Friday, May 23, 2014

Visual Studio Productivity Power Tools 2013 adds "syntactic line compression" (think "Lossless 25% more visible lines for free")

The Visual Studio Blog - Announcing Update to Productivity Power Tools 2013

Today, we’re releasing an update to Productivity Power Tools 2013 on the Visual Studio Gallery. In this release, we fixed a number of customer-reported bugs and issues, and introduced a new feature called syntactic line compression.

Syntactic line compression enables you to make better use of your screen’s vertical real-estate. It shrinks lines that contain neither letters nor numbers by 25% vertically, allowing more lines to be displayed in the editor. Other lines are not affected.

Here’s an illustration of the same code before and after the feature is applied. You can see the extra lines you can get in the same space with no loss of content:

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As with all Productivity Power Tools features, if you don’t like it you can turn it on and off in Tools…Options…Editor…

Now that's an interesting feature. We keep the whitespace yet also reclaim a little of our vertical screen space. Nice!

Game of Thrones travel via Kayak, book your carriage or ship today

technabob - Book Your Vacation to Winterfell Using Kayak

Now you can finally book that vacation to Winterfell you’ve been dying to go on. Or you can visit King’s Landing. Why not Pentos? Kayak.com will help you travel the Seven Kingdoms, since they have teamed up with HBO to help you get information on traveling around Westeros and Essos.

...

The ten cities you can travel between are:

  • Kings Landing, Westeros (KLA)
  • Oldtown, Westeros (OLT)
  • Lannisport, Westeros (LPR)
  • Gulltown, Westeros (GUN)
  • White Harbor, Westeros (WHI)
  • Winterfell, Westeros (WFL)
  • Pyke, Iron Islands, Westeros (PYK)
  • Tyrosh, Essos (YRH)
  • Pentos, Essos (PEO)
  • Braavos, Essos (BRV)

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Now that's an awesome marketing play...

Pluralsight's way of saying thank you... Active Military and Vets can get one free month

Pluralsight - This Memorial Day, we thank our vets with free training!

Memorial Day is around the corner and Pluralsight would like to show our appreciation to anyone who has served our country or who is currently serving.

We are offering all U.S. veterans and active military personnel a month of free training. Please fill out the form below, and we’ll hook you up with access to 4,000+ hours of developer, IT and creative training for 30 days! Here’s to you!

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And thank YOU Pluralsight...

Thursday, May 22, 2014

The updates just keep a rolling...Visual Studio 2013.3 CTP 1 Released

Microsoft Downloads - This is a Community Technology Preview (CTP) for Visual Studio 2013 Update 3

Version: 2013

Date Published: 5/20/2014

File Name:

rm_Client.exe
rm_DeploymentTrial90.exe
rm_Server.exe
rtools_setup_arm.exe
rtools_setup_x64.exe
rtools_setup_x86.exe
tfs_express.exe
tfs_server.exe
VS2013.3 CTP.exe
vs2013.3.ctp1_rm_enu.iso
vs2013.3.ctp1_tfs_enu.iso
vs2013.3.ctp1_tfs_exp_enu.iso

By releasing periodic updates, we can enhance and expand Visual Studio to support the latest software development innovations for building and managing modern apps. For more information, see Visual Studio Updates and the Visual Studio Update KB Article.

PLEASE NOTE: This Community Technology Preview has not been subject to final validation and is not meant to be run on production workstations or servers.

For the Visual Studio update package: The recommended approach for upgrading Visual Studio on test workstations is installing the latest Visual Studio Update CTP on top of an RTM release or a previous CTP build of that Update. Visual Studio CTPs can be upgraded to a different build.

For full-upgrade packages (ex: Team Foundation Server, Release Management, Remote Tools): Do not install an Update CTP on a production server, as it will put the server in an unsupported state. Unlike with Visual Studio CTPs, installing a full-upgrade package CTP completely replaces the current release on the server with the CTP. Full-upgrade package CTPs cannot be upgraded to future CTPs or releases nor “downgraded” to a previous release.

...

Description of Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 CTP 1

Microsoft released Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 Community Technology Preview 1 (CTP 1) on May 22, 2014. Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 CTP 1 includes the latest software updates, feature additions, and bug fixes.

...

