I posted about the problems of using Blend with source control, specifically TFS. Well the next version of TFS Power tools gives a partial answer. They are to include Windows Shell Extensions so at least the check-in/out process can be managed would having another application open other than an explorer windows. Well …

As we move into the SOA world workflows will become more common and so the need to test them will increase. If we take the most simplistic view these are a sets if statements and loops so should be amenable to automated testing and TDD. However you have to careful how you try to do this, it is too easy to forget that …

The one major thing that I did not like with my Dell Mini was the fact it had installed XP Home. My main grip with this was the fact my main user account had to be an admin user, and I could not login as a user called administrator unless in safe mode. So I decided to do an in place upgrade to XP Professional (which …

I posted on the problems I had had mocking out an SMTP server, well I have moved on a bit. As I said in the update note in the last post, I had given up on nDumbster and moved over to LumiSoft's freeware mail server. The Lumisoft server is a far better starting point as it is a 'real' server that supports all the major …

It was announced overnight by Microsoft that the Database Professional SKU for Visual Studio will be made available to all people who have a licensed copy of Team Developer. This is great news as it addresses the problem of where to put the expensive copy of DataDude (which I think has been a barrier to it's uptake), …

I am currently looking at automation of acceptance testing for workflows and a common task is to make sure an email has been sent. To do this in a TDD style I have been using the mock SMTP server nDumbster. Now this was a port from Java in the the days of .NET 1.1 and does not seem to have had any development since. …

After Alt.net I had thought getting an ultra light notebook was a good idea. At most conference I need to browser, blog and read email; I don’t need to carry around a full development desktop replacement laptop. Whilst at ReMix I had enough of the old battery in my Acer laptop, so just before it ran out of juice again …

Brian Harry has published an interesting post on the platform decisions for 'Rosario'. The most interesting item is it will only support SQL 2008; so get planning a migration for that central enterprise SQL server!

So how was ReMix? well a bit like last year not earth shattering, but what can you expect. We have PDC in a month so there is going to be no major announcements, also this is a rerun event from the US MIX conference, again reducing the chances of anything new. So if you are a developer and been to TechEd or just to …

I have eventually got round to rebuilding my GUITester on Codeplex for VS2008. I must get round to looking to see if a similar declarative test markup system has any mileage for XAML. Something was talking about at Alt.net in the spring - how time flies.