proprt... A C# snippet to speed up the writing of Windows 8/MVVM Properties

The Brain Dump - Windows 8 ViewModel Property Code Snippet

Visual Studio provides a bunch of good code snippets for creating boilerplate code. For example if you type “prop” you get this in intellisense

You’ll see a few nice property snippets.

• prop – creates a basic automatic property
• propa – creates an attached property
• propdp – creates a dependency property
• propfull – creates a public property with a private backing field
• propg – creates a basic automatic property but the set is marked private

I use these constantly but hit an issue when building my Windows 8 apps. For ViewModels in Windows 8, the default templates take advantage of a wonderful attribute CallerMemberName in the OnPropertyChanged method of the ViewModel base class. This allows you to create properties that support notifications in a very simple manner. Like this

...

..."

Funny... I was just looking for something like this. I love the inter-tubes...

Get mentally unbound with Jerry's "XAML Binding Basics 101"

Jerry Nixon @work - XAML Binding Basics 101

Hello Windows 8 XAML developer. XAML is a declarative UI language; it's most powerful feature is surely data binding.  But, I admit, with such power comes a lot of things to know. Let’s take a minute to step back, smell the roses, and build out some simple bindings.

Read to learn?

Referencing a control

Referencing a control in XAML is referencing a class. Declare it in XAML and the class’ constructor is executed. Your control is now in the logical tree. Every control is part of a hierarchy, with the top-most control being the page element.

..."

This is a great and very, very easy to read and grok into to XAML binding. If you're new to XAML binding you've got to read this...

10 Tips to avoid the typical Windows 8 design traps

.net magazine - 10 things you should know about designing for Windows 8

The launch of Windows 8 on 26 October will provide an exciting new platform for designers and developers. Brent Schooley introduces the key things you need to know to start creating Windows 8 applications

Microsoft caused a stir in the design industry with the release of Windows Phone. With its Bauhaus-inspired minimalism, strong focus on typography and use of subtle but impactful motion design, Windows Phone showed that there is definitely room for innovation in the mobile space.

Windows 8, due for release on 26 October, brings the same design goals and ideals to the desktop and tablet market. Given the focus on creating beautifully functional applications – not to mention a much larger potential market than iOS – this is definitely a platform designers should get involved with.

In this introductory guide to the subject, I’ve come up with 10 things you should know about designing for Windows 8.

1. The market for Windows 8 apps will be huge
2. Developers need designers for Windows 8
3. Take inspiration from Windows 8’s design roots
4. Content before chrome
5. Typography is king
6. Design for touch
7. Photography makes your app stand out
8. Charms bar and contracts
9. Use subtle animations
10. Design a good Live Tile

...

..."

As a Dev I don't think about design near enough. Design? Typography? Photo's? meh... Or so I though until I read this post (and seeing some of the app's already in the Win8 store... lots of "meh" already there). If you want to stand out, to provide a truly professional Windows 8 App, you have to also think design. Doesn't mater how cool the code is if it's presented fugly...

Do you DZone [Tech Library]?

DZone - Have You Checked out the DZone Tech Library?

"If you haven't had a chance (or didn't know about it), take a stroll over to DZone's tech library.  Our shelves are filled with Refcardz, Whitepapers, Webcasts/Podcasts, and other downloadables related to a range of developer-centric topics.  Here's a taste of what you can find:

..."

DZone - DZone Tech Library

[Disclaimer: I'm a DZone MVP and they highlight some of my posts,,, but even so, I still like them ;]

DZone is one of my favorite resources and there's almost always something for me there, in its many areas, every day. This is a must read feed...

LAPD endeavors to help Angelenos view the Endeavor's last journey...

LAPD - Plan Ahead for Shuttle Endeavor

Metro Rail Service on Saturday October 13th

• Expo Line (7th/Metro Center to Culver City) will run every 6 minutes from 2p.m.-11p.m. (Regular Saturday service ends at 2a.m.)
• Red & Purple Line Subway (Red: North Hollywood to Union Station; Purple Wilshire/Western to Union Station) will run every 10 minutes with longer trains.  (Regular Saturday service ends at 2a.m.)
• Gold Line (Pasadena to Downtown LA / Union Station to East LA)
• Will run every 10 minutes with longer trains (Regular Saturday service ends at 2a.m.)
• Additionally, we will be deploying staff at key locations to assist riders with paying fares and providing   directions.  
• Metro recommends passengers buy a $5 day pass Tap Card if using multiple lines on this date.