Important This update applies to Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server (TFS). Visual Studio and TFS installation mechanics are different. The Visual Studio update is an update that installs on top of whatever is already installed on the computer. The TFS update is a full layout that replaces whatever is installed on the computer. Before you try to apply the TFS update, make sure that you have a full backup of your current databases. If the TFS update installation fails, you cannot restart the update or roll back to the earlier version of TFS without performing a restore.

...

Technology improvements

The following technology improvements were made in this release.

Debugger

  • If you have more than one monitor, Visual Studio will remember which monitor a Windows Store application was last run on.
  • You can debug x86 applications that are built by .NET native.
  • When you analyze managed memory dump files, you can go to Definition and Find All References of the selected type.

IntelliTrace

  • You can skip straight to the details of performance events that are exported from Application Insights to IntelliTrace.

Profiler

  • The Performance and Diagnostics hub can open profiling sessions (.diagsession files) that were exported from the F12 tools in the latest developer preview of Internet Explorer 11.

Release Management

  • You can use Windows PowerShell or the Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) feature to deploy and manage configuration data. Additionally, you can deploy to the following environments without having to set up Microsoft Deployment Agent:
    • Windows Azure environments
    • On-premise environments (Standard environments)

Testing Tools

  • You can add custom fields and custom work flows for test plans and test suites.
  • You can use Manage Test Suites permission for granting access to test suites.
  • You can track changes to test plans and test suites by using work item history.

Visual Studio IDE

  • CodeLens authors and changes indicators are now available for Git repositories.
  • In Code Map, links are styled by using colors, and they display in the improved Legend.
  • Debugger Map automatically zooms to the call stack entry of interest and preserves user's zoom preferences.
  • You can drag binaries from the Windows file explorer to a code map, and then start exploring binaries by using Code Map.
Known issues

...

Currently looking like a roll-up/catch-up/bug fix version...

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Running code in a bunch of languages, just a couple clicks away, Compile Online

compileonline</>com

Compile and Execute your favorite programming languages online, click any of the following to proceed!

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While I see the standard languages, like LOLCODE;

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I don't see the great ones like Ook! :P

 

(via Dew Drop – May 20, 2014 (#1780))

Prefect for your next marketing-ware page - The New Age BS Generator

New Age Bullshit Generator

Namaste. Do you want to sell a New Age product and/or service? Tired of coming up with meaningless copy for your starry-eyed customers? Want to join the ranks of bestselling self-help authors? We can help.

Just click and the truth will manifest

Click the Reionize electrons button at the top of the page to generate a full page of New Age poppycock.

The inspiration for this idea came from watching philosophy debates involving Deepak Chopra. I wrote a blog post about it if you're interested.

After sitting through hours of New Age rhetoric, I decided to have a crack at writing code to generate it automatically and speed things up a bit. I cobbled together a list of New Age buzzwords and cliché sentence patterns and this is the result.

...You’ll get some profound-sounding nonsense here, too.

So, what is this for? Put it on your website as placeholder text. Print it out as a speech for your yoga class and see if anyone can guess a computer wrote it. Use it to write the hottest new bestseller in the self-help section, or give false hope to depressed friends and family members.

...

Seb Pearce - On the New Age Bullshit Generator and parodying woo

Link to the Generator: http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/
(Yes, it’s open source: GitHub link)

A while back, I was on a philosophy debate binge. Watching Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens annihilate their opponents with precision and wit is my idea of a good night in, and YouTube’s “related videos” are a deep, dark rabbithole.

...

imageimageimage

Finally an awesome example of NLP. Some of these items are pretty cool sounding too. Best of all it's open source... :)

(via Beyond Search - Natural Language Processing Used to Serve Up Cynicism)

Now that's classic, Visual Basic [Classic] Tools for Visual Studio

Visual Studio Gallery - Visual Basic Tools for Visual Studio

Visual Basic Tools for Visual Studio is a language service extension for Visual Studio 2012 and 2013 allowing to work on classic Visual Basic projects within Visual Studio. It´s intention is to provide better development tools for teams which have to maintain legacy code, or working on migration projects. Right now the toolset is still under development and some valuable features are not available yet, but it could already worth it to try.

This is pre-release software which is not intended to be used in a live operating environment. The software is licensed "as-is" and you bear the risk of using it.

What´s in the box?

