Geek Noise

Free Test-First Development Training - 24 hours only

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:44:32 -1400

For anyone with teams or managers wondering about Test-First Development or TDD techniques, my friends at Pluralsight are giving a free course for the next 24-hours. TDD expert David Starr and Scott Allen will take you through the history, background and techniques. He also includes data in support of test-first practices in case you’re in a situation where you’re getting management pushback.

Test-First Development, Part I by David Starr and Scott Allen
Test-First Development, Part II by David Starr

To access the courses, click the link above and then click on one of the specific links in the Table of Contents. You do not need to register or sign-up, but this is only free for the next 24-hours.

Thanks to Pluralsight for this free resource.

Enjoy!

Visual Studio and TFS 2010 SP1 Released

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:38:42 -1400

This morning at Tech Ed Middle East, Soma announced the final version of Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1. Jason Zander followed that up with a blog post that outlines the release:

As described with the SP1 Beta post, in this release we have addressed some of the most requested features from customers of Visual Studio 2010 like better help support, IntelliTrace support for 64bit and SharePoint, and included Silverlight 4 Tools in the box. We also added unit testing support on .NET 3.5 and a new performance wizard for Silverlight, among other changes.

We concentrated heavily on fixing issues you reported, including the top voted issues from Connect. The full list of changes can be found in theVisual Studio and Team Foundation Server knowledge base articles. You can also find information about SP1 compatibility, SP1 Readme, and general information about SP1 in the Visual Studio Dev Center.

It is available today to MSDN Subscribers (here) and will be generally available on Thursday March 10 (here).

Additionally, we shipped two new Feature Packs for MSDN Subscribers:

Team Foundation Server Project Server Integration Feature Pack – Integration between Project Server and Team Foundation Server is a considerable advancement for organizations that want to bridge the collaboration gap between the Project Management Office and software development teams.
Visual Studio 2010 Load Test Feature Pack – Enables web performance and stress testing throughout the application lifecycle with unlimited virtual users.

More information:

Jason Zander: Announcing Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1
Soma Somasegar: Visual Studio 2010 enhancements
Brian Harry: VS/TFS 2010 SP1 and TFS-Project Server Integration Feature Pack have Released

Music Top 10 from 2010

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 04:29:20 -1400

Rather than focus on only albums that came out in 2010, I’ve decided this year to focus on those that were consistently a part of my musical playlist. Most are new, but there is one standout from a few years back that I only discovered in 2010, so I included it anyway.

As you can see, metal is still a dominant part of my musical day, but I also had a few other things get playtime this year that didn’t make the list like Girl Talk’s new mash-up album, some Phish bootlegs, the new Widespread Panic album and some classic 80s metal and prog.

So in no particular order, here are my top 10:

Opeth - In Live Concert At The Royal Albert Hall (2010)

One of my favorite albums of the last few years is Opeth’s second live album, The Roundhouse Tapes (2007), so when I heard they’d made a recording of their recent tour, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. “In Live at the Royal Albert Hall” is their third live album and takes the listener through the band’s full history, playing at least one song from each studio album. In addition to the historical review, it is also nice to get a chance to hear Fredrik Åkesson playing that older material.

Mikael Åkerfeldt has said that he is working on their next studio album and the band hoped to release in in late 2011.

Allegaeon – Fragments of Form and Function (2010)

I was very excited when I was referred to this Colorado band earlier in the year. The talent in this band is immense. I haven’t had a chance to see them live yet, but since they’re based here, I’m hoping this year I will get a chance. Melodic technical death metal at its finest. If you enjoy this, be sure to check out their previous work: 2008 Ep (2008).

Solution .45 – For Aeons Past (2010)

Near the end of 2008, Scar Symmetry parted ways with vocalist Christian Älvestam, then in 2009 released a new album (which I reviewed last year). This year, I was referred to Solution .45 by a friend who was also a Scar Symmetry fan with the note, “It sounds a lot like older Scar.” And he was right. Vocally you really would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Not that that is bad, and in fact, this album got a lot of play this year. But I wonder sometimes if the departure of band founder Jani Stefanovic was due to this band sounding so much like Scar Symmetry despite Jani’s public statements to the contrary.

