Regional Directors

Install Application as Service on Windows Server 2008

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 22:01:41 GMT

Steven Smith writes "...There’s a good article on creating an application that can easily run as either a console app or as a service here. From an administrator command prompt, the syntax is something like this..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Updated Win 8 Dev Platform Diagram

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:59:52 GMT

Rockford Lhotka writes "...This one adds the Chakra js engine to the WinRT and desktop sides of the diagram, and it expands the detail of WinRT and Win32 to include things like COM, GDI+, and DirectX. The result is that DirectX and GDI+ are duplicated – they are shown as a presentation technology..."

Bloggers : Rockford Lhotka
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

RazorEngine Performance and Template Caching

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:58:29 GMT

Steven Smith writes "....I don’t have any fancy graphs to show off, since all I did was run a 2-minute load test of each unit test with 5 users and no think time using Visual Studio 2010’s load test runner. The results were pretty significant, though, and corresponded with the performance I was seeing in my actual application (about 1 request per second on one thread..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Nokia and Windows Phone: What Could Still Go Wrong

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:56:53 GMT

Andrew Brust writes "...Now that the first two Nokia Windows Phone handsets, the Lumia 800 and 710, have come out, Windows Phone can stop waiting. But it also has to stop merely hoping, and start actually achieving. This is a big deal, but this is not finish line. And make no mistake, the odds are still stacked in against Windows Phone. The challenges are not insurmountable, but they are numerous and they are formidable. Among them:..."

Bloggers : Andrew Brust
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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Putting the BI in Big Data

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:07:08 GMT

Andrew Brust writes "...assuming Microsoft makes good on its announcements...then business users will be able to get at big data, on-premise and in-cloud, and will be able to do so using Excel, PowerPivot, and other tools that they already know, like and with which they are productive..."

Bloggers : Andrew Brust
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Writing Software as a Kaizen Event

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:04:07 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...While refactoring addresses each individual method, Software Kaizen takes a much broader approach and looks for waste in your entire work. A lot of time we developers build features and stuff that are not needed...Software Kaizen asks us to look at our code and asks us why did we do it this way, with a “cut first” mentality. It challenges the assumptions we made at the time we wrote the code. Traditional waterfall approached code..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Updates Sneak in Unexpected

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:03:00 GMT

Venkatarangan Tnc writes "...Compared to architecting & releasing web applications, Windows Apps (client apps in general) needs more care. The main reason being if you detect any bugs or want to do any enhancements you can’t simply do the changes in your server and be done with it...most of the apps for Windows ship with an thin installer executable that checks for new version of the app from their server and prompts to download and install the new bits..."

Bloggers : Venkatarangan Tnc
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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Win8, Metro and WinRT Terminology

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:41:49 GMT

Rockford Lhotka writes "...I’ve been struggling to come up with clarity as I discuss the technology. In the absence of true clarity from Microsoft, we’re left to interpret that they’ve said and come up with our own consistent terminology...If I’m right, this is important, because people will ultimately be building business applications on WinRT. Those apps may or may not be strictly “Metro”, but by running on WinRT they’ll..."

Bloggers : Rockford Lhotka
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Outlook Hangs Caused by Recent PayPal Messages

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:37:10 GMT

Guy Barrette writes "...Well, looks like an invalid picture reference in the message. A full explanation and a workaround..."

Bloggers : Guy Barrette
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

A Guide to Integrate Windows Azure in your Environment

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:35:07 GMT

Vishwas_Lele writes "...Once an organization has made the decision to adopt Windows Azure, it is faced with a set of planning challenges, beginning with the basic, “Who should be responsible for signing up and managing the Windows Azure account?” to more involved, “How will Windows Azure impact the ALM process, availability, operational costs?”"

Bloggers : Vishwas Lele
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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Creating a WinRT BackgroundWorker Type

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:07:05 GMT

Rockford Lhotka writes "...Because .NET/SL/WP7 don’t (yet) have the async/await keywords, and WinRT doesn’t have BW, I need to come up with a solution that leaves existing code/behavior alone, and yet provides comparable behavior in WinRT. To resolve this issue, I’ve created a BackgroundWorker type for WinRT. This type hasn’t gone through extensive testing, but it is a good start at least:..."

