Bacon! And in my mind, 7 is #1... :)
Also I think #8 should be;
8. Bacon must be respected and enjoyed for what it is. No bacon ties, car paint jobs, phone cases (though that would be kind of cool), etc. Bacon is bacon! Not decoration...
Microsoft CodePlex gems: 12 open source tools every Windows admin will love
While it may seem antithetical to Microsoft’s image, free open source tools abound for Microsoft admins, many of which are hosted by Microsoft itself on CodePlex, the company’s free open source project hosting site.
The tools offered at CodePlex are diverse and often downright awesome. Whether you’re working with Windows, Windows Server, SharePoint, Exchange, you name it, CodePlex is a rich resource for filling out your Microsoft-based toolset -- and at the right price: free.
The following 12 CodePlex projects are some of the best, but the site offers thousands of others that can benefit IT and developer pros alike. Happy hunting.
- Windows 7/8 USB/DVD Download Tool
- Terminals
- Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL)
- SharePoint Manager 2013
- Squiggle
- RamHook
- Corefig for Windows Server 2012 Core and Hyper-V Server 2012
- Start Screen Button
- Hyper-V Manager for Server 2012 Core console using PowerShell Scripts
- ConfigMgr 2012 PowerShell Right-Click Tools
- Windows Product Key Finder
- Finestra Virtual Desktops
I've used a number of these and agree that they rock. One that many of us have used, but maybe didn't know it was OSS is the Windows 7/8 USB/DVD Download Tool (https://wudt.codeplex.com). Yep, it looks like this is "that" tool...
BTW, I don't get credit for finding this, Martin Woodward found this and due to my role on This Week on Channel 9, I kind of stole, well borrowed, it from him (hint, you'll this also mentioned in tomorrow's show).
These labs teach you how to implement a continuous delivery release pipeline by using Team Foundation Server 2012. You begin by building a simple release pipeline that supports continuous integration. Later labs modify and extend the pipeline until it supports continuous delivery and includes features such as automated deployments and testing.
Version: 1
Date Published: 9/19/2013
ReleasePipelineHOL_V1.zip, 80.8 MB
This series of labs are a companion to the book "Building a Release Pipeline with Team Foundation Server 2012." They teach you how to implement a continuous delivery release pipeline by using Team Foundation Server 2012. You begin by building a simple release pipeline that supports continuous integration, but has no other automation. Subsequent labs modify and extend the pipeline until it supports continuous delivery and includes features such as automated deployments and automated testing.
Here's a snap of the zip contents;
The ToC from the Introduction doc;
Finally a snip from the doc
Objectives
This series of labs teaches you how to implement a continuous delivery release pipeline by using Team Foundation Server 2012. You begin by building a simple release pipeline that supports continuous integration, but has no other automation. Subsequent labs modify and extend the pipeline until it supports continuous delivery and includes features such as automated deployments and automated testing.
A good starting point is to read the guidance that the labs are based on, which is Building a Release Pipeline with Team Foundation Server 2012. [GD: seems this link is active right now] This guidance emphasizes three patterns that are critical to developing a continuous delivery pipeline and whose importance is reinforced by the hands-on labs (HOL). The patterns are:
· Orchestration
· Automation
· Monitoring and Metrics
Even as new technologies become available, the underlying patterns that shape your development efforts will remain the same.
...
Contents of the HOLs
One the biggest challenges in learning about distributed architectures such as the one required for these labs is creating the infrastructure. The details of setting up a complex infrastructure can be a serious distraction that makes focusing on the actual purpose of the labs difficult. To remove this difficulty, the labs have two versions. Labs 1 through 5 assume that you are using the Brian Keller VM for your infrastructure.
Lab 6 is considered an advanced lab, and assumes you are not using the Brian Keller VM. This is because it shows you how to install the components of the Trey Research Windows Phone 8 app and how to deploy a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service to Windows Azure. Currently, the Brian Keller VM cannot support these features, so you must create the entire infrastructure yourself. Here is a more detailed description of the labs.
· Lab 1: Starting Point. In this lab you install the Trey Research application and create the initial version of the Trey Research release pipeline.
· Lab 2: Orchestration. This is a set of four labs. In the first lab you orchestrate the commit stage of the pipeline. In the second lab you orchestrate the rest of the pipeline stages. In the third lab you configure the pipeline. In the fourth lab you test the orchestration.
· Lab 3: Automation. This is a series of three labs. In the first lab you automate the deployment of the WCF service. In the second lab you automate the deployment of the WPF application. In the third lab you automate the tests. At the conclusion of the Automation HOL, you will have created a continuous delivery pipeline.
· Lab 4: Monitoring and Metrics. This is a set of two labs. In the first lab you learn how to monitor a continuous delivery pipeline. In the second lab you learn how to create custom reports in Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) to track some of the key metrics that are used with continuous delivery projects.
· Lab 5: Adding New Stages to the Pipeline. In this lab you learn how to add new stages to the pipeline. New stages contain new tests that improve how you test the pipeline
· Lab 6: Advanced. This is a set of two labs. The first lab is similar to the Starting Point lab, but has additional sections that show you how to add the components for the Windows Phone 8 app and the WCF Windows Azure service. The second lab shows you how to automatically deploy the components for the Windows Phone 8 app.
