Brian H. Prince

Near the end of any year every magazine, newspaper, and website come outs with their own top ten list for something. Some even one-up each other by having top 100 lists. For example, the top 10 movies of the year, or the top 100 games of all time. I admit that I might be a little late on releasing my own top ten list for the year. This post has been bouncing around my head for a while, but two things have happened that caused me to get off my duff and write it. The first is that I have bought a few albums from MC Frontalot lately, and have been really enjoying them. He has a song titled ‘I hate your blog.’ You can listen to it for free here . I really hate those stupid Top N articles magazines, blogs, etc put out at the end of the year. This song inspired me to think up the idea of having my own top ten list. The second motivator is that I was hanging around with Leon and told him of my idea. He thought it was funny, and encouraged me to finally post it. My top ten list is here...

Microsoft often holds events on how to use our latest tools and technologies. I love going to those events, and helping people get the most out of our tools and frameworks. One thing that I am passionate about is how we can all be better developers. Jim Holmes put on an event in Columbus a few months ago called Software Engineering 101 that covers how to be a better developer. The morning is comprised of presentations on SOLID, etc. The afternoon is just one big pair programming session to work and learn hands on how to use the principles discussed in the morning. The afternoon will provide guidance and challenges to give you something to work towards. The Columbus event was sold out and packed very quickly. It was such a huge success I begged Jim to bring is to Nashville. We will be holding the event in the Nashville office. The event will also be webcasted so people will be able to participate online. We will even be able to help people who are pairing at home. While we will b...

While I was at PDC this fall I sat down with Mehul Harry from DevExpress to talk about Azure, Cloud Computing, and of course soft skillz. The interview is only a few minutes long, I hope you like it. Thanks to Mehul for having me on the show. http://tv.devexpress.com/PDC09BrianPrince.movie

While I was at PDC this fall I sat down with Mehul Harry from DevExpress to talk about Azure, Cloud Computing, and of course soft skillz. The interview is only a few minutes long, I hope you like it. Thanks to Mehul for having me on the show. http://tv.devexpress.com/PDC09BrianPrince.movie

What happened at PDC do you ask? Lots of stuff. We are shipping more bits now than we ever have. First, watch this slide deck we have put together that is a quick lap around the PDC and find out what makes you smile. And then you can go to www.microsoftpdc.com/videos to watch all of the sessions, and drill deep into each topic. This will give you something to do on your Zune while travelling over the river and through the hills to grandmothers house this holiday. I want to thank the Findlay .NET UG and the Knoxville .NET UG for hosting me, and for everyone coming out to the meetings. I also want to thank Kevin Grossnicklaus . He was the first to put a deck together,and he shared it with us to save work. Mike Wood also helped by making sure we hit all the top points, and polished up my shoddy hack job on Kevin’s deck.

Wow! A year has come and gone and the second annual DogFood conference is done. We had 19 partners come together to put on a two day event for customers in Columbus, Ohio. We had attendees from four hours away! There were over 45 sessions. I was able to deliver a talk on using Azure. There were 400 attendees over the two days, and I think everyone had a lot of fun, and learned a lot. I want to thank everyone who came to my session, and please connect with me if you have more questions about Azure. The slides are here:

This is the second year for the dog food conference, brain child of Danilo Casino. It is a local event, put on by MS and our partners. This year we have two full days, with four tracks. We have both local MS employees, as well as some blue badges coming in from out of state. Many of the presenters are local rock stars that work for our partners. This event is free (unless you are in pubsec, then you have to pay for your food). It was a great event last year, and I hope to see you there. Since the event is two days, we have two registration links. Please bear with us, it’s just how the machine works. The reg links: Thursday Registration Link Friday Registration Link · **Attendees must register for each day separately** What : · Please join us for the 2 nd Annual Dog Food Conference.  We will have MS speakers, MS partners, ISVs, MS MVPs and community leads presenting 40 topics. The story behind “Eating one’s own Dog Food” When: · November 12-13, 2009; Attendees...

https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=142763 Details on the event is below: When: December 7, 2009 Location Microsoft MTC - Aon Center 200 E. Randolph Suite 200 Chicago, IL 60601 United States Recommended Audiences: Solution Architects, Software Developers, Developers, Architects nPlus1.org is hosting its fifth Architecture Summit on December 7th at the Microsoft MTC in Chicago, IL. The topic of this summit will be Patterns and Principles. Morning Session (Optional): An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Are you new to OOP? Do you want a refresher on the benefits of Interfaces and the differences between implements and extends? The morning session is a two hour introductory course of Object Oriented Programming. If you are new to OOP the lessons in this session will prepare you for the more advanced topics in the afternoon. If you are already well versed in OOP then feel free to come have a ref...

PSR stands for Problem Step Recorder, and is a tool that ships in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It was designed to help support professionals have users record the steps of their problem so they can see what is going on. It fixes the ‘See the big blue ball in the lower left-hand corner?’ problem. While we have remote connection capabilities, and screen recorders, those can be hard to setup for a typical user, and takes too long to show something simple. PSR is really lightweight and helps with the initial triaging of the problem. And let’s face it, if you are reading this you are probably the IT Support team for your family. You are probably feeling a lot of angst about the upcoming holidays, especially Thanksgiving, which is the one holiday you are forced to hang around with people you actively avoid on Twitter and Facebook. You are not alone, we all feel like this. In the 50’s it was everyone asking the family member who was a physician about medical questions all day. Now ...

I was at the HDC this past week in Omaha, NE. I had a blast! It was a great conference, and I got to speak with a lot of the local developers. People were really excited about the pending launch of Windoes 7 and the keynote from Scott Guthrie on the new VS2010 build. I interviewed a bunch of people on what their favorite Windoes 7 feature is. There is one surprising guest half way through. Thanks to David Giard who was the wizard who edited the video. You should check out his blog, and his webcast. It's a great show.

I have a lot of friends who really like to work in Python and Ruby, so I thought I would pass this announcement on. If you are into Python and Ruby, you might want to check out www.codemash.org , a great event I help with coming up in January. Today we announced the release of the IronRuby and IronPython CTPs for .NET 4.0 Beta 2 . This is the third preview of IronRuby and IronPython running under the Dynamic Language Runtime that is built directly into .NET 4.0. As before, this release allows you to use IronRuby objects and types as .NET 4.0 dynamic objects from within C# and Visual Basic code. These binaries are roughly equivalent to the functionality found in IronRuby 0.9 and IronPython 2.6. Take a look at Harry Pierson ’s blog post about this release as well, especially if you’re more into snakes than gemstones.   Try it out To try out this release: · Install NET 4.0 Beta 2 or Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 · Download either IronRuby or IronPython · Follow any of the...

We have been trying to simplify our product lineup and skus over the past few years for all of our products. Customers want it to be simpler. I have bought software before, and in comparison we have some of the simplest licensing, but we can always do better. Windows 7 has fewer skus, and now VS2010 does as well. Having different skus is important, but the trick is to have the right number. Too much choice leads to consumer confusion and dissatisfaction. Studies have shown that too many choices leads to a dissatisfied customer. Let’s say you go into a store and there are 100 different types of jeans on sale. You spend some time, pick the ones you like and bring them home (preferably after paying for them.) You will be ok with your selection, but not really happy. You will always have the doubt in your head as to the question if you actually picked the right pair. Perhaps the one with the super special boot leg cut would have been better looking with my sandals. Now that I have you...

VS2010 beta 2 has been released. Go get it now. It comes with a go live license, so you can use it in production, and we will support it. You need to understand that it is still a beta though. The RTM date is March 22, 2010, so if you have a project that is going live around then, it might be best to build it with the beta than building it with VS2008. We have committed that there will be a smooth upgrade path from beta2 to RTM so you don’t have to worry about the proper retention of source code, and work items. I plan on posting some unboxing videos soon, but I wanted to hit some of the top features (at least that I think are my favorite features). TFS is now much easier to install. You can install on Windows 7, on a desktop PC, and with SQL Express. It takes about 20 minutes now. There is a new basic profile with TFS that installs the core features, making it super easy to get source control and work item tracking up and running for your team. There is a new code onl...

We have just wrapped up the first Windows 7 launch tour. We hit all of the major cities. Now that we have brushed the dust from our boots, we are heading back out and doubling back to hit more local cities. If you weren’t able to make it to one of the big launches you should sign up to make it to one of these local launches. There will be some cool prizes as well. I will be speaking at the Nashville event (Franklin, TN), and the Columbus event. I hope to see you there. From the official invite…   ------------------------- TechNet & MSDN Events Present: Highlights from “the New Efficiency” Launch Join us as we explore how Windows® 7, Windows Server® 2008 R2 and Exchange Server® 2010 deliver on the new efficiency where cost savings, productivity and innovations come together. At this free event we’ll cover the “best of” content and deliver highlights from “the New Efficiency” Launch events taking p...