Bloggers : Rockford Lhotka
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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Lessons From Steve Jobs

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:46:13 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...I’d like to call attention to four lessons we can learn from Steve Jobs’ Apple, two positive and two negative. First the good:..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Watch out for WCF Errors after Installing Azure SDK 1.5

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:46:06 GMT

David Yack writes "...The error occurred right after installing the new Azure 1.5 SDK and the first time I went to run a regular application that did a WCF call I got the following error. The error simply says NetTCPRelayBinding could not be found..."

Bloggers : David Yack
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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3 Tips to Improve Your Connection Strings

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:44:08 GMT

Steven Smith writes "...Here are three tips you should know about that, if you’re not already using, should improve your use of connection strings. By far the biggest tip I can offer is that you should be using Windows Authentication. You can find this guidance directly from..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Get the Mango Update

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:42:39 GMT

Alon Fliess writes "...Microsoft has released the Windows Phone Mango update. It can take a while to get the update. However there is a trick that can let you have the update right away. Follow this article to get Mango now!, it worked in..."

Bloggers : Alon Fliess
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Slides - Demos on Silverlight 5 with Win 8 and WinRT

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:37:31 GMT

Brian Noyes writes "...new features of Silverlight 5 and what’s coming with Win 8 and WinRT / Metro development. I covered XAML enhancements, security, text improvements, graphics, 3D, and other features of Silverlight 5. Then I summarized what Windows 8...grab the slides and demos here..."

Bloggers : Brian Noyes
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Read and Recommended: Windows Azure Development Cookbook

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:35:30 GMT

Guy Barrette writes "...Sure you can find most of these recipes online by using your favourite search engine but what I like about this book is that each recipe has clear and detailed explanations. Basically, it adds meat into the bone and you end up getting a better understanding of the Azure API..."

Bloggers : Guy Barrette
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Working with Lazy Loading in Entity Framework: Run This Command

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:33:57 GMT

Steven Smith writes "...Entity Framework 4 has Lazy Loading built-in and enabled by default. Here’s a quick bit of code to show you how to work with this feature. To get started with this, simply create a new Console Application and in nuget (Package Manager Console), run this command:..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Why MVVM?

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:31:50 GMT

Rockford Lhotka writes "...People often ask “Why should I use MVVM? It seems like it complicates things.” The most common reason hard-core developers put forward for MVVM is that “it enables unit testing of presentation code”. Although that can be true, I don’t think that’s the primary reason people should invest in MVVM. I think the primary reason is..."

Bloggers : Rockford Lhotka
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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Crossing Over to the Metro UI

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:31:32 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...the single biggest lesson as I close this section and move to the developer section: I firmly believe that once Windows 8 is out, Metro apps will destroy classic desktop apps in the market. The only desktop apps that will survive in the long term will be those that don’t have Metro alternatives. Of course, not every application is applicable to Metro..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Wiring up an AutoCompleteBox to a JSON Service in Silverlight

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:31:04 GMT

Steven Smith writes "...I’m not a Silverlight expert, so if I’m doing things against best practices, I apologize. It does, however, work for me as shown. I wired up the loading of the AutoCompleteBox in my form’s load, since it’s the only thing this page does so I saw no point in doing it lazily when the AutoCompleteBox is used. I simply added..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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How Architects Talk About COBIT

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:31:02 GMT

Juan Mestas writes "...Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT)is a governance framework widely used by many enterprises to supports information and technology assets, defining process, areas and controls to successful delivery of IT Governance practices...COBIT defines a Maturity Model across a scale of 5 steps..."

Bloggers : Juan Mestas
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Debug: TfsComProviderSvr has Stopped Working

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:46:58 GMT

Martin Kulov writes "...This dialog box is part of Windows Error Reporting (WER) which I am about to cover in additional post. One thing you should really do when you see this message is to open the details using the “View problem details” panel at the bottom of the dialog box. In my case this provided me with the following information:..."