Completing the Labs in Sequence
As was mentioned above, there are two ways to complete all the labs. Here are the two possible sequences.
With the Brian Keller VM
Here is the sequence you should follow if you are using the Brian Keller VM.
Without the Brian Keller VM
Here is the sequence you should follow if you are not using the Brian Keller VM.
...
Looks interesting (for a guy in my shoes at least... ;)
Related Past Post XRef:
Featuring Agile Planning and Portfolio Management with TFS2013 in these Hands On Labs
Visual Studio 2013 ALM and HOL VM now available...
Playing with SQL Server 2014 (and VS2013) the Azure VM way
VS2012 Update 1 ALM VM and HOL / Demo Scripts now available
The VS 2012 ALM Virtual Machine and VS 2012 Update 1 (In short, there's an updated VM coming, don't install it on this VM if you don't have too)
The big BK has updated the Visual Studio 2012 RC ALM Virtual Machine and Hands-on-Labs
VS 11 ALM DemoMates updated for the Beta
Visual Studio/TFS11 ALM Demo's... Mate! See the VS/TFS 11 ALM's hands-on-labs in DemoMate form
Visual Studio 11 ALM VHD's, VirtualBoxed (and even on x86 hosts too)
Want to play with Visual Studio 11 & TFS 11 Dev Preview but don't want to install it (and have access to a Hyper-V server)? Here's a VHD just for
"So Greg, how's life with Haswell been?"
"Pretty Sweet! (Mostly)"
I've been given an opportunity to review the latest and greatest Intel chipset, Haswell, in the form of a engineering reference ultrabook from Intel. As I said in my previous post in this series, "Hello Haswell" , in order to try to provide a good review, I've been living with the notebook as a primary, as a machine I use through out the day, doing pretty much everything in my personal digital live.
I've now been using it for some weeks now, and besides a few whines and missteps, I'm still as wow'd as I was last time. In short, while still in my honeymoon period, the shiny has not come off the box...
You all are probably tired of hearing this, "Batt, batt, batt, omg Haswell is batt nirvana!" Well, it kind of is. At least for now, it's the high water mark. You can get all day usage from a pretty fully powering box. Sure, if you're playing a uber game, or watching videos non-stop, you won't get all day usage, but if you're a "normal" user you really can get all day usage.
Windows 8.1 really shines. It shines on about any box for that matter. If you're not concerned about any driver issues and your running Windows 8 now, you should upgrade as soon as you can...
In a word, the display is pretty awesome. Like almost as good as the batter life awesome...
Having touch as an additional input method is hard to live without. You don't use all the time, but when you do, it's nice. There's just some things that are easier and more intuitive with touch. As I think Intel said recently, touch is going to be everywhere really soon. In a few years we're going to look back on pre-touch computer devices and wonder how we lived with just two human to computer interfaces.
Every box I've owned in the past has been a consumer or business device. I've never had or built an unlocked, open BIOS/hardware settings device before. Since many of you might not of either, I've grabbed pictures of most of the settings screens. The number of ways I can screw up these settings and my device is mind boggling... :P
I really dislike the arrow/Home/End/Page key combinations. Having to hit the FN key to access Home/End/Page keys kind of bytes.
Seems a few Desktop app's don't scale well when running on higher DPI settings. For example, Skype's Contact list looks a little funny, not scaling the items bigger.
The Keyboard backlighting seems to freak out a little when the machine goes to sleep. It flashes, flickers and finally turns off. I thought I was going crazy for a while as I'd only catch this on the corner of my eye... Took a while to actually catch it in the act (which I recorded of course)
This hardware is pretty bleeding edge. It's not production hardware, it's a engineering sample/reference and so there's some pain involved in using it. Examples? I'm writing this on my third device. The first one got into some kind of weird state where the F2/F7 keys on the keyboard stopped working when in BIOS mode. They worked okay when Windows actually booted, but not before. Weird. The second device, powered on once, I activated it, it said it couldn't find the battery. So, being me, I unplugged it and sure enough, it turned off. And that was the last time that one ever powered on. This third device seems to be working okay. There's a few things I noticed that concern me a little (there's no "Intel" power setting in the Power config settings, where there were on the first device, before it went wonky. Also the fan, which is a documented known issue, cycles up and down seemingly randomly, and can be a little loud when doing so. Finally, something that's also weird, in the XBox Music app, I can never get any second song to play. The first plays fine, sounds great, but the second stops after one seconds. And I've seen this on both devices... Weird.
Windows 8.1 and Haswell are a great match. The combination of the battery life and hardware performance, along with the features of Windows 8.1 is could make this holiday season interesting. Enough to stave off the "death of the PC?" Can't say that, but [insert some kind of kicking the life support machines into a higher gear, getting CPR from a super model, witty comment here]
If you are thinking about getting a high'ish end system soon, wait for a Haswell based one.
Since I'm a dev (or at least like to play one during the day) in the next post I'll cover some of the code samples that came in the box, that exercise some of the features of this Ultrabook.
Here's the planned post schedule:
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe my readers will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
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