Chee Yong

Developers! Planning to try out Visual Studio 2013 Preview? But too lazy to download and install? Don’t worry! There is a easy way out for you! You can simply use your Windows Azure Account* and create a VM that comes pre-installed with VS2013 preview! Totally save your hassle to download and setup VS on your environment. * it’s ok if you don’t have an existing Azure Account, you can simply create a free trial account . So here’s the steps: Create a new virtual machine in the Azure’s Virtual Machines tab. Select Compute > Virtual Machine > From Gallery. There you go! you can create a instance VM image preinstalled with VS2013 Preview!

For those who are administration Team Foundation Server 2012 OR are planning to set up TFS2012 in your development environment, you may be interested in this. Microsoft Virtual Academy recently did an online training that covers 6 hours’ worth of detail coverage on TFS2012 administration. This is a super duper useful video, so be sure to check it out if you are currently managing TFS2012 or are planning to use TFS2012 for your development team! http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Administering-Visual-Studio-Team-Foundation-Server-2012 ...

If you have read the Agile Manifesto clearly, they state that “we value Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”. Does that mean that tools is not required for a Agile team? Think about it, given the complexity of the modern world, do you think it is possible to ignore things like Audit/compliance, distributed team? Hence, there is still need for tools to compliment a agile dev team to make them even more agile. My stand? Continue to focus on interaction, but use tools (like TFS) to assist and faciliate the interaction. My analogy: A productive team is like a champion RPG game character. agile is the reflection of your “skills” and VS-TFS is the “legendary weapon”. You can be fantastic in your skill only and hold a regular weapon, but you can never win someone who is fantastic in their skill and holding a legendary weapon that compliments their skills. Check out the following article that addresses this topic :) http://toolsforagile.com/blog/archives/795/do-you-really-need-an-agile-tool

Hey Developers, Business Analyst, Team leaders, project managers and testers listen up! We are going to pump in new content into Spiffy on the following topics that will interest you! Application lifecycle management (ALM) (What is this huh?) Team foundation server (TFS) (and this?) SCRUM methodology (SCRUM?) Visual Studio (i bet you know what this is) So keep a look out in Spiffy for these new content! First start! I am going to introduce you guys to a interesting Windows 8 store app that can give you a clear guide to ALM, and build you up to a ALM expert! Don’t have a single clue on what ALM or TFS is? No problem! Just try it out! Here’s the download link for the app :) http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-US/app/alm-readiness-treasure-map/98782e69-ba79-4ab9-890a-44139fa8cd7f CY

Hey fellow dev-teams! Planning to build apps on the Azure Cloud? Expanding your dev-team and need more copies of Visual Studio & MSDN subscription? Here’s an awesome deal for you! You can buy 2 Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2012 with MSDN, the right choice for building multi-tier applications for the web, cloud, devices and receive a FREE 1 day Windows Azure “Developing and Deploying your Application to The Cloud” Hands-On-Lab Training from Microsoft CPLS. Wondering what will be lining up for the training? Training schedule (subject to change) ...