Everyone in the industry understands that when it comes to interviews, we usually make a few Google searches either to get ready to GIVE an interview and also TAKE an interview. Having been on both sides of the table this last month I found a few blog posts which really helped out.

The one that stood out the most to me was this great post from Riley's Blog @ gigadotnet.com. The questions and answers provided seemed to hit on most important topics, and ultimately I think it is a great starting point for preparing for .NET interviews.

This may appear to be somewhat late news, but it is still worth noting for importance. The Microsoft Solutions Framework Process Guidance which shipped with TFS has been updated. When initially released there were some issues which may have been encountered, but Rob Caron has re-released the zip files to alleviate any of the issues. You can download the process guidance updates for both Agile and CMMI in the links in Rob's Blog post.

Randy Miller has recently published a post discussing the changes which have been made to the newly released guidance files.

The installation guide has been updated for Team Foundation Server. Make sure to download the latest Compiled Help file. Check out Rob Caron's weblog post to see the changes which have been made.

Looks like IE7 is going to be released on November 1st via Windows Automatic Updates. I personally haven't installed any of the beta's or release candidates yet, but from what ive heard its going to be "teh awesome". I'm actually really excited for the new version and am thinking about switching back from Firefox.

As an ASP.NET developer I have always tested my projects with IE, but then I browse the internet using Firefox. There's nothing really wrong with that, it would just be nice to actually build sites and test them using the same browser which I use to browse the internet. Of course I realize that I can easily test/debug my apps using Firefox as my other colleagues do, but its usually a corporate initiative that the our sites must support IE so I usually choose it to debug with.

That being said, I have had a number of recent issues with Firefox (start up times, freezing, updates and restarted automatically, etc.) and will probably try to use IE7 as my default browser. The only thing I think ill miss in Firefox will be my cherished Mouse Gestures plug-in.

If you don't to adopt you can install the Toolkit to disable the Automatic update for IE7.

Check out the IE blog for the latest and great info. I would at least recommend that you check out this post for more info about IE7 readiness and adoption.

I recently read an interesting post on Rob Caron's blog which referenced the importance of static code analysis. I agree with both Rob Caron and David Falkenstein that taking the extra time to run tools like this can help ensure the quality of the software product.

Recently, I have submitted my proposal for my Software Engineering Master's Project at California State University of Fullerton. The project in brief, will discuss how Team Foundation Server can be used/customized to promote quality control within a project such that it can remain within statistical control. One of the sub-points in my proposal summary was the fact that Team System could support static code analysis and that with each project (or each iteration if one were that ambitious), that rules could be modified based upon the possible issues which may been found responsible during root cause analysis on the Bugs which QA found. As a result there is a need to easily customize rules and deploy them to client machines. At last, I found a great resource on how to build custom rules with the Team System Static Code Analysis tool (FxCop). The FxCop Blog is a great resource.

While searching the weblog I found this great post in the FAQ section. It is a great reference for creating new rules and registering them with the Static Code Analysis tool in VSTS. Simply follow the steps listed and make sure to read some of the information which I have provided below.

The post contains an zip file containing the sample source required to build a custom rule which checks member prefixes. The entry is a little outdated, thus you should take the following into consideration.

• The directory where the rule dlls should be dropped has changed since the post was written and is now located at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Team Tools\Static Analysis Tools\FxCop\Rules
• You only need to copy the .dll into the directory listed above. The other files are not required to register the rule. (The xml file is an embedded resource)
• More FxCop FAQ can be found on this Microsoft Forums post
• Screenshots 

Screenshot: Drop the built dll into the following directory.

Screenshot: Code Analysis enabled with Samples rules enabled

Screenshot: Code Analysis warnings when Building the Solution

I recently updated the layout and features of my blog. Initially when I downloaded dasBlog I was sort of dissapointed with the themes which it had to offer. After searching around for about a month for a theme that I really liked, I decided to go ahead and make my own. I understand that most people would rather subscribe to your blog feed rather than actually visit your site, but I figured it would be a good idea to have something which was customized for my appreciation (even if nobody pays a visit to it).

In addition to a my theme, I created a Macro footer for my blog posts which will hopefully give my site more visability. (I know that this is not a new idea but I wanted to learn how to create dasBlog Macros most of all). For more information on how to create dasBlog Macros check out Kris' Blog post.

Lastly, I added the Categories Tag Cloud to the sidebar. This was a new feature in dasBlog version 1.9 but was extremely difficult to find documentation on. After search around for quite a while, I sent Mr. Scott Hanselman an email and he so kindly explained the intricate details for adding the Tag Cloud. Just add : <%drawtagcloud() %> . (Its always good to send one of the most famous .NET developers in the country the stupidest questions. Make a note of that if you're an aspiring developer:) )

If you are going to add the Tag Cloud Macro on your blog, make sure that you define the necessary styles so that it doesnt look like crap.

.tagCloud { }

.smallestTag, .smallestTag A { font-size:xx-small; }

.smallerTag , .smallerTag A{ font-size:xx-small; font-weight:bold; }

.smallTag,.smallTag a{ font-size: x-small; }

.mediumTag, .mediumTag A{ font-size: x-small; font-weight:bold;}

.largeTag, .largeTag A{ font-size: small; }

.largerTag, .largerTag A{ font-size: small; font-weight:bold;}

.largestTag, .largestTag A{ font-size: medium; }

Caching Issue : In order to see the blog layout changes you will need to clear out your cache for my page. I know this sounds really lame but I had to enable output caching on the main page so that it wouldn't allow visitors to change their theme for my blog. Sorry.

