musings from a snowstorm. . .

It’s here! There are updates to both the testing features and the code visualization & modeling features. I’m really excited about the new testing features: You’ll be able to create coded UI tests for Silverlight 4 applications!!

Check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ff655021.aspx for more details. It has an excellent set of Getting Started resources for working with Feature Pack 2.

Enjoy!

In case you haven’t already heard the buzz, there’s going to be a Silverlight Firestarter on December 2, hosted in Redmond and streamed online to the world. If you can get to Redmond, sign up and fly away. If you can’t, just watch online and enjoy.

• “It’s just like an extra day of PDC, dedicated to Silverlight”

http://www.silverlight.net/news/events/firestarter/

What is the Silverlight Firestarter?

• An Event. A one day, global, live streamed and on demand event keynoted by Scott Guthrie.
• Training. New self-paced labs and walk through videos.
• Interactive. Watch live and ask the Silverlight product team questions during the event.
• Why Silverlight? Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for Web, desktop, and mobile applications when online or offline.

Enjoy!

Somehow missed this from a couple of weeks ago. There’s a new version of the Visual Studio 2010 Power Tools available.

In this third major release of the Power Tools we have made significant improvements to the Solution Navigator and the Tab Well to address our top customer requests.

The updated Solution Navigator is sweet. . .

In other words, it merges functionality from Solution Explorer, Class View, Object Browser, Call Hierarchy, Navigate To, and Find Symbol References all into one tool window!

Enjoy!

. . . is available. A number of bug fixes, some memory leaks plugged, etc.

Download it from here.

A while back I posted a blog entry detailing some of the steps that were glossed over in the MSDN documentation on how to install the media encoder for video recording.

The version of encoder that should be used changed in August when Expression 4 was released. The Windows Media Encoder is now obsolete for Test Manager video recordings. Expression Encoder 4 should be used.

Download details and installation instructions can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd997558.aspx and Mike Snell updated his blog post with some new screen shots: http://visualstudiounleashed.com/mikesnell/post/2010/04/22/Recording-Videos-with-Microsoft-Test-Professional-2010.aspx

Giles Davies has a nice post that highlights the additional configuration settings you can use with Expression Encoder 4.

Enjoy!

bliz

We’re hiring in the New York City area.

Job Information
Requisition number: 737673
Position title: Tech Solution Prof - Developer Tools
Hiring manager: ABRACUTI
Job description: https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?ss=&pg=0&so=&rw=1&jid=28034&jlang=EN

My hope is, outta the Eastern Caribbean, and real soon!

Map from the National Hurricane Center

Update from this morning. Now this is something everyone can live with:

If you’re setting up a test environment for the new Microsoft test products, sometimes the MSDN documentation mentions a prerequisite of the “Microsoft Visual Studio Agents” CD.

But on many of the pages there’s no reference to where you’d find that CD or from where you’d download the CD or ISO image.

So if you’re looking for the Agents CD, a link to the download really does exist. It’s even on the overview page “Installing and Configuring Visual Studio Agents and Test and Build Controllers” http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd648127.aspx). But the link isn’t highlighted very well. It’s just buried in a paragraph on that good, but very long page.

Here’s the link to the Agents download page: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=200373

Happy testing!

bliz

The SharePoint 2010 developer center at MSDN. Tons of links. Loads of resources.

From there you can get to . . .

• Getting Started videos
• the SharePoint 2010 Developer Training Course, online on Channel9
• an excellent MSDN Magazine article on SharePoint 2010 development
• the SharePoint 2010 Developer Training Kit
• SharePoint 2010 Hands-on Labs in C# and Visual Basic
• and more.

SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010. It’s a beautiful thing.

Enjoy!

Just updated the blog engine so now folks (like you :) can recommend an individual post via a Facebook “Like” button. (I didn’t add the feature to the blog listing page, just to the individual post page – that’s why you won’t see it from the http://snowstormlife.com/blogs/bliz list.)

Adding the Facebook code didn’t take too long, but straightening out the source code for my blog engine project did.

(A while back I copied my entire solution to a temp folder. Then, the last time I opened the solution to make some changes I accidentally opened it from that temp folder instead of the correct one. This got things a bit out of sync.)

I double-checked things in my TFS source code explorer and was able to get the right code in the right places, including the few changes that I’d made a couple of days ago that I really did want to keep.

So it’s all checked in now, safe and secure once again in TFS. (Including the latest changes for FB recommendations.)

What do you think?

We went kayaking again yesterday at Ft DeSoto Park, our favorite kayak hang-out. This time we had a welcoming committee though: a huge swarm of mosquitoes waiting at our launch site. They were thick as could be, forcing us to quickly unload the kayaks and jump into the water, just to keep them off our legs. Looked like I’d been playing paintball I had so many blood-red splats on my legs from squishing them. Once we got into the middle of the canal, the mosquitoes, happily sated, left us alone. 

We started with mosquitoes, ran through a bit of cooling rain, then the clouds parted and gave us some wonderful sunshine.