Dark Tranquility – We Are The Void (2010)

Dark Tranquility is one of the originators of melodic death metal, and is one of the only remaining members of the original Gothenburg metal scene. I somehow missed out discovering them until this year and was happy to find a great new album to get me started.

Yakuza – Of Seismic Consequence (2010)

I’ve always loved fusion forms, which is why prog-rock and prog-metal have always interested me. Yakuza is one of those hard to classify bands that brings together jazz, prog and metal into something that can only be called goodness.

Between the Buried and Me – Colors (2007)

This is the one this year that isn’t a 2010 release, but for me it was a 2010 discovery. I still have no idea how I missed this band until now. I found it playing Rock Band at Brad Wilson’s house and now I can’t stop listening to it. AMAZING.

Intronaut – Valley of Smoke (2010)

Intronaut is from California, and their style is progressive or experimental metal with some sludge tendencies. Very nice stuff for listening to while working. Odd-time rhythms, trance-y, drone-y all mixed up with some killer sludge metal thrash. These guys mix everything together in a way that is great to listen to.

Kvelertak – Kvelertak (2010)

Kvelertak is a Norwegian band from Stavanger who’s style is something like a cross between hardcore punk, black metal and sludge. All of their songs are in Norwegian, but from what I’ve read, they’re all about Norse and Viking mythology, which might also get them assigned to the folk-metal category. Whatever… these guys are very hardcore.

Pantera – Cowboys from Hell 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (2010)

It may be a stretch to call this a 2010 album, but this classic metal album from all-time greats Pantera was re-released last year as a 20th anniversary special deluxe edition. The original Cowboys from Hell was released in July 1990 and was Pantera’s fifth album. This special release comes in three flavors: Ultimate, Deluxe and Expanded, including live and demo bonus tracks.

Red Sparowes – The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer

Red Sparowes is another project by Isis guitarist Bryant Clifford Meyer, and has an instrumental, post-metal, sludgy sound that is killer work music. It just sits back there and grinds. Great stuff. If you like bands like Isis, Pelican, you will love these guys.

TechEd Europe 2010 Recordings and Downloads

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 04:05:24 -1400

Just before Thanksgiving I was in Berlin, Germany for TechEd Europe 2010. Have I ever mentioned how much I love this conference? I think I need to move to northern Europe for a few years.

Anyway, they recorded all the breakout sessions and I know some people have been asking for the content. Here are the talks I was involved in that have recordings:

Agile Development with Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010

This was a talk Aaron Bjork and I did together to show how a scrum team can use VS + TFS + Extensions to get a very nice, end-to-end experience for the whole team. This talk was very well received by the audience and provoked a lot of great follow-on conversations.

The best feedback quote of the conference came from this talk, and was in regard to me and Aaron riffing off each other:

“Really like the two Ronnies effect, and the demos were awesome.”

(I didn’t know who the Two Ronnies were so I dug up this YouTube clip. LOL)

http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe/DEV310

Architecture Discovery with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

This talk was a review of the VS2010 features that enable architecture discovery of existing code systems. I reviewed a bunch of great features, notably DGML Graphs and the Architecture Explorer, Layer Diagrams, and Reverse Engineering. We also reviewed the Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack and how it adds to this story.

http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe/DEV204

Visualization and Modeling in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

In this talk I took a different view of the Modeling tools in VS2010, focusing on the top-down modeling-first perspective. I want to thank Christof Sprenger for the great bit he did on the P&P Feature Builder tool, which uses the modeling capabilities and extensibility in VS2010 to create a whole new way to write VS extensions.

http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe/DEV210

Agile Talk on Agility

Aaron Bjork and I also did a pair of interactive talks that weren’t recorded but I have to mention. I’ve been doing this talk for years, but I have to give credit to Brian Button who originally pioneered this idea. The gist is this… run as many 10-minute iterations/sprints as you can where each sprint’s goal is to answer questions provided by the audience. Have the audience stack rank the list (typically by applause), and get to work! These talks are amazingly fun, and people always enjoy them. I just wish there were recordings.

