If so then my team would like to know as we are looking for another business intelligence consultant.

Full details on our careers web site: SQL / BI Consultant (722749).

You can either post your details directly on the site or send me your CV at [jsnape at microsoft.com] and I’ll enter it for you (disclosure: if you send it via me I will get a bounty when you are hired).

Good luck.

I’ve been an Application Development Consultant since I joined Microsoft in March 2006. Over the 3+ years I’ve had a lot of fun on this team and particularly enjoyed the shear breadth of skills and knowledge required to tackle whatever the customer requires. My CV is now a recruiter’s dream with all the keywords I can check off.

You may have noticed from the posts to this blog over the last year or so that I’ve been spending more time specialising in both development process and our business intelligence products, Analysis Services and PerformancePoint Server. I’ve certainly been finding more and more interesting work in this area; enough to start looking for new challenges.

To that end I’m pleased to say that this week I have accepted a role with the Microsoft Business Solutions team as a Business Intelligence Consultant. The team roughly comprises of SharePoint, Dynamics, BI and other related functions such as architecture and test skills.

There are lots of challenges ahead – in particular I believe to be successful the “business” part of BI must come before the technology. Also I’m really looking forward to getting into data analysis, visualisation and seeing how customer businesses make use of the information I’ll be able to give them.

So watch this space…

There are a lot of new features coming in the next release of Visual Studio and related products. They are easily discoverable but I thought it would be helpful to bring as many videos and screen casts as I could find into a single list for easy consumption.

A word of warning though, I can’t be held responsible for the feelings brought on by the realisation that you can’t use any of this stuff in a supported way right now. Just try to relax and think how much better, faster and easier your job will be when it is finally released.

General

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System: A Lap Around VSTS 2010

In the spirit of an agile sprint, see how to use the next version of Visual Studio Team System to manage user stories and re-factor existing architecture. Learn how to diagnose real production problems, debug in-production virtual labs, capture test data to eliminate the no-repro bugs, transparently plan, monitor, and adapt software projects.

Team Foundation Server 2010: Cool New Features

Dive deep into the next version of Team Foundation Server (TFS), and learn how TFS has factored its learning's about usability, industrial scale, geographic distribution, manageability, and development process into the next version of the product. See a demonstration of build automation, policy checks, parallel development, new project planning and tracking features, such as agile planning, end to end traceability, reporting, and dashboards, administration and ops --all designed to improve transparency and velocity for teams from size 5 through 50,000.

A first look at Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2010

Visual Studio Team System Web Access has become an increasingly popular way for people to access Team Foundation Server. In this interview we meet Hakan Eskici who demonstrates some of the upcoming features his team is working on for Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2010.

Project Management

Agile Planning Templates in Visual Studio Team System 2010

Stephanie Saad shows us a quick demonstration of how Visual Studio Team System 2010 will enable teams to be more agile. In this demonstration she shows the new Agile planning worksheet for Excel which can be used to easily balance resources, manage your backlog, and generate ad hoc reports.

Enterprise Project Management with Visual Studio Team System 2010

Ameya Bhatawdekar, a program manager for Team Foundation Server, took a few minutes to take us through the end-to-end storyboards for how Team Foundation Server 2010 will integrate with Microsoft Project Server to enable true enterprise-wide collaboration. Note that this is not a demo of working software (yet), but it's the next best thing - a detailed storyboard walkthrough of mocked-up screenshots.

Requirements

Requirements Management and Traceability with Visual Studio Team System 2010

How can you ensure that a requirement has been sufficiently tested? How do you track the work that goes into a specific feature? How much work is left to do before a feature is completed, and how does that feature relate to bigger scenarios or user stories?
Siddharth Bhatia, a senior group program manager for Visual Studio Team System, takes us through an end-to-end example of how Visual Studio Team System 2010 will help an organization manage their requirements throughout the lifecycle of a software project.

Architecture

Architecture without Big Design Up Front

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), code-name "Rosario" Architecture Edition, introduces new UML designers, use cases, activity diagrams, sequence diagrams that can visualize existing code, layering to enforce dependency rules, and physical designers to visualize, analyze, and refactor your software. See how VSTS extends UML logical views into physical views of your code. Learn how to create relationships from these views to work items and project metrics, how to extend these designers, and how to programmatically transform models into patterns for other domains and disciplines.

