VSTS for agile teams

These days i am focusing a lot on process implementations especially along with VSTS. One really good book i came across is VSTS - Better software development for agile teams. If you need to have a good idea on how to implement agile development process using VSTS do check out this book.

To wake up or not to wake up?

On my way back to Srilanka, i happened to doze off in my Northwest flight from Seattle to Japan. The air hostess in the flight didn't wake me up and i missed my dinner in the flight. So i have seen in many flights they have different policies when a passenger is sleeping in the flight during meal time. In Northwest they give priority to sleep and they make sure you don't get disturbed during meal time. So if you happen to sleep, don't think the air hostess is going to wake you up during meal time.
Srilankan airlines had a nice policy of tapping you a couple of times and if you don't budge then no meals for you :). But a couple of years back when i was travelling, I think it was Qantas airlines, they gave a sticker that said "Do not disturb". If you stick that in your seat then that means you want to forego your meal for sleep and if not they make sure they wake you up during meal time. I wonder whether they have an universal code of conduct on the rule of waking up the passenger during meal time ;-)

Day out at SFO

I was too bogged down with work past few weeks felt like i need a break. Since I didn't have anything to do this weekend decided to head out to San Francisco. SFO is truly a beautiful, happening and crowded city. Spent some time at Chinatown and then headed off to Fisherman's Wharf. Went on a real amazing bay cruise through the Golden bridge and the Alcatraz island. You really do get some good street performers from the one man bands to awesome dance groups. The variety of food you get from the street shops and the restaurants at Fisherman's Wharf is a real treat. By the time i completed the day i was really tired but enjoyed every minute spent.
Last time when i came to SFO i just got to spend a hour or so and that was also just a drive through SFO. Next time if i do come to San Jose i am definitely going to spend my weekends at SFO. Got some pictures i took at San Jose and SFO uploaded at:http://picasaweb.google.com/pras79/SanFranciscoSanJose

In Santa Clara

It has been some time since i put any entries in the blogosphere. I was too occupied with work and had to come Santa Clara, California a week before. Didnt get to go anywhere yet other than my work place and then back to my hotel room after work. Sillicon valley is truly an amazing place and this is my 3rd time here. It's so wonderful looking out from my hotel window and seeing some big names around such as Yahoo and Sun Microsystems. The people around here are truly multicultural and you do get quite a lot of asians living and working here. Would be flying back to Srilanka next monday so got a weekend in between to go out somewhere.

Programming WCF Services

On the technologies released on .NET 3.0, WF was my favourite and i was doing lot of learning and work on WF. The next in line was WCF. Though i knew the concepts, didn't learn it extensively. Finally got a good WCF book named "Programming WCF Services" by Jual Lowy. So planning to finish it hopefully within this month and need to start off a good project where i can use both WCF and WF.

Catching up and Shuffling life

The past few days got me thinking a lot. Just looking back i wasn't focusing or working as hard as i used to be and was lagging behind in many things. So with the new year, it's an ideal time to look at myself and just shuffle things in life a bit.
I realised i was doing a lot of unproductive work or spending time on people where i am and probably will never be appreciated or understood. So to avoid further problems and to stop myself from feeling bad about it, i need to keep my distance and focus more on things and people that really matter in my life.
There are a lot of things i need to start doing. Got a bunch of technologies in my to do list, which i need to start looking at. I am behind on my MSc that i started and need to put a bit more effort in completing it on time, hopefully. Need to finish up a few articles i was planning to do. Need to focus and do more training sessions as well. So thats a lot of stuff on my plate right now, a bit more than i can handle along with my full time job.
So this might seem like a lot of lamenting which i usually don't do on my blog, but this post is more of a reminder to me to pick up my pace and correct myself.
Oh and Happy Sinhala and Tamil New Year to everyone :)

Custom domain for my blog

Atlast got my custom domain to work with my blog. So my blog URL is changed to www.prasanna.ws and the earlier URL http://thedeveloper.blogspot.com will redirect to my current blog URL.

Niagara falls

It has been nearly a week since i came back to Srilanka. Had a really amazing time both in US and Canada. The visit i had to Niagara falls was really amazing and it was splending watching the scenery and the natural wonder of Niagara, though my hands kept freezing with the cold. Got a gallery with some of the pics i took at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pras79/NiagaraFallsCanada?authkey=Z4koMoE4GRo&pli=1

Travelling and Jet lag

This time my visit to USA involved a whole lot of travelling. I came here for the MVP summit but then had to come to San Jose in California on a work assignment this week. Also visiting my relatives in Minneapolis and Toronto next week. Totally thats 3 weeks away from home and already a week is gone.
So right now I am in San Jose and my sleep is still not regulated where i get up at 3 am and start watching TV and feel very sleepy during the noon time. All that said, i love travelling and its something i enjoy a lot.

