Visual Studio Online represents Microsoft's rebranding of what used to be Team Foundation Service combined with new abilities to write code directly on the web. We are going to use VSO to host a new development project that we can connect to via any version of VS2013. Using VSO will let us focus on the project setup, while Microsoft can then run the server for us.
The concepts to create a new project are similar, whether you are using VSO or standalone TFS. Since in many cases corporate users merely access a previously configured TFS environment, this example will let all readers follow along.
You will want to have a Microsoft account ID available, and you can either create a new ID for this chapter or use one of your existing IDs. You will also want to have a copy of VS2013. We will be using Visual Studio Express for Windows Desktop, but the concepts are applicable to all versions.