"Bottom-up" Design with Visual Studio Team System 2010 Architect

Suhail Dutta, a program manager on the Visual Studio Team System Architect team, gives us a demonstration of the "bottom-up" design approach which will be possible with the Visual Studio Team System 2010 Architect product.
With "bottom-up" design, you can quickly reverse engineer an existing code base to construct models and examine relationships between pieces of code. Suhail also shows off some of the new UML designers coming in Visual Studio Team System 2010.

"Top-down" design with Visual Studio Team System 2010

"Top-down" design is an approach that the Visual Studio Architect team is enabling with their upcoming release, Visual Studio Team System 2010. In this "humanized screencast" we asked Mark Groves, senior program manager, to show us a demonstration of the new UML designers the team is building and how this can be applied to a "top-down" approach when building software.

Development

Agile Development with Microsoft Visual Studio

Visual Studio has built-in tool support for agile practices such as Scrum, XP, and others. The next version adds practices like test-driven development, continuous integration, and single product backlog. See how these can be applied at scale and across geographies.

Web Development and Deployment with Visual Studio 2010

Welcome back to another Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Week video. In this latest installment, we catch up with Vishal Joshi, Senior Program Manager on the Web Development Tools team.  In this video, Vishal shows us what is being done in Visual Studio 2010 around web development and deployment. Covered are topics like JQuery support, HTML code snippets, better Intellisense, and a whole slew of new features around web deployment.

An early look at Team Foundation Build 2010 with Jim Lamb

In addition to being one of the nicest guys I know, Jim Lamb also knows a thing or two about build automation. Jim is the program manager responsible for the Team Build capability of Team Foundation Server. Team Build was one of the biggest areas of improvement for Team Foundation Server 2008, but that hasn't stopped the team from doing even more landmark improvments in Team Foundation Server 2010.
Jim shows off how Team Build 2010 will take advantage of Windows Workflow, build agent pooling, distributed asynchronized builds, and two new types of build called "buddy builds" and gated check-ins.

Branching and Merging Visualization with Team Foundation Server 2010

Is your source control branching out of control? How much time have you wasted trying to discover which branches your code changes have been merged into? What are the code-level differences between your main, test, and production branches? Branch visualizations to the rescue!

Test

New Web Test Debugging Features in Visual Studio Team System 2010

In this video Ed Glas shows off new Web test debugging features in Visual Studio Team System 2010, including Search in playback, view recording log, jump to Web test, and Add Extraction Rule from Playback.

10-4 Episode 18: Functional UI Testing

In this episode of 10-4 we look at a new type of test coming in Visual Studio Team System 2010 known as the coded UI test. Coded UI tests can be created to automatically navigate through your application's UI, which in turn can be used to verify that the paths your users might take through your application are working properly. You can also add validation logic along the way to verify the properties of objects within the UI. Much like unit tests can quickly surface regressions on a method or function level, coded UI tests can bring the same level of rapid automated testing capabilities to the UI layer.

UI Automation Testing with Visual Studio 2010

Just playing with some of the new Testing features in Visual Studio 2010 and thought people might be interested in the new interface for Camano and a new feature for CodedUI Tests...pulling the automations strips directly out of TFS!

Lab Management coming to Visual Studio Team System 2010

Today at TechEd Barcelona, Jason Zander announced that Visual Studio Team System 2010 will feature a brand new Lab Management capability to help organizations raise the bar on software quality. Lab Management will integrate with the rest of the Visual Studio to help testers more easily test a variety of configurations in a virtual lab environment, and help developers more easily repro bugs by delivering snapshots of those virtualized environments after bugs are discovered. I had a chance to sit down with Ram Cherala and Vinod Malhotra to get an in-depth look at how this will work.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System: Leveraging Virtualization to Improve Code Quality with Team Lab

Would you like to test fixes in a production-like environment before checking them in to source control? The Visual Studio Team System (code name "Rosario") release of Team Lab improves productivity and quality while reducing the cost of building and testing world class products. Learn how Team Lab provides a fast and easy way to create a test environment and tear it down, target specific test environments, and take snapshots of an environment for easy deployment.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System: Software Diagnostics and Quality for Services

In this session we present processes and tools from the upcoming Visual Studio Team System code name "Rosario" release and Microsoft Research and show how we deliver on quality, scalability, and experience goals for the new class of applications that demand rich UI, service consumption, and frequent release.