Bloggers : Martin Kulov
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Set JsonRequestBehavior to AllowGet

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:45:28 GMT

Steven Smith writes "...As error messages go, it’s pretty nice that it tells you what you need to do to fix the problem. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you how or where to set JsonRequestBehavior to AllowGet....When you’re in a controller action that returns a JsonResult, you typically just return Json(foo) to use the default serializer. If you want to AllowGet for this action, simply pass in a second parameter with..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Could You Use NGen to Secure Your .NET Code?

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:43:30 GMT

Alexander Wechsler writes "...Managed .NET code (MSIL) can be decompiled and due to this it can be obfuscated to make this much harder, if not impossible. In contrast to this is native code quite secure looking at this threat. However, there is a way to turn managed code into precompiled native code..."

Bloggers : Alexander Wechsler
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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An Alternate Approach to a GridView

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:35:36 GMT

Paul Sheriff writes "...After my last blog post on how to layout a different UI design instead of a normal tabular format, I had quite a few comments on how you would add sorting, paging and filtering and so on. That is one of the best parts about using the GridView control, you can still use all the normal sorting, paging and filtering that you would with a normal tabular GridView. If you take a look at..."

Bloggers : Paul Sheriff
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

WinPad Turns Heads and Passes Pub Test Run

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:36:13 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...customers showed up at the pub they went to work with the tablet. They liked the desktop mode option and we got into a long discussion on Metro only vs non Metro only devices. Played a little with Visual Studio and looked at the references for a native XAML app. Spent a lot of time on Metro. We all agreed that if Win8 delivers as promised, Apple has..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

WinRT and the Paradox of Choice

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:34:13 GMT

Steven Smith writes "...While I agree with Microsoft’s decision to support C++, .NET, and HTML5/JS developers when building these applications, it does still represent a Paradox of Choice for many developers, myself included. If we consider only native apps for the iPad, there are far fewer choices involved when it comes to programming language and platform..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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Building a Metro App with Visual Studio 11 Express

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:28:36 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...I will share my experience in using the device for building a Metro app....Step 1: Load Visual Studio...Step 5: Running your App...I hit F5 and took a video for you to enjoy. Notice that I swipe to get back to the desktop mode after I am done using the application. Cool...."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Developer Reactions to the New Windows Platform APIs

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:25:48 GMT

Alon Fliess writes "...what is Metro Style Application, what is WinRT, and should I learn C++ or HTML & JavaScript? Let's start with the underlying system. Windows Run-Time (WinRT) is a new platform for using and consuming the Windows OS resources. It is a modern native layer on top of Win32 and the Windows Kernel that replaces Win32 APIs and other frameworks like MFC for the native world and many of the .NET classes and technologies for the managed environment..."

Bloggers : Alon Fliess
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Taking an Alternate Approach to a GridView

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:25:44 GMT

Paul Sheriff writes "...Next time you are designing how to display a lot of data to your users, really think about how you can make this display simpler. Normally all it takes is a little discussion with your user to find out what data is most important. That data should be made to stand out in your list. You can still use a GridView control, but take advantage of the..."

Bloggers : Paul Sheriff
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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BUILD: In C# and Async You will Never Write Another Callback!

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:41:51 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...In a nutshell, that’s what these features add to the language: Transformations so that you can write code that looks and reads like today’s synchronous code, and the compiler will transform that into the necessary constructs for async behavior. The compiler will create the state machine, and write the callback code for you..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: I Tried an Experiment with the Windows 8 Tablet

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:48:30 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...my first day back in the office for my job...I decided that I would try an experiment. I would use only my Windows 8 tablet that I received at the Build conference last week for both my work and play. I put away my Lenovo laptop...and my iPad...The key thing that I realized after one full day with Windows 8 is that the new Metro UI is..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: 5 Year Prediction on WinRT and Business Apps

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:44:08 GMT

Rockford Lhotka writes "...At //build/ this past week I heard numerous people suggest that WinRT and Metro aren’t going to be used for business app development. That Metro is for consumer apps only. These comments were from Microsoft and non-Microsoft people...I think they are wrong...In short, my prediction is that 5 years from now there’ll be “legacy Windows developers” still building stuff that runs in the clunky desktop mode. And there’ll be..."

