Joshua Smith

Installing TFS 2008 on Windows Server 2008

2008-05-27T19:58:00Z

I just completed the install of single-tier Team Foundation Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 Standard environment. This installation is slightly different from installing in a Windows Server 2003 environment. I ran into the dreaded 28100 error, but after rebuilding again and changing a few items, the install worked fine.

For the most part, follow the TFS install guide to the letter. There are a few slight deviations:

When installing IIS, follow the Reporting Services 2005 requirements. This includes a few additional things that need to be installed.
When installing the .NET 3.0 components, only install the .NET 3.0 framework. Do not install any additional features!
Note that in Windows 2008 you must install Sharepoint WITH SP1 before installing TFS 2008. After following the instructions, navigate to both the Central Admin and site on port 80 and ensure that your "TFSAdmin" account has admin rights in both locations. In my setup, it was configured correctly in Central Admin, but not on the main site. I had to add the TFS Admin account as a site collection administrator.

Good luck!

DRM-Free MP3 Music Downloads

2007-09-26T13:21:00Z

Amazon has opened its DRM-free music store! You may download music from its store that is not copy protected, and it is in 256 kbps! Here is what Amazon says:

* Selection: Every day we add new music to our collection of over 2 million songs from independent and major label artists. We're continually working with music labels to offer more and more content in the MP3 format.

* Quality: Our MP3 tracks are encoded at 256 kbps, which gives you high-quality audio at a reasonable file size. This means your music sounds great and downloads quickly.

* Freedom: Because we sell MP3 files with absolutely no rights management software, you're free to listen to your music on any device you'd like. * Value: Amazon MP3 offers high-quality DRM-free downloads at low prices. Find full albums as low as $4.99 and tracks as low as 89 cents.

Visit amazon.com.

SQL 2005 and View Definition

2007-07-03T13:53:00Z

If you want to be able to view the schema in a QA or Production instance of SQL 2005, you will need to run the following permission:

GRANT VIEW DEFINITION ON SCHEMA::dbo TO user-account

I have found this extremely useful so I can compare exactly WHAT procedure or function is in the QA/production instance.

VS 2005 SP1

2006-12-15T14:25:00Z

Microsoft released SP1 of VS 2005. You can download it at the following link.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/vs2005sp1/default.aspx

Make sure to uninstall the web application projects BEFORE running the SP1 install. Otherwise you'll get kicked out 5 minutes into the installation.

US States in SQL Format

2006-12-14T14:48:00Z

In almost every project I have worked on, I have needed the list of US states in a format to insert into a database. I am finally tired of recreating this list, and posting it for future use...

create table USStates(USStateCd char(2) not null, USStateName varchar(30) not null);

insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('AL','Alabama');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('AK','Alaska');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('AZ','Arizona');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('AR','Arkansas');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('CA','California');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('CO','Colorado');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('CT','Connecticut');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('DE','Delaware');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('DC','District of Columbia');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('FL','Florida');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('GA','Georgia');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('HI','Hawaii');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('ID','Idaho');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('IL','Illinois');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('IN','Indiana');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('IA','Iowa');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('KS','Kansas');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('KY','Kentucky');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('LA','Louisiana');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('ME','Maine');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('MD','Maryland');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('MA','Massachusetts');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('MI','Michigan');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('MN','Minnesota');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('MS','Mississippi');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('MO','Missouri');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('MT','Montana');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('NE','Nebraska');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('NV','Nevada');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('NH','New Hampshire');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('NJ','New Jersey');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('NM','New Mexico');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('NY','New York');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('NC','North Carolina');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('ND','North Dakota');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('OH','Ohio');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('OK','Oklahoma');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('OR','Oregon');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('PA','Pennsylvania');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('RI','Rhode Island');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('SC','South Carolina');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('SD','South Dakota');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('TN','Tennessee');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('TX','Texas');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('UT','Utah');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('VT','Vermont');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('VA','Virginia');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('WA','Washington');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('WV','West Virginia');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('WI','Wisconsin');
insert into USStates(USStateCd, USStateName) values ('WY','Wyoming');

When in doubt, check your firewall and/or anti-virus settings

2006-11-01T18:51:00Z

When using the System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient class in .NET, you may get a wonderful generic error that says the following:

The SMTP host was not found. --> Unable to connect to the remote server. --> An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

I first read that as IIS was killing the connection and checked my permissions. Everything was fine. It turned out to be the McAfee Virus console that was blocking port 25. Yet another good reminder that when having connection issues, check the firewall and anti-virus software settings!

