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Geeky/Programming

TFS Team Build, TFSBuild.props and Visual C++

Team Foundation Server is a pretty sweet setup. It integrates source control into the Visual Studio IDE, and makes it easy for teams to work on projects together. With a little tweaking you can set up Continuous Integration and nightly builds. There are many different ways to set up your project layouts and references, which can make it easier to do deployments, etc. The one thing they forgot to mention is that, it is really easy with .NET projects. It gets a little hairy with Visual C++ projects.

What happens is that if you have VC++ projects that output libs (assemblies in .NET Land), and another project needs to reference them, you will probably run into pathing issues on your TFS buildserver.

TFS wants to output all the binaries to a specific folder. With VC++, there is a TFSBuild.props file that gets created dynamically that overrides the output folder (nice huh?). It is really a pain to try to override this yourself from what I have been researching. 20 different ways and no real solid method.

On your TFS server, in the path

C:Program FilesMSBuildMicrosoftVisualStudiov8.0TeamBuildMicrosoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets

Is where all the settings are stored for how the builds happen.

There is a place in there where you can find the setting where the path gets overridden for VC++. It is set as $(OutDir)

When you make projects on your local machine, the output dir is set to $(SolutionDir)$(ConfigurationName)

Everything builds fine on your local machine, but once you try to set up a team build and have it build on the TFS server, it croaks, because the paths to libs arent the same.

Even though Microsoft says all over, never edit the .targets file, I did anyways, and all our projects build and have no issues on the TFS Server.

One other quick thing I have found different for VC++ projects compared to .NET projects. When you create a team build, you need to specify Win32 for the CPU target instead of the default Any CPU. Another quirk as usual 🙂

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Life

Weekend Fun (with Pictures!)

Well, after getting my ride out to Portland all cleaned and oiled up, I went over to a buddies house, we drank beer, talked, and just soaked up the sun. Was a really nice day, as you can see from the clouds here 🙂

Cool Clouds

After I met up with some friends, which ended abruptly, but then I met up with Heidi downtown, we hit the HOP, the Pioneer Place, DB’s and then Erberts and Gerberts 🙂 – that was fun too, really the first time since I can remember that I was the one getting taken care of.

Me and Heidi

She crashed at my place and we then cruised up to Pierz to her and Emily’s parents, which was cool. Picked up some stuff to bring out the Portland, had some good eggs 🙂 and then we walked around the pasture, to check out the new dock.

The River

After we walked back to the house I got the full tour of the dairy barn and the rest of the buildings. Really was cool, reminds me so much of my Grandpa Ed’s farm up north. Also reminded me of working at the fairgrounds. I learned some things that I had no prior knowledge on, which is always cool. One thing that many people don’t know about me is that there was a time when I wanted to be a farmer, thought it would be so cool. Someday I might just have to get some land 🙂

Overall, an exciting and fun weekend!

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Life

Moving – Hitting the Oregon Trail!

Well, a lot of people already know, I am moving to Portland, Oregon. I am heading out west starting May 31st. My apartment here in Sartell is sub leased out, I have an apt lined up out in Portland, and my employer is going to keep me on as a contractor. I will probably give some more info on things as it gets a little closer, but for now, all I can say is that I am very excited. It is a new chapter for me, and basically like an adventure. I guess that is what life is all about.

Going on vacation out there in April was basically to check it out to see if I would like it, and yes, I did! What a great place, tons of cool things, and just the way things are laid out as far as the ocean, mountains, trees, landscape in general – just seems like a great place to be, and I can’t wait to be there.

I blogged a few weeks back about selling stuff I have, which I have been doing. I am just going to take anything I can fit into my car. Right now I don’t have much left to get rid of, so in the next week and a half, it should all be gone.

Dude!, I’m getting a Dell! – Since I am going to be contracting, I figured it would be good to get a laptop, so I bought one the other day on dell.com, should be here next week! – Pretty excited about that.

I have been in the Central MN area (St. Cloud, Waite Park, Sartell, Richmond) for almost 10 years now. I moved down here from Chisholm after high school in 1998, to go to SCSU for Comp SCSI and run track and cross country. Things have changed dramatically since then. I feel as though it is time to move on. I am pretty excited!

Last but not least, Emily is out in Portland! I can’t wait to see her again! 🙂

Here is an artist’s rendition of what my trip will look like on the way out:

 

If you don’t know, that is from the classic video game – Oregon Trail. Hopefully I won’t die from dysentery 🙂

I am going to be sad going, missing my friends and being farther away from family, but I just think this is a good move, I feel “right” out there. I am doing many things that many people have told me that they wished they could have done, or missed the opportunity to do. I am going to be living right in the hustle and bustle of the city, but I will also be 20 minutes from the wilderness. With my guitar and my laptop, I should be fine. I am really excited!!!

