I spent too much of my misspent youth looking into optimization techniques and scheduling problems and I would always come up against computationally intractable solutions and then looking for a more practical solution. I think that these experiences have made me the pragmatist I am today (best effort is better than …

I got round to listening to the latest Radio TFS podcast today whist out for a run, Adopting Team System with Steve Borg. If you are looking at adopting TFS or even just critically looking at your development life cycle with a view to improving (irrespective of the tools you use), then this podcast is well worth the …

Updated 12 June 2009 - I have been having problems using this technique of Typemock with Sharepoint Workflows, the workflows keep unexpectedly idling as opposed to activating. If you suffer similar problem please check for later posts as to any solutions I find. Now I can test a basic workflow it soon becomes obvious …

At my session at SQLBits IV on Visual Studio 2008 DBPro GDR it was mentioned that there was a major patch just about to be released to address some known issues. Well Brian Harry has provided links to the release of the release candidate of the GDR QFE

Updated 12 June 2009 - I have been having problems using this technique of Typemock with Sharepoint Workflows, the workflows keep unexpectedly idling as opposed to activating. If you suffer similar problem please check for later posts as to any solutions I find. After reading Gil’s blog on writing simpler tests I have …

I am speaking in Wednesday the 8th at Agile Yorkshire, on Crystal Clear and lessons learnt in Agile projects. The user group is meeting at the Victoria Hotel in Leeds as usual, and thanks to our sponsors there is a free drink for all attendees. Hope to see you there.

For a while I have had a problem that when I tried to add a hyperlink via the toolbar in Live Writer I get a dialog that Live Writer has stopped working, it doesn’t exit, it just des not open the modal window for adding a hyperlink. It was irritating, but as I could edit the HTML source and put in the link by hand I …

Updated 12 June 2009 - I have been having problems using this technique of Typemock with Sharepoint Workflows, the workflows keep unexpectedly idling as opposed to activating. If you suffer similar problem please check for later posts as to any solutions I find. Updated 6 April 2009 – Also see Testing SharePoint …

A book arrived recently on my desk 'Software Testing with Visual Studio Team System 2008' by Subashni. S and N Satheesh Kumar. On reading the book it provides a workmanlike coverage of the testing features of Visual Studio 2008 including some of the API options in the testing namespace, but I can't see what it adds to …

I am so pleased to be renewed as a MVP this time for the Connected Systems Division (CSD). My deepest thanks to the great guys in the CSD group and the UK MVP team for making this happen. This is my third year as a MVP and during the last two years (and a day) , I have been a BizTalk MVP twice and an Architect MVP …