends.  Thankfully, I didn’t miss Martin Woodward letting me know that the latest Radio TFS episode was made available just a few moments ago that includes my interview about our use of TFS and Visual Studio Team System at Infragistics.  It’s a longer episode than normal so it’s perfect if you’re going to be spending some time at the beach like me and listen to a fun talk.  We both really enjoyed chatting for this episode so we hope you enjoy it as well!

Using TFS with Ed Blankenship

In this episode we sit down and chat with Ed Blankenship about the use of Team Foundation Server at Infragistics. Ed has had some interesting challenges and experiences in running their TFS instance.  Additionally they have done some fairly advanced integration work which we discuss in detail.  This is a double-length show, so hopefully plenty of stuff to enjoy if you are sunning yourself on a beach somewhere.

Ed is the Release Engineering Manager at Infragistics, makers of the world's leading presentation layer tools and components.  He is also a Microsoft MVP in Visual Studio Team System.

     Play Now: Using TFS with Ed Blankenship

As the Release Engineering Manager, he leads the Release Engineering Department which is responsible for automated builds, creating product installers, packaging source code for customers, source configuration management/version control, metrics, release management, work item tracking, licensing enforcement, and development of internal productivity tools.  The department also is responsible for TFS Operations & Maintenance.

Ed has been a technical editor for the Wrox Silverlight 1.0, Silverlight 2 Developer's Guide, and Silverlight 2 Bible books, author of numerous articles, and has spoken at various user groups, events, and conferences.

Links from the show:

• Ed's Blog
• Microsoft Process Template
• Martin's Blog Post on Check-in Policies
• How to turn on Activity Logging with TFS 2005

As usual send any feedback to radiotfs@gmail.com.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions based on the Radio TFS chat.  I’m more than happy to get them answered for you!

Take care,

Ed B.

Come join!  Here’s the website and the details.

Website:  http://www.tsug-ve.com/

JUNE EMEA Meeting
Meeting Date: Thursday, June 18th, 2009
Time: 10:00AM PDT/SLT (18:00 UTC)
Location:  Microsoft Island in Second Life

Real World TFS:  Tips for a Successful Team System Implementation

OK, you’ve decided that Visual Studio Team System & Team Foundation Server is going to bring your organization added value (because it will :)) but what do you do now?  This session will cover the 2.5 year successful implementation of VSTS and the experience of that journey at Infragistics, the world’s leading maker of software development tools.  The session intends to cover over each phase of the implementation over all of the affected areas for a smooth adoption:  Version Control, Builds, Work Item Tracking, global deployment, moving multiple teams, training, automated testing, migration from legacy systems, and integration with other systems and TFS.  The goal will be to go through at a high-level what it takes to make you successful by learning from the challenges and obstacles overcome.  We’ll also look to the future with VSTS 2010 and see how strategic planning will help make a successful adoption of the new features in the upcoming 2010 release.  The session is led by a Team System MVP & Champ who has been in the trenches during the whole implementation.

Prerequisites:  A healthy attitude from learning from other’s challenges and a strong desire to make real change at your organization!

Take care,

Ed B.

I had a really good time last night speaking to the Dallas VSTS User Group about the Microsoft Process Template.  If you want more information, I wrote a blog post shortly after the public release of the MPT.  I was really sick last month when I was supposed to speak so I’m really glad I got the opportunity to make it up.

One of the things I really enjoy about the group was the open session time after the scheduled talk to discuss problems people were facing with Team System and the group attempts to come up with possible solutions.  That’s really a great use of time for a specialized user group like this one.

As a fun extra, thankfully the Demo Gods were okay with me and saved this Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) until after I was finished using the VPC during my talk :)  Everyone insisted that I take a screenshot and share with the rest of the world so enjoy!

Ed B.

P.S. As a side note, the experience whenever your evaluation license runs out in Windows Server 2008 has definitely improved.  It no longer gives you a BSOD.  I was using TFS 2008 SP1 installed in a Windows Server 2003 VPC for my demos.

I’ve been in the middle of a lot lately and completely forgot to mention Tulsa TechFest 2008!  This will be my third year speaking and interestingly I have the only Team System talk this year.  If you’re around the area be sure to come by to learn more about automating your build & packaging process using Team System.  I’m going to do my Team Build talk that I did earlier this year at the Dallas VSTS User Group but we won’t go into as much depth since we only have 1.5 hours.  Looks like another great year with almost.  Infragistics has been a proud & regular sponsor of this event and I’m honored to have been invited again!

[Update]

Wanted to be sure I posted my slides and then also made the link to the awesome build lifecycle poster done by our friends in South Africa.  Thanks for keeping me honest!

Ed B.

I'll be speaking on July 1, 2008 at the Dallas Visual Studio Team System User Group. Starts at 6 PM.  This is going to be a really exciting session for me personally and I love that we have a big block of time to get into some really fun Team Build details.  I think we are meeting at the Notion Solutions office in Irving for the July meeting but I'll double-check and update if there is a change.