I want to thank Aaron for his amazing involvement in these two sessions. His knowledge and engagement on the PM side of things is great. Hopefully he and I can do it again next year. I also want to thank Mitch Lacey for being a guest star in the repeat session. Always high-energy, it is fun to work with Mitch on stage.

Cameron Skinner - XMI Export Sample

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 05:16:25 -1400

Over the past couple of years demoing and presenting the VS2010 Architecture Tools and Extensibility features, one of the things that has often come up is a request for XMI Export. We added XMI Import in the Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack, but the standard answer for XMI Export has been “roll it yourself, it isn’t that hard”.

Well, as Cameron blogged this morning, Steve Cook created a sample to get you started on just that. Cameron’s blog explains it is detail, so head over there is XMI Export is something you’ve been looking for.

Just Released: Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:39:54 -1400

When I first joined patterns & practices more almost six years ago, I moved right into the “delta lounge” which was the triangular-shaped team room where we created EntLib 1.0.

Who’s have thought that we’d now be up to EntLib 5.0, but here we are.

For all the details of the new features and capabilities in this version, please read the official announcement on Grigori Melnik’s blog.

Congrats to the EntLib Team for another great release!

Pomodairo – My new favorite Pomodoro timer

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:02:55 -1400

I’ve been using the Pomodoro technique for a while now, using a set of OneNote pages as my tracker (one page per day). It works great, but until today I hadn’t found a timer I liked.

Today I found Pomodairo, a nice little actively maintained client written in Adobe Air. This screenshot shows the timer window open with the task list expanded.

So far the only downside is the default volume of the alarm. The first time the ringer went off I just about jumped out of my chair. Fortunately there is a volume control in the settings.

If you’ve not heard of the Pomodoro technique, it is basically an agile project management technique for your personal daily tasks. You do iterations of 25-minutes with 5-min breaks in between. You work on only one thing at a time, and you track your time against plan.

I may write more about it later but the technique is well documented, with a free PDF download of the book, at http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/.

Visual Studio 2010 RTM, Launch Events and More!

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:50:32 -1400

It seems very unlikely that you missed it, but Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 has officially launched! I can’t adequately express how excited we are about this release. There is so much good stuff in there, it is hard to know where to start.

I want to congratulate the thousands of people who spent the last two years working on this release. I’ve had the pleasure of working with many of them as we built out all the great new architecture features in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.

For those of you who’ve been creating models in the architecture tools in RC and Beta2, we just shipped the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Architecture Model Upgrade Tool on the VS Gallery. Check it out.

We also just shipped the RTM version of the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Visualization & Modeling SDK (née the Domain Specific Language Toolkit SDK). Jean-Marc Prieur has just posted an announcement post about it.

The Vegas launch event was a hit, and it is being followed up by a bunch of regional events. I will be speaking on Tuesday April 20th at the Denver event, so if you’re in town, please SIGN UP and come on out.

Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate is LIVE!

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:31:27 -1400

We are so close now we can taste it. VS2010 is almost ready and to help give you all a nice checkpoint on where the product stands, we just pushed out RC to all MSDN Subscribers. It will go to the public on Feb 10. As with the previous Beta, the RC has a go-live license.

VS2010 RC Official Site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx
Download Now: Visual Studio 2010 / .NET 4.0 RC

Here’s a video Jason Zander did for Channel9:

And some other links to MSFT bloggers:

Jason Zander - Announcing VS2010 / .NET Framework 4 Release Candidate (RC)
Soma Somasegar - Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Release Candidate now available
Scott Guthrie - VS 2010 / .NET 4 Release Candidate

As we like to say… go get it. Install it. Use it. And tell us what you think!!

Migrating your Modeling artifacts to RC

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:30:41 -1400

Reposting Cameron Skinner’s post from this morning:

No, the RC for VS2010 has not yet hit the wire, but it will be very soon. :)

One of the great things about the Beta2 version of Visual Studio 2010 was the fact that the TFS server as well as all the client side products came with a “Go Live” license. Well the RC build will also be a “Go Live” build. That essentially means that we are encouraging you to use the products on production workloads, and if the format of artifacts created with Beta2 bits change in the RC bits, we will handle the migration of that data for you either automatically or through some other means. For the RC build, that will also mean migration from the RC product to the final, RTM product.