Bloggers : Rockford Lhotka
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: A Tale of Two Windows

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:37:13 GMT

Andrew Brust writes "...In working with Windows 8, I have felt an odd combination of excitement and concern. Each time I feel anticipation for something in Windows 8 that looks really neat, I keep feeling a counterweight, an amorphous tug of caution, pulling me back. For about 2 days, I couldn’t put my finger on what was causing this Newton’s Third Law of Windows within me. And then I figured it out. Microsoft itself faces..."

Bloggers : Andrew Brust
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Windows 8 Dev Stack - My Take On It

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:48:52 GMT

Vinod Unny writes "...the major questions revolving around the developer story was about the relationships between the different components to create apps for it. “Is .NET/SilverLight dead?”, “Do we create only HTML5/CSS/JS apps now” etc. were the ones that everyone had. However, while the conference cleared up a lot of things, it still kept the discussions going. Here’s my take..."

Bloggers : Vinod Unny
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Great Time to be a Developer

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:55:27 GMT

Kate Gregory writes "...Links to videos, discussions of sessions I either went to or tried to go to...I have a lot of watching, coding, thinking, reading and talking to do so I can establish what all this means. But hey, why not join me? It's a great time to be a developer..."

Bloggers : Kate Gregory
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Windows 8, WinRT and Metro are a Big Deal

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:33:10 GMT

Rockford Lhotka writes "...Microsoft revealed quite a lot of detail about "Windows 8" and its programming model at the //build/ conference in September 2011. The result is a lot of excitement, and a lot of fear and worry, on the part of Microsoft developers and customers....From what I've seen so far..."

Bloggers : Rockford Lhotka
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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BUILD: C# Future Directions

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:32:17 GMT

Christian Nagel writes "...Looking more into the future of C#, Anders introduced the current state of compiler as a service. Scenarios that are possible with this are meta-programming, read-eval-print loops...C# deeply supports the Windows Runtime, makes async programming really easy, hybrid C#/JavaScript applications are easy to do, and a CTP for Roslyn will be available soon...."

Bloggers : Christian Nagel
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: C# Futures, Metro, Developer Tools

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:31:56 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...Anyone that still feels managed code, C# and VB.NET are no longer first class citizens in Windows 8 must watch Anders’ talk about the future directions of C# and VB.NET. The first part of the talk was discussing the async programming metaphor for Windows 8, and how the managed languages support those concepts. One goal of the Windows 8 runtime and the Windows 8 libraries is to avoid the infamous spinning..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Silverlight-Windows 8-Metro Apps and the Rest of the Story

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:31:30 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...Now that we could get Windows 8 in our hands, some things are becoming more clear. First of all, Silverlight continues to be a first class citizen in Windows 8 desktop apps...The story changes when it comes to Metro apps. Turns out that the Metro version of IE 10 does not currently support plug-ins (no SL, no Flash). So you won’t be able to run your SL app in Metro mode. At first sight, this sounds like a bummer. After a more detailed analysis..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Silverlight Developers Have a Smooth Road to Metro

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:28:26 GMT

Brian Noyes writes "...Now I am not saying your Silverlight apps are going to “just run” or that you won’t have to do some non-trivial porting to turn a Silverlight application into a Metro application, but there will be a lot less impedance mismatch there than there will be for your typical WPF or Windows Forms application...while it is not going to be “just a weekend project” to port a significant Silverlight application to Metro..."

Bloggers : Brian Noyes
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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Did You Notice C++ AMP? You Really Need To

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:27:32 GMT

Kate Gregory writes "...you might like to read a little background on why heterogeneous computing matters, what other options you might have for doing it, and why C++ AMP is what you want to use. I've done a small whitepaper on just that and would love you to read it and let me know what you think..."