The extension adds the VB-CLASSIC menu item to the development environment; this menu allows to load classic VB workspace- and project-files and offers quick access to the extension´s options. This is not a converter nor another VB6 upgrade wizard. The import tool creates a new solution and MSBuild compatible projects. The project system synchronizes all changes made to a project with the corresponding VBP file; this allows to use this toolset in parallel with the Visual Basic 6 IDE.

image

Project System and Editor

The package registers a new language service supporting Visual Basic 6 projects and code files. It integrates with the solution explorer and the code editor having support for syntax highlighting, basic outlining (allows to expand/collapse methods, properties and types) as well as navigation bar support.

Project Properties Designer

The project properties designer works directly on VBP files (MSBuild project files have only been introduced due to compatibility issues). The current version allows to display and edit a subset of classic VBP project settings (will probably be extended in future versions).

...

While I had a production app in every version of VB Classic (well except for VB for DOS... remember that?) and while I personally feel the MS dev community needs to let it go (Really folks, "It's dead, Jim..."), I thought this extension very cool...

Now this is a post title, "Teaching Relative Estimation by Throwing a Cat"

Scrum Alliance - Teaching Relative Estimation by Throwing a Cat

A quick and fun exercise that will help you teach relative estimation

I'm a big fan of relative measurements in software development. However, when teaching this idea, I've noticed that many developers who are used to estimating work in hours or days find it difficult to switch to using story points as the relative measurement of complexity. Many times I've heard comments like, "We use story points -- and one point is eight hours."

Old habits die hard
It's always challenging to learn a new habit and break an old one. Therefore I was constantly looking for a good exercise for my Scrum training that would let people compare work items without calculating effort. The ideal solution should be quick, usable with Planning Poker, and -- most important -- fun.
Hans Solo's Millennium Falcon and Mike Cohn's dog and zoo points

...

Throwing the cat -- what you should expect?

Things always get most interesting when you end your list with the cat from the title of this article. (If you have an avid cat lover in your audience, you might opt for a squirrel instead.)  ...

...

You might be wondering why we don't estimate how far you can throw objects. The reason is twofold. First of all, distance describes an effect -- the business value of throwing, not the complexity. And second, it's one-dimensional, so people can switch back to the unit measurement, where one point equals one meter.

Now when a family member asks how your day was, you can say, "We had a heated discussion at the office about throwing a cat!" Be sure to have fun -- and if you've enjoyed this exercise, let me know!

image..."

Really, I just loved the post title.. :)

Monday, May 19, 2014

400 billion... The Wayback Machine now has more pages than there are stars in our galaxy (and here's how they manage that)

High Scalability - A Short On How the Wayback Machine Stores More Pages than Stars in the Milky Way

How does the Wayback Machine work? Now with over 400 billion webpages indexed, allowing the Internet to be browsed all the way back to 1996, it's an even more compelling question. I've looked several times but I've never found a really good answer.

Here's some information from a thread on Hacker News. It starts with mmagin, a former Archive employee:

...

image

..."

How awesome is that? If you're interested in the story behind the storage/indexing/etc used by the Wayback Machine, read this...

V3 ERDM Diagram gets more IG (Information Governance)

EDRM - New EDRM Diagram Emphasizes Information Governance

SAINT PAUL, Minn. – May 19, 2014 – EDRM, the leading standards organization for the e-discovery market, today announced the release of Version 3 of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) diagram. Originally published in 2006, the framework is a popular tool used by legal professionals and others involved in e-discovery to help clarify processes and expectations among project stakeholders.

Version 3 of the EDRM diagram offers significant updates, primarily to express the importance of information governance (IG) as a key piece of the electronic discovery process. The new model is as follows:

image

The leftmost item in the model has been renamed “Information Governance” and its shape has been changed from a rectangle to a circle. These edits better align this diagram with EDRM’s Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM). The adoption of a circle also is meant to show that every well-managed e-discovery process should start and end with sound information governance.

..."

Look, it's my day job, you know, the one that pays the bills? So sometimes I have to blog about day job related stuff (that and I've been following this project since 2005). This diagram is one such thing. Since it came out, it's become a standard part of any EDD/ESI presentation, vendor display and part of the vernacular. Any change, even a small, is news of note...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
There's a new eDiscovery diagram in town... "Electronic Discovery Best Practices" at EDBP.com

Time ENF? "ENF, a New Standard for Managing Native Files"
PII Problems in the Public Enron Data Set (aka "Industry Ouch")
And even more Enron (PST’s that is) We’re talking 107GB, compressed, of data…
EDRM Enron Reference Data v2 now available
Need a ton of email data (10’s of gig’s)? Need it in PST form? Need it to be public data? Want to look behind the curtain into Enron? The EDRM Data Set Project is for you…
EDRM - Electronic Discovery Reference Model

What is 14 sessions, 21 hours and free? The Exam Prep Sessions from TechEd North America 2014...

