First try with Windows8 and it won’t boot (updated with notes on a solution)

I tried to install Windows 8 Developer Preview on my Lenovo W520 laptop as a VHD boot. All seemed to go well following the same process as for windows 7. I got a nice new blue Window 8 boot partition choice screen (which went back to the Windows 7 DOS like one after I made Windows 7 my default partition). If I selected Windows 8 it tried to but but ended up with the error ...

September 14, 2011 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

Why can’t I see my custom work item types in Team Explorer?

If you are editing a TFS process template you have the choice editing XML files or using the Process Template Editor within the TFS 2010 PowerTools. Unfortunately neither is fool proof. You can make errors than means the revised template does not fully work. The worst of these errors will be picked up when upload the process template to a Team project Collection as during this process the XML is validated. ...

September 14, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Bradford the centre of all scientific advance (at least this week)

Over the weekend I took my son to the excellent ‘Bang goes the Theory’ Live road show which is part of the Festival of Science in Bradford. If a similar event is near you I recommend you go along, fun for all the family even if science is not really your thing. The whole event makes the subject very accessible to all. Even if I had not known this was on I might have guessed something as afoot in Bradford as virtually every Radio 4 news program has had a short article on some new scientific advance from Bradford University. Today a lie detector using facial analysis and a new cancer treatment to name just the ones I remember. Now I went to Bradford and I know it is world leader in biomedical science, but I do wonder if they have been saving press released to get the biggest bang. Or is it the BBC and other media outlets are in Bradford at the festival so it is easy to get Bradford stories? ...

September 13, 2011 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

‘Expected to find an element’ error when running VS2010 Database unit tests

If you use the database unit testing feature of VS2010 there is a good chance you will want to run these tests on more than one PC and probably the build server. The issue is that these different PC will need different deployment paths and SQL connection strings. Luckily there is a feature to address this, as detailed on MSDN. Basically the test runner swaps in a different config file based on either the PC name or user running the tests. ...

September 12, 2011 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

Registration has opened for Black Marble’s Autumn Events 2011

If you look on the Black Marble web site you will find listing of the free events we are running up to the end of the year and into the new year. This year our events include 12 Oct 2011 [Re-Build – IT ](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=Re-Build - IT)[Re-Build – Dev](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=Re-Build - Dev) Black Marble will bring you the key announcements and developments from Microsoft Build about Windows 8 17 Nov 2011 [Delivering High Impact WebSites with SharePoint](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=Delivering High Impact WebSites with SharePoint) ...

September 7, 2011 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

Update on using Typemock Isolator to allow webpart development without a Sharepoint server

I have in the past posted about developing SharePoint web parts without having to use a SharePoint server by using Typemock Isolator. This technique relies on using Cassini or IIS Express as the web server to host the aspx page that in turn contains the webpart. This is all well and good for SharePoint 2007, but we get a problem with SharePoint 2010 which seems to be due to 32/64bit issues. ...

September 6, 2011 · 4 min · Richard Fennell

Doing a webinar on using Typemock Isolator with SharePoint Webparts

I am doing a free webinar on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 3:00 PM BST with the title “Using Typemock Isolator to speed the development of SharePoint Web Parts”. For more details have a look at http://www.typemock.com/webinars the details should be up soon

September 5, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

#DDDNorth registration has opened

The agenda is up for DDDNorth, seems .JS related subjects are the fashionable topics for this conference. As I suspected my session on build customisation did not make the cut, just not cool enough! As with all DDD events the event is free, but the place tend to go quickly. I think this DDD has 300 spaces so I suggest you register quickly to avoid disappointment

September 5, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Verifying non–public methods have been called using Typemock Isolator in VB.Net

I am currently writing some training material for a client on mocking showing how life is so much easier if software is designed with testing in mind. As part of this material I showing that though we aim for nice design patterns which allow testing we have to deal with legacy systems that were not designed this way. However, there are tools that allow us to write unit tests for poorly designed (with testing in mind) legacy systems, specifically Typemock Isolator. Using Isolator means we can write tests that we can use to make sure the code is not broken whilst refactoring to new structures. ...

September 3, 2011 · 3 min · Richard Fennell

You can vote now for sessions at #dddnorth

Session voting has opened at DDD North, vote for what you would like to see at the conference in October

August 30, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell