I found this awesome site of Diagrams/Posters, all of which are free for download. You need to register. Lots of posters in JPEG or PDF format.

Here is a small list of what the site contains:

I believe this site is managed by a VSTS MVP from South Africa.

Ed K.

The Patterns and Practices Team has released beta 1 of the TFS Guide. This is a free download from CodePlex. Click here to download the guide.

Parts

Chapters

• Introduction
• Ch 01 - Introducing the Team Environment
• Ch 02 - Team Foundation Server Architecture
• Ch 03 - Structuring Projects and Solutions
• Ch 04 - Structuring Projects and Solutions in Team Foundation Server
• Ch 05 - Defining Your Branching and Merging Strategy
• Ch 06 - Managing Source Control Dependencies in Visual Studio Team System
• Ch 07 - Team Build Explained
• Ch 08 - Setting Up Continuous Integration with Team Build
• Ch 09 - Setting Up Scheduled Builds with Team Build
• Ch 10 - Large Project Considerations
• Ch 11 - Project Management Explained
• Ch 12 - Work Items Explained
• Ch 13 – MSF Agile Projects
• Ch 14 - Process Templates Explained
• Ch 15 - Reporting Explained
• Ch 16 - Team Foundation Server Deployment
• Ch 17 - Providing Internet Access to Team Foundation Server

Source: Microsoft Patterns and Practices

Ed K.

We really apologize about the downtime for the last couple of days.  While we were changing web hosts we thought we would change blogging software and move all of the old blog posts over... Yeah that just didn't work out well.  Then the original dasBlog version we were using wouldn't work... We have had issues with some of the features in the past.

So what did I do????

I'm did the unthinkable... use a pre-ALPHA daily build dasBlog!  Naw, don't worry - it seems pretty stable (The dasBlog web site uses the version we are using: dasBlog 1.9.6315.0)

We're going to use the Akismet service to block comment/trackback spam (which if you didn't know we had turned off all trackbacks and stuff because we got so much SPAM that we still even need to clean up.)  We really HATE SPAM....

It's all turned back on now and we turned off CAPTCHA on the comment entry pages that people just hate.

Everyone is back up and going now so if you happen to find any problems please let us know!

Now, Ed K. is at TechEd 2007 right now and I'll be there later this week on Thursday.

Ed B.

It's out there and available:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions

MSRP:  $499.99 - OUCH!

Bad thing though is that Expression Blend (along with the rest of Expression Studio) is only available for Team Suite with MSDN Premium subscribers.  Expression Blend and Web are the only products released in the Studio as of now.  MSDN Premium subscribers without Team Suite are still licensed for Expression Web which is already available in Subscriber Downloads.

In the words of Rob Caron:

The best deal is reserved for Team Suite customers with MSDN Premium subscriptions, who will receive the entire Expression Studio. The value of Team Suite just gets sweeter.

You can read more about the Expression Studio for MSDN subscribers announcement here:  Listening to your feedback - Expression and MSDN

Ed B.

Just a quick note:

While modifing some NANT files today for our BizTalk 2006 deployment I notice the gacutil is no longer located in the framework folder i.e C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727  as it was in the previous versions of the .Net Framework. It is now located here: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\bin\gacutil.exe

Ed K.

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.

Announced at MIX this morning...  Microsoft is giving people the opportunity to host up to 4GB!!!! of video.  That's crazy awesome!  Go visit the site for more info:  https://silverlight.live.com

Microsoft® Silverlight™ Streaming by Windows Live™ is a companion service for Silverlight that makes it easier for developers and designers to deliver and scale rich media as part of their Silverlight applications. The service offers web designers and developers a free and convenient solution for hosting and streaming cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences and rich interactive applications that run on Windows™ and Mac. Combined with the ability to create content with Microsoft® Expression Studio and other 3rd party tools, Web designers and content publishers wishing to integrate Silverlight applications into their online properties can enjoy complete control of the end user experience.