You should see a page which looks like this if your cache is cleared. (The pic is from my honeymoon in Fiji)

Brian Harry recently posted more information about TFS installation expirations and upgrades. I must admit that this applied to us since we installed the workgroup edition and figured out what had happened while adding our sixth registered user, ugghhh. It was not an exciting time. We are currently in the process of upgrading from TFS workgroup version to the full TFS version, and I'm really hoping that this will work out ok. From the description in Brian's blog post I doubt that we will have any issues (although he was talking about moving from the TFS trial install to the full TFS version).

Also included in the post was an attached application which, when ran on the TFS server, will display that TFS installation Version. Also, you can detect your version without this application by looking opening your Registry Editor. You can find more information on what to look for at Rob Caron's Blog post.

Team Foundation Server Version Detection Screenshot:

Click here to download TFSVersionDetection or you can visit Brian Harry's blog post to download.

There was a recent TFS Version Control Blog post which asked the community for feedback regarding TFS Version Control Check-In policies. The feedback questions were as follows:

1. Would you like us to release a check-in policy pack together with some best practices and ship that out of band?
2. If we do decide to do this then the next question becomes which policies are customers writing themselves that we can standardize and put in the pack?
3. Which policies would customers like to see as examples?

Please visit reply to the post so that we can hopefully convince the TFS Version Control team to release a some standard check-in policies.

The TFS Version Control Blog is ran by Mario Rodriguez who is a program manager on TFS Version Control. Keep that in mind when you post your feedback comments. I know that I would personally love to see a standard check-in policy pack which would handle the most common policies. Due to the fact that these policies are assigned on the server, but need to be enforced on the client, has been somewhat of an issue for myself. Out of curiosity...Is there any standard approach to making these policies. I do understand that we need to override the methods from the PolicyBase class, but is there a recommended way to deploy these policies to all of the clients?

It appears the channel9 will be adding an additional VSTS tag for all Visual Studio Team System releated content.

We recently started tagging new Visual Studio Team System-related content on Channel 9 with a VSTS tag to make them easier to discover. I also just finished tagging all of the older Team System-related content as well. There were several great videos out there, including some that I had never even seen before!

Brian Keller's blog post provides some examples of some videos which can already be found on Channel9. Samples included Application Designer Videos, Code Profiler and Source Control Management. Also there are a few videos which are related to TFS third parties and Microsoft Research Project tools.

View all VSTS tagged content @ channel9.msdn.com

A new version of dasBlog was released a few weeks ago. I must admit, that I downloaded and installed within minutes of seeing Scott Hanselman's blog post. When I initally started this blog I had a really hard time deciding which platform to use...should I use the more populare WordPress, should I try and get Community Server up and going, it was kind of hard to decide at that time. It wasn't until this release that I fully stood behind my inital decision to use dasBlog.

My favorite features include:

• Support for Google Sitemaps - The google webmaster tools and their analytics tools really make maintaining and running a site that much more fun. I think it was especially important to support google sitemaps since the content on our blogs are constantly changing. Note: The location to reference for your google sitemap can be found at [YourBlogDomain]/googlesitemap.ashx
• Better support for Windows Live Writer - Im assuming that the file uploading issues were fixed. Although I already configured LiveWriter to FTP all of my files up the server when needed.

I would also like to mention that the upgrad from 1.8 to 1.9 was a piece of cake. I just merged the web.config files and pushed the new files to the server.

More Information:

Scott Hanselman on dasBlog 1.9

Scott Hanselman on Google Sitemaps

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Analytics

dasBlog 1.9 upgrade information

Wow. Component Art has released one of the most impressive displays of AJAX enabled controls. I'm really getting anxious for Atlas to get out the door because I can't wait for the day that ASP.NET sites stop being the ugly red-headed step child of dynamic websites. Obviously that's an overstatement, but with this great release of Atlas I think we're all going to be blown away both by the third party control vendors as well as the home grown sites too.

Other AJAX Enabled control suites:

• Telerik
• Infragistics
• Of course the Atlas Control Kit

One of my most favorite features with TFS Version Control and Team Foundation Power Toys has to offer is Annotate. With annotate every single line of source code labeled with:

1. The user who made the last changes on each individual line of code
2. The changeset associated with the annotated section
3. The date of the changeset
4. A right click menu which gives you acces to - the changeset details, the history of the file, and the ability to annotate an the previous changeset version.

TFS Annotate Screenshot

Click here to download the latest version of TFS Power Toys

Brain Harry gives us an insight into a few of the changes that we should expect in the next refinement of Annotate.

Brian Harry has provided a list of the Bug fixes we should expect for the Team Foundation Server Service Pack 1. The fix I was most excited about was the common MS Project issue where resources could not be mapped to TFS because a comma was being used the separator in our domain accounts.

Yeah now I can change back my List separator from the ";" to the ",". (Not that I ever noticed any issues from having this setting).