Microsoft Web Platform Installer 1.0 Released

Version 1.0 of the Microsoft Web Platform Installer is out . 

The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple tool that makes it very easy to download and install Microsoft's entire Web Platform in one step, including IIS, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s user interface, you can choose to install either specific products or the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. The Web PI also helps keep your products up to date by always offering the latest additions to the Web Platform. Web PI 1.0 supports Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista and of course Windows 2008. 

Also worth noting is the Microsoft Web Applicaton Installer (Web AI) currently in in Beta which allows you to quickly install a set of open source ASP.NET and PHP applications. The tool will check for required pre-requisites as well.

VB.NET and C# Comparison

Sometimes we need a simple VB.NET & C# side by side comparison. This sheet doesn't include all features, but its great place to start with.

Preview Of The Next TFS Power Tools Release

For a preview of the next TFS Power Tools release, please read Brian Harry’s blog.

The next version is really amazing!

From Brian’s post:

There are 3 major new components to the October Power Tools release and the usual incremental improvements.

• Team Members - We've added a new node to the Team Explorer called "Team Members".  It appears under each Team Project and is used to identify who are the people who work on the project.  It serves as a "pivot point" for information about and operations on people and teams.
• Windows Shell Extension - We've built a Windows shell extension that allows you to do the core version control operations directly inside the Windows Explorer without using the Team Explorer.
• PowerShell Support - We've started working on a PowerShell pipeline and commandlets for TFS.  Our initial set support basic version control operations but over time we plan to add work item tracking, administration, build and more.

This is one of the best Power Tools releases so far.

Read Brian’s post for full details.

I'm a Microsoft MVP!!!!

There are few emails that one will receive in his lifetime that will render him  completely speechless. I am delighted to find out that I have been awarded with 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award.
This is the email I received:

Subject: Congratulations 2009 Microsoft MVP!

Dear Maor David,
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others.

I am really very excited and I want to take this opportunity to thank the community that supported me over the past year. Special thanks goes to Guy Burstein who has nominated me for the MVP program. Off course I’d like to thank to my company – SRL, that encourage excellence and sharing the knowledge with the community.

My MVP Profile page: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Maor.David

Thanks!!!

Data Dude + Developer Edition = Team Developer

{From My VSTS KB}

In today's press release titled: "Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Overview" MS also announced the merge of the Developer Edition and Database Edition SKU's.

From Gert’s post:

What does this mean?

In the next release of Visual Studio Team System we will be merging the feature sets of the Development Edition and the Database Edition into a single product. The new product – part of Visual Studio Team System codename “Rosario” – will include all of the features in the Development Edition and the Database Edition as well as new capabilities delivering even more value in a single product. This will provide a more complete set of capabilities for building software in today’s data-driven environments. Bringing these two feature sets together enables you to take advantage of the core tools for application development as well as the necessary tools for database development, including performance profiling, code analysis, code metrics, code coverage, database refactoring, Schema Compare, Data Compare, and more.

As an MSDN subscriber we want you to realize the benefit of this merged feature set now, which is why we are extending this exclusive offer. If you have either the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition with MSDN Premium subscription or the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition with MSDN Premium subscription, on October 1, 2008 you will have access to both the Development Edition and Database Edition through MSDN Subscriber Downloads. This change also applies to customers who purchased Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers with MSDN Premium Subscription and Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals with MSDN Premium Subscription.

Announcing Visual Studio Team System 2010

Published on My VSTS KB

Microsoft has officially named the Visual Studio Team System Code-name 'Rosario' suite of tools to "Visual Studio Team System 2010" in an announcement on 29-Sep-2008.  They have also posted information on MSDN and Channel 9.

The 2010 release will be a huge step forward for the tools in the ALM space. The new architect tools look great, the build system will be improved, the tools for project management will (finally) get support for hierarchical structures, test management... The list just goes on and on...

The complete announcement can be found here.

And Brian Harry of course has some more to add about this in this post.

Here are some links to the announcements, feature sets, goodies and articles:

• Microsoft PressPass - Microsoft Unveils Next Version of Visual Studio and .NET Framework
• Brian Harry's Blog - Shining the Light on Rosario
• MSDN - Visual Studio Team System 2010 Overview
• MSDN - Visual Studio 2010 and the .Net Framework 4.0 Overview
• Channel 9 - Norm Guadagno: Announcing Visual Studio Team System 2010
• Channel 9 - Visual Studio Team System 2010 Week on Channel 9!

Brian Harry also posted also that there would be another CTP this fall.

Data Dude:Deploy Action On CTP16 Does Not Deploy The Database To Target

A lot of users confused and don’t understand why the database does not appear on the target server when they do deploy.

The reason is that in CTP 16, the default deploy mechanism is to deploy to script. If you want to deploy to database you have to change the 'Deploy action' on the project properties, deploy tab to 'Create a deployment script (.sql) and deploy to the database.'