Manual Testing with Visual Studio Team System 2010

Naysawn Naderi takes us through manual testing in Visual Studio Team System 2010. Naysawn shows off how the manual testing capabilities allow not only for better authoring and execution of manual tests, but can also be a tool to help automate portions of manual tests as well. Finally, Naysawn shows how to turn a manual test into a coded test which can then be fully automated.

Historical Debugger and Test Impact Analysis in Visual Studio Team System 2010

Are you tired of constantly setting breakpoints to hone in on a pesky bug? How would you like to be able to step "back in time" through your debugger? The Historical Debugger in Visual Studio Team System 2010 promises to revolutionize your debugging experience. Habib Heydarian takes us through a demonstration of just a few of its capabilities.
But wait... there's more! Habib also shows us the new Test Impact Analysis feature his team is working on. With Test Impact Analysis it's possible to determine which of your tests will be... well... impacted by the code changes you're making! Not only does this mean that your unit test suite can run more quickly, but it can also lead to better testing and fewer bugs in software projects.

Automated User Interface (UI) Testing with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010

Come hear about the new Visual Studio Team System 2010 tools and APIs for helping test a broad range of UIs that can consist of Winforms, AJAX, and Windows Presentation Foundation. See how to use Team System 2010 to ensure UI and application quality.

One of the big problems I have with some new customers is the knowledge gap between where they are and where they need to be in order to be successful. Given that people can read much faster than they can receive presented information it makes sense to have a reading list.

I’ve blogged previously some Analysis Services resources but new and better content is appearing all the time. In addition to that article here are my current reading recommendations for anyone planning a BI or Analysis Services project. Know this lot backwards and you should have a good head start.

Everyone

SQL Performance Tuning with Waits and Queues

Analysis Services Performance Guide

Identifying and Resolving MDX Query Performance Bottlenecks in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

The Data Loading Performance Guide

Report Server Catalog Best Practices

Reporting Services Performance Optimizations

New Data Warehouse Scalability Features in SQL Server 2008

Scaling Up Your Data Warehouse with SQL Server 2008

Architects and Developers

OLAP Design Best Practices for Analysis Services 2005

Best Practices for Data Warehousing with SQL Server 2008

Analysis Services Processing Best Practices

Top 10 SQL Server Integration Services Best Practices

Top 10 Best Practices for Building a Large Scale Relational Data Warehouse

Operations and Support

Storage Top 10 Best Practices

SQL Server Best Practices

IIS Performance Tuning

Resolving Common Connectivity Issues in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Connectivity Scenarios

In fact pretty much anything on the sqlcat website is pure gold.

I'm spending today and tomorrow working with DPE on a lab for ISV's working with the Microsoft BI stack (SQL, SSIS, SSAS, Excel, BSM, PPS etc). Basically each customer brings along an application they are working on and we help on everything from architecture to solving any problems they might be having. It's a lot of fun and I even learned a few things. Because customers turn up with their own applications and problems you never really know what to expect. In the mix today we had:

• A stock trading system
• A very cool spreadsheet based query designer
• A tool to automatically create cubes based on Dynamics customizations
• Someone working with SharePoint, Business Scorecard Manager and Reporting Services

I'm not sure when the next lab will be but keep an eye on Eric Nelson as he runs most ISV events in the UK.

On a similar note, I'm taking on a new customer. It seems you never escape your past - the customer has a number of call centers they develop applications for... 

You must have seen it by now but in case you haven't Internet Explorer 7  for Windows XP/2003 has been released. You can download it right away or wait for the Windows Update coming soon.

I have a couple of invites available. The first 3 comments to this post with valid e-mail addresses can have them.

OK, the cat is out of the bag. I'm leaving Exony to join Microsoft as an application development consultant. The decision to leave Exony was extremely difficult given the interesting work they do but the offer presented was too good an opportunity to pass on. I would just like to thank everyone for making Exony such a cool place to work for the last 6 years. I wish you all the best in the future.

