Visual Studio Windows PowerShell Templates

I've written a few PowerShell CmdLets over the past year or so and, while it isn't difficult, there is a fair amount of boilerplate work that needs to be done - adding references, implementing PSCmdLet and PSCustomSnapIn, etc.

So, Channel 9 to the rescue, where David Aiken posts word of Windows PowerShell templates available for Visual Studio 2005:

This Visual Studio template adds a C# and/or VB.NET project template for building Windows PowerShell Cmdlets and item templates in both languages to build CmdLet derived and PSCmdLet derived Windows PowerShell Cmdlets.

Thanks to Don Jones for pointing out the link in his post on CmdLet creation.

-Chris

Enterprise Library 3.0 CTP Released

Hot off the press, the Patterns & Practices team's Tom Hollander has announced the availability of the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Enterprise Library v3.0!

Download it from the new CodePlex site at http://www.codeplex.com/entlib.

Some highlights from Tom's post:

Core

• Source Code installer
• Partial Trust Support
• Strong-Named Binary Assemblies

Validation Application Block

• Core validation API
• Minimal Validator Library
• Attaching validators to objects via attributes
• Attaching validators to objects via configuration
• Not included yet (but in the works): Configuration tool support, complete validator library, integration with ASP.NET, Windows Forms, WCF etc.

Data Access Application Block

• SQL Server Compact Edition Support
• New Database.UpdateDatabase overload with updateBatchSize parameter

Configuration Tool

• Visual Studio IDE integration
• AppSettings support
• Encryption support

Application Block Software Factory

• Templates and recipes for creating application blocks and provider libraries
• Preliminary documentation

Strong Naming Guidance Package

• Recipes to assist in strong-naming and updating [InternalsVisibleTo] across multiple projects

Don't forget to be among the first to provide feedback for the team via the CodePlex forums.

-Chris

Team System Public User Group Meeting - Dec. 21st

The Boston area's newest user group, the Team System Public User Group, will be having its first meeting at the Microsoft Office at 201 Jones Road, Waltham this Thursday (12/21) from 5:30-7:30.

Agenda from the site:

This meeting will kick off the user group as a whole and a presentation and discussion:

"The State of Team System"
A discussion and exposure of various Visual Studio Team System initiatives inside and outside of Microsoft. Expect discussion of SP1 which is imminent in its release. A lot of focus will be placed on an inventory of “Collaborative Community Source” projects and commercial third party applications as well.

For more information about the group and meeting, see Michael Ruminer's post on the new group.  From Michael's post:

This months meeting will focus on a meet and greet and then a presentation/discussion of existing initiatives around VSTS/TFS both inside and outside Microsoft and both third party commercial and collaborative source projects that exist out there. Are you involved in any? Do you know of any? Do you have a special project you'd like to start up? If so bring that info along so that if my inventory misses it you can fill us all in.

-Chris

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Now Available

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) has emerged from beta and is now available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/vs2005sp1:

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 continues Microsoft’s investment in market leading development tools. Service Pack 1 addresses issues that were found through a combination of customers and partner feedback, as well as internal testing.  The issues addressed range in severity from places where the syntax coloring was incorrect to customer reported crashes in various scenarios. In some areas, more than 50% of the bugs addressed were reported by customers through the MSDN Product Feedback Center and Microsoft Connect. Overall, Service Pack 1 offers custo

Through further advancement and feedback, Service Pack 1 also provides over 70 improvements for common development scenarios including:

• New processor support (e.g., Core Duo) for code generation and profiling
• Performance and scale improvements in Team Foundation Server
• Team Foundation Server integration with Excel 2007 and Project 2007
• Tool support for occasionally connected devices and SQL Server Compact Edition
• Additional support for project file based Web applications
• Windows Embedded 6.0 platform and tools support mers improvements in responsiveness, stability and performance for Visual Studio 2005.