Bottom line, it is hard to try product out and get real feedback if you don’t put it to production use. It is hard to put the product in production use if you can’t be sure that your data will migrate to the final build. Thus the “Go Live” license. For the details around the “Go Live”, start with Beehler’s post.

So, if you have created modeling projects and diagrams in the beta2 build, we will be providing a tool that will automatically upgrade those files / artifacts to the RC build, when available. We’ll be announcing that tool very soon after the RC build announced.

Keep the feedback coming! :)

UML Modeling and Code Generation in Visual Studio 2010

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:10:25 -1400

A couple of days ago, Oleg Sych made a wonderful post about how to combine our UML Modeling tools with T4 text templating and our extension APIs to generate code within Visual Studio.

He covers the basics of the UML designers, showing how you can use custom profiles to annotate elements for your code generation scripts.

The example is very good: generating a SQL database create script for a data model described as a UML Class diagram. This is exactly how we envisioned this stuff being used and I’m very excited to see it happening so early, on Beta 2 bits.

Read the whole article here:
http://www.olegsych.com/2010/01/uml-modeling-and-code-generation-in-visual-studio-2010/

Visual Studio Ultimate Event – Atlanta GA Feb 2 2010

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:04:17 -1400

Next month I will keynoting the Visual Studio Ultimate Event in Atlanta. Here’s the description from the event site:

The Ultimate Event: Visual Studio 2010 & Team Foundation Server 2010
Feb 02,2010 @ 8:30am
Microsoft Alpharetta Office

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 is a landmark release of the premier development toolset for Windows, Web and Cloud development. Join us for a comprehensive overview of Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010. Microsoft has made significant investments to and improvements of Modeling and Testing/QA tools in Visual Studio. Team Foundation Server is the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) core of Team System and we’ll present enhancements in version control, reporting, project management and build management. Spend a day with us to learn how to take software development to next level with Visual Studio 2010.

More information and registration can be found at the link above.

I will also be making a few stops for some local stuff:

Atlanta Visual Studio User Group
Feb 01, 2010 @ 6:30pm
Microsoft Alpharetta Offices

Nerd Dinner: Architecture Blather with Peter Provost
Feb 02, 2010 @ 6:30pm
5 Seasons Brewery at the Prado

If you are in the Atlanta area, I hope to see you there!

Music Top 10 from 2009

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:11:39 -1400

It was a good year of music for me, marked by some great new metal albums from some of my Scandinavian favorites, and also a return to some of the prog- and jam-rock sounds from my younger years. The order is hardest to softest, musically.

Lamb of God - Wrath

I’ll start with one of the heaviest records on my list and one that certainly got a pretty heavy rotation on my Zune and while at work. Out of Richmond VA, LoG runs that interesting line between death metal and thrash, but with a seriously good groove hiding in all the noise and growling.

Wrath is Lamb of God’s sixth album.

Mastodon - Crack the Skye

Mastodon are often classified as progressive metal or sometimes stoner metal. I’ve been listening to them on and off for years, probably starting back in the late 90s when I was really into Kyuss (predecessor to QotSA). There 2009 album Crack the Skye dragged me back to their fold. Heavy and melodic at the same time, it has more of a consistent feel to it from start to finish that much of their previous work.

Crack the Skye is Mastodon’s fourth studio album and will certainly stay in my rotation throughout 2010.

Scar Symmetry - Dark Matter Dimensions

Holographic Universe, the third album from Sweden’s Scar Symmetry, was easily one of the best metal albums of 2008, and when I heard that they’d replaced their singer from that album with two people I was afraid it wouldn’t work out. But the new singers, Robert Karlsson and Lars Palmqvist hit the sound right on the nail. Often classified as melodic death metal, Scar Symmetry has fast guitars and a nice mix of clean signing and deep growls. Their late 2009 release titled Dark Matter Dimensions is still in my playlist.

Dark Matter Dimensions is Scar Symmetry’s fourth studio album.

