Buck Hodges
Azure DevOps (formerly VSTS and Team Foundation Server)
Latest posts
Combining OneNote and Outlook would make OneNote very useful
I've written before about putting files directly into Outlook to make them securely available at work and at home. Part of the reason for that is to have documents that just contain my thoughts on changes we should make, features we should consider, and so on. Those are the kinds of things that would fit well into OneNote. But I can't get to OneNote in all the places where I have access to Outlook.Omar Shahine wrote a post today titled, Outlook Wish List 2007. In it he mentions wanting to see OneNote integration with Outlook. That would be really useful, and I'd start ...
Squeet: Get RSS feeds in your inbox
I tried using an RSS aggregator, but it didn't fit the way that I wanted to work. All of the feeds are trapped on the machine running the aggregator. I wanted to be able to get to them from work and home. Web-based aggregators solve that issue but still fell flat for me because I never remembered to go check them. I wanted something that would deliver everything to me in the one application that I have access to from work and home (RPC over HTTP) and that I run all of the time: Outlook. Rob Caron told me about Squeet when I was in Redmond in March, and I started using it the...
Links to MSBuild tasks to extend your build system
Build systems need to do all sorts of things, from updating web sites to deploying databases. Often, the tasks needed to do these things are available, but finding them can be a challenge. I've collected links to various MSBuild task collections that you can plug into your Team Build scripts. Hopefully, you'll find something that helps you get more out of your build. [UPDATE 5/30/2007] The SDC Tasks Library that was on GotDotNet is now on CodePlex at http://www.codeplex.com/sdctasks.
Mario, version control PM, is now blogging
As Robert Horvick and Rob Caron have both mentioned, Mario Rodriguez has started a blog on version control: http://blogs.msdn.com/mrod/. In his first post, The Start, he talks about his background and the topics he intends to cover. If you have features that you really want to see in future releases of Team Foundation Server version control, be sure to let Mario know.
TFS exstensibility documentation on MSDN
I stumbled across the following pages on MSDN that provide step-by-step introduction to the basics of extending Team Foundation Server. [UPDATE 8/29/06] Unfortunately, all of the links originally pointed to the same page, and I've now fixed them. I didn't notice at the time that clicking on different links on that section of the msdn tree doesn't change the URL in the browser, so I copied the same one every time. Thanks, Tom, for letting me know!
Links to code samples
I recently had to put together a list of links to code samples. This isn't even close to comprehensive, but it should help you get going if you are looking for something.Version Control TFS Work Item Tracking
Getting Changeset objects from associated work items
On internal mailing list, someone asked how to do this, and I thought it's worth sharing. You can get a Changeset object using its artifact URI (aka link) via VersionControlServer.ArtifactProvider. Here’s how that would look like, based on modifying code from James Manning’s blog posthttp://blogs.msdn.com/jmanning/archive/2005/09/21/472524.aspx. Added/changed lines are hightlighted.using System;using System.Collections.Generic;using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client;using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client;using Microsoft.TeamFoundation;using Microsoft.TeamFoundation...
RSS feed generators for Team Foundation
First there was Jeff's RSS feed generator for version control. Then Abhinaba used it as a starting point for his RSS feed generator for team build. Naren has now posted an RSS feed generator for work item tracking. A quick web search yielded an RSS feed generator for SharePoint. I couldn't find one for SQL reporting services. If anyone knows of one, I think that would round out the list.
MSBuild wiki
In addition to the MSBuild documentation on MSDN and the MSBuild team blog, there is an MSBuild wiki on Channel9. I had seen it before, but forgotten about it until I saw it mentioned in one of Chris Sells' old blog posts (My First MsBuild Task).Here's the current table of contents for the wiki. Frequently Asked Questions