Planet SCM

TechEd is an exhausting event - physically (try wearing a pedometer and see how many miles you walk per day) and mentally (the firehoses of information are charging up). Thankfully, Central Florida has a wide variety of restaurants, theme parks, activities, and more to recuperate. And then there are the TechEd parties. The parties run the gambit from lame to memorable (or unmemorable as the case may be).

This year, if you're going to TechEd Developers, I highly recommend attending GeekFest.

Why?

• Free beer
• Free pizza
• Dueling pianos
• Duck competition

How can you go wrong? Learn more here: Doug Seven's Blog: GeekFest Party at TechEd 2008 Developer Conference.

I wish I could say, "See you there!" But alas, I won't since I'll be here in Redmond. :(

1353

A new version of the Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison Guide is now available. Version 1.08 includes updates to a number or line items, but in particular it includes a lot of fixes in the debugging section and adds a section on 64-bit development features. If you find any discrepancies, feel free to drop me a note.

1352

Just a quick post to commemorate my ninth anniversary at Microsoft. I spent time on Friday getting rid of several boxes of accumulated clutter, including a bunch of printed specs for projects that never happened. I even found two drawings my daughter created almost 9 years ago. And now she's in college. Time flies.

1351

It occurred to me this evening that I haven't posted to this blog since early February. Following the launch of Visual Studio 2008 last month in LA, I moved into a new role (still within Developer Marketing at Microsoft) to work on marketing communications for our broader developer & user experience marketing campaigns. In addition, I'm still working on the Visual Studio marketing site and adding new content. As painful as it was to create, I still like how the product comparison guide turned out. Yesterday, we published a new white paper on Requirements Management with Visual Studio Team System. Anyway, back to the grind...

1350

The session catalog for Tech?Ed 2008 US Developers Session Catalog is now available for your perusal. True, Tech?Ed is months from now, but this is one of those events that necessitates months of prep work to deliver the caliber of event you've come to expect from Tech?Ed.

As you may have heard, we're back in Orlando for this show and it's now split over two weeks (Developers and IT Professionals) in early June.

Registration is now open, so be sure to reserve your spot today and be a part of the experience. The early birds get the best choice of accommodations, so don't delay.

1349

Okay, another update (v1.04) to the Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison is now available. In this revision, I updated the Code Quality Tools section to better reflect the testing features that are now available in Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, as well as some error corrections. I'm hoping this will be the last update for a bit; however, I appreciate any bug reports. 

1348

Charles Sterling, who spent most of this decade in Australia as a developer evangelist, recently moved back to Redmond. He's now on the Team System team working full-time on the kinds of things I did in my spare time when I was there. As he rapidly ramps up his activity in the Team System area, I'm officially passing the "Team System Blogfather" title over to him. He has a ton of energy and enthusiasm for Team System. He'll also be the driving force behind the Team System developer centers on MSDN. Since he's working on this stuff as his day job, I'm certain he'll eclipse my efforts in short order.

Good luck, Chuck!

1347

I just published v1.03 of the Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison with a minor update. I overlooked the Database Publishing Wizard in Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition and above. In Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, it's accessed by right-clicking a database in Database Explorer. In Standard Edition and above, it's over in Server Explorer. And to make it harder, in the both places we call it "Publish to provider" when you right-click the database to publish.

Anyway, here's the extent of revisions in v1.03:

And of course:

1346