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Having been TFS-only for the last 2 years, I needed to brush up on my git basics as a new project ramps up at work. The video below, from the the Visual Studio Toolbox team at Microsoft, is pretty good at covering the essentials: Git Fundamentals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3482qAzZLQ The video is about an hour and ten minutes long.

If you're getting the error message: The element 'entityFramework' has invalid child element 'providers'. List of possible elements expected: 'contexts'. and you're using Visual Studio 2012 or Visual Studio 2013, then you can download and install  Entity Framework 6 Tools for Visual Studio 2012 & 2013 . These tools update the schema used to validate the configuration files for your projects. Entity Framework 6 Tools for Visual Studio 2012 & 2013 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40762

I was browsing the SparkFun website and, curious about the tab " Data ", clicked on through. What I found was a free service where you can upload data from any of your projects and share it with the world. Choice bits from their data page include: Why are you building this? We want to bring a dose of reality to the Internet of Things hype. data.sparkfun.com  is a free, robust service for use with all of your projects.  What types of projects would benefit from this service? Almost anything. Your weather station in the backyard. A classroom of kids working on science experiments. A community concerned with pollution and crowdsourcing data collection. The weight of your pug's food dish. You get the idea. If your project can send an http request, you can push data out to our servers. Can I publish a stream anonymously? Yes. But all streams are public and can be accessed by anyone with the url. Be sure to explore various streams ( https://data.sparkfun.com/s...

Seeing as how I was given a regular workstation rather than a developer's workstation at my new job, RAM is at a premium. It's amazing what you can still accomplish with 4 GB but you have to be judicious in its use. Towards that end, I'm running the local instance of SQL Server on an as-needed basis. Rather than opening Services from the Windows Start menu's "Administrative Tools" item, I created two cmd files (and, yes, I should've used PowerShell): one to start the database engine instance and a second to stop the database engine instance. StartSql.cmd NET START MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS2008R2 SET /p DUMMY=Hit ENTER to continue... StopSql.cmd NET STOP MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS2008R2 SET /p DUMMY=Hit ENTER to continue... Once I had the cmd files done, I went into Services and updated the SQL Server service for that instance so that it was manually started rather than automatically started. Finally, I placed a shortcut for each cmd file on my desktop. Now, wh...

Disconnecting my regular Dell Inspiron from the monitors and such is a real pain in the neck. Plus, I always like having a backup or second computer in case something happens to the primary. My original backup computer, a stout and reliable Gateway (which used to be my primary until I bought the Dell) died in an unfortunate and probably preventable water-related incident. So, I recently bought a low-end or entry-level notebook computer for travel and to use in demos. Overall, it's been a good experience. The only thing I don't like -- and I'm willing to chalk it up to it's-just-new-and-I'll-get-used-to-it -- is Windows 8.1. I really consider Windows 7 to be the best .NET programming environment. It was snappy, everything was a click away or a command line away, and it was all about just getting work done. Windows 8.1, on the other hand, really wants you to use the Charms and their new Start paradigm. Ugh. Don't give me tiles, don't give me fancy animat...