...

..."

This is THE new of the day and weekend for Los Angeles. I thought this information and post by the LAPD cool, in that that it's highlighting the Los Angeles Metro system (think light rail and subway, yes LA has subways). Why drive when you can ride (which I'm doing as I write this... :)

I can't wait to see it when the Endeavor is in it's final, final home.

An introduction to implementing IEnumerable and IEnumerable<T> and some yielding to yield too

CodeProject - A Beginner's Tutorial on Implementing IEnumerable and IEnumerable<T> interface and Understanding yield Keyword

"Introduction

In this article we will discuss about the IEnumerable interface. We will discuss how IEnumerable interface facilitate the use of foreach statement to iterate through a set of data. We will then look how to implement our own collections that implement IEnumerable interface. The use of yield keyword and Enumerating generic collections will also be discussed in this article.

Background

Whenever we work with collection of objects, we might find ourselves in need to iterate the collection. The best way to iterate through a collection is by implementing the Iterator pattern. (refer: Understanding and Implementing the Iterator Pattern in C# and C++[^]). C# provides a very clean construct of foreach statement to iterate in a read only manner over a collection.

C# also provides us the possibility of using the same foreach construct and all the enumeration techniques on our custom collection objects by implementing the IEnumerable interface. So let us see how we can implement IEnumerable interface with our custom collection classes.

Using the code

Enumerating the Collection classes

Before starting the discussion let us see how we can use the Built-in classes and iterate over them. Lets start by looking into the ArrayList class that implements IEnumerable and see how we can have read only iteration over that using foreach statement.

..."

I've had some conversations about creating custom IEnumerable/IEnumerable<T>/yield implementations and there were concerns that it might be "too much, and their heads might explode."

Next time I'll use this article as a soothing balm, teaching resource and concern killed (and anti-brain exploding device).  :)

Windows Store Project Templates 101

Kunal's Blog  - Understand Project Templates and Structure of your Windows Store apps

"Last day in “Getting Started with Windows Store apps Development” we discussed about Windows Store applications and how to setup your development machine to start with the development. We also discussed it’s four different project categories.

Today in this continued series post, we will learn more about project templates in each category and the basic project structure of most used templates.

...

..."

I thought this short high level look at the Visual Studio 2012 Windows Store App Project templates nice. Nice to see this all on one page and not have to spelunk them all myself...

Five (so far) free Windows 8 On-demand video training sessions from Jeffrey Richter & Wintellect

Windows Store Apps Video Series Free from Jeffrey Richter & Wintellect

"Jeffrey Richter and Jeff Prosise have been diligently creating a new Mastering Windows Store Apps course (formerly known as Mastering Windows Metro Apps). Jeffrey Richter and Wintellect are making available course segments for free and the ability for you to audition the course and provide comments, reactions, and discussion.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to get access to Wintellect's deep dive approach to technology and a look at premier training. Watch and comment on the newly released segments and check-out the upcoming release calendar. Start preparing for Windows 8 today and get your pressing questions answered by Jeffrey Richter.

View the currently available segments today. Don't miss these videos and many more to come through December. Get up to speed quickly and efficiently and prepare to blaze new trails in the fast-evolving world of Windows development.