Bloggers : Kate Gregory
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Why Microsoft Needs a Metro-Only Edition of Windows 8

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:05:02 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...I can tell you that the new Metro UI experience is awesome. The iPad will have true competition...I asked a Microsoft executive point blank yesterday if they were going to have a tablet Metro-only SKU of Windows. While he said my question was “insightful”, he said..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: WinRT and Managed Languages

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:02:34 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...I’m actually very pleased with what I saw today about the WinRT APIs and the C# language...You should recognize that the Metro UI represents a rather large sea change in what makes a great application in Windows. If you ignore it, your applications will start looking dated. However, this doesn’t mean you should rewrite your applications in WinRT. At least not yet..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Metro Style Apps API has Natural Feel for Developers

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:00:53 GMT

Marcel de Vries writes "...The big line that should be on that slide is to indicate that as of windows 8 there are 2 types of applications you build. Either Metro Style, or desktop. there is no way both sides can talk to each other or directly share anything together other then file sharing or service operations via a server on the backend...one key thing surrounding all of this...application UI design is starting to matter more then..."

Bloggers : Marcel de Vries
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: .NET Gets a New Lease on Life

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:56:09 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...Windows 8 comes with the full version of .NET 4.5. Here’s the proof...You can use it either for desktop apps which benefit from the full power of the OS and the .NET Framework, or you can use it to develop Metro apps which benefit from the CLR and the native, high performance, layer of WinRT..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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BUILD: Cool Full ALM Tool Visual Studio Team Foundation Service Preview

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:56:34 GMT

Richard Hundhausen writes "...Visual Studio Team Foundation Service Preview which is available...This preview is more than just a “rent-a-source-control-repository” in the sky, but it’s a full ALM tool that..."

Bloggers : Richard Hundhausen
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Optimized Samsung Slate 700T

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:58:37 GMT

Joe Homnick writes "...Really cool thing about the Windows 8 approach is that there is a new Metro Natural User Interface optimized for inputs like touch, pen, and we will see what else, however it can be easily converted to a powerful desktop device with all the inputs you know and love, like keyboard, mouse, usb devices, etc....Here are the specifications of the machine..."

Bloggers : Joe Homnick
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Great Integration and Features

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:55:48 GMT

Christian Nagel writes "...Use what you know, do what you’ve always imagined...The new Windows API – Windows Runtime (WinRT) – that’s implemented native within the operating system is the new API to get to the features of the operating system. This API doesn’t look similar to the dated Windows API but more like the .NET Framework. It looks like..."

Bloggers : Christian Nagel
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Polished Windows 8 Developer Preview

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:55:22 GMT

Scott Golightly writes "...I saw some things I really liked in the next version of Visual Studio. I like what I saw of the tools and controls. What I was hoping for but didn’t see was a way to make CSS easier...it seems that Silverlight and WPF as separate technologies will be subsumed into the Windows Runtime (RT)...We were told that Windows 8 will be released when..."

Bloggers : Scott Golightly
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Fast and Fluid Immersive Apps

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:53:35 GMT

Marcel de Vries writes "...this one slide shows the most important part of the developer story. The way we think of our applications today, is an application that is either .NET...web application that uses HTML and JavaScript or an “native” C++ application using the win32 API directly.The next generation of applications that we can build on top of windows will now..."

Bloggers : Marcel de Vries
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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BUILD: Ambitious Computing Changes

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:57:01 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...Steven Sinofsky discusses the changing world of computing. Form factors and user interaction models change how programs should work. I’m gad that’s at the core of Windows 8 design. In addition, Mobility now means devices that you use while carrying, not just devices you carry and then use. They have clearly been spending a lot of time determining what’s important to users now..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD: Re-Imagining Windows from the Chipset

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:41:55 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...I'll just stick with my first love: the developer story. As you probably already know, a very heated debate is going on for quite some time regarding the Windows 8 developer story. Folks were concerned about the future of .NET, Silverlight, and XAML. It took Sinofsky one slide to clear things:...the most amazing thing about Windows 8 its the UI. Simply put, it's just fantastic...It's been proven once again..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

BUILD Day 1 Keynote

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:39:32 GMT

David Yack writes "...This morning kicked off day one of the Microsoft Build Windows conference where developers got the first preview of building apps on Windows 8. It's been an interesting few months leading up to the conference as many people were speculating everything that they could get someone to believe....few random thoughts to get started…"

Bloggers : David Yack
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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Taking Advantage of Windows 7 with Web Pages

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:42:59 GMT

Christian Nagel writes "...The Windows 7 taskbar is one of the great improvements of Windows 7. Users can pin applications to the taskbar so the application is fast accessible...The .NET 4 version of WPF got an improvement that integrating the application with the task bar becomes an easy task...First, I’m adding a custom icon to the Web application..."

