Calling all Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) in Singapore. Microsoft has announced its partnership with TechSoup Asia in Singapore. Through this programme, qualified Singapore-based nonprofit charitable organisations can request a wide range of software product donations. The products include operating system software, productivity software such as Microsoft Office, publishing software and server products.

More details on the Microsoft Software Donation programme, including product information and eligibility criteria, can be found at: www.techsoup.asia.

More useful links:

• Visit to http://www.microsoft.com/nonprofit  to review eligibility guidelines and learn how to apply.
• Read more about the programme changes in detail on TechSoup Asia’s site: Overview of Microsoft Software Donations, and you can review our Frequently Asked Questions.

Microsoft Office 365 (Plan P1) Beta is a subscription service that combines the familiar Microsoft Office Web Apps with online versions of our next-generation communications and collaboration services:

• Email & Calendar
• Office Web Apps
• Websites & Collaboration
• IM & Online Meetings

LOC Counter can be used as a stand-alone client or as a Visual Studio 2005 add-in. The tool has the following features:

• It handles many different programming languages.
• It performs many different kinds of code counts.
• It handles comments, system-generated code, blank lines, and code churn.
• It connects to many different repositories.
• It provides an estimated defect density that is based on code churn.
• It is customizable. A user can change the kinds of objects that are counted during a counting task.
• It generates detailed reports. In addition, a user can export the report information to a Microsoft Office Excel® worksheet or to a Portable Document Format (PDF) file.
• It is fast. The tool can parse 10 million lines of code in less than one hour.

It uses a Defect Density Algorithm developed from Microsoft Research that uses the following version control history of a file to estimate the software defect density with an accuracy of 89 percent:

• The number of times that the selected files has been modified
• The time period in which the modifications have occurred
• The number of files that were actually modified

“Use of Relative Code Churn Measures to Predict System Defect Density” is a PDF document from Microsoft Research that describes this.

An IT Showcase web cast called How Microsoft IT Uses Visual Studio Team System 2005 to Measure Software Code Stability includes a discussion on how code changes, also known as code churn, may affect the code stability of a programming project.

Starting right now Microsoft is offering a promotion where eligible students in Canada can get a copy of Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 for $64 CAD or for a one year subscription license of $22 CAD. It’s called The Ultimate Steal and it’s only available through the end of April 2008. Visit www.theultimatesteal.ca for details!

Get an early look at Visual Studio 2008
The next version of Visual Studio, Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008, will provide an industry-leading developer experience for Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and the Web. In addition, it will continue in the Microsoft tradition of development language innovation. To enable early feedback, this page provides links to prerelease versions of Visual Studio 2008, and for technologies that we plan to include in it. As previews of additional technologies become available, we will make them available from this page.

We encourage you to download and try these early releases. Before installing a release, review the prerequisites as some releases may require additional software prior to installation. As with all prerelease software, we encourage you only to install these on a secondary machine, or in a virtual machine, as they are not supported by Microsoft Services support teams. As the goal of these previews is to gather feedback from the developer community, please use Microsoft Connect to report any issues, or to suggest improvements.

Installation Disc Images

If you prefer to install the software yourself, you can download separate disc images for the following products:

• Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition Beta 2
• Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition Beta 2
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 – Team Suite Beta 2
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 – Team Foundation Server Beta 2
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 – Test Load Agent Beta 2
• MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2

IMPORTANT:

1. After the Beta 2 installation has finished, you should run this script to ensure that the installation of .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 will not affect the development of ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 applications.
2. To install Team Foundation Server, you must follow the steps and system requirements details on the download page.
3. When installing prerelease software, we advise that you do not install it on a production machine.

VPC Images

If you prefer the convenience of evaluating prerelease software in a virtual machine environment, you can download VPC images for the following products that include pre-installed instances of the prerelease software indicated, including any required prerequisite software. You will need Virtual PC or Virtual Server to run this image. Depending on your hardware, the download files make take between 30-60 minutes to decompress these self-extracting files.

• Visual Studio Team System 2008 – Team Suite Beta 2 VPC
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 – Team Suite & Team Foundation Server Beta 2 VPC

IMPORTANT:

• After extracting and opening the VPC, you should run this script to ensure that the installation of .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 will not affect the development of ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 applications.

Visual Studio Express Editions

Visual Studio Express Editions are lightweight, easy-to-use and easy-to-learn tools for the hobbyist, novice and student developer.

• Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions Beta 2

Enjoy.

OVERVIEW

The Visual Studio Team Foundation Server – Project
Server 2007 Connector is designed to integrate the project management
capabilities of TFS with Project Server 2007. It’s been developed by the
Visual Studio Team System Rangers in response to significant customer demand
for a connector solution. Future versions of Team System will have native
integration with Project Server, in the meantime this Connector solution is
the best way to integrate the two Microsoft products. This solution builds on
the previous PS2003 VSTS Connector, published on GotDotNet. This solution is
intended to provide guidance, provided as source code that can be used
“as is,” extended, or modified.

BACKGROUND

Microsoft® Office Project Server 2007 and Microsoft
Visual Studio® 2005 Team Foundation Server (TFS) are two powerful
applications that are each used in different ways for management of software
development projects. Up-to-date project information requires a seamless
integration between the development environment and the project management
tool.

Managing projects, resources, and related information
for an entire enterprise requires a holistic view and integration of project
management data with the software development lifecycle. The Enterprise
Project Management (EPM) solution with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007
can help organizations effectively manage and coordinate people, projects,
and processes. The Microsoft EPM solution provides tools for strong
coordination and standardization between projects and project managers,
centralized resource management, and high-level reporting on projects and
resources. Through familiar tools and ease of integration with a broad range
of programs in the Microsoft Office System, the EPM solution promotes broad
participation for greater accuracy, accountability, and acceptance.

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) provides a solution
for software development teams that integrates designing, developing,
testing, and managing a project. TFS integrates with Microsoft Office Project
Standard 2007 and Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 for desktop use
and allows project managers to plan and manage projects on a local computer.
However, because there is no integration with Project Server, the project
data for each team is available only in a stand-alone plan. There is no
simple way to aggregate project data across multiple projects.

The Connector synchronizes Project, Resource and Task
data between the two systems. Project Managers and Resource Managers continue
to work in the EPM environment while the development team works in the
development environment, i.e. TFS, and data seamlessly flows between the two
systems. Updates to work items in TFS are automatically applied to the
corresponding assignments and tasks in Project Server and vice versa. Project
Managers have complete control over the inflow of the actuals into the project
plan. In addition, resource management functions for all development
projects, like managing time and utilization for resources working across
multiple projects, team staffing etc. can be performed in Project Server.
Lastly, portfolio and program level reports can easily be generated for
projects being executed in TFS and managed in Project Server.

Project Link: http://www.codeplex.com/tfspsconnector

Setup Guide:  

http://www.codeplex.com/pstfsconnector/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Setup%20Guide&referringTitle=Home

Questions or Feedback? tfpstalk@microsoft.com or  http://www.codeplex.com/pstfsconnector/Thread/List.aspx