So I have a couple of Visual Basic 6 applications I maintain, and one of the big issues I have had was the lack of GOOD source control available for a small business person like myself. Until now. VisualStudio.com provides an online instance of TFS – we know this… But what I hadn’t thought about until this evening was using the Git repositories for things outside of the Visual Studio IDE.

TFS is currently free for up to 5 users, with unlimited repositories, which makes it perfect for me! I am in the process of making sure all of my legacy apps are properly versioned – and never again will I have to copy source code folders with the current date and pray that nothing bad happens! I’ll also be able to make use of nifty tools like branching and (GASP!) project planning tools!

There was one hitch!

I set up a .GitIgnore file, and I was in my Windows XP VM – so it defaulted to creating it as a Unicode or some such nonsense. If you open the file in NotePad++ (or another GOOD text editor), and set the encoding to ANSI, you should be fine.

What kinds of unexpected benefits are YOU getting out of VisualStudio.com? I feel like every time I turn around, there’s something new they’re giving away for free! Tell me about it in the comments!