If you are in the Seattle/Redmond area, join me tonight while we look at CTP 5 of the Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals.

I'll be starting at 7:15 pm tonight in building 40 at Microsoft. Click here for more details.

I was recently at a client site in Phoenix, teaching a VSTS/SCM course. They have integrated an Ambient Orb Device into their automated build process. If the build passes, it glows green. If it breaks, it glows red.

The orb is inside the developer manager's office, so the devs can peek inside. My understanding is that they have about 15 minutes after seeing red to fix the build and re-run it, before the manager gets an email message.

I just ran into this blog while doing some surfing.  It wasn't on my blog roll, but it is now.    It's by Eugene Zakhareyev from Attrice.  If you remember from our Widgets page, they are the makers of the TFVC Workspace Sidekick and the MSBuild Sidekick.  Both of those are tools you should be checking out!  But back to the blog.  Eugene is blogging many of his own personal observations about TFS, and since he's so intimately involved with TFS, it's definitely worth keeping an eye on his findings and comments!  His blog can be found here.

We do a lot of training around the US, and often we depend on computers at the company to be trainined.  However, in many cases, we need to provide computers.  For our training next week at a large government contractor, I decided to look outside our normal channels (which is a training center that has a mobile lab, but is often booked out for their own training) and look for someone new.  Although I got bids from several companies, one company really stood out:  Bit-by-Bit Compnuter Rentals.  The customer service rep who I spoke to was Josh Highland.  Not only was he very helpful, he was very capable and knowledgeable.  Since they are nationwide, and provide such good service, we'll definitely be working with them in the future.  If any of you have a need for computer rentals, I recommend contacting Josh at Bit-by-Bit. 

Microsoft will be releasing an Express version of their XNA development environment free!    That means that folks like you and I can create our applications for the XBox 360 (and, simultaneously for Windows) much more easily!  That is cool!  I expect a development community to spring up with free games, trial games, and all sorts of non-game applications as well.  Fun!  You can read more about it here.

Many of our clients need to access the TFS Version Control system from VS 2002/2003, as well as other development environments including SQL Server Management Studio.  They've been able to do this for some time, but the plug-in to support it always felt a bit clunky.  So it is with great pleasure that I can report the new MSSCCI plug-in (available here) was released yesterday!  In addition to improving the interface, there were several other additions, too.  Now, database developers can access their version controlled T-SQL scripts using Enterprise Manager.  Plus, developers can now modify work items during the check in process! 

If you use the MSSCCI provider for working with TFVC, go download the new version right away!  And, if you're looking for further cool plug-ins, don't hesitate to check our Widget's page, located here.

Team System SP1 is due out...  sometime.  We still don't have a date from Microsoft (as of 10 Aug 2006), however, Brian Harry has provided us with a short list of some of the features to be released.  You can read about it here.

My favorite new feature is WIT Custom Controls.  This means we'll finally be able to host a control that will display custom data without having to rebuild the entire Work Item display framework.  Very cool.  A few already pop to mind:  a Grid display, graphical displays (small embedded charts), and maybe even a tiny Wiki. 

Fawcette (FTPOnline) just published a smattering of new articles on Team System, including my new article on the forethcoming edition for Database Professionals.

Brian Harry discloses some of the expected features and fixes in TFS SP1 as well as features in the new version of the MSSCCI provider (GetLatest on Checkout being one of them).

Read more here.

Here are some of the useful resources on the Web for the Team System Edition for Database Professionals:

• MSDN Site
• PowerToys Site
• Team Blog
• Thomas Murphy's Blog
• Cameron Skinner's Blog
• Matt Nunn's Blog
• Gert Draper's Blog
• Richard Waymire's Blog
• Sachin Rekhi's Blog
• MSDN Forum

Oh, my goodness!  How cool is this!    I just found out about the Microsoft Robotics Studio, and had to blog it...  Here's the background, from the site (which you can find here).

The goal of the Microsoft Robotics Studio is to supply a software platform for the robotics community that can be used across a wide variety of hardware, applicable to a wide audience of users, and development of a wide variety of applications.

The Microsoft Robotics Studio delivers three areas of software:

1. A scalable, extensible runtime architecture that can span a wide variety of hardware and devices. The programming interface can be used to address robots using 8-bit or 16-bit processors as well as 32-bit systems with multi-core processors and devices from simple touch sensors to laser distance finding devices.
2. A set of useful tools that make programming and debugging robot applications scenarios easier. These include a high quality visual simulation environment that uses the Ageia Technologies™ PhysX™ engine.
3. A set of useful technology libraries services samples to help developers get started with writing robot applications.

I haven't used it yet.  (Too busy with paying work.)  But I'll let you know how it goes when I can get my hands on it more completely!