Sample TFS Reports

Tom Patton - Sample Team System Reports

"This attachment contains a variety of samples, experiments and untested reports for use with the Team Foundation Data warehouse. There is a brief overview document describing the reports and how to deploy them. ..."

From within the attachment...

"...
Box Reports
All of the reports shipped in TFS as they are shipped for CMMI projects. These are generally transferable to any process template, but some (like Requirements Details) only make sense if using CMMI Work item types.
 
Portal Reports
Trimmed down versions of the reports we shipped, suitable for placing in portal pages by using the reporting services web parts.
 
Sample Reports
Sample reports. Good entry points here are “Source Code Overview” or “Area Overview”.
 
TFS Report Examples
Simple reports that can be customized to your particular needs. These use the query designer for all queries so no MDX knowledge is required.
 
Warehouse Status
Reports that show the administrative status of reporting.
 
Work Item Overview
A report that shows resolution activity with the ability to view burndowns, team breakdowns, and priority breakdowns.
..."

71 total reports are included in this sample/example package. I’m deploying and checking them out now...

Technorati Tags: TFS, Team Foundation Server, Reports

LINQ in VB9 - From/Select, The Way Is

Panopticon Central - Select/From vs. From/Select revisited...

"We’ve been hard at work on an updated CTP of the LINQ work, and when you get it (no comment on dates at this point), you’ll notice several new things about the VB LINQ support. One the biggest is going to be the fact that, after trying all the Intellisense tricks we could think of, we’re throwing in the towel on Select/From and adopting the “Yoda style” From/Select syntax. As in:

        Dim WACusts = _

            From c In Customers _

            Where c.State = "WA" _

            Select c

instead of:

        Dim WACusts = _

            Select c _

            From c In Customers _

            Where c.State = "WA"

 
..."

NO!

Okay, I’m over it...

In reading the post, the points make sense. Full/complete Intellisense IS much more important and being "SQL like."

Having the FROM statement first is pretty easy to wrap my brain around. But I do hope the Where and Select statements can be reversed.

Something like;
FROM Object
SELECT Value
WHERE Condition

        Dim WACusts = _

            From c In Customers _

            Select c _

            Where c.State =
"WA"

Then again, maybe this is already the way it is (hence the title, "From/Select") and I should just check out the next CTP...
(’TODO: Check out next LINQ CTP)

Technorati Tags: VB9, LINQ

Categories for Blogger - DIY

phydeaux3 - delicious2Blogger - Categories for Blogger

"The rewrite on the scripts are done, and now the category system formerly (and unofficially) called Blogger Categories with Del.icio.us are now rechristened...[cue the trumpets] delicious2Blogger. Ok. It’s a lame name but I gotta call it something. I hear all the cool kids just refer to it as d2b.

Some of the new benefits/features of d2b are -

New Features-



• Completely rewritten scripts - majority of code moved to an external javascript file with less muss/fuss in the body of the template
  
• Customization - Virtually everything output by the scripts is now easily customizable, making it easy to convert the output into the language of your choice.
  
• Use of a delicious "Common Tag" - now has the ability to add a common tag to all blog posts. What this means is you can use one delicious account to categorize your blog, but still use that same account for your normal bookmarking. Or use it to categorize mulitple blogs.
  
• Option to provide an RSS feed link for each ’category’, with customizable RSS image and heading
  
• Added an optional and customizable ’read more’ link that can be displayed in the ’notes’ section.
  

  Not New But still a feature

  
  
• All links are shown in blog, visitors never have to leave.
  
• OMG! A category cloud. Yes the highly desirable in blog cloud is available
  
• Setup requires the creation of only one ’category post’ that is dynamic. All new tags added at del.icio.us are displayed dynamically without any further setup.
  
• Everything is given id’s and classes for styling with CSS

..."

Using Blogger? Want categories on your sidebar? Check out d2b.

What sold me is seeing it in action. Looks pretty darn cool...

Installation is not hard, not slam dunk easy, but not hard. The installation and configuration instructions are easy to follow so there’s no worry there.

Now to get off my butt and give this a try.

Technorati Tags: Blogger, D2b

"Configuring Team Foundation Build to Create a Visual Studio Setup Project"

Rob Caron - Configuring Team Foundation Build to Create a Visual Studio Setup Project

"There’s a new draft topic on the Team System User Education blog for your review. It provides a procedure for creating an MSBuild task to build a Visual Studio setup project using Team Foundation Build. Please take a look at it, if possible - try it, and then provide any feedback you may have in the comments of the article...."