While the product is in pre-release, storage and delivery is free up to 4 GB, with outbound streaming up to DVD quality (700 Kbps). As we move out of Beta, developers/designers will have continued use of the service with up to 1 million minutes of free video streaming at 700 Kpbs per site per month. Unlimited streaming will also be available for free with advertising, or with payment of a nominal fee for the service for use without advertising.

 

Ed B.

Absolutely hilarious story of a banking computer system crash... I had heard it before from someone before but didn't know if it was true or not.  Take a look:  http://www.thehumorarchives.com/joke/A_true_story_of_computer_stupidity

In March 1992 a man living in Newtown near Boston Massachusetts received a bill for his as yet unused credit card stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. In April he received another and threw that one away too. The following month the credit card company sent him a very nasty note stating they were going to cancel his card if he didn*t send them $0.00 by return of post. He called them, talked to them, they said it was a computer error and told him they*d take care of it.

The following month he decided that it was about time that he tried out the troublesome credit card figuring that if there were purchases on his account it would put an end to his ridiculous predicament. However, in the first store that he produced his credit card in payment for his purchases he found that his card had been canceled. He called the credit card company who apologized for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it. The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue. Assuming that having spoken to the credit card company only the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out. The next month he got a bill for $0.00 stating that he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt.

Finally giving in he thought he would play the company at their own game and mailed them a check for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the credit card company nothing at all. A week later, the man*s bank called him asking him what he was doing writing a check for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank replied that the $0.00 check had caused their check processing software to fail. The bank could not now process ANY checks from ANY of their customers that day because the check for $0.00 was causing the computer to crash. The following month the man received a letter from the credit card company claiming that his check had bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a check by return of post they would be taking steps to recover the debt. The man, who had been considering buying his wife a computer for her birthday, bought her a typewriter instead.

Ed B.

Okay... so in hindsight this is so stupid but I only post so it won't cause you as much time as it did me!

So I'm in VS 2005 after installing the Orcas Beta 1 and I needed to get something from the Team Foundation Server... BUT I COULDN'T!  All of the context menus on the files in Source Control Explorer kept telling me that there were "No Commands Available."  "I don't think so!  We're not playing this game" said me to the computer. :)

Of course my first thought was that it might have had something to do with the Orcas install.  So I did a reinstall of both VS 2005 and Team Explorer but it didn't help any.  Aggravated now I begin my quest for the answer.

I don't know how it happened but the fix is simple:  Make sure Team Foundation Server is selected as the source control plug-in.  You can go to Tools --> Options (make sure you have the "Show all settings" option is checked at the bottom of the dialog) and select this plug-in.

GRRRRRR... Okay... back to productive work now.

Ed B.

Right now there are limited training resources for learning WPF and pretty much a non-existence of proven patterns and practices.  All of these assets will eventually come to the developer community as more people adopt the technology.  For right now, I would recommend this book for learning and as a keeper for a decent reference book.

Title: Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed
Author(s):  Adam Nathan
ISBN-10: 0672328917
ISBN-13: 978-0672328917
Publisher: Sams

Some of the things that I really appreciated out of this book:

· This is truly a value-add, especially for a “visual” technology. There are other WPF books that don’t have a single screenshot and it is extremely helpful to have the visual side of WPF represented throughout the book.

· XAML Demystified and Important New Concepts Chapters -- I’m really happy that he did this at the beginning of the book and is where any beginner of WPF or Silverlight (formerly WPF/E) should start the learning process.

- Organized Extremely Well:  It's great if you want to read it from cover to cover or hit a particular topic.  I always give a book the "Index Test" and check to make sure I can easily find the most common WPF topics.

So, be sure to check it out!  Let me know what you think about it too.

Ed B.

Just a quick post to spread the word about supporting "Team Hanselman". Click the links below to help him support the "Fight Against Diabetes".

Ed K. and Ed B.

"TeamPlain is a web front end for VSTS that enables users to access the majority of TFS functionality from within a Web browser.  The focus of TeamPlain is on work item tracking but it also includes some valuable version control capabilities (like viewing history/change sets, diffing files, browsing the source base, etc.), some SharePoint integration, Reporting services integration, and some upcoming build support.  TeamPlain gives VSTS a new avenue to reach a broader array of people within the development team who don’t use Visual Studio today and don’t want to install Visual Studio clients on their machines.  It also improves reach by enabling some access from non-Windows clients.

