For those that haven’t checked it out, bring MiniProfiler into your application via NuGet with a

Install-Package MiniProfiler

If you are working in a web project (MVC, WebForms), you simply add the following line of code in your head block AFTER your jQuery reference (this line is formatted as Razor for MVC 3) -

@MvcMiniProfiler.MiniProfiler.RenderIncludes()

One thing worth mentioning is that on IE9, I had some issues with the UI of the profiler displaying appropriately. I looked around and found a post mentioning adding the following to your CSS file and sure enough, it fixed my IE9 issue. So, give it a shot if you have any problems displaying the profile on Internet Explorer.

div.profiler-popup
{
    overflow: visible !important;
}

Mini-Profiler UI on a simple ASP.NET MVC 3 page

I’ve had success using this for profiling ASP.NET MVC3 applications as well as Entity Framework 4.2 “Code First” queries within the apps, which is great. I still really like the Entity Framework Profiler tool from Hibernating Rhinos and rely on it heavily, but Mini-Profiler does a good job of showing ORM query issues.

I plan to try this out with some old WCF projects in the near future as well. In the meantime, pop it into one of your development applications and make sure your code is performing how you expect.

I did add some additional bullet points and text content to the slide deck since I’m not a big fan of standing in front of a bunch of that during a presentation and would rather talk with the attendees and show some code. Either way, check the slides out if you’d like.

http://www.slideshare.net/adammokan/introduction-to-signalr-10082193

Next up is some tweaks to my samples, which were not cooperating with me so much during my session. I will expose that repo on Github soon and post an update.

Enjoy.

So, I setup a new sample project and pushed it to github for anyone to try. I have succesfully tested this sample in IIS Express as well as IIS 7. Both had no issues after some minor adjustments. For IIS Express I do note some modifications in the README in the github repo that you should take note of. But simply cloning and running should get you going. Be sure, if you are in Visual Studio, that you tell the project to use IIS Express though.

Here is the link to the sample project on github - https://github.com/amokan/Nuget.Server-Sample-Project

The basic steps to create the project like I did were:

1. Create a new “ASP.NET Empty Web Application” in Visual Studio.
2. Either use the GUI or NuGet Console to install the Nuget.Server package.
3. Adjust the web.config, as needed.
4. Profit (or happiness… i’m not sure what’s motivating you here)

On deck, in no particular order :

• A detailed post (with code and a Templify template to get you started) on a generic repository pattern for ASP.NET MVC 3 and Entity Framework 4.1 along with a unit tests that utilize SQL Compact edition that automatically create a new SQL Compact file upon starting tests, populates the schema with sample data, and then subsequently deletes the file after tests are complete. Dependency injection is done via Ninject, which is my IoC of choice for MVC3.
• A post on consuming portable areas in MVC 3 for a plugin-like architecture. Think “modules” that can be dynamically loaded.
• A post on the MVC lifecycle and when and why to use the various filter interfaces provided by ASP.NET MVC3.
• A post on Node.js from a .NET developers perspective and how to get started with hosting, the current state of node on Windows and so-on.
• A post on custom HtmlHelpers for MVC3 showing various techniques to keep those views nice and DRY.
• A post on running JetBrains TeamCity 6.5 in the cloud using Amazon’s EC2 “micro” instance and automatically bringing up build agents and terminating them after the build. The post would be aimed at .NET development.

* If you attended any of my sessions, please rate them for me. The feedback helps. I understand a lot of things were skipped due to time constraints, but I’d appreciate any constructive criticism as this was my first time speaking in a short one hour format. I learned, the hard way, topics need to be extremely concise!

Tools

• Templify – http://opensource.endjin.com/templify/
  • The Templify template I used to start my MVC project during my 11:30am session can be found here (in zip format).
  • I intend, when I have time, to put the template project on GitHub and add a build task to generate the template automatically. Until then:
    • To install the template, unzip the file. You should see a *.pkg file.
    • Copy the pkg file to your AppData\Roaming\Endjin\Templify\repo (as an example, on Win7, mine is C:\Users\amokan\AppData\Roaming\Endjin\Templify\repo)
    • You should then be able to make a new folder in Windows Explorer, right click on it and say “Templify Here”.
    • Enjoy my weird project conventions, find gaping issues with my template, make your own, or just downright loathe the whole situation.

Web Links/Bundles

• MVC Scaffolding – http://bit.ly/mvc_scaffolding
• PowerShell & T4 Template docs at MSDN – http://bit.ly/powershell_and_t4

That’s it for tonight. More coming soon along with code on GitHub!

Below are the sessions I will be teaching and links for you to show interest, which will help the organizers determine the room and time it will be held (based on projected attendance/interest level).

Development Sessions

Intro to ASP.NET MVC 3 – basic intro for those with little to no experience with the Microsoft MVC implementation.

