Today is the day. Visual Studio 2005 (including all VSTS editions) and SQL Server 2005 are available to the public for download from MSDN.

The Team Foundation Server setup experience has been evolving for over a year now in response to feedback Microsoft has received. While they’ve made significant progress since the first release last year as Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 Refresh with Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, there’s still more that can be done. Microsoft has created a survey to ask some specific questions based on your experience with Team Foundation Server Beta 3. If you have attempted (successfully or otherwise) to install Team Foundation Server Beta 3, Microsoft invites you to participate in this brief online survey.

The survey can be taken anonymously, or you have the option of providing contact information should wish to be contacted about your setup experience. Partial surveys are not preserved, so please complete the survey before navigating away from the page.

Microsoft has listed the VSTS MVPs on their site. You can view their profiles here.

What is an MVP?
The MVP award is a one-year renewable reward given to just under 3,000 customers worldwide who are community leaders for their past year's accomplishments in a specific competency (ex: ASP.NET, C#, VSTS). A non-Microsoft employee is nominated by an employee or other MVP, their contributions to the community are evaluated, and they are voted on by an MVP Lead and PG Lead. Contributions can include answering MSDN Forum questions, writing articles & books, having an active & popular blog, working with the product teams, running a local user group, giving presentations, etc.   A quick intro to what an MVP is can be found on the MVP Website.

Don't miss the upcoming MSDN chat, this Wednesday at 10am (PST) on Developer & Tester Tools in Visual Studio 2005.  If you haven't attended one of the MSDN chats, I strongly encourage it!  Not only do they provide a bunch of solid information, there will be an entire series of Visual Studio and Team System experts on hand to answer any specific questions you have.  I attended one of these recently, and got to ask some hard questions that ended up revealing bugs in the latest release of Team System.  The folks there not only thanked me for my support, they worked overtime to get a workaround to me ASAP!  I can't recommend the chats enough!  Be there!

 

Team System MSDN Public Chat

Visual Studio Team System for Software Developer &

Visual Studio Team System for Software Testers

When: Wednesday 10/19/05 @ 10am PST

What: Join us to discuss the Profiler, Test Tools (Unit, Generic, Manual), Web & Load Testing, and Code Analysis (FxCop & PREFast).  We have questions for you, will answer questions from you, and will chat about the exciting new technology.

Where: http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats

 

A bit belated in this posting, but Steven Borg and I are both Microsoft MVPs now! I attended the MVP summit a few weeks ago as an RD, and I've got to say that I am in some good company, and am really impressed at the level of support Microsoft gives to this program.

Seattle Code Camp is just around the corner - about 10 days away. Steven Borg and I are going to be presenting a couple of Team System and SQL Server 2005 topics at camp and we hope to see you there!

A friend of mine sent me this link. It's a pretty good reference page on the core keyboard shortcuts.

Code camp is this month!  It comes to the DeVry campus on October 22nd and 23rd.  Yep!  That's a weekend, and that means you don't have to ask for time off work to attend. 

If you missed the Code Camp in Portland, this is your chance.  I attended and spoke there, and it was the best conference I've ever attended, including PDC 2005 and TechEd 2005!  It's a great idea.  Just coders talking to coders!  Every presentation includes CODE, and there's no marketing...  And the presenters are all coders. 

It's FREE to attend!  And, if you'd like to speak, you can submit an abstract.  You don't get paid for speaking, but you do get to talk about something cool!  Here's a quick summary.  You can read more about it, and register, here.

Code Camp Details
We are going to have 13 tracks and probably 300+ attendees (we have capacity for ~1000). Portland registered 300 in two weeks.  This is our first Camp so we don't really know how many will attend. We are looking for about 80-90 talks for the two days. There will be a big publicity push this week and every week till the start of the camp.

Code Camp is devoted to coders, regardless of platform, OS or favorite programming language.  That means we are encouraging talks in lots of disciplines.  We want to cross-pollinate the developers in the area - exposing them to ideas and tools that they may not have seen before.

Code Camp is open for kids and teens too.  At the Portland Camp there were numerous fathers there with their 10-16 year old kids.  The younger ones were totally thrilled to be there.

Code Camps encourage new speakers to join in too. Friday night we will have a gathering for speakers which includes speaker training and the opportunity to talk to seasoned presenters. 

Dates: October 22,23, 2005
Times: Daytime
BBQ: Saturday Evening
Location:  DeVrys University -- Federal Way WA
Cost: Free
Payment to Speakers: None
Session Length: Variable but most will be 75 minutes
Registration:  If you are a speaker you must be registered for the event.

Tracks
Client Development
Database
Fundamentals
Game Development
Hands On Labs
Hobbyist
Methodology
Languages And Frameworks
Mobile
Security
Web Development
XML And The Web
Migration

Microsoft is running a SharePoint training tour around the country.  It covers, from both business and technical perspectives, how to effectively implement, configure, manage and extend Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server.  In addition to the normal goodies Microsoft normally hands out at these events (software, etc), attendees will get an actual 5 user permanent license for BrightWork's IT Work Manager application, a SharePoint application that assists in Project Management.

Check out the dates, and register at http://register.unitedtraining.com.  If you want a discount (and who doesn't) enter the UTNETDESK as the RSVP code! 

I'll be presenting many of these, and I've got to say, the content, which I received last week, looks great!  It promises to be very, very well worth your time.  Plus, it's cheap!  Two days of training for only $399 with the RSVP code (above).

I'll see you there!  Here's a list of dates and locations!

AZ, Phoenix	Dec 7-8
CA, Irvine	Oct 27-28
CA, San Diego	Dec 1-2
CA, San Francisco	Oct 24-25
CO, Denver	Nov 17-18
CT, Hartford	Nov 10-11
DC, Washington	Oct 19-20
FL, Jacksonville	Oct 31-Nov 1
FL, Tampa	Oct 17-18
GA, Atlanta	Dec 5-6
IL, Chicago	Oct 18-19
IL, Chicago	Nov 14-15
IN, Indianapolis	Nov 3-4
IN, South Bend	Oct 31-Nov 1
KS, Kansas City	Oct 31-Nov 1
MA, Boston	Oct 31-Nov 1
MI, Detroit	Oct 31-Nov 1
MN, Minneapolis	Oct 27-28
MO, St Louis	Nov 7-8
NE, Omaha	Nov 29-30
NJ, Hasbrouck Hts	Dec 8-9
NY, New York	Oct 20-21
NY, New York	Nov 16-17
NY, New York	Nov 19-20
NY, New York	Dec 12-13
OH, Cincinnati	Nov 3-4
OH, Columbus	Oct 24-25
OH, Columbus	Nov 14-15
OR, Portland	Oct 27-28
PA, Philadelphia	Dec 5-6
PA, Pittsburgh	Nov 10-11
TX, Austin	Nov 3-4
TX, Dallas	Nov 17-18
TX, Houston	Nov 14-15
VA, McLean	Nov 16-17
WA, Bellevue	Oct 24-25
WI, Milwaukee	Nov 3-4

I've been frantically working for the past few days on an important Team System demo using the latest bits. 

Folks, we've come a LONG way from Beta 1!  And we still have a ways to go!  The UI is much smoother, and more accessible, however, some things still aren't working efficiently.  Web tests aren't consistently reliable.  Or maybe it's just that the built-in web server isn't reliable.  But it's been a MAJOR frustration!  The workaround is to deploy the web site to IIS to do ALL your tests!  This is a best practice anyway, but once you have it out on IIS, it becomes very difficult (impossible?) to run code coverage analysis on your web code! 

Once I'm done with this beast, I'll be sure to post all the tips and tricks I've learned!