musings from a snowstorm. . .

The Windows Store blog has an important post on deploying Metro style Windows 8 apps to businesses. Very much worth reading – twice.

From the blog post:

When it comes to building a Metro style app for business users, the first thing you should consider—whether you are a developer or an IT admin—is how you'll deploy the app. You have two options available:

• Make the app available through the Windows Store, which means the app must adhere to the same certification policies and process required for all apps in the Store
• Build the app internally or sell it directly to the enterprise, which means IT admins must distribute the app directly to end-users within the enterprise, without involving the Store.

The post goes on to discuss two types of business apps

1. Business-targeted apps in the Windows Store and
2. Direct distribution of a Metro style app (as in a custom and proprietary line-of-business app or enterprise software purchased directly from an ISV).

Head on over and give it a read. And Happy Windows 8-ing !

bliz

Yeah, I’ve switched back to WordPress as my primary blog. Again.

Just because.

Again, that’s http://jimblizzard.wordpress.com.

Hope to see you over there!

If so, you might be interested in one of these articles:

• iPad app to a Metro Style app (UX)
• Website to Metro Style app (UX)
• Migrating a Web App to Metro Style app (Dev)
• Migrating a Windows Phone 7 app to Metro Style app (XAML)
• Migrating a Windows Phone 7 app to Metro Style app (JavaScript)

As always, you can find more information about Windows 8 at http://preview.windows.com.

Enjoy!
bliz

Here’s your must-have list of sites regarding Visual Studio 11 Beta.

• The Visual Studio team blog. If you see a post and have questions, want to make a comment, or provide feedback, post it in the comments section: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/
• The VS11 Beta forums are also an excellent place to post questions / look for answers: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/vsvnext
• The landing page for VS11 Beta looks like a simple page, but it has links to a large amount of VS11-related content: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us
• And of course, there’s always the MSDN Library, which is constantly being updated with new material: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd831853(v=vs.110).aspx
• Oh, and would you like to submit feature requests or (gasp!) bugs? Here’s your site: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio

There are many more, very good sites out there. But this list should give you a good start.

Enjoy!

bliz (@snowstormlife)

If you haven't already heard the news, take a look at Jason's blog, Soma's blog, the Visual Studio team blog, and the Visual Studio product website.

The Visual Studio 11 Beta will be here on February 29!

The fun is about to begin!

Enjoy!
bliz

Let ‘em know that the Microsoft TechEd Europe session list has been posted here: http://europe.msteched.com/Sessions.

Where & When? Amsterdam on June 26 – 29.

I’ve never been to Europe. . . Anyone want to sponsor me? : )

Enjoy!

Woke up before sunrise again this morning and stepped out back to do a little fishing. Did the same thing yesterday morning and caught a nice little spotted sea trout. Figured, why not give it a try again today?

The sky was blue, the sun was trying to climb its way up, and the fish were active, making swirls all over the calm inlet. But they weren’t hungry this time. (At least, not for the spoon I used yesterday.)

A couple of boats slowly motored down the inlet, heading out for a day of fun. We waved at each other as they passed.

And now, just a few minutes later, a fog is rolling in from the east. I can barely see the trees about a half mile up the inlet as the fog takes over. The beautiful warm sunshine is gone, and the sky is a cold gray. That was fast. It’s turned into a nice day to stay inside.

After successfully using SQL Azure for a while, I’ve switched my snowstormlife.com blog database back to my database on DiscountASP.net. In the switch I wound up with a number of entries with a post date of 12/23/11. Apparently I didn’t program my site to allow me to set the post date through Live Writer. Oh well, such is life.

Anyway, back up and running. . .

VS11 Developer Preview training kit now available!

You can download it from here: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9779649

Enjoy!

bliz

If you’re trying out some WCF programming, there’s a nice little WCF test client available for you to use, aptly named WcfTestClient.exe.

To run it, the MSDN documentation tells you to navigate to the “%SystemDrive%\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE” folder. BUT, if you’re running 64-bit Windows, you won’t find it there. You’ll need to look in “%SystemDrive%\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE folder” instead.

You’re welcome.

bliz

If you’re trying out some WCF programming, there’s a nice little WCF test client available for you to use, aptly named WcfTestClient.exe.

To run it, the MSDN documentation tells you to navigate to the “%SystemDrive%\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE” folder. BUT, if you’re running 64-bit Windows, you won’t find it there. You’ll need to look in “%SystemDrive%\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE folder” instead.