Note also that if you're a Windows Vista user, work is continuing on the Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Vista Refresh Beta:

For developers using Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista, Microsoft is in current development on an update to Service Pack 1 called the ‘Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Vista Refresh Beta’. This update builds on the improvements made in SP1 and delivers a first class experience for developers wanting to take advantages of the new features in Windows Vista. The Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Update for Windows Vista is expected to ship after the consumer availability of Windows Vista in Q1 of 2007 and is now available in beta.

Keep an eye on the above page for its release.

-Chris

Microsoft New England Job Opening - Developer Support Consultant

[Blog moved - please update feed to http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen]

There is currently an opening for a Developer Support Consultant within Microsoft's the New England district.  Here is the job description: 

Developer Support Consultant (ADC)

The purpose of the ADC position is to provide our customers with a technically competent advocate with access to all the resources at Microsoft, to advise and consult on the use of Microsoft technology in their particular product or application. Tasks performed in this role include helping with technology assessments, workshops, prototyping, conducting application design reviews, performance benchmarks, code reviews, porting/migration assistance, configuration management and general development consulting. Key to the success of this role is the ability to develop and maintain strong trust/working relationships with assigned ISV/SD accounts and constantly expanding the working knowledge of current and pre-release Microsoft systems, products, and platforms.

Responsibilities: The ADC is responsible for understanding the customer's environment, its technical requirements and fit to Microsoft technologies. The ADC serves as the customer's persistent Microsoft point of contact throughout the customer's product development lifecycle, which is a role that is heavily reliant on the ADC possessing excellent customer service skills. The ADC is required to assist the team with quick and efficient resolution of customer's reactive support needs. The ADC will deliver prescriptive consulting guidance in the form of workshops, reviews, prototypes, white papers, and conclusive test results while setting realistic expectations regarding the capabilities and delivery timeframes of Microsoft technologies. It is vital that the ADC work constantly on keeping up-to-date on new Microsoft technologies relevant to the customer's particular needs and developing relationships with key Microsoft product group resources. The ADC is expected to maintain a collaborative role with customers. The ADC is expected to provide consulting assistance to peers as project workloads allows. The ADC maintains relationships with Microsoft product managers providing feedback on product requirements and drive Microsoft product feature and functionality requests on behalf of Premier clients.

Contacts: This position will have regular contact with: Premier - Other Application Development Consultants and Technical Account Managers - required for establishing support and maintaining persistent account contact point. PSS - Support Engineers - required for establishing and receiving product support. MCS - Consultants - required in the event Microsoft in contracted to perform actual software development services. Microsoft Product Groups - Program and product management / some direct contact with developers - required to drive feature set issues and resolve software bugs in early-beta releases. This position has frequent contact with all levels of Microsoft managers and employees and frequent contact with vendors and customers.

Qualifications: BS in Computer Science or equivalent experience. 5+ years of high-end software development experience building business transaction systems. Database application and transaction system design. Strong development skills with VB, C/C++/C#, ActiveX, COD/DCOM, XML highly desired. Strong business background in Fortune 500 and/or experience with systems technology consulting firm desired.

Location within New England is flexible as long as you're able to travel the area to visit customer sites.  If you're interested, feel free to contact me via this blog.

Thanks,
Chris

Boston .NET User Group - Annual Social

This Wednesday (12/13) evening will be the annual social event for the Boston .NET User Group:

"Come join our annual holiday potluck gathering this Wednesday 12/13 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the usual location, Microsoft's Waltham office (lunch room).

This is an informal event focused on netowrking and just hanging out with fellow members. Each person is asked to bring a food or beverage to share with the group. Please don't all bring desserts this year as we are still recovering from sugar overload :-).

This is a great opportunity to just hang out with your fellow developers. Hope to see you there and have a great holiday season!"

Hope to see you there!

-Chris

VPC Enabling IE7 and IE6 on the Same Machine

[Blog moved - please update feed to http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen]