Chris Leong

Finally you can get a cheat sheet on how to test in VSTS. Thanks to VSTS Rangers in providing a quick reference for the test features in VSTS.

This guide covers.

• Setup Considerations
• Web Test Considerations
• Web Service Test Considerations
• Unit Test Considerations
• Load Test Considerations
• Load Test Rig Consideration
• Performance Data Collection And Usage
• Load Test Results Store Information
• Test Customization
• Items Changed Or Fixed In Vsts 2008 Sp1
• General Commands And Tricks (Not Vsts Specific)

Download it from http://vstt2008qrg.codeplex.com/

Just got some information on how to protect yourself from the Conficker virus that is creating havoc around the world. Microsoft even offer a USE250k reward to find the culprit.

Anyway, here are some links that offers good information about getting yourself protect.

Microsoft has published new information today on the following web pages:

• Microsoft Conficker guidance page for IT Professionals and those focused on security in the enterprise: HTTP://www.microsoft.com/conficker.
• Microsoft Conficker guidance page for consumers and home users: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/worms/conficker.mspx.
• The Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC) encyclopedia page for the Conficker family of malware: http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Entry.aspx?name=Win32/Conficker.
• The Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mmpc/.
• The Microsoft Security Response Center Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/.

On a separate note,

A friend of mine, who is knows a lot about security has recently gave me some decent advise about security. He mentioned these few tips.

1. You should not log in as an admin to do your daily work/web surfing. Log in as normal user and only use admin when necessary
2. If you have more than 1 pc, don’t use the same PC for downloading all your torrents, mp3s, movies and etc, and do your online banking. Use a different PC
3. Make sure you update all your patches and anti virus

It make sense, but I’m also guilty in not applying some of his advice. I guess i need to remind myself to be discipline.

Anyway, to learn the 4 steps to protect your computer. check it out @ this site

and check out my friends blog @ http://www.myownenemy.net/

Silverlight on Myspace

Looks like MySpace is supporting Silverlight and Windows Phone. Check out the link to the article

MySpace, the world’s premier social portal, today announced support for Microsoft Windows Mobile and Microsoft Silverlight. The new MySpace mobile application, available this summer, will run on Windows phones and utilize Silverlight, Microsoft Corp’s free browser plug-in that powers rich Internet application (RIA) experiences, into the MySpace Open Platform.

For developers out there, Here some news from Synergist’s blog about a kit for building Silverlight applications in MySpace Developer Platform.

On Thursday, April 2, MySpace and Microsoft will jointly release a kit on the CodePlex Open Source site (with the MS-PL License) that will make it easy for developers using Visual Studio and designers using Expression Blend to create Silverlight applications on MySpace’s OpenSocial-based developer platform.

Also check out his blog for some examples on how he uses the kit to do Silverlight in the Myspace Developer Platform. http://blogs.msdn.com/synergist/archive/2009/03/30/silverlight-for-the-myspace-developer-platform.aspx

Twitter Hiring VIP Concierge

Was reading some news about Twitter hiring a concierge to pamper said celebrities and VIPs to keep tweeting their hearts out. Got this article from TechCrunch. Funny how technology comes out with jobs that nobody heard of 10 years ago. For instance, SEO analyst/engineer and now Twitter VIP concierge

I did not realized that there is a National IP day in Malaysia. Pardon my ignorance ya. Here’s some information about the event.

Each year, 26 April marks the day we celebrate National Intellectual Property Day. The IP Day offers an ideal opportunity to inform, educate and promote the importance of intellectual property (IP) as a tool for economic, social and cultural development.

IP represents the product of our mind or intellect. However, without encouragement, many great innovations might have remained merely ideas.

Therefore, join us in strengthening our IP awareness efforts by participating in all our events

There is also an invention competition for students. Check it out, you might stand a chance to win RM5k for your efforts

Check out the National IP day Invention Competition

What is it?
A 24 hour Virtual Event where you can learn about all different development technologies that Microsoft offers.

When?
1st April, 2009

Topics?

• Windows Development and Frameworks
• Windows Mobile Development
• Office and SharePoint Development
• Developer Tools, Languages & Practices
• Web Development & User Experience

Get some details about the sessions here

Check it out at Microsoft Virtual Tech Days

Here are a bunch of video’s on YouTube how the future looks like according to Microsoft. It looks like something out of the Minority Report.

Hmmm one question though, the doors in the future still looks the same. You still need to push it to open it.

Wonder whether its one of the things that would never change like the umbrella.  The basic form of the umbrella still looks the same from the Ching Dynasty till now. (There’s no facts with this statement, just my observation from HK movies)

Microsoft’s 2019 Future Vision Montage

Microsoft’s future vision on manufacturing

Microsoft Future Vision : Healthcare

Microsoft’s future vision on retailing

Microsoft Office Labs Vision 2019

Quote about Faith & Fear

What’s the difference between fear & faith? Both are made up. Fear is imagination undirected & faith is your power to direct imagination – Got from Tony Robbins tweet

A fantastic video about the “Failure: The Secret to Success” By Honda

Love this short video. Since I’ve been facing some obstacles lately, its a good dose of motivation and inspiration for me.