...and it looks like this:

There is plenty of drag and drop, right-click menus and background updates. All in all very nice but it'll take a lot to shift Gmail from my daily life...

Now playing: Storm - Time To Burn

I've just logged into Hotmail to pickup my e-mails before closing up shop for the holiday and was greeted by a message asking if I wanted to join the Live Mail beta. Now I can't resist a beta... So I clicked, agreed and was presented with:

 

Service Unavailable

We're sorry, but the Mail Beta is currently unavailable. We apologize for this inconvenience and are working to restore service. Please try to log back in soon.

The Mail Beta Team

... and now I can't pick up my mail and can't go back so I guess their legal disclaimer was warranted.

Now playing: Taiko - Taiko / Echo Drop

Well the news about VSTS pricing is out and everyone is talking about it. If you want all these whizzy tools that Microsoft have been wooing us with over the last year then it is going to cost you more, a lot more. Plus their “simpler approach to MSDN subscriptions” is completely the reverse of reality. To tell the truth, it feels like I just caught a good friend sleeping with my girlfriend. Part anger, part disappointment and a desire to get them both out of my life.

Most of what needs to be said has already. Of particular note are articles for Scott Hanselman, Mike Gunderloy and Eric Bowen (read the comments). The only thing I’ll add is a response to the comment from Prashant Sridharan that “If you want the other stuff (which you probably aren't using right now anyway, or are probably paying a ton for as it is) we're giving you a very convenient and low cost upgrade to the Suite.” Just two points – MSDN Open Licensing has never been convenient and, as for the cost, we have already spent the money on the tools that supposedly cost a ton: Compuware (a ton), Perforce (cheap), FogBugz (very cheap).

So Scoble, I’ll be interested to see how you round up all the comment in blog-land on this one because, well, markets are conversations and it seems some Microsoft bloggers are censoring their comments sections…

Did anyone see The Gadget Show (cached) on Friday? They managed to get access to the Microsoft campus and, in particular, look around a series of rooms designed to show a future house with integrated technology. There was some really amazing stuff, mostly voice activated and with a heavy integration of RFID. What really stood out was a lack of computer monitors – kitchen recipes appeared on the work surface, wardrobe information such as washing instructions and designer advice appeared in the mirror and the phone messages showed up in a wall tile that looked the same as the rest of the wall when not displaying anything.

It seems that the Microsoft staff were a little shy though – not a single one appeared on camera (even in the background). Maybe Robert could do something for Channel 9? Lets meet the designers and see what they have to say…

I see Hotmail has upgraded my account to 250MB… Gee-thanks… But I’m afraid it’s too late, I already use G-mail as my main internet account. Hotmail is now a just a passport sign-in and junk mail repository. For me to switch back, Hotmail will have to become a lot better than G-mail. Here’s some hints:

• Hotmail is too slow
• It’s got too many graphics
• The search sucks
• No POP support
• No permanent tray notification for e-mails (you have to click on the Messenger guy)
• G-mail has auto-complete in the to: cc: lists
• It’s file attachment is faster
• The spell checking is easier to use (although no custom dictionary yet)
• Labels are a more natural and powerful mechanism than Hotmail folders
• G-mail filters are excellent
• I can drive G-mail from the keyboard

Let me know when it’s fixed and I’ll have a look.

I thought it was interesting how my article on C# Edit & Continue was handled by a couple of Microsoft bloggers. On the one hand we have Robert Scoble who stuck it on his link blog, there by making it available to a much wider audience than normally reached by my site.

The flip site was a little different. I left a comment on Somasegar's web log pointing back to the article for two reasons. The first because I'm not sure that dasBlog ping-backs work with .Text and secondly I thought it polite to let Somasegar know what I'd written. He has comment moderation turned on so gets to decide what gets published. Unfortunately he decided not to let this one on his blog.

I prefer Scoble's blogging approach, so the rule on this site is I will never delete a comment unless it's personally defamatory or libellous. Otherwise, lets have a discussion about whatever you disagree with.

As a side note, I found a useful feature of Google Desktop whilst writing this article. My internet connection at home wasn't working tonight so finding the URLs for the links was a bit difficult. No problem - just search for the stuff with Google Desktop and use the cached page instead.