Speaking of content to catch on the Channel 9 Windows Phone App...

Born to Learn - Now Available On Demand: Exam Prep Sessions from TechEd NA 2014

Whether you attended TechEd North America 2014 or not, all the Exam Prep sessions are available for you to watch anytime, thanks to our friends at Channel 9. Catch them all here.

For ease of reference, here's the list of Exam Prep sessions in the order they were presented during TechEd NA. Enjoy!

image

14 sessions, 21 hours'ish, all free...

image

Channel 9 goes wild for Windows Phone 8

Channel 9

image

Windows Phone 8 application for the Channel 9 web site (accessible at http://channel9.msdn.com) provides a way to browse, rate and view videos on a variety of developer and consumer topics.

image

One of my favorite Microsoft places (Gee, I don't know why that is! lol) now has an official WP8.x app. Read the posts, view the videos, see the shows, attend the events on-demand, its l there...

Vectoring in on the perfect set of Windows/Windows Phone app logo's. Just add one SVG and Vector

David Washington - Create logos for Windows and Windows Phone with one SVG

In a previous post, How to make an app logo that doesn’t suck, we talked through the importance of using vector graphics for your logos to maintain fidelity as they are scaled up to higher pixel density screens. We used a tool that I wrote called Vector to then export the logo to all the different required sizes and scale factors.

Since I wrote that post, Microsoft has announced universal Windows apps for Windows and Windows Phone that you create one app that can be published for all Windows devices.

...

Vector now exports Windows and Windows Phone images

So I took the feedback to heart and updated Vector so it can now export all 42 potential images for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1. You can take all the images that are exported, drop them in you Visual Studio shared project, and call it a day.

Go get it now and go make logos for both Windows and Windows Phone that don’t suck!

Vector

image

Description

Vector is for Windows and Windows Phone app developers. Use it to automatically create images for tiles, splash screens, and all other images required from your app from one scalable vector graphics (SVG) file. Simply choose an SVG file, place it on your tile with multi-touch or your mouse and export all of the images. Vector also exports all the images for devices with high pixel density screens. Exports up to 42 images from one SVG file!

Exported images from one SVG:
image

Features

  • Create tile images from one SVG automatically

  • Export all scales for high pixel density screens

  • Preview different tile colors

  • Use multi-touch or mouse to place the image

  • Use settings to choose which images to export

  • Auto-center images

  • Supports Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone tiles

Besides his awesomely titled post, How to make an app logo that doesn’t suck, this utility is a must have for Win/WP App dev's. I mean do you really want to generate 42 different versions of the same image? (of course, as soon as I wrote that, seems like Microsoft should be able to do that for you... given a SVG, generate the images, but one thing at a time I guess... ;)

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Play with a demo of the new Microsoft Azure RemoteApp right now...

In the Cloud - Microsoft Azure RemoteApp Demo

At TechEd this week, I had the privilege to announce the release of Microsoft Azure RemoteApp preview, a new service from Microsoft that provides Windows applications from a finished Azure service.

Since the launch of the preview, the team also enabled an Azure RemoteApp demo that allows you to experience the end-user aspects of the service on your choice of iOS, MacOS, or Windows devices in less than 5 clicks.

There are already thousands of unique users testing the service, and the team is working hard to increase the capacity.  The demand has been so high that it is, understandably, taking us time to go through all the approvals.  But don’t worry – we’ll get to everyone (we already have thousands of cores allocated to supporting this preview).

To experience the demo for yourself, click here.  Also, to read more about the demo experience, the RDS team has written a detailed post about the preview.

...