I am guessing their might be a going away party yet to be scheduled, if there is, I will post up the details, and I am sure the after party pics, up here.

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.â€? – Sun Tzu

 

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Geeky/Programming

Netflix Cracked Disc and Movie Review: Death of a President

Well, I have no cable, so I look for ways to get some digital entertainment. Lately I have been watching the first two seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, so I can catch up and actually have a coherent conversation with Emily about the show (pretty sure it is her fave). I have been getting the DVD’s from Netflix. Thing is, disc 2 of season 2 was cracked like big time. First time I have encountered that, so I went to Netflix site, returned it, but now I have disc 3, which does me no good, so I need to wait. In the meantime, I went and checked out the Xbox Live Marketplace on my 360 to see if there were any new releases. Found one – “Death of a President” (IMDB and Wikipedia).

This movie is set in the near future (2008) and goes through the fictional assassination of President George W. Bush. It shows characters such as his speechwriter, secret service agents, etc talking about that day, and the investigation through the eyes of the FBI.

Throughout the movie you see how they go about figuring it out. First it is the environmentalist they target, who is organizing the protest that day. He doesn’t pan out, so they look at foreigners, they find one that was in the vicinity, from Syria, traveled to Afghanistan, This is great because they can use words like Al Queda, Terrorist, even though the guy really isn’t. Basically he gets convicted on these things alone.

During the protest there as a black veteran that got arrested on suspicion of the assassination, they eventually let go. You come to find out that he has a brother who dies in Iraq, and his parents are distraught. He comes to find that his father committed suicide the day after the assignation, and left a note saying he did it. Also the vet finds evidence in his house that his dad left that really shows he was planning it out, etc.

The vet tries to bring this evidence to the FBI, but they ignore it, they have their terrorist. Now President Cheney passes the USA Patriot Act III which gives even more power to the executive branch and law enforcement to take away civil liberties of the US citizens.

At the end of the movie, I was left with this. Right now in this country, if you are

1) Protesting against any policy of this administration
2) Someone who has lost a loved one because of the unjustified war (that now people are finally realizing was unjustified)
3) A foreigner

that you are in serious trouble. Really the administration is out to get anyone who doesn’t agree with the crazy foreign and domestic policy. They try to use the term “Patriot” to describe someone who is in total agreement with them, even though common sense shows that the policies they are pushing really aren’t the best for anyone, well, maybe their pocketbooks.

People should really watch this movie, it is really cool how they actually have footage of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, I am assuming they took from current speeches, etc, or it is computer aided video, but it is pretty cool, convincing. I always wonder if maybe aliens get transmissions from Earth, and if they did, they might think this is real if they miss the beginning and ending 🙂

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Uncategorized

Portland Vacation – Waterfalls, Birthday, The Ocean, and Home

Well, it has been almost a month, and I want to finish blogging about my vacation. Yes I have been slacking 🙂

Saturday of that week, we went up the Columbia River scenic highway, and then went to a ton of waterfalls. Now, you might think, eh, waterfalls, but these were just cool. The scenery around them and the trails and just the atmosphere just makes it so awesome. We walked up the Multnomah waterfall trail, a mile uphill – whew! The view from the top was spectacular. 670 foot high waterfall. Just a great time.

Waterfalls 2

After the waterfalls, went to a really cool place, the McMenamins Edgefield Manor. What this place is, is a old manor that a brewery converted into basically a brewery park. Pretty sweet, just an experience, I had a really good time, and we didn’t even hit all the places they have to see there.

Sunday, the 22nd, my birthday! 27 years. Was pretty low key, but fun, we hit a bunch of different places, one cool hippy house/bar or who knows what it is, but it was cool, also a nice Irish bar, fun time!

Monday was up to Astoria, home of the Goonies 🙂 God I love the Goonies, when I was young I wanted to be one. Anyways, on the way up we took a really scenic highway, which was nice, slow and different. In Astoria, we just kind of stretched our legs, got some lunch, and headed down the coast. The next stop was Seaside, OR. Here we went out to the beach, had some fun, just soaked it all up

Walking to the Ocean II

After hanging out at Seaside, we drove down to Cannon Beach, aka the place with the rocks 🙂 We found a nice little hotel called Webb’s Scenic Surf. The owners were very nice, it was really a good experience. The room was on the second floor, just facing the ocean, man it was so cool! Open the door and hear the ocean, feel the breeze, just awesome. The next day, we walked down the beach to go check out the rocks, really reminds me of Goonies 🙂

The Rocks 3

After the rocks, we kept driving down the coast, stopping here and there to check cool things out. Then back to Portland. We met up with one of Emily’s friends and had some pizza (with broccoli? wtf?) and beer. Good end to the 2 day jaunt.

