By default the TFS server uses http://localhost:8080/tfs as it’s Server URL, this is the URL used for internal communication, whereas the Notification Url is the one TFS tells client to communicate to it via. Both these Urls can be changed via the Team Foundation Server Console, but I find you do not usually need to …

I have been discussing Windows 8 development with several developer groups this month and it seems that only a few developers were aware that in November update to the Windows App Certification Kit (ACK) was posted, it offers several bug fixes and more importantly new tests which came into force in the middle of …

Just before Christmas a number of enhancements were released, the continual growth combined with the short release cadence is showing Azure to be an amazing platform for development and delivery. Included in the update: Mobile Services CRON – a well built job scheduler for routine maintenance (tutorial here) CLI …

This is a relatively quick post, largely because I was not able to record the details of the error messages we saw in the farm before we fixed them. On a recent engagement we were investigating problems with a SharePoint 2013 farm that had been installed for our customer by a third party. There were a number of issues …

It’s the start of a new year and my engagement diary is filling rapidly. Once again I am covering a wide range of topics for an equally broad audience which is something I really enjoy. January 15th will find me in Manchester at a Microsoft event for Fire Services. I’m giving an overview of Windows Azure PaaS and IaaS …

Brian Harry posted last week about a hotfix for TFS 2012 QU1 (KB2795609). This should not be needed by most people, but as his post points out does fix issues for a few customers. Well we were one of those customers. When upgrading from 2012 RTM to 2012 QU1 we had attempted what with hindsight was an over ambitious …

There has been a hot fix that fixes some issues in Update 1 some from the RTM. Issues Addressed Collections that are attached to a server that is running TFS 2012 Update 1 may lose permissions Group scopes may incorrectly cause permission errors Severe decrease in performance after TFS 2012 Update 1 is installed …

I have had a Nokia 920 with Windows Phone 8 for several months and I thought it worth the effort to put some notes down Good Bits The screen is large and clear, pinning apps in small and large format allows me all of the configuration I need. Nokia Drive + is just awesome, maps for the whole world, all available …

On the 23rd of January I am doing a short presentation on the various options for Windows 8 development in Visual Studio 2012 as part of the Modern Jango ‘Tools for Windows 8 - Tips & Tricks on Visual Studio 2012 to inspire beautiful app development’ event. For more details check out the UK MSDN site

I have been trying to track down a performance problem today on an ASP.NET MVC. It all turned out to be down to an incorrect connection string in a nLog.config file for logging to a SQL DB. As soon as I commented out the Db target for nLog my login to the web site was virtually instant as opposed to taking 30 seconds …