TeamPlain has been in the market for about a year now and has been very successful.  Many of our VSTS customers use TeamPlain today and are very satisfied with it.  Our advisory council and other customers have been telling us for the past year that we need a web UI for VSTS and that TeamPlain would be a great solution for us.  We’ve listened, looked very closely at the product and concluded that they are right.  Today is the culmination of a long process and the beginning of another.

TeamPlain will become Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Web Access.  Effective today, TeamPlain is available, at no additional charge, to users who own a Team Foundation Server and can be downloaded from here.  It will be accessible by any user properly licensed with a TFS CAL.  Support will continue to be provided by the current staff via the DevBiz online forums.

Over the next few months, we will be rebranding TeamPlain as a Microsoft product and running it through our release process.  When that is complete, we will be releasing it as a VSTS Power Tool, transitioning support to the Microsoft forums and beginning CSS (phone) support.  In the Orcas timeframe, we will be releasing Team System Web Access as an official, documented, localized, and officially supported component of Team Foundation Server.

A look at the product

I've included a few screen shots here to give you a flavor for what TeamPlain looks like and what it can do:

Some likely questions

What version of TeamPlain are you releasing? - The initial download that is available today is TeamPlain V1.0.  After we have run it through the Microsoft release process, we will be releasing TeamPlain version 2.0 as a VSTS Power Tool.  V2 includes some cool new features, including Viewing/Managing builds, additional version control capability, AJAX support for a more responsive experience and larger project support, and much much more.  Ultimately we will be incorporating V2 (or a derivation of it) into the official product in the Orcas timeframe.

What is the Microsoft release process? - It is a long checklist of things (I think about 20 or so) that we have to do before we release any product.  It includes security reviews, scans for geo-politically incorrect terminology, test sign-off and much more.

When is "the Orcas timeframe"? - If I told you I'd have to kill you.

No, seriously, when is it? - Seriously, I can't tell you :)  What I can say is that we have been releasing CTPs for Orcas for a good while now.  We are currently working on getting ready for Beta 1.  Keep your eyes and ears open over the coming months for more news about it.  I'll have to let you draw your own conclusions about how long it will take after Beta 1 releases.  Our philosophy is to get the product to you early, in many forms, CTPs, Betas, RCs, etc and use your feedback on when you believe it is ready to help guide us.

Why do you say "the Orcas timeframe"? - Because, as I mentioned, Orcas has been in the works for a while now and we are just adding web access to the line-up.  It's going to take us some time to work out the details of how it fits into our schedule and I am expecting that it may not actually ship on the same day as the rest of Orcas but rather in the same timeframe.

How does this relate to CodePlex? - I think of them as different things, although clearly there is some overlap.  TeamPlain and CodePlex both have web UI for some overlapping areas.  Over time, we may look to see what we can share but we'll see how that evolves.

Does this mean I don't need TeamPrise any more? - No, not if you do X-Plat development and/or want Eclipse integration.  While TeamPlain can provide some cross platform access via the browser, it is not designed to provide the full set of capabilities that a developer would use: IDE and editor integration, command-line access for scripting, full version control access, etc.

Is Microsoft using TeamPlain internally? - Some groups are, yes, but it isn't broadly used yet.  The IT group probably uses it the most.  We installed a pre-release copy on the DevDiv dogfood server to experiment with it.  We are in the process of rolling it out to all of our internal users now.  I'll probably blog about the progress of this over the next couple of months.

What happens if I call Microsoft support about TeamPlain now? - We are working with our support organization to prepare them to support the product.  They are expecting to begin supporting it when we release it as a Power Tool in a few months.  I wouldn't be surprised if you run into some people in support who don't know anything about the product today.  I expect over the next couple of weeks we will educate the front line phone representatives on how to route calls for it.  Until we begin Microsoft based support in a few months, you will be directed to the DevBiz forums for answers to your questions.