• Application Architecture & Language Projections
• Working with WinRT's Async API's
• Windows Store App Threading Model
• Building the App Package
• Storage Files & Folders

..." [GD: Email Mailer Leached in full]

Wintellect - Application Architecture & Language Projections

Free training from a top tier training provider is also something that's hard to say no too (just to find the time... sigh.... ;)

Navigation, MVVM, XAML and a little IG (Infragistics) in this "Building IG Outlook" video

XAML.tv - Building IG Outlook Part 5–Implementing Navigation and MVVM

This is the fifth video in a series that will take you step-by-step on building a Prism application that mimics Microsoft Outlook.  In this video, we implemented our navigation using the Prism navigation APIs as well as some navigation objects we created to provide our navigation path.  We talked a little about INavigationAware interface, IConfirmNavigationRequest interface, and how the View and ViewModel can participate in the Prism navigation process.  DelegateCommand and CompositeCommand were also discussed.  We also implemented our own little MVVM framework which is made up of only two interfaces, IViewBase and IViewModel.  You saw the first glimpse of the EventAggregator and much more.  Wow, we really covered a lot in this video.  Of course we only had time to implement this functionality in the Silverlight version of the application.  So, I went ahead and implemented the same functionality in the WPF version as well.  ..."

I'm in a place now were I can really start working on modern applications (i.e. model based, WPF, MVVM, etc) so I'm now keeping an even sharper eye out for related materials, posts, etc, like this...

Telerik provides updated platform guidance for .NET (Think "I want to build for X..." "Then we suggest Y, and here's why...")

sellsbrothers - Telerik’s evolving platform guidance for .NET developers

Telerik often gets questions from its customers about which of the multitude of app frameworks that Microsoft provides for .NET developers that they should pick. WinForms? WPF? Silverlight? ASP.NET? What’s the right solution for their problem? The answer is always the same: it depends.

Unfortunately, that’s not very helpful, so last year a set of the best and brightest that Telerik has to offer sat down and figured out just what it depends on and whether we could offer clear, concise guidance for our customers. The answer was “yes we could,” so we did that in 2011.

However, it’s been a busy year that’s included two major events in the life of a .NET developer: Silverlight desktop and web have been shelved and Windows 8 has been born. So, with that in mind, we’ve updated the platform guidance to take those two important changes to the .NET developer landscape into account; you can read all about it in the Telerik’s 2012 platform guidance for .NET developers.

Or, if you’re already familiar with the 2011 guidance, the rest of this post will be about what’s changed in 2012.

...

• Desktop Application
• Ideal .NET Platform: WPF
• Key Advantages of WPF:
• Tablet Application
• Ideal Tablet Platform: XAML and .NET
• Key Advantages of XAML for building Metro-style apps:
• Key Advantages of HTML for building Metro-style apps:

...

..."

I could have sworn I blogged about the 2011 version of this, but I can't seem to find it... Anyway, I love seeing this kind of clear guidance, especially from someone outside of Microsoft (though obviously closely connected). And what I love about this, is that they really don't hype their own products (much). If you're looking for some platform guidance, this is a great resource...

Extra, extra... MSDN Magazine, Windows 8 Special Edition is now available...

MSDN Magazine - Windows 8 Special Edition of MSDN Magazine

"Welcome to the Windows 8 special edition of MSDN Magazine. Over the past several months a talented team of authors, editors and Microsoft technical experts have worked together to produce a bonus issue of MSDN Magazine focused entirely on Windows 8, Windows Runtime and the development of Windows Store applications.

As I explain in my Editor’s Note for the issue, the Windows 8 special edition of the magazine is packed with hands-on tutorials and technical features. Whether you are looking for insight into the technical underpinnings of the Windows Runtime, guidance on building Windows Store apps with XAML, or a tutorial that explores how to create compelling UIs with Expression Blend, this special issue of MSDN Magazine has something for you.

Mind you, this is just the start. Over the months to come, you can expect Windows 8 and Windows Runtime to figure prominently in our coverage. Next month’s November issue will include a pair of features focused on JavaScript and WinJS, a look at managing memory in C/C++ and C#, and design guidance for creating more effective Windows Store app UIs.

..."

MSDN Magazine - Windows 8 Special

All Windows 8, all the time (well for this edition anyway)...

Massive N-Tier Sample App, explained and code from end to end... The sample? A Zombie Incident Explorer...