Amorphis - Skyforger

Finland’s Amorphis started out the late 80s as a death metal act but as they’ve evolved it has become more progressive or folk metal. It still has some of the growls of death metal but with a much more melodic and structured sound as well. Amorphis pulls a lot of their lyrical content from the Kalevala, a book and epic poem of Finnish folklore, and this album stays true to that with a set of songs all told from the perspective of the character Ilmarinen

Skyforger is Amorphis’s ninth studio album.

Isis - Wavering Radiant

Founded in Boston, but now hailing from Los Angeles, Isis is often called sludge metal of post-metal. Long, acoustically dense songs characterize their sound it sometimes makes you think of bands like Pink Floyd while at other times you think you’re listening to a European death metal band. All-in-all it is great stuff, even if it does take a bit of getting used to.

Wavering Radiant is Isis’s fifth studio album.

Katatonia - Night is the New Day

Katatonia is another Swedish metal favorite. Characterized by doom and gloom lyrics, and a sound that varies from death metal to a more progressive sound. Occasionally reminiscent of Opeth’s sound, their 2009 release continues the mellowing of their music while still keeping the same great sound.

Night is the New Day is Katatonia’s eighth studio album.

Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures

Next we drop into the non-metal section of my list with something I certainly didn’t expect: a musical collaboration between bassist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), drummer Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighers, Probot and more), and guitarist/vocalist Josh Homme (mastermind behind Kyuss, QotSA and the Desert Sessions).

Both Grohl and Homme are masters of the hook rock song and this album doesn’t let you down. It may not be the best album of 2009 but it is a great listen and something everyone should give a turn on the player.

Steven Wilson – Insurgentes

Plain and simple, Steven Wilson is a genius. Founder of the amazing prog-rock band Porcupine Tree and producer of the monumental Blackwater Park by Opeth, Steven has his hands on released his first full length Insurgentes in 2009. A must have for prog-rock fans.

Phish – Joy

Phish is a band I’ve been into since college and my love for their sound didn’t die when they went on indefinite hiatus in 2004. For me their albums were always good, but the love I had for them will always be rooted in their live performances. Joy followed up Phish’s 2009 return to the stage with an excellent album produced by Steve Lillywhite, who also produced the band’s 1996 album Billy Breathes. The album has a pure Phish sound that is a delight to listen to (even my wife likes it). The only downside for me was that I didn’t get to see them on tour this year when they returned to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. But at least I have the bootlegs of the show!

Joy is Phish’s fourteenth studio album.

E-603 - Torn Up

Now this one is probably going to surprise people who don’t realize that when I say I like everything I really mean it. E-603 is the stage name of Ethan Ward, a mash-up artist from New Hampshire. His sound is much like that popularized by Girl Talk (aka Greg Gillis) in that it is almost entire composed of samples from other artists work. But unlike more traditional two- or three-song mashups like those produces by Wax Audio (e.g. Whole Lotta Sabbath), E-603 and Girl Talk make whole new songs out of dozens of pieces. It is a lot of fun to listen to and will keep you constantly guessing as you hear something and say, “Wait a minute… I know that sample!”

Torn Up is E-603’s second album and is available for free download from his site.

Call for Papers – The Architecture Journal

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:23:13 -1400

The Architecture Journal has just announce their call for papers for the 23rd issue, which just happens to be focusing on Architecture Modeling and its role in the broader SDLC.

If you’ve got something interesting you want to share, I encourage you to submit a paper idea and we’ll take a look. I’m helping review the submissions, so make it good! :)

More Info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb219087.aspx

20 jährigen Maurfall

peter.provost.nospam@nospam.microsoft.com (Peter Provost) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:46:13 -1400

This week I was in Berlin presenting four sessions at TechEd Europe. This is a beautiful city and it was a great event.

We were very fortunate to be here for the 20th anniversary celebration of the falling of the Berlin Wall and I thought I’d share some pics. Don Smith got a bunch more using his much better camera and we also got some video of it actually coming down, but these are all I have here with me tonight.

As you may be able to tell it was pouring down rain for the 2+ hours we waited for it all to happen, but the people were fun, there was music and speeches (in German) and best of all... Glühwein!