In closing

This is a big step forward for Team System and I hope you are as happy about it as I am.  The future is looking brighter every day!

Brian "

Source: Microsoft Acquires TeamPlain!

Ed K.

I recently gave a talk at the Dallas BizTalk User Group on using WMI with BizTalk Server 2004/2006.

Sorry for the delay on posting the slides and links for download.

WMI Code Creator v1.0
Scriptomatic 2.0
WMI Diagnosis Utility -- Version 2.0
WMI CIM Studio

WMI.ppt (314 KB)

Ed K.

I ran across the issue of my "Code Snippets Manager" not being visible in my tools menu. I searched the web for an resolution to my problem but just found other people having the same problem with no answer. So I search around the IDE for a while till I found out how to get it added to the tools menu (wasted productivity).

 Here is a screen shot of the tools menu without the "Code Snippets Manager".

To resolve this issue go to the Customize option in the "Tools" menu. Go to the Commands tab and select "Tools" from the listbox. On the right side you will see "Code Snippets Manager", select it and drag it to your "Tool" menu and drop it in to place.

Now you are good to go.

If you hate having to search the IDE for options that you cannot find easily, then hopefully, I have saved you some time :)

Ed K.

The SDK consists of two different types of libraries, Implementation and the Interface. I love this API, they developed it for ease of use and scalability for future functionality in mind. The Implementation assemblies are not publicly expose and undocumented (protecting the developer from himself ;) ). The Interface assemblies are the interface to the implementation assemblies. There are several benefits to having the SDK architecture this way.

• Do not have to add references to implementation assemblies, freeing up the the possibility of being too tightly coupled to the implementation logic when the assembly version could change anytime.
• Follows the rule "Program to the Interface and not the implementation"

This API architecture style follows very much inline with how MS did the Team Foundation Server Object Model.

The SDK allows the develop to tap into any area of MOA2007:

• UI Add-In
• Business Logic Add-In
• Reporting Applications
• Integration Applications
• Specialize Applications

The SDK is packed full of samples and the documentation is right on.

I know, I know.... Accounting software is extremely boring but as my partner in crime Ed B has pointed out to me numerous time "This software is essential to business" and accounting software only has the minimal functionally in accordance with accounting needs but business never works great with "out of the box" functionality, sure it works but we want the software to match the process of the business. Being able to add value to accounting software with ease via a powerful API is exciting, the possibilities are endless and there is much money to be made with add-on's. This is a great API for ISV's and "Micro" ISV's.

The Interface assemblies in the SDK are versioned. I dig this. Let me break this down. Since we are programming to the interface and not the implementation, MS can change stuff up in the implementation assemblies and it will not break my production code. But what if they need to change some stuff up in both layers to add new functionality that they want to expose to the developers. In this case they would develop a new Interface assembly and note it as "IwhateverV2". As a SDK consumer I can use this new interface assembly or I can not, and my code will work just fine. To get a some of this new functionality exposed in the new Interface I can upcast my return Interface to the new object. Currently there are 2 versions of the interfaces in MOA2007, all the new Interfaces are appended with V2, which makes it very easy to keep track of what's what. For example: when MOA2007 was Small Business Accounting we had IAccountFactory now that it is Office Accounting we have IAccountFactoryV2. We can still use the old if we want. The rule of thumb is, If you are creating a new project with MOA2007 then use the V2 interfaces, If you already have production code and are writing new code or doing maintenance coding for the same project you will probably want to upcast to the new interface version.

Ed B and I will be developing some good examples using this SDK over the next few weeks to share with the community. We are very excited about MOA2007.

Ed K.

"The Team Foundation Administrator's Guide" is available for download here.

The Team Foundation Administrator's Guide is a comprehensive guide that covers procedures for administering Team Foundation Server, including planning, daily operations, recurring tasks, and infrequent operations. Use this administrator's guide to manage Team Foundation Server.

Note: The Team Foundation Administrator's Guide now includes content that was previously published separately in the Team Foundation Planning Guide, which is now deprecated.
(Microsoft 2007)

Ed K.