Ft. DeSoto is a kayaking paradise. There are abundant mangroves, manatee swim close by to investigate what you’re doing, an occasional dolphin or two will cruise by. It’s a beautiful place.

Even though we were out on Labor Day Saturday, we didn’t have to fight traffic on the roads or in the water. It was as peaceful as could be.

Pam’s friend, Holly, went with us this time. I left her and Pam to chat with each other, while I hung out alone and did a little fishing. I had a number strikes, but never could time setting the hook, so no fish dinner Saturday night. It was so peaceful, so relaxing. I let the light breeze drift me along the water. Occasionally I’d spook a school of Reds, all of them scattering in a cloud of dust in all directions. My fishing technique leaves a lot to be desired, but catching something wasn’t a high priority anyway. Getting out and listening to the peace and quiet was.

Good times.

Just added an RSS feed to SnowstormLife, the blog. Turned out not to be that difficult. Entity Framework and MVC2 helped simplify things quite a bit.

As a result, I . . .

• . . . didn’t have to put a bunch of HTML code into my controller source file.
• . . . simply added a few tags and bindings inside a loop in the RSS.ASPX placeholder page.
• . . . reused the existing “get” routine to pull the entries from the database.

And it worked.

Enjoy!

Pam and I decided to drive up to Weeki Wachee today, home of the live mermaids, and the Hernando Beach area. We cruised on up in Pam’s Miata, top down and radio blaring, enjoying the bit of cloud cover that helped keep the temperature down to a reasonable level. Once we got out of Tampa traffic and hit the Suncoast Parkway, life was very good.

Driving around Weeki Wachee is like driving back in time to a slower and simpler Florida. The moss covered trees hanging over Weeki Wachee Springs and River, the kayaks and canoes on the water, the kids swimming in the 72 degree water. . . It seemed like we had stepped back to Florida of the mid-1960s.

About mid afternoon we found a cool bar right on the river. I grabbed my baseball cap and we went inside. Good beer, decent hamburgers, great music, and perfect French fries. As we were eating I could start to feel my forehead. As in that toasty, sunburned kind of feeling. Dang. It’s still summertime, and even with the cloud cover, the rays were still beating down. Without any sunscreen, my forehead, cheeks and nose turned into French fries. I left my hat on when we got back to the car, but the damage had been done.

Ah well, live and never learn.

The drive back this evening was spectacular, thanks to a huge thunderstorm off in the distance. Lightning lit up the sky with brilliant streaks, and the thunder rolled. Awesome.

When we got back home we were completely pooped. I grabbed a nice cool shower then put some sunscreen on my face (like that’s going to do anything at this point). Right now? Just chillin and looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

I’m going to give doubles a try. Cardio in the morning 3-4 times a week; the hard-core workout in the evenings. So, 45 minutes of cardio this morning, which was a subset of the yoga and kenpo routines that I’ve already been doing – not too terribly bad. This evening? Oof! A bit different. Since last week was a recovery week I didn’t have to do many pushups or sit ups. This evening: shoulders, triceps, chest, and abs. Translated: lots of pushups. Wow. Very hard core. After going until I almost couldn’t move any more, I forgot about abs until I had showered and dried off. Doh! I threw on my wet clothes and went back for 15 minutes of ab “heaven,” followed by another shower. Whew.

Notes to self after day 1:

1. Always complete the entire workout routine before showering
2. Buy a bunch of cheap work-out shorts. I’m going to burn through them pretty quickly if I continue with two-a-days
3. Go to bed earlier and get plenty of sleep. 6 hours isn’t going to cut it

Tomorrow morning: plyometrics. Then Pam and I are heading out for some peace and quiet on the water with our pedal kayaks.

I took a lunch break this afternoon after finishing a 2-hour webcast for a customer.

Zach and I took a look at the pictures I’d snapped during the Jack Johnson concert last night. Got some pretty good ones, especially when he did a surprise jam session before the concert at the little open air stage beside the amphitheater itself. We happened to get real close to the front for that.

 
Jack Johnson up close… and Zach & me goofing off before the show begins…

After we looked at the pictures I made myself a sandwich, then started looking at the P90X book for week #5, which starts tomorrow. Zach started surfing the web at the kitchen computer as I debated whether I wanted to do the “classic” week 5, or go to the “doubles” week 5. Doubles adds an hour of cardio each morning four days of the week, in addition to all the other strength conditioning that’s part of “classic.”

I was reading him some of the extra exercises when he stopped me, saying, “I’m trying to read something here.”

I went on, looking at the book for another minute or so, then walked over to the computer.

He was looking at an article on TBO.com about a Marine who had been killed a few days ago in Afghanistan. The guy looked like a kid. Looked about Zach’s age. He died while in combat operations.

Turns out that Zach knew him.

While we’re here, enjoying concerts, talking about which exercise routines to do next, going about our normal lives, soldiers are still dying. Even those who are my son’s age.

Pretty sobering.