CodeProject - Zombie Explorer : A N-Tier application front top to bottom

I just want the code man give me the code, well ok chillax, its right here:  WcfExamplar.zip

• Introduction
• Pre-Requisites
• Getting Started
• The Server Side: WCF
  • The Need For Layers - Why Bother
  • The WCF Service
  • IOC
  • Requests
  • Request To Task Mapping
  • Tasks
  • Business Objects
  • Business Logic
  • Unit Of Work / Generic Repositories / Persistence
    • Unit Of Work : ISession
    • Generic Respositories
    • DTO Objects
    • Fluent HHibernate One To One Mapping
• The Client Side : WPF
  • So What Does The UI Actually Do
  • Shared DLLs
  • Common Proxy
  • Services To Talk To The WCF Service
  • Rss Feed Module
  • MapModule
    • Working With Bing Maps
    • Obtaining All Existing Zombie Incidents
    • Saving A New Zombie Incident
  • Search Module
• That's It

Introduction

I had posted this article earlier this week, but had to take it down to fix something with it, so apologies if you have already seen this.

This article is something I have been meaning to do for some time, not really  for anyone's benefit other than my own really. Before we get onto what the  article will cover, let me just outline why I wanted to write this article.

I have been working with both WCF/WPF a while now (I know some people  consider these old technolgies now, but I can assure you they are both alive and  well, at least in my part of the world), and I have seen a variety of different  approaches to developing a n-teir application with these technologies.

I have seen good and bad things, some of the bad things being:

• Ridiculous amount of methods on a service, which become quite  unmaintainable quite quickly
• Everything is its own service, where you have about 30 WCF services all  trying to call each other. Nightmare man
• Bad seperation of concerns, where the dependency graph is all screwed up,  and your UI inadvertently ends up knowing way to much as it is forced to  reference things it has no business knowing about
• Use of Reference.cs (more on this later)
• Lack of support/thought for DD/IOC/Mocking or any of the cool stuff people take  for granted now days

I thought it would be nice to try and see if I could make a demo app which  kind of did things the way I had it mapped out in my mind. I just  wanted to be able to do a complete application from database to WPF client all  the way through, with only my own thoughts (and headaches/nightmares) to deal  with.

...

For the attached demo code I wanted to make sure I covered the  following aspects

• Provide good level of seperation of concerns, that is the UI should not  care about server side business logic, why should it.
• Be able to easily easily swap out/test certains areas of our application  (IOC allows this)
• Database access should be as lean as possible (NHibernate and  Respository pattern usage facilitate this)
• Should be able to test a small part of the overall system

I have called the project "WcfExemplar" which I hope people do not find  arrogant, it is certainly not meant to be. It is called that more for  me really, as I was doing this to prove something to myself, so it was an  "Exemplar" for me if you will.  I hope you forgive me this one indulgance.

So what does the demo app do?

It is a WPF (Prism/MVVM based) client which communicates with a Console hosted WCF service  application. The application allows users to search database stored zombie incidents. The  user may also add new zombie incidents. So its actually not that complicated, it  is basic CRUD stuff.

I think the main salient points are as follows:

• WPF front end (that I will not dwell on too much, as that is a  mere vehicle to illustrate the server side concepts) which allows users to
  • Search for items (I am storing zombie data where a  heading/description and GeoLocation data are stored for each zombie  incident)
  • Add new items
  • View items on a map (I have chosen to use Bing maps)
  • Use Rx to show an RSS feed of global zombie incidents (as a bonus if  you will)
• It uses a shared DLL where only the relevant things are shared between  client and server, which ensures the dependency graph make sense. So things  like those shown below would typically be shared
  • Business Objects
  • Service contract
  • Fault contracts
• There is NO auto generated Reference.xx or client proxy, we  use a shared DLL and hand craft our own client proxy
• It uses Fluent NHibernate for its persistence, where ISession provides the Unit Of Work (UOW)
• It uses IOC such that any component that talks to an external part (ie  database) can be easily substituted. This is done from the WCF service down
• It uses business logic to do any work on objects before any attempt to  persist an object is done.
• It keeps connections to the database at a minimum and only engages the  database for the minimum amount of time.

...