Bloggers : Christian Nagel
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

From Normal Collections to Generic Collections

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:38:09 GMT

Paul Sheriff writes "...There really is no reason to use the CollectionBase class anymore. In fact, you can not use CollectionBase in Silverlight or Windows Phone apps. You may still find reasons to use ArrayList and possibly even SortedList or other non-generic collections, however, 99% of the time you will take advantage of the Generics namespace and classes...download...article and many samples..."

Bloggers : Paul Sheriff
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Why the AppStore Business Model is Dead

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:35:51 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...Back in January, I argued that AppStores are not necessary as mobile economics mature and start to mimic web economics. Why do I need to download Skype from the AppStore when I can just go to Skype.com and do the same?...Apple changed the rules and suddenly the AppStore looks like it may die a toddler. Back in February..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Visual Studio Live in Redmond Oct 17-21, 2011

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:34:15 GMT

Marcel de Vries writes "...come to VS Live, you can book your ticket with additional discount. If you use the following link or use the promotion code..."

Bloggers : Marcel de Vries
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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A New Blog Inspired by Zune and Metro UI

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:38:33 GMT

Daron Yondem writes "...I had some free time during my summer vacation and started coding the blog you read at the moment...As you see I’m pretty inspired by the Zune software interface and Metro UI...When you navigate to the archive you will see that the list contains Turkish blog posts as well...Now you will find an in-site Microsoft Translator..."

Bloggers : Daron Yondem
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Cloud Computing Dodged a Legal Bullet

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:34:45 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...While this seems like a small thing, it is huge. By providing the Cloud providers legal immunity, the same immunity terrestrial providers enjoy, the legal system has validated the business model of the entire cloud computing industry and guarantees an entire industry will not suffer legal limbo. It is still illegal to download unlicensed content, however, the liability is on..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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The End of an Era. Now What?

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:52:31 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...With Steve Jobs leaving Apple, our industry faces something it hasn’t faced in decades. The two men that built the PC era, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, have both left the companies they founded...Throughout their careers, both men said that they “created the products they wanted to use themselves.” I think there’s a lesson there for every business..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

The Unofficial BUILD Precon

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:26:29 GMT

Guy Barrette writes "...If you planned your Build trip so that you can attend the Monday pre-cons, well you know now that they have been cancelled. I guess that MS feared that they would steal thunder from their keynotes. Anyway, your previous option was to go to Disneyland. Now you have a second option..."

Bloggers : Guy Barrette
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Moving Beyond Enums

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:24:46 GMT

Steven Smith writes "...article on ASPAlliance on Moving Beond Enums describing when and how to move from enums to classes in your code when you start demanding more from your enums than they were designed to give. Check it out and let me know what you think. I also thought I’d post an alternate LINQ-ified version of the DisplayFriendlyNames() method I used in the article..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Wondering About .NET

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:22:43 GMT

Rockford Lhotka writes "...The past decade working in .NET has been one of pure joy...But let’s face it, the future of .NET really is an unknown at this point. If BUILD is all about HTML 5, JavaScript, and C++, then .NET is de facto dead on the client, and will probably suffer a slow but sure death on the server too.On the other hand, if .NET has a substantial place for creating first-class Win8 apps, then..."

Bloggers : Rockford Lhotka
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Exploring Lazy Evaluation, LINQ and Functional Programming

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:16:13 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...read this not as general performance guidelines, but as a way to understand Lazy Evaluation, LINQ, and Functional Programming. A developer asked me a question about an algorithm that calculated some statistics for a very large sequence of numbers. Here’s a (slightly) modified version of the code that calculated the Standard Deviation:..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

WP7 Ad Control and OutOfMemory Exception

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:13:57 GMT

David Yack writes "...Recently we added the Windows Phone Ad Control to one of our existing applications. It ran fine on the emulator but as soon as you put it on a real device it crashed with a System.OutOfMemoryException. Turns out after a little investigation and locating this forum post the issue is related to..."

Bloggers : David Yack
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

WPF ListBox Positioning Using a Canvas

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:13:27 GMT

Christian Nagel writes "...What panel could be used for this – a list of elements, and an element should be selectable – usually that’s the job of a ListBox. However, how can the elements in the ListBox be positioned using X/Y coordinates? For this job a Canvas can be used. Using a Canvas element for the ListBox turned out to be really simple as this article describes..."

Bloggers : Christian Nagel
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

The Truth about EEFs in WES 7

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:11:30 GMT

Alexander Wechsler writes "...Microsoft claims that WES 7 is “on par” with the XP embedded WES 2009 EEFs, but this is not completely true! In WES 7 the following functionalities are not included:..."

Bloggers : Alexander Wechsler
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
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AppleSoft Basics

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:17:21 GMT

Andrew Brust writes "...I’m not an expert on Apple or Jobs...Steve Jobs’ resignation from the CEO post does mark the end of a related era I know something about. It’s the era that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs defined together...it’s important to consider just how much these two men did together to pioneer the industry we now..."

Bloggers : Andrew Brust
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Ready for Pickup! Advanced Silverlight 5 Webinar Files

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:07:52 GMT

Gill Cleeren writes "...I gave a webinar on Advanced Silverlight 5 development for SilverlightShow.net...great feedback on it...download the slides and the demos..."

Bloggers : Gill Cleeren
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Silverlight

Nobody Wants a Tablet!

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:54:48 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...Go into an electronics store and try to buy an Android tablet. They will ask you a lot of questions to make sure you really want it. Why? They are flooded with returns. The tablet marketing is selling the “whole web” and “tablet computer” with USB ports for keyboards, etc, and folks are thinking that they are buying a laptop replacement. Tablets are not laptop replacements...My prediction is..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Working with SimpleMembership Outside of ASP.NET

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:52:23 GMT

Steven Smith writes "....I’m using SimpleMembership, from WebMatrix’s distribution(WebMatrix.WebData), with an ASP.NET MVC 3 application...there is a private read-only field that must be set to false in the ProviderCollections that hold the Membership and Role providers, and the call to Roles.Enabled can be replaced by directly setting the private static flag that this setter ultimately refers to. The updated code for Start() looks like this:..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : ASPNET
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Visual Studio Live in Redmond

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:29:33 GMT

Rockford Lhotka writes "As one of the conference chairs, and a speaker at the event, I highly recommend this show. We have a great lineup of speakers and topics that provide practical information you can use today, and content that will help you plan for the future. When you register, use code..."

Bloggers : Rockford Lhotka
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Tools for Kids Creating Software

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:29:21 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...Build something small so that the person gets that satisfaction early in the process. Once they start building small things, they’re on their way. Then, start going after larger projects. There are a lot of options for tools, which to pick will depend on the student’s age and their goal. Any of these would be a good choice..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

How to Clean a LightSwitch Solution

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:29:13 GMT

Gill Cleeren writes "...When developing LightSwitch applications with Visual Studio, a newly created (and built) solution is quite heavy on disk space. We are talking of about 100 – 130MB per solution...Running this file cleans all unnecessary files...from the solution folder, making it easier to store many solutions on your local disk...You can download the file from this link..."

Bloggers : Gill Cleeren
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Building HTML5 and JS Applications

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 19:01:19 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...HTML5+JS is a technology that is here to stay. This leads us to the problem with building HTML5+JS applications today...Building an HTML5+JS application will undoubtedly involve using jQuery due to its ease of use and near ubiquity. That said, you have to wire up a lot of different components to get your application up and running. Depending on your application, you may need things that..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

TechDays 2011 Session Submissions Now Open!

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:57:22 GMT

Guy Barrette writes "...TechDays 2011, a wider “Call for Speakers”. If you’re interested in speaking..."

Bloggers : Guy Barrette
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Did Google and HP Thread the WP7 Needle?