MVP Summit 2007

What a cool week it was at the Microsoft Campus in Seattle. Got to see some awesome people in person like Bill Gates, Somasegar, Anders Hejlsberg and fellow MVPs like Scott Hanselman whom i have met only in blogs. Got to catch up with some old friends as well. The trip wasn't totally geek talk and this time i got to visit some places in Seattle like the Museum of Flights and the Space Needle. All in all it was a great event with the right mix of technology and fun :)

.NET User group meeting-March

We had the .NET user group meeting yesterday at the NDB auditorium. I did a session on UI customization in Office 2007 using VSTO add-ins, focusing on custom task panes and ribbon customization. Microsoft Office 2007 has a lot of extensibility points where you can create your own custom logic and provided added features. Hope the session was informative for anyone attended

ISV training on WF

I did a training program for ISVs on Windows Workflow Foundation yesterday. The more i use WF the more hooked i am to this technology. The training program was pretty interesting with a lot of questions fired by the participants. Hope it was informative for everyone and if there are any comments or questions just post a comment here or a message in the DotNet Forum. Do check the .NET 3.0 community site at http://www.netfx3.com

New updates for software on Vista

For a couple of weeks i haven't been reading the regular blogs i go and read including the MSDN blogs. So yesterday got some time to go through and saw that three Vista related softwares i was looking forward to was released:
The first one is the service pack 2 for SQL Server. This sorts out some issues you get when you run SQL Server 2005 on Vista. This includes the issue i faced where i couldn't connect to the database server without disabling UAC.
The second one is the powershell for Vista is released. I was looking forward to this to try out some functionalities of powershell. There is an issue in the installer so do read through the comments on the link above and follow the steps when you install powershell on vista.
The third one is Virtual PC 2007, which supports Vista as the host and the guest operating system.

LOVE is in the air - 15th Feb

The Launch of Office Vista and Exchange (LOVE) will be held tomorrow at BMICH. Drop in to see three new very exciting technologies released by Microsoft. You can find more information at http://www.newday.lk/

MVP Global Summit - I will be there

I will definitely be attending the MVP global summit and finalized the visa procedures. This would be my 3rd trip to the Microsoft campus and it's always exciting being there. I would be staying at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel & Towers. Looking forward to meet all fellow MVPs out there.

Using Google domains

Last weekend migrated my personal e-mail accounts and two of the domains i had under my name to be hosted at google domains. The experience was ok but had some issues when i tried to set up blogger to use my custom domain. Seems like people having .info domains have some issues setting up blogger to use their custom domain and i am having the same issue with my .ws domain. The e-mail hosting works perfectly, but had some issues with the google page creator in doing tasks such as setting home page and so on.

New look for my Blog

I have been using the same template for my blog for the past 2 and a half years. I wanted to change it but never got the time. So this weekend upgraded my blog to a new blogger template. Had quite a hard time setting up my comments since i was using comments from HaloScan. Other than that the rest of the stuff were ok and didn't require a major work when i moved to the newer template.

One issue i am having is setting up Windows live writer to use blogger labels for posts. Have been trying to set it up without luck. So now after i publish a post from Windows live writer i have to login to blogger to set the labels. Not very smart, but until i figure it out i have to stick with this.

Windows developer tools day

It was windows developers tools day yesterday, to draw some attention to the free and open source software (FOSS) tools that helps us in doing development.

If i were to pick one single FOSS tool that made quite a difference in my development experience it definitely has to be NUnit. NUnit is the ultimate tool that brought test driven development (TDD) to the .NET world. As most starting out on test driven development, i was also hesitant when i started out test driven development using NUnit. But the more i used it the more addicted i became to this tool. Though now i use VS.NET 2005 for doing TDD most of the times, still there are occasions i jump back to using NUnit because of its simplicity.

So even now for anyone who wants to start out on TDD, just go to www.nunit.org and download the bits and start using it. You will never do programming the same way again.

PS: And for anyone interested in more useful tools do check out the book "Windows developers power tools" for a whole lot of goodies similar to NUnit

Got my MCT credentials

Finally i got the notification that i got my MCT. Personally for me it means i can do training sessions with that added confidence that i am a MCT and at the same time pushes me to perform more. I love training and public speaking on Microsoft technologies and wanted to do more of it this year. Hence getting the MCT status is a good boost to my plans for this year

Looking back at 2006 ...

What a rollercoaster year 2006 was. Worked on some very interesting projects and on a whole bunch of technologies and had to switch a lot between technolgies which i dont mind doing at this stage. One of the best things for this year was my MVP award getting renewed and had a job switch as well. Overall 2006 was a very happening year, and i am happy the way it turned out ... , Now waiting to see how 2007 would be