Getting Things Done With ASP.NET MVC 3 – Coverage of NuGet, Scaffolding, and other ways to get up and running faster.

Non-Development Sessions

Using simple electronics to make noise! (ages 7+) – This is a Gangplank Jr session aimed at helping kids each build a simple sound generating circuit they can take with them.

Here is a bundle thanks to bit.ly and bridgeurl.

http://bit.ly/sevdnug_mvc3_presentation_links

If you are in the valley and have never attended, I highly recommend you do so. Nothing like a day of free sessions on all aspects of the industry from development (on nearly every platform), project management, data visualization, web development, etc.

My session will be focused on productivity using ASP.NET MVC3 and I will be demonstrating tools for custom project templates, NuGet (and how to use it within your organization to leverage good building blocks), Razor, and more.

http://bit.ly/adammokan_dcc2011

Be sure to look at the TFS2010 install documents for information and do database backups.

You can find the installation guide here.

My current work setup is:

• VM server #1 (single CPU VM, Win Server 2008R2, 6gb RAM) – TFS server, Sharepoint Services, SQL 2008 Standard
• VM server #2 (single CPU VM, Win Server 2008R2, 4gb RAM) – Reporting Services and Data Analysis server
• Desktop PC (dual core proc, XP SP3, 2gb RAM) – build controller and two build agents

I’m currently hosting five different project collections on this setup. My department’s “production” collection is the most active with around six TFS “projects” and a little over 500 work items. It’s mostly new development that is going into the TFS stack but I’ve been so busy with emergency work during the day and meetings that I’ve not been able to provide much guidance in regards to migration from the old VCS to TFS.

What have I learned?

• Security can be a nightmare as there are TONS of moving parts between Sharepoint, TFS, SQL, Reporting Services, and Data Analysis. My approach is to leverage domain groups and create matching groups in the various services. Then to add/remove someone you just go through the domain admins rather than adjusting everything in multiple places across the technology stack. But, this is still a lot more work than it should be, in my opinion. I cannot imagine properly administering this in an environment with thousands of users. I hope a power tool is released or some sort of centralized admin tool is created by someone.
• I have a lot more respect for Sharepoint now. I’ve always been involved with Sharepoint from outside the department that administers it. I’ve created a couple web parts at a previous job and fought with overly possessive and territorial admins, which made life a nightmare. Being able to see the inner workings of Sharepoint and figure out the admin side has made me realize there is a lot more to the product than meets the eye. I’d like to take time to preview Sharepoint 2010 in the near future as it seems like they’re really pushing it as a “platform” rather than a content management system.
• Despite the positives I’ve found in Sharepoint, the integration between TFS/Test Manager and Sharepoint just doesn’t feel right in some spots. It seems like there is a lot of missing feedback from things like builds and the testing environment that don’t make it back into the portal by default. I’ll list some examples at some point down the road. I just feel like you have to click through too many work items often to find the results or something.

What’s next?

A custom project template for my department.

• We’re not quite “agile”, but I’m leaning things that way. So, I want to leverage what is in the agile template for 2010, but add or remove a couple items.

Integration with an outside work request/ticket system.

• There are a lot of big companies out there in bed with Computer Associates/CA. We have a Service Desk system in place at the corporate level and groups are being pushed heavy towards that for tickets and requests. However, there is an initiative to migrate source control and other project artifacts to TFS. Obviously, this will be an issue when you’re going through your development/support life-cycle and you have no traceability of work items, since they’d be in Service Desk. In my opinion, without work items in TFS, you really don’t gain much other than a better VCS than SourceSafe. I have some tech info on the web services for the CA product and have started to wire up a link between the two.

Evaluation of the Scrum for Team System template.

• Other groups evaluating my TFS implementation are using a full-blown Scrum methodology.

Some sort of time-tracking tool integrated into TFS that links time to work items.

• This is a controversial one when you look around the blogs.
• Personally, I have such a chaotic schedule during the day and support over 500 users across 50+ “applications” which range from large web applications for payroll to single-page legacy ASPX apps I support. I’d like to say the process for support requests or emergencies is controlled, but the fact is we are understaffed like most groups. By the time 3 or 4pm hits, I often am scratching my head about where the majority of my day went. And when you add a handful of meetings each week, it gets really out of hand. So, I want to make it clear that I want time tracking for myself. Not some big brother, “how long is your ass in the seat”, time-tracking.
• I really like the little time tracking tool that you can download and use with Paymo, a free time-tracking/invoice web app I’ve used for side projects. I’d like to make some simple little toolbar widget that has a list of work items assigned to you in TFS and a timer start/stop. There are some other features I have in mind, but it would allow me to keep a more realistic overview of what I actually did each week. I currently rely on my Outlook calendar (which looks like a bad game of Tetris) and old emails; but those techniques are hardly accurate.

And finally… update to 2010 RTM. Which comes out around 10am PST tomorrow!!!