Why this kind of message doesn't worry me

OH NOZE! I booted up my Windows XP Tablet Edition laptop this morning to see the following HORRIBLE SCARY sequence of messages:

So am I going to LOSE ALL MY DATA and ALL OF MY PROGRAMS?

Nope. Here's why.

• I keep all of my data under source control. I mean everything. My Christmas shopping list. My business stuff. The photo of my niece at her 8th birthday party. Everything.
• I install programs from a network share, never from CDs. When I get a new program on CD I copy the install files to a network share before I run them. The network share is backed up.
• I keep a log of every program I install. If my hard drive fails (or other disaster strikes) and I need to reinstall all of my programs, I just repeat the steps that I've put in that log. The log is, of course, under source control.

Yeah, I'll look into this failing hard drive. I'll use SpinRite on it and patch it up. But even if I let the drive fail, having followed the aforementioned good habits I'm going to be just fine.

If you're one of the people who would freak out by seeing the above messages, take that as a sign that you're doing it wrong. Stop treating your computer as if it's never going to fail and stop treating your data as if it will always be on your hard drive.

Cliff's Notes for a Team System Install

One of AgileTek's tech leads just pointed me to Cliff's Notes for a Team System Install. He describes it as a "short and sweet" alternative to Microsoft's full-blown installation instructions and says, "I wish I had had them before I started the install."

Using Subversion clients with Team Foundation Server

Brian Harry tells us about SvnBridge, a server bridge that allows Subversion clients to connect to TFS.

Linus hates all SCM except Git

Linus Torvald's recent comments on SCM (Source Control Management) kicked off an interesting discussion at Slashdot comparing different SCM packages. Linus trashes every SCM tool I've ever used (CVS, Subversion [SVN], ClearCase, Perforce and Visual Source Safe [VSS]) and presents Git as the be-all and end-all of SCM software.

Some points (and some of my own comments) from the ensuing Slashdot discussion:

• Internally, Microsoft has used Source Depot, their own specially-modified version of Perforce. (I understand that Microsoft is now pushing its internal developers to eat their own dog food and use Hatteras, which is the SCM portion of Team Foundation Server. AgileTek is about to kick off a project that uses Hatteras and I'm eager to see how well it works.)
• General agreement that CVS sux. (I use it heavily and can heartily agree. We've in the process of moving from CVS to Subversion. I've personally been using Subversion for some time and I really like it.)
• Mixed agreement on whether Subversion sux. (Heh.)
• Total agreement that Visual SourceSafe sux. (In other news: water is wet.)

As I was searching for more information on the above issues I ran across a 2005 controversy surrounding Microsoft's implementation of test-driven development in their tools. Curious? Several relevant links have been lost to time, but you can find the story here, thanks to the Internet Archive WayBackMachine.