Take a look at this....

For some reason the clock in my system tray is not updating.  Any ideas?  I hovered over it a ton of times and no refresh... Very STRANGE!

Ed B.

Tim Rayburn has an excellent post on Reflector 5.0 and highlights an awesome new feature that really rocks.

Tis a great read: Here

Ed K.

As a lover of WinForms Apps I have been totally excited about the ClickOnce Deployment technology introduced in the .NET 2.0 Framework.

Over at the Vertigo Software Team System Blog they have included the SIMPLE steps at accomplishing a ClickOnce "publish" during a Team Build.  Thank you guys!  Take a look... Here

Ed B.

Just as a reminder... The simplest way to delete a team project in TFS is:

1.  Open the Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt

2.  Use the following command:

TfsDeleteProject /server:TFSSERVERNAME "PROJECTNAME"

Where:

TFSSERVERNAME - name of your TFS Server

PROJECTNAME - name of your Team Project

Ed B.

Press Release

This is really going to be awesome for the Sogeti Dallas office, SARK has some really outstanding consultants, especially in the BizTalk arena. We will truly have the most talent Microsoft Practice group in the area after the accquitsion finalizes.

It is going to be a great year for Sogeti!

Ed K.

Being a huge fan of Vongo, well, at least before they decided to take there time on getting Vista ready, I love being able to download movies. I never have time to watch TV so, having movies on my laptop and portable video player is a beautiful thing. When I heard that WalMart finally launched their video service I was soooooo excited. I rushed home after work and prepped myself for full on "Rocky" movie downloads. The experience was a total let down. Let me show you some screen shots of the adventure.

First of all, it was hard as heck to find the system specs for the service on the website. Once I found them I was presently surprised that it actually stated OS Support "Vista". WOW!!!! A website that really states that they support Vista, very much a rarity. Wait a sec....don't get to excited.....lets try and install the WalMart software.

First I go to download the software with my FireFox Browser:
 
hmmmm.... not to pretty.

O well lets fire up IE7 and continue on our way:
 
Looks as if they have had problems in QA with the install blowing up. Nice fail safe WalMart.

Ok cool, our install went ok. Now we have to name our computer for the WalMart download manager.
 
Well crap, guess we are not going anywhere today.

Lets open up the software that was already installed to see what it looks like:

As expected..... the never ending "trying to connect" cycle.

All and all it was a sad day for Ed K. No "Rocky" movies tonight, I guess "American Idol" is on the schedule for tonight. I look forward to trying this service again soon, I see a very promising business venture here. Nice day one try WalMart.

Ed K.

"Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 requires a hotfix to comply with the new start and end dates for DST in the United States. This hotfix will be available in February 2007. We will update this article when the hotfix is available." (Microsoft, 2007)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931961

Ed K.

I still can't believe that developers do not program securely, especially when they have all these great tools and best practices easily available. I just wanted to share a quick "WTF" with a recent experience I had.

I am currently looking for a house, so naturally I am calling all sorts of agents to get info and pictures before I commit to driving to look at the house. For this example, we shall say X1 company supplied we with an email with a hyperlink to view information such as pictures, builder, taxes and layout. So Cool right? Ya you bet, being able to view all this data at home before wasting my time driving all over the place. But the hyper link to the home information was a little more interesting, the URL contained there site www.CompanyX1.com then the query string http://www.CompanyX1.com/SearchDetail/AllTheGood/Search.aspx?AgentID=12345&password=IamSoSecure. Bang no need to call again, I can search all there internal listing (which I did not, I will not deal with a company that is that careless). 

Crazy?

Ed K.

This will be a rather short blog post because I intend to write a much longer blog post about a this topic once I finishing coding a side project that uses WMI with BizTalk. So for now I am just going to throw down some quick, dirty code and explanation to show the power and usefulness of this topic.

If your a BizTalk guy, you probably get tired of opening the HAT and saving messages then terminating. Unless of course your BizTalk solution is just perfect and this never happens to you...ya ok.

What I am going to do is show you quick example of how to generate Managed WMI classes for BizTalk and show an example of how useful it can be.

