Today I wanted to provide some feedback on a cool product (Live Mesh) I’ve been beta testing. I clicked the feedback link and saw this:

I guess I’ll have to learn Japanese

Update: Feedback for Live Mesh can go here: https://connect.microsoft.com/LiveMesh

Update: Vote for my suggestion: https://connect.microsoft.com/LiveMesh/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=516914
My suggestion is:

I'd like to be able to temporarily take a folder offline. I imagine being able to right click on a Mesh Folder and choose from being offline for X amount of minutes or X hours.

Scenario:
As a developer I share my sources folder across multiple machines. Every recompile in Visual Studio leads to files getting synced. I don't need them to be synced until I'm done for the day/morning/afternoon.

I imagine this feature appeals to anyone who shares a folder with high frequent changes.

The schedule for the December Software Development Event is set (see below). There is another great line up of speaker and it looks to be a great event. Sign up at: http://www.sdn.nl/SDN/SDNEvent/SDNEventdecember2009/tabid/132/Default.aspx.

The event will be held at;
Van der Valk Hotel Houten
Hoofdveste 25
3992 DH Houten

Schedule

The sessions for the 3rd Dutch Code Camp have been posted to www.codecamp.nl. The Code Camp will be held on November 21, 2009 at the Hogeschool in Rotterdam (Netherlands).

When moving to Windows 7 I also moved from 32bit to a 64bit operating system. The experience has been great, but PDF previews in Outlook 2007 weren’t working anymore. Bink.nu has the solution:
http://bink.nu/news/fix-adobe-pdf-preview-handler-on-64-bit-windows.aspx

Scott Hanselman put up a page to help you detect whether you’re running the latest version of .NET available and also helps you figure out what the smallest version is tha you can download.

Go to http://www.hanselman.com/smallestdotnet/ for more information.

Just discovered that TFS2010 will retail for $499 and this will include provisions to allow 5 users (without CALs) to access the server. This is regardless of installation choice: Basic, Advanced or Custom.

More on: http://beta.blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/shair/archive/2009/10/24/tfs-2010-server-licensing.aspx

I won’t be able to make it, but just to remind everyone else

Presenters: Greg Howe and Jeff Hall, BAND co-leaders
Room: Libra Conference Room, Husson University, Bangor

Jeff and Greg lead the BAND together. As developers Jeff is somewhat conservative and well thought out in his approach, while Greg tends to "wing it" and doesn't enjoy having to write test plans and documentation. However, instead of their differences making it impossible for them to work together, they see how they provide ideas and tools to each other. They are excited to bring their minds together and show how differences can work in your favor for really neat solutions.
This session has Jeff showing how you can work with XML natively in SQL Server, Greg showing you how to integrate jQuery into your web apps, and then both Joes will show how you can make a neat data-centric solution using the two technologies together.

Speaker Bio:
Jeff Hall is a software developer for Occupational Health Research in Skowhegan, with experience including ASP.NET, WinForms, unit testing and deployment.
Greg Howe is a Microsoft Certified Application Developer and has been programming applications since he was 13, maxxing out a Commodore 64. He currently builds web sites by day and night, working as a web software developer for EMHS in Brewer and doing side jobs where he can. He loves doing web work and enjoys it when someone says "That can't be done".

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A feature I’ve been waiting for in the ReportViewer control is “Export to Word”. After installing Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 I immediately created a little test to see if the feature made it. Good news! It did. Here is a screenshot:

From Scott Guthrie’s blog:

VS 2010 Product Line SKU Simplifications

With VS 2010 we are simplifying the product lineup and pricing options of Visual Studio, as well as adding new benefits for MSDN subscribers.  With VS 2010 we will now ship a simpler set of SKU options:

• Visual Studio Express: Free Express SKUs for Web, VB, C#, and C++

• Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN: Professional development tools as you are used to today with the addition of source control integration, bug tracking, build automation, and more. It also includes 50 hours/month of Azure cloud computing.

• Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN: Premium has everything in Professional plus advanced development tools (including richer profiling and debugging, code coverage, code analysis and testing prioritization), advanced database support, UI testing, and more.  Rather than buying multiple “Team” SKUs like you would with VS 2008, you can now get this combination of features in one box with VS 2010. It also includes 100 hours/month of Azure cloud computing.

• Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN: Ultimate has everything in Premium plus additional advanced features for developers, testers, and architects including features like Intellitrace (formerly Historical Debugging), the new architecture tools (UML, discovery), test lab management, etc.  It also includes 250 hours/month of Azure cloud computing.

More on: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/10/19/vs-2010-and-net-4-0-beta-2.aspx

PCMag reports the following:

Microsoft said Monday that Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 are now available to MSDN subscribers.

Microsoft also added what the company is calling the "Ultimate Offer," making it available to all active MSDN Premium subscribers at the official product launch on March 22, 2010. Under the offer, all active MSDN Premium subscribers will be transitioned to a higher-level Visual Studio 2010 with MSDN subscription at the product's launch.