The official launch of Internet Explorer 8

Been trying out IE8, Chrome and Firefox for a while. But Microsoft just launched IE8 officially. So for folks who do not like to use beta software, here’s a chance for you to try it out

Something about IE8

• Safer.  Built-in phishing and malware protection along with click-jacking and cross-site scripting prevention protects you from threats on the Internet. InPrivate browsing & filters let you maintain confidentiality when needed. See the whitepaper here.
• Easier. With Web Slices, content updates from your favorite sites are now accessible right from your favorites bar no matter where you are on the web. See the gallery here.
• Faster. With IE 8, it takes much fewer steps to complete key tasks than in FF. E.g. Mapping an address in IE8 takes 3 steps, while in FF, it takes 7.  In side-by-side measures of speed in opening the top 25 websites worldwide, IE8 was as fast or faster than Firefox and Chrome. IE8 is faster than IE7 by 80% in common micro-benchmarks. See the video here.

Download Internet Explorer 8 here

Gmail’s new feature – Undo Send

This got to be a life saver for me. I don’t know bout you folks, but I’m one of the few who manage to “jump the gun” by sending emails out without attachments. I always think how nice if i could “stop” the mail from being sent out. This folks from the Gmail team added a new feature that would be useful. This is especially true for folks who often write angry emails and sent it out.

Check out what they are saying in Gmails blog. To use this new feature, go to Settings –> Labs and look for undo send

Recently I am playing around with a free outlook add in to help me organize my inbox better. It’s call ClearContext Personal

Here are some things that it can help you with

• suggesting the right folders to instantly file messages and entire conversations with a single click
• highlights the most important messages in your Inbox from your most important contacts.
• Easily follow the conversation with a threaded conversation view as part of each email message
• Explore and preview attachments within Outlook just like folders on your desktop

So far i haven’t got use to the add in. I believe it takes some effort to adapt to it. But i guess once you got used to it, your productivity and efficiency in Outlook will increase.

But overall the best feature for me is the email thread function it provides. One of the things i like about Gmail is that it groups all similar emails. I find it easier for me to search for all my emails. It offers something similar, so far i like this feature the most.

In every mail, it will show you the email threads as highlighted in the picture below

Check out ClearContext’s short video demo

Anyone who follows my blog will know that I’m a strong believer in technology. I truly believe that technology use correctly, can improve the life of people. Not only in terms of productivity but also in terms of relationship with friends and families.

Look at how Facebook helps you connect with long lost friends. And the magic of MSN messenger and Skype in helping you talk to friends and family from afar. Technology should help people as a “tool” to reach out and touch more people.

To me, technology is never here to replace the actual relationship building process. You should never use technology to replace yourself in playing with your kids, having fun with your friends and family and definitely not building your relationship with GOD.

That’s why when i read the article from TechCruch’s Too Busy To Pray? Don’t Worry – Indulgences Are Back!, i feel that i need to let my “2 cents” about this. I’m not a religious person but i do believe that no matter what your religion is, it should be a sacred relationship between you and GOD. You can’t and should not ask a computer to pray for you.

 Here’s the description of service offer by Information Age Prayer and the picture to its services it offers.

Information Age Prayer is a subscription service utilizing a computer with text-to-speech capability to incant your prayers each day. It gives you the satisfaction of knowing that your prayers will always be said even if you wake up late, or forget.

Enough of my 2 cents. My point is, praying is a choice not a task. Don’t hire a machine to do it for you.

Note:

If you folks out there who like the idea of paying for a computer to pray for you and seriously think of subscribing. Let me offer you a “free” solution. Go to Control Panel –> Ease Of Access. Look for speech to text. Type in what ever prayer you want and the computer will pray for you.

Yes i still think its stupid, but at least its less stupid for someone to pay for the service (You are paying good money for nothing). Better save that money to boost the local economy. At least, someone working hard can benefit from it.

Just saw an interesting video about how Microsoft’s vision of the future. Check it out.

 
Future Vision Montage

Future Vision MontageEnvision how emerging technologies, evolving trends, and global change might come together to improve our lives at work and home across multiple real life scenarios.

As promised here are the slides that I used in the presentation on how to improve software quality using Visual Studio Team System.

In this presentation, i have showcased how Code Analysis, Code Profiling, Loading Testing do wonders in helping you develop quality applications.

You can download my slides about Improving Software Quality. If you want to try out Visual Studio Team System 2008, try downloading the VSTS 2008 VPC.

Cheers

My friend post a question to me about importing Gmail contacts to Outlook. It is actually quite simple to do it, here are some steps to do it.

1) In Gmail, click on contacts. Then select that contacts that you want to import.

2) Click Export

3) In the next screen, select Outlook CSV contacts

4) Next go to Outlook 2007. Click on File –> Import and Export

5) Select “Import from another file”

6) Select “Comma Separated Value (DOS)”

7) Follow the instructions and you should see your Gmail contacts in Outlook