Enterprise Library is a great addition to any .NET development project. The package contains hands-on labs and technical documentation. Now there is additional documentation available in several formats. The developer guide contains text, code snippets and diagrams, which makes it a great learning resource. Check it out here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff953181(PandP.50).aspx

Chapter 1 - Welcome to the Library

Chapter 2 - Much ADO about Data Access

Chapter 3 - Error Management Made Exceptionally Easy

Chapter 4 - As Easy As Falling Off a Log

Chapter 5 - A Cache Advance for your Applications

Chapter 6 - Banishing Validation Complication

Chapter 7 - Relieving Cryptography Complexity

Chapter 8 - An Authentic Approach to Token Identity

Appendix A - Dependency Injection with Unity

Appendix B - Dependency Injection in Enterprise Library

Appendix C - Policy Injection in Enterprise Library

Appendix D - Enterprise Library Configuration Scenarios

Appendix E - Encrypting Configuration Files

SDC promises to be interesting this year: 70 sessions, international and local speakers, a variety of cool tracks including .NET and SharePoint! Be there.

The Visual Studio ALM Rangers published another great resource. Make sure you visit the downloads section to choose your favorite file format: XPS, PDF or DOCX.

What is in the package?

The content is packaged in 3 separate zip files to give you the choice of selective downloads, but the default download is the first of the listed packages:

• Visual Studio Guidance for Database Projects
• Visual Studio Database Projects Hands-On-Labs document
• Hands-On-Labs (HOLs), including:
  • Solution and Project Management
    • Refactoring a Visual Studio Database Solution to Leverage Shared Code
  • Source Code Control and Configuration Management
    • Single Team Branching Model
    • Multiple Team Branching Model
  • Integrating External Changes with the Project System
    • Maintaining Linked Servers in a Visual Studio Database Project
    • Complex data movement
  • Build and Deployment Automation
    • WiX-Integration with deployment of databases
    • The Integrate with Team Build Scenario
    • Building and deploying outside team build
  • Database Testing and Deployment Verification
    • The “Basic” Create Unit Test Scenario
    • The “Advanced” Create Unit Test Scenario
    • Find Model drifts Scenario

Great work!

These are my first steps in the world of LightSwitch. MSDN Subscribers can download the complete or the web installer. I am using the web installer.

Next the download and installation consists of:

• Silverlight 4.0
• Silverlight 4 SDK
• WCF RIA Services
• Visual Studio LightSwitch Server
• Visual Studio LightSwitch

This gets you new project types

Just select the new LightSwitch application in your favorite language.

You can then attach a database, sharepoint site or WCF RIA service.

 

When you attach a database, you get to select tables you want to expose.

 

Now you have your data defined. Save it and right-click Screens | Add Screen.

 

You can select a certain type of screen, that is generated for you.

Now you have data and a screen but there are other things you can configure, like navigation and screen groups.

And security such as forms, windows or none.

And finally the tiers.

So far, the solution explorer has just shown a logical view of your solution. You can select the file view, which takes you to the fysical items that have been generated.

Now press F5 and there you go… here is your no-code silverlight application that has security, navigation, search, master and detail views.

Enjoy!

Scott Hanselman has a very cool blog post series on building a developer machine that (almost) has a 7.9 Windows Experience Index, the highest value currently available. If you are planning to build a new dev pc, this is definitely worth a look. Normally I get my input from tweakers best buy guide and related comments, but this feels like a serious showcase that I would love to rebuild.

The post also contains videos of building the machine and links to other interesting tweaks.

Very nice!

Available at http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/59ac03e3-df99-4776-be39-1917cbfc5d8e

 

“Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 is a new process template from Microsoft.  Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for project management and agile software development.  This template includes work items and reports to help your Scrum team be successful.   Click here more information about this release. 

Note:  During the beta this template was named Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 - Beta.  It has been renamed and is now Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0.

This template includes:

• Work Item Types
  • Sprint
  • Product Backlog Item
  • Bug
  • Task
  • Impediment
  • Test Case
• Reports
  • Release Burndown
  • Velocity
  • Sprint Burndown
  • Build Success Over Time
  • Build Summary
  • Test Case Readiness
  • Test Plan Progress
• SharePoint Project Portal

Below are screenshots of the Sprint Burndown and Release Burndown reports included with the template.”

 

More info http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aaronbjork/archive/2010/07/19/announcing-microsoft-visual-studio-scrum-1-0.aspx

At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington DC, Microsoft have announced their cloud-in-a-box offering: the Windows Azure Platform Appliance. Very interesting.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/appliance/

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2010/07/12/just-announced-at-wpc-the-windows-azure-platform-appliance.aspx

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/dunnry/Introducing-the-Windows-Azure-Platform-Appliance/

This is great news: Microsoft have released a Hyper-V machine that contains integration between Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server 2010. Both products are great releases and it is even better to see them working together.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=f221c660-161b-43ca-95f3-e0e4aad8d43e

“This image will expire Dec 30th, 2010. This VHD release is available in English only.
This community technical preview of Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server 2010 Integration allows teams to share data between the two servers. This virtual machine includes enterprise project plans in Project Server mapped to team projects in Team Foundation Server, along with sample data to highlight key integration scenarios. The walkthrough documents provide four scenarios that simulate the interactions between the project manager, working in Project Server, and the software development team, working in Team Foundation Server.
The value of Project Server and Team Foundation Server integration is to provide up-to-date project status and resource availability across agile and formal teams; help project managers track high-level requirements and allow the team lead to manage the details; and permit project managers to live in Project Server and manage projects across the enterprise while development team leads live in Team Foundation Server and manage their software development project. With this tool, the Project Management Office (PMO) is able to plan, collaborate and track real-time progress made by formal or agile teams.
This virtual machine is running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition R2. It contains a full installation of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Project Server 2010, with Office 2010 and all necessary prerequisites.”