I've been quiet recently because I'm busy prepping a VS2008 course for Microsoft and organizing the second Montreal Code Camp that took place yesterday.

The Code Camp was a real success.  Around 300 developers showed up on a rainy Saturday.  I wish to thank all the sponsors, the volonteers, the speakers and the attendees: thank you all, you rock!!!

You can check the pictures here:
http://www.codecampmontreal.com/Photos2007/tabid/61/Default.aspx

Jeff updated his blog with some new info regarding the timed bombed VS2008 Beta2 VPCs:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffbe/archive/2007/10/27/update-on-expiring-vs2008-beta2-vpcs.aspxa

From Jeff Beehler's blog:

We recently discovered that the VPCs we distributed as part of the VS2008 Beta2 release will expire on Thursday, November 1, 2007, much earlier than we had originally expected.  Since the timeout is at the OS level, we cannot automatically extend the timeout period.  As such we are currently in the process of reissuing the VPCs and expect to make them available early next week.

In the meantime, for anyone that has stored information in TFS that they need to access moving forward, we recommend that you immediately backup the TFS databases in preparation to move them to the updated VPCs.  For information to complete these steps, please refer to the documentation on Moving Team Foundation Server.

We're still working on additional guidance to respond to this situation.  As more information becomes available, I'll post it here. 

http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffbe/archive/2007/10/25/vs2008-beta2-vpcs-expiring-prematurely.aspx

Francois Tanguay: Les nouveautés de "Enterprise Library 3.1"

Nous discutons avec Francois Tanguay des nouveautés que nous retrouvons dans la version 3.1 de Enterprise Library, une bibliothèque de blocs d'application conçus pour aider les développeurs à faire face aux défis courants et récurrents du développement d'entreprise. Entre autres, nous discutons du PIAB (Policy Injection Application Block) et en quoi il peut être utile pour appliquer les concepts de l’AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming) pour encore mieux découpler notre code.

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Excel 2007 has some problems displaying results of some calculations and now, a hotfix is available to correct the problem.

Here's the problem description from the Excel team blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2007/09/25/calculation-issue-update.aspx

When you perform a calculation in Excel 2007, the following behavior occurs:

and the hotfix information:
http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2007/10/09/calculation-issue-update-fix-available.aspx

Note that Microsoft will push automatically this fix via Microsoft Updates but you can download it right now.

After installing Windows Live OneCare on my new laptop, I wanted to set a partership with my mobile device to no good, Vista's Mobile Device Center wouldn't "see" my mobile phone.  A little digging got me to this article:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter/onecare.mspx

Frankly, it is a little bit surprising that OneCare would not recognize mobile device thru the Mobile Device Center.

Follow these steps to allow Windows Live OneCare to recognize Windows Mobile Device Center:

1. Open the Windows Live OneCare application by double clicking on the system tray icon 2. On the left pane, click on Change OneCare Settings and accept prompts to bring up settings screen 3. Navigate to the Firewall tab and click on Firewall Connection Tool 4. Ensure that ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Center – synchronize my mobile devices with my computer rule is checked Click OK to exit the tool. 5. Click on the Advanced Settings button to bring up the advanced settings configuration screen 6. Navigate to the Ports and Protocols tab and click Add 7. Make sure to: Create a port called “Windows Mobile Device Center” Specify TCP Port range to be port 5721 Specify “Inbound [local ports]” in the “For Connections” dropdown Scope is set to “Local network (subnet)” Click OK to exit the screen and successively to exit all Windows Live OneCare screens.

Simon Laroche: Les tests unitaires basés sur les interactions

Nous discutons avec Simon Laroche comment bâtir des tests unitaires qui vérifient l'interaction des objets entre eux et non l'état de ceux-ci. Les tests qui vérifient l'état peuvent devenir assez compliqué à écrire si le système sous test a plusieurs dépendances, c'est là qu'on doit changer de technique pour tester les interactions entre les objets. Cette approche fait un usage intense des frameworks de Mock comme RhinoMocks ou NMock pour simuler les interactions entre les différentes composantes du système.