"

This is a massive article, by the one and only, Sacha Barber. And you know me and zombies, so... :P

Beta Congress... as in a beta of the new, prettier and easier, Library of Congress site

Open Search News - Library of Congress Unveils New Congress Web Site

"Just recently, the Library of Congress launched the beta version of Congress.gov that aims to help users easily find bills going through the legislative process. This is the first ever search engine upgrade since THOMAS was unveiled in 1995. The article “Congress launches new search engine” gives us more details about it:

..."

Inside Bay Area - Congress launches new search engine

"WASHINGTON -- Congress unveiled a new search engine Wednesday to help politicos, lobbyists, researchers, students and any other interested citizens find legislation working its way through the House and Senate to become new laws.

The Library of Congress says the new website Congress.gov is in beta form and will eventually replace the THOMAS legislative search system after a year of fine-tuning the new system.

The new site is more like Google (GOOG), with one box to search all data. It can filter search results like a shopping site with categories of merchandise. In this case, it can narrow search results by year, by subject, by House or Senate or other factors.

Congress.gov also is mobile-friendly for Capitol Hill staffers glued to their Blackberries. It was built with responsive design technology to automatically rearrange a search screen to fit on a smartphone.

This is Congress' first new search engine since THOMAS was launched in 1995 after just three weeks of development when the Internet was in its infancy.

"It's like comparing a tricycle to a Cadillac," said Jim Karamanis, the library's chief of web services, before a test drive of the new site. "The web was not very advanced" when THOMAS was created.

..."

beta.congress.gov

`

A much prettier LOC site... If you need info on what Congress is doing, this better looking site might help you there (or not... :/ )

[Humor?] IT Support Ticket "Fun"

secretgeek - Hello IT Department

"At one time in my long and extraordinary career (*cough* today *cough*), I had a problem where an offshore IT department stopped replying to my emails. They had closed a support request as complete when it wasn't, and they ignored my every plea to have it reopened. Here's the email I sent, which successfully reopened the thread of communication.

..."

 

This made me laugh. While I don't have this issue anymore, I sure have in the past...

A "don't be blue, OData overview"

Open Data for Open Science - OData Overview and Sample

Andy Conrad of Microsoft SQL recently did wonderful presentations on OData at the recent Microsoft Research ODOS workshops. Andy's presentation deck is in the attached. Please email e3env@microsoft.com if you'd like a copy of the sample code in this presentation.

..." [GD: Click through for the PDF download link]

I thought this 28 page deck/PDF a nice, level 100'ish, intro to OData, a deck that could provide an easy start on the OData learning curve.

A View to an App['s performance with PerfView]

.NET Framework Blog - Improving Your App's Performance with PerfView

Late last year, Vance Morrison, who is currently an architect on the .NET Framework Performance team, released PerfView, which is a new performance tool for .NET developers. PerfView helps you discover and investigate performance hotspots in .NET Framework apps, and enables you to deliver consistently high-performance apps to your customers.

Using PerfView, you can perform complex CPU performance analyses to solve hard-to-detect performance problems. PerfView's revolutionary grouping and folding features are what makes it possible to grasp and solve these difficult problems.

PerfView can be used for any app on Windows, including ASP.NET and Windows Store apps. While it works great for .NET Framework apps, it can be used for native and JavaScript apps, too. It supports all .NET Framework versions, including the .NET Framework 4.5.

Vance took some time to tell us more about PerfView in the following Channel 9 video. He explains why he built PerfView and how it works, and demonstrates its use.

How can I get PerfView?

You can download PerfView from the Microsoft Download Center. It is a very quick, easy and free installation. It's just an EXE in a .zip file. You can also check out our series of PerfView Tutorial videos on Channel 9.

What can PerfView do for you?

PerfView was designed to collect and analyze both CPU and memory scenarios. It provides the following features:

• CPU investigation:
  • Enables you to diagnose the cause of excessive CPU use:
    • GC Stats view for understanding the garbage collection costs in your app.
    • JIT Stats view for understanding the JIT costs in your app.
  • Provides aggregate call stacks of your app over time.
  • Helps you quickly sort through all the stack data collected, to find the root cause of a performance issue.
• Managed memory investigations:
  • Enables you to diagnose the cause of excessive memory use.
  • Provides snapshots of the .NET Framework garbage collection (GC) heap, including large heaps.
  • GC samples are displayed in the same stack viewer used for stack traces, enabling the same approach to be used to investigate memory use issues.
• Blocked time investigations:
  • Enables you to diagnose latency issues in your app (for example, waiting on the network).
  • Provides visualizations that show why your program is waiting.

PerfView provides access to rich performance data through a set of powerful views. Don’t be surprised if you find the tool a little complex at first. You will likely find the Performance Profiler in Visual Studio 2012 easier to use. It's up to you when to use either tool. We think PerfView is a great tool to use when you need to get a bird’s eye view of what’s really going on in your app.

Let's take a look

• Home screen
• PerfView trace collection
• PerfView analysis type selector
• PerfView process selection window
• Stack viewer
• GC heap dump viewer
• Using Perfview to investigate performance hotspots
• Investigation 1: Analyzing a simple, contrived app
• Investigation 2: Making PerfView faster

Closing

PerfView enables you to identify the performance hotspots in your app and enables you to quickly determine the code that needs to be updated to mitigate the hotspots. You can use PerfView to investigate .NET Framework (all versions), C++, or JavaScript apps. It also supports investigating performance issues in Windows Store apps.

Please download PerfView and give it a try...."

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Perfect Viewing of PerfView - Links, videos and more...
Gathering, viewing and understanding performance data with the new PerfView utility

"Under the Hood of .NET Memory Management" free eBook
.Net Memory Management Explained - Red Gate Story Book Style...

Two tasty sets for Tuesday. Two free icon sets (Candy UI and Movies)

Six Revisions - Free Icons: Candy UI Icon Set

This free icon set consists of 60 icons for web interfaces. The icons in the Candy UI Icon Set are in both vector and PNG formats (in various sizes). The icon set is brightly colored and has a clean design theme.

The source files are included in this freebie, so you can make your own modifications and use them not only for UI purposes, but also for any other superb idea that comes to your mind.

This icon set is an extension of the Candy UI Kit (a PSD template for designing UIs).

This exclusive Six Revisions freebie is by graphic/web designer Mauricio Duque, the founder of snap2objects (a blog covering design tips, freebies and inspiration).

...

Smashing Magazine - Movie Icon Set (PSD Source, PNG, JPG)

Today, we present yet another freebie — a free set of icons related to movies and television, designed by Samuray ¹ and released for Smashing Magazine and the design community. The icons are available in six different sizes as transparent PNG files, JPG files as well as Photoshop PSD source files. The icons are released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Perhaps you’d like to showcase your interests in your portfolio, or perhaps an obscure indie filmmaker has asked you to put up a small site for their upcoming movie. Or maybe you are organizing a party and would like to invite your good ol’ friends or colleagues to a movie evening. Eventually you might end up looking for a set of original cinema or TV-related icons, and purchasing generic stock icons isn’t really an option. In these (and hopefully many other) cases, this icon set might be useful.

This set contains 10 images related to film, movies and the movie-going experience. Each icon is available in six sizes: its original size, 256×256px, 128×128px, 64×64px, 32×32px and 16×16px. The icons included are:

• Ticket
• Anaglyph Glasses
• Camera
• Cinema Seat
• Clapperboard
• Soft Drink
• Film Reel
• Megaphone
• Popcorn
• TV Set

..."

No it's not Movie Candy, but then again, it is too... :)

Nothing like a free icon set!

MarkedUp is to Windows 8, as Google Analytics is to...

Kevin Ashley - MarkedUp to Windows 8 apps is what Google Analytics is to Web sites

MarkedUp may become to Windows 8 apps what Google Analytics is to a large portion of the Web sites: an easy to add analytics solution that gives an insight developers need for their Windows 8 apps. I’d like to quote MarkedUp Web site to explain their solution goals in their own words:

MarkedUp is an analytic and logging service built from the ground up to support Windows 8 apps (also known as metro-style apps) in the WinRT environment. Designed to be usable across all of the supported WinRT language from JavaScript to C# to C++ the client SDK allows you to capture analytics and diagnostic logging no matter your preference in development language.