First thing is to download this:
Management (WMI) Extensions for Visual Studio .NET 2003 Server Explorer

Next thing is connect to the BizTalk box with Server explorer in Visual Studio. Right click on the "Management Classes" and click "Add Classes"
 

Now Select "ROOT\MicrosoftBizTalkServer" and click "ADD>"

Now you see all the classes you can deal with in your Server Explorer.
Right click on "MSBTS_ServiceInstance" and select "Generate Managed Class"
Now you have a class file in your solution that you can program with.
 

Pretty cool eh?
Go ahead and generate one more class from "MSBTS_MessageInstance"

So, lets writes some quick dirty code to do something. I am sure I have at least 100 suspended messages on my local BizTalk server box to work with here :).

   11  ROOT.MICROSOFTBIZTALKSERVER.ServiceInstance.ServiceInstanceCollection _colServiceIns;

   12 

   13   //get a collection a ServiceInstance that are in "Suspended Not Resumable" status

   14   _colServiceIns= ROOT.MICROSOFTBIZTALKSERVER.ServiceInstance.GetInstances
                                  (String.Format("ServiceStatus='{0}'", 32));

   15 

   16   //Loop though them

   17   foreach(ROOT.MICROSOFTBIZTALKSERVER.ServiceInstance _serviceIns in _colServiceIns)

   18   {

   19 

   20       Console.WriteLine("ServiceInstance GUID: "+ _serviceIns.InstanceID + "\n");

   21       Console.WriteLine("Error: " + _serviceIns.ErrorDescription);

   22 

   23       ROOT.MICROSOFTBIZTALKSERVER.MessageInstance.MessageInstanceCollection _messCol;

   24 

   25      //get a Collection of messageInstance with a condition that the ServiceInstanceID 

   26      //of ServiceInstance is equal to ServiceInstanceID of MessageInstance

   27      _messCol= ROOT.MICROSOFTBIZTALKSERVER.MessageInstance.GetInstances
                     (String.Format("ServiceInstanceID='{0}'", _serviceIns.InstanceID ));

   28 

   29      //Loop though the MessageInstance collection and save off the message

   30      foreach(ROOT.MICROSOFTBIZTALKSERVER.MessageInstance _messIns in _messCol)

   31      {

   32          Console.WriteLine("Saving to File");

   33          _messIns.SaveToFile(@"C:\here\");

   34          Console.WriteLine("Done Saving");

   35      }
           _serviceIns.Terminate();

   36   }

All that happens here is, we get a collection of ServiceInstance that are "Suspended Not Resumable", loops through some of the properties and displays them. Then, matches up the MessageInstance with its ServiceInstance and saves off the message to a location on disk and Terminate.

Here is our output.

Ed K.

I have not seem too many companies offering quality training on Visual Studio Team System yet. I just saw that Notion Solutions have a training track offered in several locations and even on-site. Their prices look unbelievable, considering who the instructors are, Chris Menegay and Dave McKinstry, both Team System MVP's. I have seen these two guys present at Launch Events and .Net Users Groups; they are awesome! If anyone is looking for great training at an outstanding price check them out.

They have not posted a schedule/curriculum for 2007 training yet, but here is a link to the 2006 one, to get an idea of what they offer.

Here is a list of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Training Partners.

Ed K.

Microsoft has recently released a version of their application that generates the .NET Framework documentation that we see and love...  You can take a look at it and get more information about the project codename Sandcastle here:  Sandcastle Team Blog

Download the December 2006 CTP here:  Sandcastle - December 2006 CTP Download

Some of the high level features:

Sandcastle produces accurate, MSDN style, comprehensive documentation by reflecting over the source assemblies and optionally integrating XML Documentation Comments. Sandcastle has the following key features:

Works with or without authored comments

Supports Generics and .NET Framework 2.0

Sandcastle has 2 main components (MrefBuilder and Build Assembler)

MrefBuilder generates reflection XML file for Build Assembler

Build Assembler includes syntax generation, transformation..etc

Sandcastle is used internally to build .Net Framework documentation

Ed B.