Here are a few topics that I'll make sure we talk about:

• New Features for Team Build 2008
• Fun Stuff around Builds at Infragistics
• Build Notification Power Tool
• Building Java applications using Team Build & TeamPrise - (This blows people's minds away)
• Building Installers using Wix
• New Changes in TFS 2008 Service Pack 1 for Team Build
• If time, Extensibility with the Team Build API

Be sure to sign up on the user group website to get updates and the RSVP link whenever it gets sent out.

Ed B.

I recently gave a presentation @ Microsoft on Visual Studio 2008 Team System to a crowd of about 40. The presentation was an all day event where we discussed existing and new features to Team System 2008.

Slide Deck:   Tech Briefing.rar (3.41 MB)   
Presenters:   Ed Kisinger, Sogeti  Topic: Architect/Developer 
                   Tony Mocella, Sogeti Topic: Project Management
                   Brent Lintz, Sogeti Topic: Build/Version Control

Ed K.

Grant Hinkson (our Director of Visual Design at Infragistics) and I will be doing our talk "Meeting in the Middle - Designer/Developer Interaction in WPF."  It looks like we have the first breakout session on Tuesday, October 9 at 9:00 AM.  Take a look to see what other sessions are going on:  https://admin.viewcentral.com/events/uploads/ms_events/agenda.html

Session Details

Date:  10/9/2007

Time:  9:00am – 10:15am

Title:  Meeting in the Middle - Designer/Developer Interaction in WPF

Abstract:

In this session, Ed and Grant will highlight many of the lessons they learned when developing the enterprise-level WPF reference application, Tangerine. Tangerine is an asset browser built using the data provider model to browse the Amazon online catalog. Additionally, they will discuss the Software Release Status application currently under development. This project management tool uses the power of WPF to visually represent the status of your software projects using data from your Team Foundation Server. You'll get an inside look at the interaction between development and design, and gain insight into practical solutions for common problems.

Brad Abrams, Group Product Manager for the Microsoft .NET Framework, will be the keynote speaker and will be talking about the Rising Tide of User Experience.  Pretty awesome!  You know we like UX!

Want to Save Some Money on Registration?

Well, just because I want to make sure everyone is coming... If you use the following RSVP code, RM07EXTB, it will save you $100 of your registration.

More Info

http://www.remix07boston.com

What to expect at ReMIX07 Boston …

If you’re in the web business, learn about:

• Building a better user experience to unlock new revenue opportunities
• Forging tighter, stickier customer connections
• Building innovative media experiences into your site

If you’re a web developer, build:

• Silverlight applications quickly and easily
• Sites and applications that consume Windows Live services
• Rich, interactive sites made for the next web

If you’re a web designer, learn about:

• Using Silverlight to design gorgeous and highly functional user interfaces
• How a real-world application is built and the best practices associated with it
• The suite of Expression tools that revolutionize the way designers work with developers

If you attend, regardless of your job role, check out:

• Xbox Gaming Area where you can test your skills at Halo 3 and Guitar Hero among others
• Express Yourself Design Contest where key design agencies compete to solve a real-world design problem
• Stay tuned: We may feature some cool products and demos around XNA, Popfly, Robotics Studio and Surface

It’s Happening Here

Monday-Tuesday, October 8-9, 2007

October 8:             Registration & Breakfast from 7:00-9:00 am
Keynote & Breakouts from 9:00 a.m.-5:45 pm
Welcome Reception from 6:00-9:00 pm

October 9:             Registration & Breakfast from 8:00-9:00 am

                                Keynote & Breakouts from 9:00 am-5:00 pm

Hyatt Regency Cambridge

575 Memorial Drive,
Cambridge, MA 02139

For directions click here.

Ed B.

Come check us out if you'll be in the area!  Ambrose Little and I will be giving our WPF and UX talk on Thursday, August 2 at the New Jersey Microsoft Developer's Group in Iselin, NJ.  We've got some exciting new stuff if you've already heard this talk from us!

August 2nd, 2007

Windows Presentation Foundation, Infragistics

Humanizing Software: Creating Better User Experiences with WPF Ed and Ambrose will discuss the concepts and disciplines involved in the field of user experience and show how WPF can be used to empower developers to create better user experiences through some of its built-in features.

Ed B.

Saturday, May 19th I'll be speaking in the Poconos in Pennsylvania at TECH Bash 2007.  If you'll be in the area, make sure you attend!

Session Topic:  Humanizing Software:  Creating Better User Experience with WPF

Session Description:  End Users today expect great and exciting experiences in their software that allow desirability, findability, and a high value of information presented. We will discuss Microsoft’s latest technology to enable developers to create great User Experiences by using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF.) We will also briefly cover User Experience (UX) and related topics.

Location: 

Luzerne County Community College
1333 South Prospect Street
Nanticoke, PA 18634-3899
800.377.LCCC

Ed B.