The beta will also be made available generally on Oct. 21, Microsoft said. Microsoft will provide more details at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles on November 17 to 19.

Go to: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2354440,00.asp

Brian Harry has a post on a little gem called Team Foundation Server 2010 Basic. Price and such is not yet know, but it is set to be a replacement for Visual SourceSafe.

TFS 2010 Beta 2 is available for download (if you’re an MSDN subscriber).

Read the more here: http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2009/10/01/tfs-2010-for-sourcesafe-users.aspx

Go to: http://msdn.microsoft.com to start downloading (I’m at 15% right now ).

If you’re a little confused about the rebranding, then go here for a nice overview of the new names and how they replace previous versions.

The MSDN Visual Studio 2010 page can be found here.

Registration for the 4th quarter MSDN (.NET) Northeast Roadshow has just opened up!  This totally FREE event will be held on Tuesday, December 15th.   Thankfully, we were able to secure more convenient hours this time around.  The event will run from 9:00 am thru 3:30 pm in the Florian Hall of the Central Maine Commerce Center in Augusta. (a.k.a. Public Safety/M.E.M.A)  These events target .NET developers and analysts, or those actively training to become one.  Microsoft Developer Evangelists Chris Bowen and Jim O’Neil will be making the drive up from their regional offices in Massachusetts in order to lead the presentations.

AGENDA

•    WCF (Windows Communications Foundation)
•    Silverlight RIA (Rich Internet Applications) and the MVVM design pattern (Model-View-ViewModel)
•    Where to find help when you get stuck.
•    LINQ  (Language INtegrated Query)
•    ASP .NET Webforms and AJAX

Please register in advance by using the following link:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032429336&Culture=en-US

Jim O’Neil has a great post with a list of links to resources that are useful for developers targeting Windows 7.

Go here: http://blogs.msdn.com/jimoneil/archive/2009/10/17/code-camp-12-7-on-7-resources.aspx

The Dutch Windows 7 Community Launch will be held on Monday night during the Software Development Conference 2009.

SDC 2009 attendees will receive a link per email to register.
If you are not an attendee at SDN Conference 2009 then register through the Microsoft website.

I just ran into a little problem when attempting to run a Visual Studio unit test on my Windows 7 machine. I downloaded log4net.dll and wanted to use it in a project, but when running the unit test I ran into the following error:

Turns out that a downloaded file is blocked. You can unblock the file by right clicking the file and choosing “Unblock”.

Make sure you remove all copies of the assembly (if you have copy local = true) and then recompile.

I just spend 15 minutes trying to get a remote desktop connection to a brand new Windows Vista box. Couldn’t get it to work. Turns out it runs a Home Edition of Vista.

Important note: Remote desktop is only included in the Professional, Business, or Ultimate versions of Windows. Home editions do not have remote desktop.

More information on enabling Remote Desktop Connections: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/turn-on-remote-desktop-in-windows-vista/

Chris and Jim are coming to Maine and this time their bringing their TechNet friend Dan Stolts.
Augusta will be home to the MSDN Northeast Road Show and the TechNet Unleashed tour on the same day!

More info on the event can be found at: http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen/archive/2009/07/20/announcing-the-fall-2009-northeast-msdn-roadshow.aspx

Note: You need to register separately for the MSDN and TechNet event!

Update [09-10-2009]: Corrected Jim’s name and Dan is the man that is doing the ITPro sessions

Last night at the BAND (www.bangordevelopers.com) meeting we all did 10 minute presentations on the tool(s) we love as developers.

On my list were: Total Commander, LinqPad, Microsoft Office (codegen with Excel rules ), VMWare & VirtualPC, Live Mesh. Also on the list should have been Reflector.

Total Commander

Great tool for FTP-ing files and comparing a local folder hierarchy to the hierarchy on the ftp-server. Also much more reliable in FTP-ing large amounts of files than Windows Explorer.

See: www.ghisler.com

LinqPad

A must have for people using LINQ to SQL and Entity Framwork. Helps a lot with figuring out what the exact SQL statement is that get generated from your LINQ statement.

See: www.linqpad.net

VMWare Converter, VMWare Workstation and VirtualPC

These tools are invaluable in creating clean testing environments and separating multiple development environments on a single machine. VMWare converter allows you to grab a physical harddrive and convert it into a virtual machine. Very useful for Windows 7 migration scenarios!
See: www.vmware.com, www.microsoft.com/virtualpc

Live Mesh

Is only in beta, but already an invaluable tool for remote desktop connections across firewalls and synchronizing files across (virtual) machines.
See: www.mesh.com

Reflector

.NET Reflector is a tool any serious .NET developer cannot do without. View sources of any .NET library you use in order to track internal workings. Love it!
See: http://www.red-gate.com/products/reflector/