Our new team at Infragistics, the User Experience (UX) Group, has come out with an article on Code Project about creating fantastic user interfaces using the NetAdvantage family of products. Kudos to several on the UX team who wrote and edited!

Be sure to check it out!  How to Make Users Happy Article

Ed B.

So watch out for the mysterious 28002 Error Unknown.  It really took me a little while to figure this one out.  I was updgrading a client's TFS server and they are using TFS Workgroup Edition and I was getting this annoying error when installing the KB919156 prerequisite to SP1.

Well, if you have 5 users (which is the limit for the workgroup edition) you are going to receive this error... Dave Glover writes a good explanation of this:  TFS SP1 Article

You need to remove one of the users from the "Team Foundation Licenses Users" group and add them after the SP1 install is finished.

Ed B.

So I just need to take a minute or two to say a few words about SonicWall. I usually will not get angry with a vendor but this is an exception mainly for the way I have been treated as a customer.

As you know I am a consultant, so I must be on top with the newest and greatest products that are solid i.e Vista. I, of course installed Vista soon as it was available to MSDN subscribers. As an owner of a SonicWall Firewall I am now crap out of luck connecting to my network since the their VPN Client does not yet support Vista. I have called several times to get a status of a beta, so that I could help them perfect the application as well as have a dogs chance of connecting to my servers, I received unhelpful responses such as this "We did not say we were going to support Vista when you bought it", "Would you like a refund?", "Have you tried any other VPN Clients to see if it will connect?" WOW!!!! great responses from a company that is  a world wide leader in firewall products....... Cruse on over to the Sonic Forums and check out all the post of customers posting "We just dropped Sonic and went with Cisco". No not threats but actual actions of product drops. The company has not even responded to any of the posts on the forum....... I must say I posted a few comments as well hoping maybe an executive would check out the forums every once in awhile (you never know).

So your probably thinking..."Well Vista has not been released to the general public yet, that's not till Jan 30. So there still on top of their game"... Hello...... general users are not the ones interested in firewalls. Here is the kicker.....I read that Sonic did say they will have a VPN Client that works on Vista sometime in the late first quarter to early second quarter of 2007. I have no facts on that, just stuff that I have read in several places.

My next firewall will be a Cisco for sure! Yes, Cisco had a beta for Vista out quick, which I used to connect to another network I work with.

So my rant is done... I believe in the consumer speaking out....If your quite, companies will continue to disappoint the consumer with no repercussions.

Ed K.

If you are deploying a pre-complied DNN website developed from the starter kit you will run into issues. The issue you will see is that App_GlobalResources cannot be found. The directory App_GlobalResources is removed and all files are compiled into an assembly.

The work around solution is this:
Download the DNN Source. Navigate to:

Project - DotNetNuke.Library
SourceFile - Localization.vb

Find Public Const ApplicationResourceDirectory As String = "~/App_GlobalResources"
rename the value to "~/AppGlobalResources"

Recompile and replace DotNetNuke.dll in your DNN Sites Starter kit bin

Go to your solution and rename the App_GlobalResources to AppGlobalResources.

Rebuild

You should be good to deploy to your target box.

Ed K.

So it's been known by the other Ed and few choice co-workers... but I'm moving to New Jersey.  Somewhat scary (considering the movers are coming in T-minus ONE WEEK!) and the fact that I know no one in New Jersey except the great people I'm working with.

Oh yeah, I didn't say who I was working with, did I?  I have the privilege to join the Infragistics team!  I'm going to be starting out as the Best Practices Engineer.  Awesome title huh?  Not as cool as say... Codemunicator; but we'll work on it!

It is sad to be leaving Ed K after working together for so long... But we've decided to continue the branding and work together still in the future with our shared interests (what exactly are they?)  Ed's a Data Guy and I'm a UI Guy.... how does that work out?  Well that's what's been so great about our partnership.  I LOVE working with Ed.  He's everything I'm not!  I'm not afraid to take my stupid "Ed my query is taking too long, what's wrong?" questions to him