I have been using the Microsoft Development Tools since 2002, working with every iteration including the beta versions. However the 2010 edition of Visual Studio 2010, Team Foundation Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010 makes huge improvements to developer productivity and functionality, allowing developers to focus on their core competancy. Writing Code!

In early December I had an idea about running a developer event which will run across 3 cities and be available online to bridge the gap between developer communities and speakers. With a little help this event has become a reality and will be called DevRally.

I have published my first ever project to CodePlex. Media Mogul is a media manager which will be written in WPF using the Prism methodologies, and will have pluggable video and music modules. The core features of the application are written as command line applications to allow power users access to the feature sets without needing the front-end.

Microsoft has officially announced the launch date for Visual Studio 2010 and also released the Beta 2 version to MSDN subscribers with Go Live licenses in place. There has been quite a few changes we will look at over the next few days.

Eskhaleni Technologies is a company owned by wife and I recently re-desinged the official website. The new website being planned is being developed in ASP.Net MVC 2 and the new logo is finally been revealed on the website, after being used internally for some time.

Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 1 has been available for a while, and as part of the VSTS Rangers projects we have been working with the new builds in virtualized environments. With powerful new features the next edition of TFS looks exciting, and we have a brief look into what's new. Over the next few weeks we will do some indepth looks at TFS 2010 and the new frontier provided by Microsoft.

SA Developer.Net has finally gotten a new home after more then a month offline. This has again highlighted the importance of sponsorship to keep these communities alive and well, even with the current recession.

Hilton Giesenow, the well known South African MVP has launched a new podcast called the MOSS Show, covering the SharePoint platform through hosting interviews with some of the more well known, and lesser know SharePoint experts in the world. I have a look at the first 3 episodes and really recommend everyone involved in SharePoint to subscribe.

With Tech-Ed 2009 arround the corner I am extremely proud to announce that Dave Coates, the Port Elizabeth community lead has taken on the challenge to run and manage the 2009 Community Lounge. Dave will be managing one of the most exciting parts of the Tech-Ed event.

I have been feeling lost in my career choice for a while. I have always considered development and code as an artform, something that requires a very important ingredient to be successful. In the last few weeks this particular point became more prominent, and I have finally found the missing ingredient. I have found what is missing in my career, and I am surprised about where it is leading me.

I struggled for a while to find a way to remove the WebPart entries orphaned by the deactivation and rectraction process in SharePoint, and found a neat way to this using the SPFeatureReceiver. After some testing I posted an article about it in the SharePoint section.

I am more and more amazed lately by the lack of hardware, networking and general computer basics knowledge demonstrated by developers. I have always maintained that this is a very important part of a developers knowledge tools and in this article look at how this knowledge solved various problems in an asset management system I developed more then 2 years ago.

I have maintained To Dev or not To Dev as my development and technical blog for the last 3 years, however the time has come for Diago.co.za to evolve and I have decided to shut down To Dev or not To Dev. The blog will remain as a reference point but no more entries will be added.

I wrote my first article on SubText skinning covering the steps required to split the SingleColumn control into smaller pieces when used in custom skin development.

I spent the Easter weekend redesigning the Diago.co.za website and am extremely proud of the new theme. I also cleaned up the site a bit and also added some new LiveWriter support to SubText. I cover in detail the changes made to SubText for the new design as well as some background on the changes and other blog engines investigated for possible replacement of SubText. However SubText proved to be able to provide the required features after all.

More and more often the last few weeks I have had developers ask me about setting up a Development Environment for SharePoint Server 2007. There is quite a huge amount of information about this topic on Google, however I find that a lot of it is not up to date. I posted a set of articles on this topic.

It's been a while since I posted something about my life, but this is a quick review of the month of February and what I have been up to. DevDays, Mr Price Group and new toys are the highlights for the last few weeks.

During Tech-Ed I was interviewed by Ruari Plint about South African Communities, in particular on what it means to be a community lead and also on what challenges communities face. The video has been posted on the Tech-Ed Online website.

I follow RSS feeds religiously and also at times do research on some of the work or problems I encounter. Often I get asked where I get my info so I decided to post some of the links I found recently that are truly informative and helps with various problems, or just great information to know about.

Microsoft has released new versions of two awesome development tools. FxCop allows for code analysis to be done on already compiled .Net assemblies while StyleCop analysis your code during development with full Visual Studio integration.

During a recent career evening held at my offices, the question came to mind about the misconception created to students about success in the IT Industry. Althought there is a few success stories, the impression is somehow created that success happens early in the industry with the least amount of effort. Does the fact that successful individuals always talk at these events the reason for this perception?

Jeff Atwood has opened up the private beta for StackOverflow.com and I am extremely impressed by what they achieved. The new site is developed in ASP.Net Mvc with a host of features in the beta which makes the site extremely easy to use. The content is also proving to be valuable and accurate.

At Tech-Ed 2008 I had the opportunity of presenting a talk on Developing for Windows Mobile targeting the new and extensive feature list in Windows Mobile 6.1. This was my first official talk for Microsoft and I was extremely satisfied with the outcome and thankful for the opportunity.

We are in the middle of planning for Tech-Ed 2008 and this year the communities are high on the agenda with the biggest ever community lounge planned. Please join us at the Durban ICC for 3 days of technology and information sharing brought by some of the industries best.

The MVP's and community leads took over Microsoft in JHB to host the first every interoperability day, an event where Linux and Microsoft technologies come together and proof that there is no borders when it comes to technology.

I am about to do my Microsoft Exams for my MCT and compiled a list of all required exams and references required to complete these exams.

With the help of some collegues I was able to build my first SharePoint WebPart and created an article outlining the process.

Overall overview on Tech-Ed 2007 held at Sun City. The event was packed with 2000 attendees and the speakers and sessions where filled with an amazing array of new information from the Microsoft Stable.

An introduction into SubVersion and CruiseControl.Net to provide a simple and free source control and continues integration solution for developers on to go.

Being involved in the community has left me drained after being extremely active in the last few months. It is an extensive task to manage the community activities and to keep up to date with the latest technologies.

Along with Ajax comes the Ajax Control Toolkit, a brilliant free tool providing prebuilt controls to use in website adding some awesome client side functionality. This is the future of .Net web development.

A detailed look at ASP.Net AJAX and how it can be used to improve web development experiences as well as provide users with an awesome visiting experience.

Another life update this time featuring information about project statuses, networking hassles and naughty puppies.

RDL is part of Microsoft SQL Reporting Services but it is also available for normal reporting without needing the full back-end services support. Some links are provided to brilliant RDL resources.

When developing software for Windows Mobile there is a way to connect ActiveSync to the device emulator in Visual Studio for testing.

When developing windows services one of the major issues are the testing of these services. In this article we develop a C# Windows Service that supports command line parameters and debug mode allowing for easy testing in development and remote server environments.

Developing software often requires an individual to wear various different caps, the Project Manager, the Technical Writer, the Developer and the Tester. We look at these different roles and the concept of buttons and boxes for easy development used during the Bytes AMS project development.

"Commenting is a royal pain in the posterior" - "Comments are for weenies" - "I can understand my code quite well, thank you very much" - "Good code speaks for itself" - "No time for that, got to get that code out of the door". None of these is a good reason for not commenting source code properly. We will look at these arguments, discuss them and take a look at good commenting practice and its benefits.