You’re welcome.

bliz

Many developers who first start working with Team Foundation Server find it easy to get wrapped around the axle when it comes to TFS Workspaces. They’re not very intuitive. The simple explanation I give about workspaces when asked, is that they’re a mapping between the files on your hard disk and the TFS server. But there are a lot of additional “features” that come with workspaces, and this is where the non-intuitive part comes into play.

Mickey Gousset has a nice article about TFS 2010 workspaces and what they’re about, which was recently posted online in Visual Studio Magazine here. And there’s a host of documentation about workspaces in the MSDN Library, located here.

Very good information, indeed.

BUT, change is coming, and life will get much easier.

Just the other day, Brian Harry blogged about Version Control Model Enhancements in TFS 11. In the post he talks about the concept of local workspaces. They’re very intuitive, simple to use, and make working with source code in an offline mode very easy. At the bottom of the entry Brian included nice a video by Matt Mitrik that walks through some scenarios using local workspaces in the next release of TFS.

Go read, watch, and enjoy.

-- bliz

In yet another instance of getting real, I just swapped out the backend database for SnowstormLife.com to a SQL Azure Database. (The website itself is still on a 3rd party host, not on Windows Azure yet.)

It wasn’t that difficult. I simply needed to

1. Create a SQL Azure Database (I already had an account)
2. Create the Transact-SQL script for the table schema and data
3. Run that script against the new SQL Azure database.

Don’t have an Azure account? Microsoft currently has a free trial available: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/free-trial/

For steps 2 & 3, you can find step-by-step instructions with a sample here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee621790.aspx

I needed to add one piece to the script generated in step 2: the creation of a clustered primary key, which I discovered is a requirement in SQL Azure. (I didn’t have any primary keys defined in the old database.) It only took a couple of additional lines:

For more information about SQL Azure, head on over to the MSDN library: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg619386(BTS.70).aspx

Another helpful resource is the SQL Azure FAQ: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/sql-azure-faq.aspx

Enjoy.

-- bliz

I just found out about the Visual Studio UserVoice site, located here: http://visualstudio.uservoice.com. From the site:

Welcome to the Visual Studio UserVoice site. Let us know what you would like to see in future versions of the Visual Studio suite of products. This site is for suggestions and ideas. If you need to file a bug, visit the Visual Studio Connect site: http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio.
 
We look forward to hearing from you!
 
Thanks – Doug Turnure
Visual Studio Team

A client asked me how to create and run Visual Studio web performance tests using something other than Internet Explorer. (His web app only runs in a particular browser, and it’s not IE.) Here’s my answer.

Recording a web performance test using a browser other than Internet Explorer

The Web Test recorder in Visual Studio is going to open up Internet Explorer for recording. Period.

If you want to use some other browser (I used Firefox in my example) as the recording environment instead of Internet Explorer, you can use Fiddler 2.0 (http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/) to capture the HTTP traffic. Once you’ve gone through the web user scenario in the browser of your choice, in Fiddler go to File > Export Sessions > All Sessions . . . > Select Export Format > Visual Studio Web Test

Fiddler 2.0 captured the HTTP traffic generated from Firefox browser. I’m about to export it.

Then in Visual Studio, open the webtest file you exported from Fiddler.

1. In VS, create a test project
2. Right click on the test project > Add > Existing item . . .
3. Browse to the webtest file you exported from Fiddler (make sure your filter is set to “(*.webtest)” as shown below)
   
4. Select your webtest file and open it.

Here’s the webtest file I created using Fiddler and Firefox, opened in Visual Studio. Looks kind of normal, doesn’t it?

Running a webtest using a browser other than Internet Explorer

In a web performance test, you can change the Browser type for an individual run, but that setting is not permanent. It resets to the default after the test completes.

Changing the browser type for an individual web test run

If you want to make the change effective across multiple runs, you need to change the test settings via Test > Edit Test Settings. See images below. These changes will be saved until you change them again. Note: you can have multiple testsettings definitions. For more info about testsettings, see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee256991.aspx. You need to be sure which testsettings file you’ve set to active. That’s managed from Test > Select Active Test Settings.

Changing the browser type “permanently”

Here’s the web test, paused just before running, showing Firefox 2.0 is the browser type:

And here’s the test run after completion. (Notice that I ran my test against my local TFS instance?)  :) 

It’s as easy as that.

Additional background information regarding the Web Performance Test Engine: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff520100.aspx

Hope this helps!

-bliz