SQL 2005 and foreign key indexes

2006-10-30T21:32:00Z

SQL Server by default does not index foreign keys (to my knowledge). So, here is a little script that will generate your create index statements for you. Note this only works in SQL 2005 due to the new sys table schema...

select 'create index IDX_' + c.[name] + '_' + b.[name] + ' on ' + c.[name] + '(' + b.[name] + ')'
from sys.foreign_key_columns a
    inner join sys.columns b
        on a.parent_object_id = b.object_id and a.parent_column_id = b.column_id
    inner join sys.tables c
        on b.object_id = c.object_id

Tab Behavior with Session

2006-10-30T16:41:00Z

I may have missed the memo on this one, but the session object (and thus the context) crosses tabs in both Firefox and IE. What I mean is that opening the same website in a new tab will still keep all of your context information. In order to generate a new context, you must open a new browser instance entirely! I did not expect this behavior at all. I thought that a new tab was similar to opening a new browser window. Apparently, it is not.

If you want to try this yourself, create a new ASP.NET site, drop a label with an id of "DisplaySession" on the page, and in the default page codebehind on the page load event, write the following:

        if (null == Session["TestValue"])
            Session["TestValue"] = DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString();

        DisplaySession.Text = Session["TestValue"].ToString();

Now, run the site (with or without debugging). Note the time. Wait a few seconds, open a new tab, and open the same page. Viola! Same time.

Firefox 2

2006-10-24T20:57:00Z

Firefox 2 has been released, get it at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/.

IE 7

2006-10-19T12:59:00Z

IE 7 has been released! It can be downloaded from Microsoft at the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx

Codesmith 4.0 Beta 2 Released

2006-10-19T12:55:00Z

Codesmith has released the second beta of its tool, it can be downloaded here:

http://community.codesmithtools.com/blogs/announcements/archive/2006/10/16/CodeSmith40PublicBetaReleased.aspx

The ActiveSnippets are extremely powerful! I highly recommend this for any developer.

Web Software Factory

2006-10-11T17:41:00Z

Microsoft has begun a P&P section for Web Software Factory, similar to the Composite UI pattern. They have released their fourth code drop. Check this project out at: http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=websf.

SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter

2006-09-08T15:03:00Z

Vantec has released its new SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter. Excellent little tool!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812232002

Check in Overrides

2006-07-24T13:46:00Z

It is possible to implement a policy on Team Foundation Server to require work items to be associated with check ins. However, the developer does have the option to override this policy and check his or her code in anyway. Visibility into overridden check ins is limited, but, TFS does store this in version control database. Here is the query to retrieve this info:

select a.changesetid, b.CreationDate, c.Person, a.comment
from tbl_PolicyOverride a
    inner join tbl_ChangeSet b
       on a.ChangeSetId = b.ChangeSetId
    inner join tfsWarehouse..person c
       on b.OwnerId = c.__id

Here is a script that runs the send mail in sql for a daily retrieval of policy overrides:

declare @sub varchar(50)
set @sub = 'Daily Checkin Override Report for '+Convert(varchar(8),getdate(), 1)
EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail
    @profile_name = 'Mail',
    @recipients = '[emaillisthere]',
    @query = '
select convert(varchar(5),a.changesetid,1) as ID,
convert(varchar(8),b.CreationDate,1) as Date,
substring(c.Person,1,15) as Person,
substring(a.comment,1,70) as Comment
from tfsVersionControl..tbl_PolicyOverride a
    inner join tfsVersionControl..tbl_ChangeSet b
        on a.ChangeSetId = b.ChangeSetId
    inner join tfsWarehouse..person c
        on b.OwnerId = c.__id
where b.CreationDate >= convert(varchar(12),getdate(), 110)
' ,
    @query_result_width = 150,
    @subject = @sub,
    @attach_query_result_as_file = 0 ;

The TFS team has said a check in override report is scheduled for a future release.

Team Systems and Continuous Integration

2006-07-17T12:48:00Z

Here is an excellent post on continuous integration in Visual Studio Team Systems.. I have tested this successfully.. it also gives the developer greater flexibility in determining exactly what is done (for example, fire the build only if code at a certain location in the tree is checked in).

http://blogs.vertigosoftware.com/teamsystem/archive/2006/07/14/3075.aspx