This demo lets you play with just released RemoteApp feature right now, with hardly any setup. Just install the RemoteApp utility and go! It's really pretty neat and the hybrid scenario is  something I'm going to have to take a good look at.

image

image

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Friday, May 16, 2014

CONPLAN 8888 - The Pentagon's Counter-Zombie Dominance plan [Not a joke, but not real either, think "Training Exercise"]

dvice - Pentagon is dead serious about its fake zombie apocalypse plan

The Pentagon has an unclassified document known as Conplan 8888, or the "Counter-Zombie Dominance" plan. Unlike the plan issued by the CDC a couple years back, this is not a survival guide for the masses. Instead, Conplan 8888 is a five-phase military strategy for restoring order after the outbreak. And just in case some of you out there doubt the sincerity of this 37-page document, here's the first line: "This plan was not actually designed as a joke."

So there you go. Conplan 8888 goes on to detail the different types of zombies that the military might encounter during the outbreak. These range from your traditional pathogenic zombies (PZs), carriers of the disease, to occult-induced evil magic zombies (EMZs) and non-threatening vegetarian zombies (VZs). Even the real-world chicken zombie is covered — over four paragraphs.

...

CONPLAN 8888

imageimageimageimageimage

I think the Space Zombie and Chicken Zombie are more favorite... BTW, you really do have to check the part about the Chicken Zombie...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
[Zombie, Humor] - US Army Zombie Combat Command & FM 999-3 (Counter-Zombie Operations at the Fireteam Level)
The CDC provides more Zombie Preparedness tips, this time via a graphic novella
Centers for Disease Control (US CDC) provides Zombie Apocalypse 101 Survival Tips (really...) - And Zombie badges too!
Zombie attacks catching you unaware and getting you down? “Record Zombie Attacks - Home CCTV DVR Solution”

Code Hunt - Microsoft Research's gamification of coding (which also shows off Pex Power!)

Microsoft Research Connections Blog - What if coding were a game?

"Well, now it is. Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of Code Hunt, a browser-based game for anyone who is interested in coding. We built Code Hunt to take advantage of the fact that any task can be more effective and sustainable when it’s fun. And Code Hunt is fun! It uses puzzles, which players explore by means of clues presented as test cases. Players iteratively modify their code to match the functional behavior of secret solutions. Once their code matches, lights flash and sounds play, letting players know that they have “captured” the code. Players then get a score, which depends on how elegant their solution is, and are encouraged to move on to the next puzzle or level.

image

...

Code Hunt was developed by a team in Microsoft Research led by Principal Development Lead Nikolai Tillmann and Principal Research Software Engineer Peli de Halleux. It is based on Pex, Microsoft Research’s state-of-the-art implementation of dynamic symbolic execution (analyzing a program to determine what inputs cause each part of a program to execute), which is available as a Power Tool in Microsoft Visual Studio.

We look forward to Code Hunt’s further application and would be happy to receive inquiries regarding competitions or courses. But remember, anyone can play Code Hunt—for fun or to hone their coding skills. Just go to www.codehunt.com and start coding!"

 

imageimageimageimageimageimageimage

Something fun to play with at work today home this weekend...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
You are such a Code Digger... Code Digger VS2012 extension released (Think "Pex powered input/output analysis for Portable Libraries Extension")
RiSE4Fun - Microsoft Research, Research in Software Engineering, "Fun" Dev, via web, site
Playing with Pex is just a web browser away at www.pexforfun.com
Faking it in VS11 - Moles, the Microsoft mocking/isolation framework, is baked into VS11
Interested in PEX & MOLES? Wish you could go to a five hour workshop on them? Here’s the next best thing…
Pex 2010 (aka Pex 0.90.50303.0) now available on MSDN Subscribers Downloads
Pex license updated – You can now use it in commercial projects
Pex 0.5 Released - Your Parameterized Unit Test Buddy
Think you can’t unit test ASP.Net? Here’s a tutorial for one way, using the power of Pex and Moles

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Go direct to...SMB Direct - If you're accessing large files,heavily accessed files via SMB...

Tip of the Day - Tip of the Day: SMB Direct

Today’s Tip…

Windows Server 2012 includes a new feature called SMB Direct, which supports the use of network adapters that have Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) capability. Network adapters that have RDMA can function at full speed with very low latency, while using very little CPU. For workloads such as Hyper-V or Microsoft SQL Server, this enables a remote file server to resemble local storage. SMB Direct includes:

  • Increased throughput: Leverages the full throughput of high speed networks where the network adapters coordinate the transfer of large amounts of data at line speed.
  • Low latency: Provides extremely fast responses to network requests, and, as a result, makes remote file storage feel as if it is directly attached block storage.
  • Low CPU utilization: Uses fewer CPU cycles when transferring data over the network, which leaves more power available to server applications.

