Mocking out calls in unit tests to a TFS Server using Typemock

If you are developing custom application using the TFS API then there is a good chance you will want to mock out the calls to your TFS server to enable better testing of the business logic in your application. The architecture of the TFS API does not lend itself to mocking using the standard means provided in most auto-mocking frameworks i.e there is not an interface for all the objects you care about. However, with Typemock Isolator you can fake the classes required, as Isolator can fake an instance of virtually any class. ...

March 4, 2011 · 4 min · Richard Fennell

Alpha release of TFS 2010 Build Extensions

Back in September I asked the question Does anyone need a VS2010 Custom Build Activity for StyleCop? and a good few people said yes and asked me when the activity would be released. Well I had forgotten to say that the Codeplex TFS Build Extensions project, which the activity code got included into, has made it’s first public alpha release i.e. a release that means you don’t have to download the source and build it yourself. There is now a downloadable ZIP will just the built assemblies. ...

February 28, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

TF30040 error when attaching a team project collection

Whilst doing some tidying on a multi-server TFS 2010 system I needed to move a team project collection from one Application Tier (AT) to another. Both ATs (which were not a load balanced pair) shared the same SQL server data tier (DT). It should have been easy using the TFS Administration Console. I backed up the TPC database using SQL Management tools, the TPC was then detached without any issue from the first AT. I then backed up the SQL DB again in the detached state. ...

February 19, 2011 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0' provider is not registered on 64bit IIS7 server

When loading an ASP.NET 3.5 web application that has been compiler for Any CPU onto an IIS7 server I got the error The ‘Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0’ provider is not registered on the local machine. This was because the server was running a 64bit OS and only the 32bit Access Driver was installed. The quick fix to get this running was to enable 32-bit applications on the AppPools advanced settings.

February 18, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Another DDD opportunity

DDD South West 3.0 has opened for session proposals, got an idea for one? Why not have a go and submit a session.

February 15, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

My experiences getting started with writing custom adaptors for TFS Integration Platform

The TFS Integration Platform is an ALM Rangers project that provides an excellent set of tools to migrate or synchronise source code and/or work items between different TFS servers or TFS server and third party platforms. For many people the supported release on Code Gallery will do all they need. However if you have a need to connect to a system that there is no adaptor for you need the Codeplex version so you can write it yourself. To get the environment up and running, not unsurprisingly, the best place to start is the Getting Started documents. ...

February 9, 2011 · 4 min · Richard Fennell

Black Marble O7 game up on Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

Black Marble’s first WP7 game has been published onto the Marketplace, a game of strategy. Choose to grow the number of counters you have your jump squares to gain territory. It’s free so why not give it a try, assuming you have a WP7 phone!

February 9, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Renaming branches in TFS2010

I recently was asked why a client had experienced some unexpected results when merging a development branch back into the main trunk on a TFS 2010 installation. Turns out the issue was that during some tests that the both the Main and Dev branches had been renamed, and new branches of the same names created. So they had a structure like this: $/ProjectX Dev Newly created after the rename Main ...

February 4, 2011 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

Somewhat nasty upgrade experience with Seesmic Desktop 2

A few days ago I got the regular ‘there is a new version of seesmic’ message. So I pressed update and got the less than helpful message After a quick search on the web I found the log files are in C:Users[username]DocumentsSeesmicSeesmic Desktop 2Logs, why that cannot be listed on the error dialog I don’t know!. Unfortunately there was nothing obvious in the log, just a list of plug-ins it loaded. So I went back and tried the upgrade again, reading the release notes (I know a strange idea) and noticed that it mentioned a specific version of Silverlight. A quick check of this showed I was not up to date, so I went to http://www.microsoftr.com/silverlight and ran the installer, which updated my install (I would have expected Windows Update to have done this). ...

February 2, 2011 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

Problems connecting a Netgear WG111 USB Wifi Dongle to a Netgear DG834GT router

Just spent an interesting hour trying to connect a Netgear WG111v2 USB WiFi Dongle to Netgear (Sky Branded) DG834GT router. They are both from the same manufacturer so you would they would work together! This router was setup with its default Sky settings so WiFi was setup as WPA. I installed the WG111 onto an XP laptop installed the newly downloaded V 5.1.1308 (26 Dec 2007) drivers and tried to connect. The router was spotted without problems and I was prompted to enter my WPA password, which was printed onto the bottom of the router (I had logged in to router via the web admin console to check this was correct). After what seemed like a long delay I was left not corrected to the router, but with no obvious error. ...

January 31, 2011 · 2 min · Richard Fennell