View from the Ivory Tower » Development Process

Ultimate Guide to Visual Studio 2010

cbkadel — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:49:13 +0000

Wednesday, February 16th, we have two guest speakers at the Chicago Visual Studio ALM User Group: Zain Naboulsi and Clint Edmonson from Microsoft are going to provide a great demo-packed presentation about the new features of Visual Studio 2010 and its surrounding ecosystem. This presentation will be downtown at the AON Center (Microsoft Chicago – 200 E Randolph, 2nd Floor, Chicago, IL). Please come and attend, but first RSVP at http://chicagoalmug.org.

Chicago Visual Studio ALM User Group & Agile Modeling

cbkadel — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 02:41:49 +0000

I hadn’t blogged about this yet, but one of the things that I have been most excited about is the re-launch of a TFS-focused User Group in Chicago and I’m thrilled to be apart of it. This group isn’t solely focused on TFS, but instead, as reflected in its name is “Microsoft-Focused” and is “ALM” focused. Meetings will typically be down at the AON Center or at Microsoft-Downers Grove on a roughly monthly basis.

This week – January 12, 2011 – Gary Pedretti will be talking about the Architecture/Modeling functionality within Visual Studio 2010. The event is at 6:30 – 8:30PM at the AON Center (Microsoft) – 200 E Randolph, 2nd Floor. Registration is closing on Tuesday morning, so if interested, please go to http://chicagoalmug.org and click on the following to sign up:

New Demo TFS Image Available

cbkadel — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 12:49:55 +0000

Brian Keller, who does this periodically, just released a new version of the VS 2010 demo virtual machine. It’s of course time bombed, but so were the previous ones – which will most surely expire quite soon.

To get the new image or get more information:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/briankel/archive/2010/06/25/now-available-visual-studio-2010-rtm-virtual-machine-with-sample-data-and-hands-on-labs.aspx

Tagged: Demo, Microsoft, TFS

Welcome

cbkadel — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:56:12 +0000

I’ve decided to move my blog off of SharePoint to use WordPress. After evaluating a number of blogging engines, I kept coming back to WordPress – which certainly has a very mature platform.

While I have been blogging for a few years, I feel that I wanted to get more frequent with this. Most developers out there, including myself, run into things all the time, that isn’t solved quickly and must take some thought and problem solving. Since I know we’ve all been there, I intend to post here on new things that interest me, problems I figured out – in case that helps someone else.

A little bit about myself… Yes, I do focus mainly on Microsoft technologies. I have been a fan since I was in college and in that environment Microsoft was clearly the underdog – most people there were doing their development in Sun or some other Unix variant. Microsoft helped sponsor the “Microsoft Programmers Club” there and gave us a bunch of free software – including Visual Studio. I fell in love with that IDE and have been using it every since.

Today, I’m primarily working as a consultant and partner in Polaris Solutions (http://www.polarissolutions.com). Usually, I am on projects implementing Team Foundation Server and helping organizations adopt Team System, though that name is significantly downplayed in the 2010 release. While focusing on TFS and process methodology, I have been focusing primarily on Agile methodologies because of their emergent predictability. I do believe that predictability within IT organizations is a very valuable aspect. Some times it can be achieved by fiat, but organizations will fall into habits/ways of doing things that may be contradictory to that goal. I mostly feel that with the adoption of Agile, it becomes easier for a group to become predictable because Agile embraces change – and in many ways where adopted – embraces simplicity. Those things, they are constant, and I believe, essential for a successful IT organization.

Tagged: About Me, Agile, Microsoft, Process, Visual Studio