SMB Direct is automatically configured by Windows Server 2012. [GD: Post Leached in full]

...you'll want to check this out. Say you're accessing really large PST's via a network share and it's not working out real well, this might be something you should run to check out. The problem might be though that this is a Server 2012 feature and you're accessing those resources from a Win7 box... hum... Will have to think about that.

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Pst... Storing PST's on a network share? Still a no-no...

Visual Studio 2013 and MSDN Licensing Whitepaper

Microsoft Downloads - Visual Studio and MSDN Licensing White Paper

This white paper provides an overview of the Visual Studio product line, including MSDN subscriptions, and the licensing requirements for those products in common deployment scenarios.

Version: 1.0

Date Published: 5/12/2014

File Name:

Visual Studio 2013 and MSDN Licensing Whitepaper - May-2014.docx

Visual Studio 2013 and MSDN Licensing Whitepaper - May-2014.pdf

Visual Studio 2013 and MSDN Licensing Whitepaper - May-2014.xps

This white paper provides an overview of the Visual Studio product line and the licensing requirements for those products in common deployment scenarios. For a definitive guide to licensing terms and conditions for products licensed through Microsoft Volume Licensing, see the Microsoft Licensing Product Use Rights (PUR) document and applicable licensing agreements. For retail customers the license terms are specified in the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) included with your product or with your MSDN subscription.

The MSDN licensing question seems to come up, well seems like every time we get someone new. What with the RTM release up VS 2013.2 seems like a good time to cache this here for a future, "I blogged about it..." email... :)

imageimage

imageimageimage

 

Related Past Post XRef:
"Visual Studio 2012 and MSDN Licensing White Paper"
Visual Studio 2010 and MSDN Licensing Whitepaper Updated
Visual Studio 2010 Licensing White Paper (includes Team Foundation Server, Lab Management and IntelliTrace)

How portable is your .NET code? API Portability Analyzer Alpha

Microsoft Downloads - API Portability Analyzer - Alpha

The API Portability Analyzer tool provides a list of .NET APIs used by an app, and portability of those .NET APIs on various .NET profiles/platforms.

Version: 1.0

Date Published: 5/12/2014

API Portability Analyzer Alpha Pre-Release License Terms.docx

ApiPort.exe

The API Portability Analyzer tool provides list of .NET APIs used by an app, and portability of those .NET APIs on various .NET profiles/platforms. This allows easy portability analysis for developers who are considering porting existing app on various platforms.

Note: During the process of identifying the .NET APIs used by a binary Microsoft collects the list of .NET APIs used by the user submitted binaries. Microsoft also collects the names of various user created APIs. The tool does not collect the binary code, only names of APIs are collected. Microsoft will also collect assembly information such as assembly references for the binary & the Target Framework Moniker (TFM).

...

.NET Framework Blog

...

Targeting Multiple Platforms

We’ve been working for several years to make it easier to write code for multiple platforms, both as apps and libraries. We started by enabling our PCL reference assemblies for Xamarin, who quickly moved forward with that change. More recently, we’ve been working closely with Xamarin to make our .NET NuGet packages work better with Xamarin tools, to make it easier to build .NET apps for iOS and Android. There’s still work to do, but the experience has gotten much better and will continue to improve.

At TechEd, we announced a new portability analysis tool, called ApiPort. It provides you with two main pieces of data: the platforms that you can easily/reasonably target with your code, and the dependencies that are preventing you from targeting additional platforms.

The command line tool generates an Excel report that provides you with two views of its portability analysis. It provides a high-level color-coded view for a given set of platforms. It also provides a very detailed list of all the types and members used within your code, and whether they are supported, per platform. Given that the report is in Excel, it is very easy to filter the list, build pivot tables and do whatever else you want to perform further analysis.

The image below shows a small sample of the high-level portability analysis view. Only one assembly is shown, but there can be multiple. Check out this sample portability analysis to get a first-hand view.

image

The tool has another function, too. All of the dependency data (not the assemblies) are uploaded to an Azure service that the .NET team maintains. The data that the tool uploads is the list of assemblies and APIs that your code relies on. We do not record where the data came from or by whom. We do not upload any of your actual code or binaries. We want to know which functionality we need to bring to each platform to make it easier to target all platforms.