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We have finalized the Montreal Code Camp agenda:
http://www.codecampmontreal.com/Agenda/tabid/55/Default.aspx

Registration is open but hurry!
http://www.codecampmontreal.com

Visual Studio Team System: Better Software Development for Agile Teams

Authors: Will Stott & James W. Newkirk
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN-10: 0321418506
ISBN-13: 978-0321418500
Retail Price: $49.99 US, $61.99 CDN
Publication Date: May 2007
Softcover: 819 pages
Online information: Table of contents, sample chapter
URL: http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321418506
Book's Website: URL: http://www.bettersoftwaredevelopment.org/

When I received “Visual Studio Team System: Better Software Development for Agile Teams”, I was very intrigued because when you see the words Agile and Team System associated, it’s usually because the agilists are bashing the product. Would the whole book be about that?

In the first chapter, you’ll first meet the OSPACS team, a fictitious development team with some serious problems. Throughout the book, the authors are using this team as a case study so you can see how Team System and Agile development can help fix the team’s problems. Next you’ll read a quick introduction to Visual Studio Team System and the Agile movement and its values.

Then the book covers various aspects like how to select the development process, version control, continuous integration, test-driven development, modeling, testing and deployment. I especially like the chapters on how to estimate, prioritize and plan agile projects because these topics are rarely covered in books.

The authors did a great job at explaining the agile concepts and how to use Team System and Team Foundation Server as tools to help you apply these concepts. Is it a book about Team System or is it a book about Agile development? If you’re looking for a Team System book, you’ll surely be disappointed because the Agile concepts get the most coverage. Is this a bad thing? Not at all except that if you’re looking at the book’s cover page, you’ll see that Visual Studio Team System is written in a large and bigger font then the word Agile so at first glance, you might think that it is a Team System book but it’s not. Again, it’s not a bad thing because the Agile coverage is very good and the use of a test case helps get things into context, adding an interesting human factor.

Who should read this book? If you’re a seasoned Agile developer, you likely won’t learn anything new about Agility and you’ll find that there is not enough Team System coverage. If you already know Team System, you’ll learn quite a lot about Agile development and you’ll likely to skip thru some of the Team System portions of the book. Team leads, developers, architects and project managers will find something of interest in this book. Finally, the fact that the authors are not zealous agilists makes it a pleasant reading.

When I picked my copy of Halo 3 at Costco, I didn't noticed that the package was in French.  When I realized that at home, I said no problem, all the Xbox games have every languages right into the DVD and the game switches language depending on the Xbox language setting.  Right?  Right for many games but not for Halo 3.  The menus were in English but I was shocked to hear Cortana speaking French in the game intro.  I tried to find a way to change the language in the game settings to no good.  If you buy a French copy of Halo 3, you're stuck to French and this is true for all the languages that the game is localized to.  I would have liked a clearer labeling explaining this fact on the box.  Anyway...

Allez Maître Chef, bottez le cul de ces Covenants!

Frédéric Caron et Nicolas Guillemot: L’optimisation de contenu Flash dans les moteurs de recherche

Nous discutons avec Frédéric Caron et Nicolas Guillemot comment assurer le référencement adéquat d'un site entièrement conçu en Flash? Quelle est la solution proposée par Google? Quelles en sont les limites? Comment aller plus loin et permettre de référencer le contenu d'un film Flash à un endroit bien précis.

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Ever wonder why your hard disk spins for 10 minutes when you boot Vista?  Basically, SuperFetch analyses your behaviour and pre fetch in memory the apps you run on a daily basis.  Great for an office worker that boots in the morning then runs to the coffee machine but clearly not useful when you're on stage doing a demo, rebooting after a crash or some incident with Beta stuff.

Here's a great article on Tom's Hardware about SuperFetch and ReadyBoost:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/31/windows-vista-superfetch-and-readyboostanalyzed/index.html

Now, can you disable SuperFetch?  Yes you can but there's no UI, you need to change a registry key.  I found this article via Fernando Guerrero:
http://origamiproject.com/forums/thread/19843.aspx

Anyway I disabled SuperFetch entirely by changing..

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnableSuperfetch

to 0 (from the default of 3).

If you can't find the key, just search for EnableSuperfetch in Regedit.

Check out this announcement by ScottGu:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx