Rangers Flash – August 2012

PROJECT NEWS

Visual Studio Readiness Update

We sim-shipped the ALM Rangers Readiness content with Visual Studio 2012 RTM, followed by our block buster Branching and Merging Guide. An update for the latter is in the pipeline, based on the new ALM Ranger documentation style and the “less is better” strategy … watch this space!

Some of the exciting feedback from the ALM community:

• Well done all Rangers and thanks for all the assistance along what was a hard, but fun and worthwhile adventure.
• It's really great, thanks guys for this great effort you perform!!!
• Great job! Awesome effort!
• Thanks to everyone involved in this project. It really is superb material you have all produced. I have found it to be really valuable. Well done!
• Always great, the perfection!

New projects that started this month

We have launched three exciting and “fun” projects in September to address the following UserVoice ideas: Interactive Kinect Board, Master ALM Treasure Map and Branching Scenarios Tool.

Demo Factory ships the first nuggets

ALM Rangers Demo Factory Team release their first demo nuggets outlines the first four DemoMate nuggets released by the Demo Factory team.

Downloads Update (as @ August 31^st 201223:59 PDT)

• Average daily downloads since 2007: 186
• Total downloads since Jan/1/2007 of tracked and Dev10/11 focused ALM Ranger projects: 384574 (Previous Flash: 371052, +13522)
• For more download graphs please peruse the Download Stats attachment.

COMMUNITY NEWS

Jim presented to the SDC User Group

Jim Szubryt presented to the SDC UG today in the Microsoft store. It was a bit noisy since it was in the store, but here is the raw video on his Skydrive.

Middle East & Africa ALM Community

Hosam Kamel announced the launch of Middle East & Africa ALM Community, which you can visit at www.meaalmcommunity.com. As part of the launch they are also releasing “The Visual Guide for Building Team Foundation Server 2012 Environments, available now at https://www.meaalmcommunity.com/mea-alm-community-publications. Hosam co-founded the initiative with Ayman El-Hattab.

Publications

Visit and bookmark Ranger Publications for an up to date list of ALM Ranger publications and planned articles.

ECOSYSTEM NEWS

New Associate ALM Rangers

We are pleased to welcome the following new Associate ALM Rangers: Akhil Walia, Anisha Pindoria, Ayman El-Hattab, Barry McConnell, Fotis Panteliadis, Gaurav Aggarwal, Joakim Karlsson and Tommy Sundling. Visit our vsarindex for a complete list of all ALM Rangers.

Single Team Project and Shared Iterations is creating “Angst”

Peruse ALM Rangers ALM Dogfooding and the “Angst” Factor – Part 3 which elaborates on single team project and shared iterations model the ALM Rangers are dog fooding.

ALM Rangers “Ruck” Training

We have launched the ALM Rangers Ruck Master certification program. If you are interested in becoming a Ruck Master, please ping our Ruck Master Brian Blackman.

UserVoice

Please start using these UserVoice channels, else your “voice” will not be heard,

ACTIONS

ASK #1 – Quotes anyone?

As always we would appreciate quotes from you or your communities in terms of the ALM Ranger solutions. Good news and positive quotes are invaluable!

ASK #2 – Tell us about your successes!

One thing we love is celebrating your successes. Unfortunately not being omniscient we simply don’t know about many of them. So if you have done or know of some outstanding contributions/actions please send them to Chuck and Willy to post in our internal newsletters.

 Send us pictures of your success stories and your journeys for the next Rangers flash!

For more information refer to: Rangers Website | Rangers Solutions | Rangers Blog | Understanding the Visual Studio ALM Rangers
To include content in future Ranger Flashes: Send your one-two liners to us latest a week before the last day of the month