If you need Visual Studio Extensibility expertise or want to build an iPhone/iPod touch or iPad application, we can help!

Monday, December 27th, marks my last day at Microsoft.  I'll have been here for almost exactly 6.5 years (2,358 days to be precise).

In that time I've had the following 10 jobs:

    1. Senior Consultant
    2. Technical Evangelist for
        a. Visual Studio Tools for Automation
        b. Compilers
        c. MicroISVs
        d. Visual Studio Team System - Distributed Systems Initiative
    3. Podcasting producer for Channel9
    4. Senior Architect/Engineer
        a. Project Glidepath
        b. Software + Services Blueprints
        c. Microsoft Blueprints
        d. Feature Builder - A power tool for Automated Guidance Packages (directing developers not flying objects!)
        e. Community Outreach Manager

I've shipped 5 different versions of automated guidance/software factories tooling that have helped thousands of developers adopt Windows Vista, Outlook automation, multi-tenant database architecture, Silverlight video, SharePoint + Silverlight, ASP.Net, Social Media applications and more:
    2006 Project Glidepath
        Dynamic software factories for Visual Studio 2005
    2007 Software + Services (S+S) Blueprints
        Dynamic software factories with reference apps for Visual Studio 2008
    2008 Microsoft Blueprints
        Dynamic software factories with cloud scenario examples for Visual Studio 2008
    2010 Feature Builder
        Dynamic software factories shipped in July 2010 as an official VS power tool
    2010 Instant Feature Builder
        Easier-to-author mechanism for Feature Builder, works on VS2010 Pro and above (open source, available on www.codeplex.com)

All-in-all it's been a great ride and I've learned a lifetime's worth of knowledge about building large scale software, large scale corporations and immense leverage. 

I'll be continuing my blogging and podcasting career on my personal blog which is located at:
https://www.independentinnovation.net

This new version is posted to CodePlex and the Visual Studio Gallery entry has been updated.

A few months ago, as the Feature Builder Power Tool was just about to ship, I had a brainstorm and thought, what if I could build a drag-and-drop authoring experience that ran inside Visual Studio (including Visual Studio Professional) and delivered just the essentials of combining documentation with code and easy-to-use automation (via hyperlinks)…

Well, I built a prototype in June and just now finished my first public release:  Instant Feature Builder v1.0.

Note:  You still need to download and install the Visual Studio SDK to use the Instant Feature Builder.

You can get the binary VSIX either from the Visual Studio Gallery (search for Instant Feature Builder) or get it along with the source at https://InstantFB.codeplex.com

Note:  This is a personal project and not a replacement for the Feature Builder Power Tool.  It does, however, give you 80% of the power of the full Feature Builder with a dramatically easier to use experience.

I look forward to not only your feedback but all the Feature Extension you build.  Please drop me a line so I can hilight your work.

This name is stored in multiple places within your Feature Builder solution as it is required by multiple components at both build and runtime (Extension Manager, MEF, etc).

You can change the name of your Feature Extension by following the steps below.

It is not necessary to change the name of the solution or any of the projects or files.

To change the name of your Feature Extension follow the following 3 steps:

In Feature.cs

• #1 Change:

[Feature("FeatureExtension30")]

Open the VisualStudio folder, right click on source.extension.vsixmanifest and select View Code

• #2 Change:

<Identifier Id="FeatureExtension30">

• #3 Change:

<Name>FeatureExtension30</Name>

You may also want to change the following (not required):

• In VisualStudio\source.extension.vsixmanifest:

<Description>FeatureExtension30 Feature Extension</Description>

In Templates\Projects\Feature Extensions\MyTemplate.vstemplate (if you are using the default template supplied with your Feature Builder solution)

1. <Name>FeatureExtension30</Name>
2. <Description>Project template for creating an instance of FeatureExtension30</Description>
3. <DefaultName>FeatureExtension30</DefaultName>

Note: Accidentally using the GUI editor to edit the .vsixmanifest of a Feature Extension will remove the following two tags shown below from inside the <Content> section. If you do edit the .vsixmanifest file using the GUI editor, be sure to re-add these two tags using the XML editor or your item and/or project templates will not be properly installed.

<ItemTemplate>Templates\Items</ItemTemplate>

<ProjectTemplate>Templates\Projects</ProjectTemplate>

Register here.

In this episode, I talk with Ajoy Krishnamoorthy, Product Planner for P&P, about how we pick the topics for which P&P provides guidance and how you can contribute and influence those topics including connecting directly with Ajoy and the P&P team at the Patterns & Pactices Symposium.

Reminder: Early Bird Registration for the Symposium is still open! (until August 31st)

Every fall patterns & practices team hosts an annual p&p event at Microsoft Redmond Campus. This year’s event called “p&p Symposium” is being held Oct 18th-22nd 2010. This year’s event has got a new name and a new price (it’s only $699 before Aug 31st and $999 after that) among many other exciting new improvements. Here is a quick run down of what this event has in store.

Half a day workshops:

On Oct 18th afternoon, there will be three workshops that attendees can choose from on the following topics:

- Windows Azure Guidance

- Enterprise Library and

- Prism

Keynotes:

We have an amazing line up of Microsoft technical leaders keynoting this year’s event and they will be joined by a leading authority on Agile development.

Here are the keynoters:

Technical Sessions:

This year’s event will include 20+ technical sessions, open space discussions, ask the experts luncheon and more. Don Smith just posted a blog with more details about the sessions that are being planned. Stay tuned for more information as we lock up the agenda.

We will have sessions covering the following areas:

• Web
• Windows Azure
• Windows Phone 7
• SharePoint
• Client
• Enterprise Library
• Agile Practices and
• more

Parties and Goodies:

Of course. It wouldn’t be complete without parties. Would it? We are planning a reception on Oct 19th and an attendee party on Oct 21st. We will also have giveaways. We will post more information on the goodies shortly.

Register Now!

It’s $699 if you register on or before August 31st and take advantage of our limited number of early bird seats. This price includes the workshop and 4 days of sessions. That is what I call a deal!

See you all in Redmond at the p&p Symposium!

In this video podcast, I'll be pulling back the curtain on the architects, developers, designers, program managers, testers and content authors who create the guidance and code which is used by hundreds of thousands of .Net and native developers worldwide.

In Episode #1, I'm joined by Don Smith, P&P's Community Liason, as we discuss events and conferences happening between now and the end of 2010 which feature P&P Content including the upcoming Patterns & Practices Symposium right here on the Microsoft campus here in Redmond, Washington.

Leave a command or click on the email link if there's anything about how or what we do here in P&P that you'd like to know.

Please visit https://channel9.msdn.com/tags/FeatureBuilder for more information and links to the download.

Note: While all the information on Channel9 is valid, there have been many additional features added since the videos were recorded and I will be updating them in the very near future.

Second Note: Will shortly be providing an upgrade tool on CodePlex (in source code form), which will aid authors who built Feature Extensions for the RTM-Preview version to upgrade their Feature Extensions to work with v1.0