If you want a quick overview on how MarkedUp works and how to install it into your Windows 8 apps, check out our MarkedUp tutorial video.

Aaron Stannard, the Founder of MarkedUp spent a few minutes with me today, and walked me through a trivial process of adding analytics to my Card Games Chest app for Windows 8. Aaron was kind enough to offer all my readers a registration code for MarkedUp analytics. Please, feel free to use it and add MarkedUp to your apps:

MarkedUp registration code: [Click Through for the code]
MarkedUp registration url: https://markedup.com/account/register

...

..."

Here's your chance to get in the MarkedUp bandwagon (and too see how easy it is to use...)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
MarkedUp Analytics Beta for Windows 8 now available (and free)

Building LOB "Windows Store" App walk-through from the community

dotnetcurry - Windows 8 Metro Style [Windows Store] Business Apps in VS 2012

The Metro Design language became popular with the maturing of the Windows Phone 7 platform. Due to its popularity, it got adopted on the Windows 8 platforms too. Now that Windows 8 is released, we find the Metro Design to be rather elegant on the Desktop as well. WinRT is a new development runtime on Windows 8 and it provides a rich toolset for development of consumer and business applications.

Developers and Metro Applications

Apps developed using the new WinRT Runtime are referred to as Metro Apps. An important fact with these applications is that the devloper community can easily get started with developing Metro Apps

• .NET developers with the knowledge of C# and XAML etc. can start developing applications using VS 2012, because XAML is a familiar technology from Silverlight and WPF. Metro Style apps uses similar UI elements and design patterns.
• Web developers having expertise with JavaScript, jQuery, HTML 5 and CSS can also design these applications. Using JavaScript, the applications can make external call to WCF services or any external services to fetch data. Alongside, .NET 4.5 has come up with Web-API, using which Data Bound operations can be performed over plain (instead of the earlier WS-* layer).

Metro style apps can be considered as the future of Windows app development, be it x86 or ARM processors.

For end users, the shift from desktop computers to the more portable Laptops is now more or less complete. Most consumers now prefer a laptop to a desktop. However, technology is moving towards even more portability in terms of smaller than laptop devices; like tablets and big-screen smartphones. These devices are much smaller, their main user interface is touch-centric as opposed to pointer centric on the desktop and they have certain restrictions on CPU power. These devices are also geared towards single purpose, intuitive applications. These devices are not geared to be multipurpose fully functional computing devices. They allow users to consume content and interact with the content. In developer terms, these devices are targeted for using an app rather than developing the app. It is this segment of application usage, that needs apps with a touch-centric design philosophy like Metro a.k.a Windows 8 Style UI.

Developing a Metro App

Let us develop a Metro styled application for marketing professionals that generates Invoices for medical orders. The architecture of the application is as shown here:

The Metro client application makes use of WCF Service to communicate with database server. The WCF service is hosted on IIS and is accessed by the client over HTTP.

Creating The Application

We use SQL Server 2008 as the backend. Our table structure is defined here.

...

I just don't think we're seeing enough focus on the LOB app story in Windows 8/Windows Store app land. While WP8 is getting a Corporate Store, and a similar feature has yet to appear for Win8, LOB is what really drives Windows. Yet I'm just not much focus in that area. Yeah, yeah I hear all the talk that Win8 is a huge consumer push, and it's "said" that many companies are going to skip it "because they don't get it" but it doesn't have to be that way. We need some "fast and fluid" LOB app's and this tutorial is the step forward on that path...

The web dev world joins hands and helps produce Web Platform Docs (Think "central repository for Web developer documentation")

IEBlog - Web Platform Docs Debuts with Developer Resources

"Today, we are taking another step forward in helping developers achieve the goal of interoperability through same markup. We’re happy to be part of creating Web Platform Docs (WPD), a new W3C hosted community resource for developers and designers who use open Web standards. For developers the Web is about building great experiences with the potential to reach millions of people around the world by writing interoperable sites and applications. We’ve talked many times about the promise of interoperability through the same standards-based markup yielding the same results.

The W3C, Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia and Opera have teamed up to create and seed this new community-driven site whose aim is to become a central repository for Web developer documentation.

• Clear reference docs that are accurate, complete, and indicate adoption rate.
• Thoughtful tutorials for existing and new technologies.
• A sample library that takes into account real-world scenarios.
• The ability to see—at a glance—which technologies are on a standard track and the stability and implementation status of features

..."

Web Platform - Welcome to Web Platform Docs

Web Platform Docs is a new community-driven site that aims to become a comprehensive and authoritative source for web developer documentation. Even though Web Platform Docs is still in alpha, you can already find lots of valuable content on the site, including information on:

• How to use features of the open web, with syntax and examples
• What platforms and devices you can use various technologies on
• What is the current standardization, stability and implementation status of each technology specification

In the future, Web Platform Docs will include even more content for you to explore such as live code examples, resources for educators and much more. To get there faster, we’d like to invite you to also contribute your knowledge. We hope you will join us!

[Insert Ghostbusters quote here, "Dogs and cats living together..."]

Interesting and cool that so many vendors are behind this. I'd love to see this take off and fulfill it's rather lofty goal. If you're a web dev and wish there was someway you could be part of the community, helping in the building of what looks like a cool repository, here's your chance!

NuGet 2.1 gets Portable [Library Support], Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 targeting and more

NuGet - NuGet 2.1 Release Notes

1. Hierarchical Nuget.config
2. Specify ‘packages’ Folder Location
3. Support for Portable Libraries
4. Targeting Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 Projects
5. Improved Search in Package Manager Dialog
6. Force Package Update
7. Edit Package Sources Within Visual Studio
8. Bug Fixes

The NuGet ball just keeps a rolling! Great to see the Portable Library and W8/WP8 support being added...

Dr. Evil's step-by-step guide to stealing the Endeavor

Jalopnik - How To Steal The Space Shuttle: A Step-By-Step Guide

Yesterday morning I was at the California Science Center's press conference outlining their plan to drag a massive spaceship across Los Angeles. It was one of those times where logistics can make even the most outlandish plans seem boring, as they went over schedules and road closures and the like. While they were describing the locations where Endeavour would be stopped for viewing or technical reasons, I realized that this was the most exposed this priceless spaceship will ever be. Which, of course, got me thinking. Could someone steal the Space Shuttle?

The LAPD officers in charge of the security portion of the massive moving project were there, but it was pretty clear their responsibilities had to do with keeping people and the city safe, not protecting the Shuttle from theft. I asked both officers if they thought, given Bond supervillian-levels of resources, it would be possible for someone to steal the shuttle.

They made two mistakes in their answers. First mistake was that the first cop told me it was "impossible." The second mistake was that the other policeman told me "I won't say impossible." Now it sounds like a challenge.

(Now, before we get started, I should probably mention to any supervillians or countries reading this that we in no way condone the theft of the Space Shuttle, or 300,000 lbs of any public property. We're just having fun here.)

Actually, the second LAPD officer qualified "not impossible" by saying it would take "supernatural powers," but I get the idea. It'd be really, really hard.

Naturally, I couldn't quit thinking about it. After sketching out some bad ideas and consulting both the Jalopnik Council of Elders and our mainframe (located deep below Los Angeles, in one of Barry White's old hot tubs), I think I came up with a viable plan, in seven steps. Here it is:

 

..."

This was awesome...

(via TOR.com - Morning Roundup: How to Steal a Space Shuttle)

An Interview with Unity Technologies CEO, David Helgason

I don't usually cross-post or mention the posts I do on the Microsoft Channel 9 Coding4Fun blog or the Coding4Fun Kinect Gallery, but this post was different and something I thought cool and I wanted to share it here in case you missed it (not that that would happen, as you all follow the awesome stuff happening on Channel 9, right? But just in case....)

Due to my past posts on Unity 3D, I had a chance to speak with the CEO of Unity Technologies CEO, David Helgason. Here's the result, An Interview with Unity Technologies CEO, David Helgason