Finally, Wednesday, headed back up to Seattle, since that is where my flight was out of. Had a good time just looking for a place to eat lunch, and hit the sky. Sun Country is pretty good, I would recommend to anyone.

Overall the vacation was great, just awesome. I think now I should have taken more pictures, which then I think, I need a good digital camera, which then leads to other things. Some day 🙂 

Like all vacations, it went by too fast. Many things we wanted to do, but just didn’t have time to get to. The problem is there is just so much to do in the area, you could probably never run out of cool things to do! Fun times!

 

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Geeky/Programming

C# .NET Test Driven Development with Visual Studio 2005

As of late I have been stuck in C++ world. MFC/Win32, pointers and HRESULT’s. Ugh. Earlier this week I got a chance to get back to C# and .NET (aka My Roots).

I needed to create a class library for a project, basically from scratch, since there was no existing library created. I started to go at it, and about 2 minutes into it, I was like, wait, let me try to do this test first. Test Driven Development (TDD) is one of the pillars of the Agile development methodology. In the past, there has always been existing code, that was written Non-TDD, so basically what you would end up doing is adding tests to this existing code. When doing that, you kind of get into a rut where you find it easier (at least you think it is easier), to add new code, then write tests after.

So, I fired up Visual Studio 2005, created a solution, added a test project, with a test class, and one method, and started writing a test, basically on how I would think I would exercise my non existing class library. By doing this, it really makes it easier in my opinion to practice TDD.

Run the test, doesn’t even compile, why? because I haven’t even created my class library project yet. No compile = Tests Fail. What I need to do is make my tests pass. So I add just enough (but not to much) to make it pass.

I keep adding to my class library so I can get my tests to pass, and after a while, I have a nice tight class library for my project, fully tested, great code coverage, and more confidence in my code.

What is really nice, is that when I actually needed to use the class from a webpage, I basically copied my unit test code into the web page and it works, just as expected.

I’d have to say that with Visual Studio 2005, and .NET languages, doing TDD is really kind of fun. People will always say, “well you spend more time writing tests than code”, and well, yes, that might be true the first time you are writing your class library, if a bug does happen to come up, you basically have everything in place to track it down, whereas if you do not have tests, then you spend your time debugging and tracking down things for hours. A little time up front saves you tons of time down the road, and you become way more confident in your code base.

If you haven’t tried TDD with VS2005, go for it!! I bet you will really enjoy it!

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Geeky/Programming

VS2005: Missing Project Template – Where did my Console App Template Go?

So I fired up VS2005, and wanted to make a quick prototype C# Console Application, except I couldn’t find the Project Template!!

Found out that if you close Visual Studio,  run the VS CMD prompt, and run this: “devenv /installvstemplates”

It should add the templates back.

Good to go!

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Life

I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard…

A few weeks ago, I watched the movie Reds. What a great movie, it just came out on DVD, but it was released in 1981 I think.

Anyways, in the movie, there is a repeating song, “I Don’t Want To Play In Your Yard” that they keep playing/singing. So I did some digging, found a crappy version from 1895 in the Internet archives.

I listened to that and then recorded it. Not the whole song, but just the main line. Catchy tune. It sounds weird, because it is a kids song, but, I still like it.

One part in the song says “sliding down our cellar door”. Cool because “cellar door” is considered by some to be the most beautiful phrase in the English language.

Here is my version: I Don’t Want To Play In Your Yard

 

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Life

4 Wheeling


4 Wheeling

Originally uploaded by ScaleOvenStove.

Went 4 Wheeling up north this weekend, just a small little trail ride, probably about 15 miles or so. Man I could get lost in the trails around my dad’s house. One thing that was crazy, 3 woodticks after. We got off a couple times and walked around, looking at deer stands and what not. Good times. Didn’t get too much iron ore on me 🙂

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Product Reviews

USB Enclosures are Cool!

I received my USB enclosure I ordered this week. Goodbye old 300 MHz server eating up juice and raising my electric bill, and hello new external hard drive on my desk, that I can turn on and off when I need. An extra 80 GB – nice addition.

Here is the enclosure I bought.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817155224

 

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