Looks like Rob has given me my "Weekend TFS Project" task...


Automated setup building is one of the next logical steps for my Team Builds (the next being automating ClickOnce publishing).

Technorati Tags: TFS, Team Foundation Server, Team Build

MSDN Webcast: Robotics: Programming Lego Mindstorms Using Visual Basic 2005 Express (Level 100)

MSDN Webcast: Robotics: Programming Lego Mindstorms Using Visual Basic 2005 Express (Level 100)

"LEGO MINDSTORMS has been a popular introduction to PC-programmable robotics for nearly seven years. This webcast explains how you can now easily create exciting, interactive robotics programming projects using the new Microsoft .NET interface for MINDSTORMS with Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition."
 
Signed up... ;)

Related links: Coding 4 Fun - LEGO MINDSTORMS

Consolas Font Pack for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Microsoft Downloads - Consolas Font Pack for Microsoft Visual Studio 20065

"Brief Description
Optimized for Microsoft ClearType
The Microsoft Consolas Font Family is a set of highly legible fonts designed for ClearType. It is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced font is specified. This installation package will set the default font for Visual Studio to Consolas.
 
...
 
Overview
Consolas is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced font is specified. All characters have the same width, like old typewriters, making it a good choice for personal and business correspondence. Optimizing the font specifically for ClearType allowed a design with proportions closer to normal text than traditional monospaced fonts like Courier. This allows for more comfortable reading of extended text on-screen.

The package will change the default text face in Visual Studio to the Consolas family.

This package is only intended for licensed users of Microsoft Visual Studio 2006.
..."

I’m always game for a new programming font.

But the VS2006 restriction seems weird. I’d guess it’s due to the license agreement with the font producer, but still.

This a typo and should read VS2005? Is there a VS2006? Is that Orcas? And making this font publicly downloadable like this... That’s kind of like, "Don’t use this... really guys... oh, come on now... really don’t use it unless you’re supposed to... (wink wink)"

Still once I get VS2006, I’ll have to try the Legolas, err... um... I mean the Consolas, font...

(via This.Pose() as Expert - Consolas Font Pack for Microsoft Visual Studio 2006)

Technorati Tags: Visual Studio 2006, Programming Font

Update #1 5/5/2006 @ 7:35 AM (PDT):
The download's title and the restriction on the download page has been changed to, "Visual Studio 2005"

"Team Foundation Work Item Attachment Add from Clipboard"

GotDotNet - Team Foundation Work Item Attachment Add from Clipboard: Home

"This Visual Studio Add-in allows "pasting" items (images, text, files) from the clipboard as attachments to Team Foundation work items. "
 
Check out James’ blog post for more information on this.

Nothing released yet, but I’ll be watching ...

Technorati Tags: TFS, Visual Studio Add-in

TFS, TeamBuild, Continuous Integration and Automated Assembly Versioning

Gautam Goenka (MSFT) - Continuous Integration with Assembly Version task

"Changgyu from Avanade brought this interesting problem to my attention -

If you are using Continuous Integration with Assembly Version task, build server will go into infinite recursion of builds.  Each CI build will update the assembly version and the task will make the checkin, which in turn will ask the CI web service for another build.

Luckily, Changgyu found a simple and elegant solution for this. The Assembly Version task makes the checkin with a fixed comment string and while subscribing for the checkin event, you can use that info as the filter. To do this, just pass following extra switch to the BisSubscribe command that you are using for subscribing to the event -

/filter "(Comment<>’Auto-Build: Version Update’)"

where ’Auto-Build: Version Update’ is the fixed comment string.

Special thanks to Changgyu for sharing this.

Thanks." [Leached in full . All credits, etc, back to Gautam]
 
Gautam’s post solves a problem that I would have run into sooner or later (I love having problems solved before I have them... ;) His link to the MSBuild Assembly Version task and the MSDN article, Continuous Integration Using Team Foundation Build, is also very cool.
 
I now have two TFS projects (I migrated another yesterday) and am interested in going the CI route, making his info and links are very timely...
 
BTW, if you’re interested in TFS/TeamBuild you should check out the rest of his posts...
 
Technorati Tags: TFS, Team Foundation Server, Team Build, Continuous Integration