I'm sitting on the train ready to return to England, my Wi-Fi detector says there is a wireless network but alas my computer can't find it. The meeting itself was a success but hard work when English is the second language of everyone else at the table. You have to be careful that you really understand what is being said. Plenty of white board pictures help. The funny thing is acronyms - it was a technical meeting so they were abundant but again the language differences play a part. For example, IVR (Interactive Voice Response) is SVI (Server Voice Interactive) in French.

The rest of the trip has had some ups and downs. Eurostar is excellent, almost a hop-on hop off service which beats waiting in an airport for a couple of hours. There is still immigration and customs. In fact I almost missed the out-bound journey because I didn't take passport checking into account.

I don't know Paris at all well so on arrival I tried to get a cab to take me to the hotel. The cab driver wouldn't take me though - too close. So he gave me directions: "turn right at the second set of lights, walk until you get to a bridge, turn left and its down that road". I set off in the direction he pointed and tried to follow his instructions. Well it turns out you need a bit of confidence to walk for a mile or so in a strange city without even knowing if you are going in the right direction. I made it to the bridge and checked the street sign - it wasn't the same street as the hotel address. At this point I bottled and hailed a cab, gave the driver the address and he said "ah, its just on this street" whilst giving me a strange look. He took me and I'm glad he did because it was about a mile "just down the street".

The hotel was a typical Paris affair - a converted building with creaky lifts and tiny rooms. Only just enough room for the bed in fact. Cosy I think they call it. The major problem was the lift shaft was right next door. See how much sleep you get with one of those going all night. The following morning I did actually walk all the way back to the station. I was planning the hail a cab but I couldn't find one until I reached the station.

With the meeting over, the train left the station half an hour ago; I'm now watching the French countryside hurtle past at 160 miles/hour wondering how long the battery life in my tablet is going to last. I just wish I had some network connectivity because it's been two days and I'm getting withdrawal symptoms. I just need to check my mail, read some blogs and see if I've had any referrals, then I'll be happy again.

As a separate note, I have a Tablet PC (bought mainly because of Robert Scoble's evangelism) and I find it funny that wherever I go I have to give a demonstration (closely followed by "Ooh, I love it. How much?". This trip was no different and I'm pleased to say that the handwriting recognition works even when I write in French. Also, One-Note is rapidly turning into a killer app for me - you can doodle in meetings using all the colours and pens provided to create some really great art.

You may remember a few weeks back when I signed up for a Microsoft ISV Buddy. Well last week I got an email to put me in touch with mine. His name is Gaylon Blank and he's a dev lead in Microsoft human resources IT. It's funny, of all the software that Microsoft write it never really occurred to me that they would be writing their internal software systems. Obvious when you think about it though.

I think Gaylon is a pretty good match for us as we both have similar goals - trying to integrate new Microsoft products into our own offerings. Both of us are using Office Web Components and both are trying to work our how SQL Reporting Services can help.

With all good partnerships I hope this to be a two way street. We just need to work out what part of town it's going to be in.

Whilst browsing Will's Blog: he's found a cool little utility called Microsoft TimeZone. It's a small .NET application that sits in your system tray, when you click it shows the time in up to 5 locations. Useful for knowing how to greet your Messenger buddies.

What it really interesting though is the download. It seems Microsoft would like you validate your copy of Windows before you download (this is a picture so don't try and click):

The link takes you to a page describing the benefits of genuine Microsoft software. I love the fluffy reasons they give: "greater reliability, faster access to support and overall richer experience". What they really mean is "we don't like people who steal our software, we are going to make it hard for them". As a software developer, it's a sentiment I agree with.

[Edit: there is more detail at http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/003782.html]

Microsoft have announced the ISV Buddy Program - a chance to sign up and get direct contact with a Microsoft employee. This is a cool idea - and could provide benefits to both the subscriber and Microsoft. We have a similar (but much smaller) implementation in our office as each customer gets assigned a developer through their trial and presales period to help them get the most out of a potential purchase. Maybe we should extend this to a full blown buddy program? In the meantime, I'm signing up - hope I get Euan Garden, Tom Rizzo or Kent Tegels...

[Edit: Kent isn't a Microsoft employee so is unlikely to be part of the IVR program.]