If you are finding it difficult to target a particular platform, please “vote” for the APIs you want added to a particular platform by running the tool on your app and libraries. It’s really easy to run the tool on a whole directory.

This first release of tool is missing a few features that we are in the process of adding. The Xamarin/Mono platforms are currently missing from the tool. It also doesn’t yet take into consideration NuGet packages that make .NET Framework APIs available on other platforms, counting them as missing APIs.

...

If you're wondering how portable your code is, this is one of your first stops...

"Sysinternals Primer: TechEd 2014 Edition"

TechEd 2014 - TWC: Sysinternals Primer: TechEd 2014 Edition

The latest edition of the popular Sysinternals Primer series with Aaron Margosis, Mark Russinovich’s co-author of The Windows Sysinternals Administrator’s Reference. The Sysinternals utilities are vital tools for any computer professional on the Windows platform. Mark Russinovich's popular "Case Of The Unexplained" demonstrates some of their capabilities in advanced troubleshooting scenarios. This complementary tutorial series focuses primarily on the utilities themselves, deep-diving into as many features as time allows. Expect to see some advanced analysis, such as manipulating Procmon results with Windows PowerShell, and interesting/useful new features.

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How could I not include this in my Sysinternals post collection? :P

Remember, there's a HUGE collection of free on-demand videos from TechEd and Build. Go there, be there, do there! (or whatever, you get the idea... ;)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
How-To schools you on SysInternals, "Using SysInternals Tools Like a Pro"
Mark TechEd's you... See all four of Mark Russinovich's recent TechEd North America sessions
The “Windows Sysinternals Primer: Process Explorer, Process Monitor, and More” from TechEd 2010 North America

"Utilizing SysInternals Tools for Windows Client" - The Seven Part Series..
A "Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference" book by Mark Russinovich? You had me a $30 pre-order special price (and Sysinternals... and Mark Russinovich... and... )
Sysinternals 101 – “Notes from the field,” a quick intro to a few Sysinternals utilities (Process Explorer, TCPView, Process Monitor, VMMap)
Hands On Learning How to Use the Sysinternals Process Monitor Utility

Process Explorer v16.0 is out and now cooking with VirusTotal
Disk2vhd turns 2, v2.0 that is, and a few more Sysinternals utility updates
New Sysinternals utility released today, Disk2vhd v1.0 – Yes ...

A Sweet Summer Sysinternals Suite Refresh
It's a sweet suite! Windows Sysinternals Suite gets a summer refresh [August 3, 2012]...
Sysinternals Suite 2010 Refreshed - All the latest versions, one 12.4MB zip…
Sysinternals Suite Refreshed – All the latest Sysinternals Utilities, one tiny zip (well 10MB zip…)
Sysinternals Suite (8MB of Complete Sysinternals Goodness)

Mesh'ing Live.Sysinternals.com, using Vista Scheduling and Robocopy|
A handy PowerShell script to keep your Sysinternals Suite up to date
The latest Sysinternals utilities are just a URL away, Live.Sysinternals.com

Use the Sysinternals Utilities? The EULA bug dialog you? Then try this…

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Monday, May 12, 2014

May is the National Military Appreciation Month

National Military Appreciation Month: Celebrating Our Troops

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May is National Military Appreciation Month (NMAM), a time to recognize and celebrate the contributions of the courageous men and women who have served or are currently serving in the United States Armed Forces.

Designated by Congress, NMAM encourages Americans to publicly show their appreciation for the sacrifices—and accomplishments—made by our military personnel. During this important month, Americans have the opportunity to come together to thank our military for their patriotic service in support of our country, at several national events planned throughout the month.

each year, kicks off our Nation’s month-long celebration of military appreciation. In his proclamation of Loyalty Day, 2014, President Barack Obama reminded Americans of the significance of this important day: “On this day, let us reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America and pay tribute to the heritage of American freedom.”

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Image source courtesy of DOD http://www.defense.gov/afd/

Other important events honoring our military’s achievements include Victory in Europe (VE) Day celebrated on May 8, Military Spouse Appreciation Day celebrated on May 9, Armed Forces Day celebrated on May 17, and Memorial Day celebrated on May 26. Armed Forces Day and Memorial Day are the best known of the May military-themed holidays. Armed Forces Day, which was created to honor all branches of the U.S. Military, replaced separate Army, Navy and Air Force Days. And Memorial Day commemorates the men and women who died while serving in military service....

