Russ Nemhauser

I have given 12 or 15 webcasts for MSDN in the past, but more importantly I have benefited from certain ones that were available when I needed help in what I was doing at a particular moment. This has happened three times in the past six months or so.

MSDN has made the webcasts available for offline viewing by the general public, which is how I was able to get the help I needed when I needed it. MSDN has also chosen to make these on-demand webcasts available in the Windows Media format. This is understandable since MSDN was the one who produced the webcasts. They should be able to make them available in whatever format they wish. I am a loyal proponent of that philosophy.

Unfortunately I was not able to play these on-demand webcasts using Windows Media Player. None of them. This seemed quite odd to me, since I had downloaded and installed the latest version of Windows Media Player and had viewed other WMV and WMA files without any problem.

In short order I discovered the problem. Instead of using Windows Media Player on my laptop, I was using it on my desktop. As I previously blogged, my desktop machine became a Mac five months ago. Apparently, Windows Media Player isn't the FULL Windows Media Player when it comes to the Mac like QuickTime is the FULL QuickTime when you install it on Windows.

I realize that there are business interests involved here, but my question is this:

If a company makes a webcast free to the public in WMV format, and they make a player (again, free to the public) whose job it is to play WMV and WMA files, and then the free player fails to play the free file, what's the point?

I'm quite proud to say that I make my living as a software architect, writer, speaker, and developer using nothing but Microsoft technologies. We have a LOT to be excited about, particularly with the recent release of .NET 2.0, VS 2005, TFS, Atlas, etc.

I'm also quite proud to say that I am a Macintosh user. OS X is simply amazing. The stability, the features, the attention to detail, the user experience, etc. are all beyond even the beta 2 of Vista I installed last month.

I enjoy the best of both worlds. It's unfortunate that the little things - things like not being able to play a Windows Media Video file in a program like Windows Media Player - really have to interfere in an otherwise happy equilibrium.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am loving TFS. One of my most recent ventures has to do with scheduled build and continuous integration. I've gotten the project to build nightly based on a schedule (and would love some more info on the steps to set up CI) but the problem I'm running in to is that I can't figure out how to tell Team Build to deploy a particular web site within the project after the build as successfully completed.

I have been a long-time fan (since December, actually) of the source control features offered to developers in the form of Microsoft's Team Foundation Server. Making the move from SourceSafe proved to be fruitful in countless ways, particularly speed with regard to off-site developers.

Unfortunately I have to say that I'm ready to throw my laptop out the window, then go down and stomp on it a few times.

I had a solution that contained 17 projects (including 14 class libraries, two web sites, and one windows service) in a Beta 3 Refresh installation of TFS. Everything went fine during the past six months with regard to feature set and dependability of TFS, so I am MUCH more than just simply satisfied.

This morning I began the process of setting up a new development server with the release bits of TFS, and as part of that task I am required to move my solution over. This is where my troubles began.

I unzipped the solution directory, which contained ALL of the projects, to a new folder on my hard drive. I then shut off the old TFS server and chose to "permanently remove" (as Visual Studio put it) my solution from source control. That part went fine. It was only when I attempted to add the solution to the new TFS
server that my headaches began.

For the past 4.5 hours I have been dealing with the error that talks about how the solution cannot be added to source control because my solution "overlaps a project that is already bound to source control at a lower root".

But I already went in and did an "Unbind" for all projects within the solution when it couldn't find my old TFS server. I already went through and deleted all the .vssscc files from all the directories. I already went in to each one of the .csproj files and removed the XML sections that dealt with source control.

Now I can safely say that NONE of the projects in the solution contain any reference whatsoever to the old source control - as far as I know. And I know the following: all .csproj files have all references to source control deleted - those four XML tags that normally appear right at the beginning of the file. In addition, the .sln file itself has all references removed.

It would be one thing if the error message that told me that there was an overlap told me WHERE the overlap was. But I guess that would simply be way too easy. Therefore, I am in the position of having to prevail upon someone who knows TFS a lot better than I do and ask why this thing doesn't work. I have to ask why that error message about overlapping doesn't even OFFER me the chance to cancel out any previous bindings. I have to ask why the message that seems to be smart enough to tell me there are overlaps can't tell me WHERE these overlaps are.

So, I'm left with this question.

Can anyone tell me how I can insure that no source control parameters, files, metadata, things, ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. have ANYTHING to do with my solution so that I can FINALLY get it into the new TFS? Any help or advice anyone can offer would be HUGELY appreciated.

I recently had the extreme displeasure of installing Hewlett Packard's setup software for this great all-in-one unit that I've had for a while on my Mac G5 and I couldn't believe my eyes. When I launched the installer, it told me that I had no choice but to quit every single open application. It would NOT let me continue until I had complied with that requirement.


Isn't this the year 2006? Isn't the "you must close all applications" game something from the early 90's and Windows 3.11? This need for the installation program to close all open applications seems completely rediculous and obsene to me. Talk about your throw-backs to ancient times...

Grow up, HP software department. Grow up.

I have an extra 19 inch LCD display and it occurred to me that I could use that as my office television. The thing is, I need to convert the coaxial signal coming from my TiVo to a DVI input or a VGA input. Does anyone know if this is even possible?

The first computer I ever bought was a Macintosh LC while I was late in my freshman year of college in NYC. I used it for papers, CompuServe, and (of course) Flight Simulator. There was no Internet back then.

Today I downloaded and installed the Windows Live Messenger Beta and I have to say that I feel the team behind this product is really heading down the wrong road.

Greetings,