National Military Appreciation Month (NMAM)

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As a veteran, a son-in-law in the Navy and a son deployed in Afghanistan, this year the National Military Appreciation Month has special meaning. You don't have to do anything special, you don't have to hug a troop or buy them a drink. Most troops are embarrassed by the attention. To them, it's just what that do...

What you can do is use this month to remember freedom is not free, and smile, nod or say thank you...

How does Microsoft scale Agile? Here's how, all in a very cool looking webzine

Visual Studio - Engineering Stories 

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Welcome to our new Engineering Stories site. This is a place for us to share how we build software at Microsoft. Today, we're releasing our first story describing how we adopted and scaled agile practices across Developer Division. It's a story describing our journey towards a faster release cadence, a more engaging engineering process, and, in the end... a better product. I hope you find these stories useful and engaging. Our goal is to share where we've found success, and also where we've struggled. Let us know what you think.

Thanks.

Scaling Agile Across the Enterprise

A little history

You might remember how we made software a decade ago – "we" being the entire software industry, Microsoft included. By today's standards, slow ... as ... molasses.

We released products on two to three year cycles. It wasn't unheard of to spend six months to a year planning, a year or more coding, and then months packaging everything up for delivery. It worked in the software generation in which it was born, but today's environment requires a different approach. Today we buy software daily—often with just the touch of a finger on the device we're carrying with us. Market opportunities come and go more quickly, and customers demand increasingly faster turnaround to meet their needs.

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I heard about the Microsoft DevDiv move toward agile at the 2012 Build and thought it could dramatically change the way we see software coming out Microsoft (or be a total bust). I can't say if it was indeed this move, but even the biggest hater has to admit, the software release cadence we're now seeing it nothing less than amazing, compared to just 5, heck 3, years ago. And the scary, in a good way, is that it looks like its speeding up!

A little prehistory, the world before Windows...

How-To Geek - PCs Before Windows: What Using MS-DOS Was Actually Like

Consumer PCs didn’t always run Windows. Before Windows arrived, PCs came with Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system. Here’s what the command-line environment was actually like to use.

No, MS-DOS was not just like using the Linux terminal or firing up the Command Prompt in  window on your fancy graphical desktop. Many things we take for granted just weren’t possible back then.

The DOS PC Experience

DOS was a command-line operating system with no graphical windows. You booted up your computer and then saw a DOS prompt. You had to know the commands to type at this prompt to launch programs, run built-in utilities, and actually do something with your computer

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Wow, this brought back some memories. There was nothing like walking someone less than computer literate over the phone through created a config.sys and autoexec.bat by using "copy CON..." And TSR's (go Sidekick, Go!). I used to love (cough) saying, "Now press enter" and then hearing 5 key strokes (i.e. the person typing e-n-t-e-r... lol). and then there was... and... oh man, I need a drink...

Cool Round-up of the Day: Rob's "Top 10 Microsoft Developer Links for Monday, May 12, 2014"

Rob Caron - Top 10 Microsoft Developer Links for Monday, May 12, 2014

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I think Rob's got the round-up cowboy title for the day... The only thing he's missing is the Azure stuff, more on the ASP.NET vNext story and the Office 365 API drop. But then again, he's trying to filter it down to 10, so I guess I can cut him a little slack... :)

Thursday, May 08, 2014

Ricky Leeks and learning about leaks in this .NET Memory Management article collection [Contact Info-ware]

Red Gate - Ricky Leeks on Learning .NET Memory Management

To write the best .NET code, you need to know exactly how the .NET framework really manages memory.

In this free 6-part article series, Ricky Leeks gathers together the top tips and techniques for understanding memory management, garbage collection, interoperability, and more.

Then hunt down the memory leaks in your application with a free trial of ANTS Memory Profiler.

1. Free article: Learning .NET Memory Management

  • The Fundamentals of .NET Memory Management
  • Top 5 .NET Memory Management Gotchas
  • 5 Tips for Avoiding Automatic Garbage Collections

2. Track down memory leaks with ANTS Memory Profiler

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(via Tatworth - Free article from Redgate - Learning .NET Memory Management)

 

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"Under the Hood of .NET Memory Management" free eBook
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