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:54:12 GMT

Andrew Brust writes "...In the space of four days, Google may have effectively taken Android “private” and HP seems to have euthanized webOS in public. It’s really hard to believe all of this is happening. But we can at least have a go at understanding what it means and what might, or might not, come next for Microsoft as a result..."

Bloggers : Andrew Brust
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Using the ASP.NET MVC 3 Logon returnUrl Parameter

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:32:08 GMT

Mike Snell writes "...The ASP.NET MVC 3 default template includes an AccountController class, an AccountModels class, and a set of views in the Account folder. Together, these items allow for managing ASP.NET security including register, logon, and change password. Absent from the template, however, is an good method or example of how to use the returnUrl parameter that exists inside the Logon method of the Account controller..."

Bloggers : Mike Snell
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : ASPNET

The New 5th Era in Application Development

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:30:20 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...I believe that we are now entering a 5th era: the Device + Cloud era. Simply said, the Device + Cloud (D+C) era is defined by users having multiple devices and running thin applications that share data via the cloud on each of them...I have five devices that I use and travel with:..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

ASP.NET MVC Route Debugger is One Handy Tool

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:26:23 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...I was having trouble getting error redirection working in an ASP.NET MVC site deployed on Azure...When you’re working in Azure, you need to remember that you almost certainly won’t have the same environment you have on your local box. You’ll be missing dependencies. You need to manage those when..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : ASPNET
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks

Calling a Scalar UDF with EXEC

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:54:59 GMT

Greg Low writes "...While I'd obviously used it to call a stored procedure, it had never dawned on me that you could use EXEC to call a scalar UDF, so I had to try it. Sure enough, it's obviously worked for a long time. Here's an example of a function and calling it as I would have in the past:..."

Bloggers : Greg Low
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : SQL Server

Build a Rich Desktop App in HTML5

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:52:44 GMT

Sondre Bjellas writes "...the best tip I got from his [Ingo Rammer] talk, was to start using Adobe AIR as the shell for your HTML 5 applications...Adobe AIR includes the WebKit browser engine which more or less supports some of the HTML 5 features...To start off, I suggest using the HTML 5 boilerplate..."

Bloggers : Sondre Bjellas
InDepthTalk.net
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Setting Default Values for Slicers in PowerPivot

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:21:02 GMT

Greg Low writes "...I've been doing some work with PowerPivot and SharePoint/Excel Services this week. I wanted the user interface to have slicers for: Year Month Day But I wanted the slicer to be preselected for the current month. There is no property on the slicers to set a default value. I read a number of websites and the suggestion was to..."

Bloggers : Greg Low
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : SQL Server

Turning on the LightSwitch, in Five Movements

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:19:08 GMT

Andrew Brust writes "...Take a look at LightSwitch and keep a lookout for its progress and success. The best way to really get the product is to learn the tooling quickly, then think of a database and application you need to build out and see how fast you can get it running using the product. You may be surprised, not only by..."

Bloggers : Andrew Brust
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Validating Emails for System.Net.Mail

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:17:55 GMT

Steven Smith writes "...If you’ve worked with the System.Net.Mail API to send out messages, you may have run into the fact that when you add an email address to a message, it will sometimes throw an exception if the email doesn’t appear to be valid..."

Bloggers : Steven Smith
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Time to Check Your LinkedIn Settings

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:16:11 GMT

David Yack writes "...I came across this post talking about how LinkedIn now has options for if your picture can be used in advertising and e-mail preferences allow unsolicited e-mail from 3rd party. I thought for sure the post had to be wrong, I’ve always thought of LinkedIn as being above those games, but sure enough the post was accurate and my profile was enabled without my permission. So go now, and check your settings the post here has details on how to do it..."

Bloggers : David Yack
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Help! My WES 7 on a VHD boots into BSOD 12F...

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 22:04:10 GMT

Alexander Wechsler writes "..Blue screens certainly not nice nor really helpful! A nasty one may appear if you apply a WIM file with an image that normally runs fine on disk to a VHD (virtual hard disk) file. The problem in this case is that one needs one special component to run from VHD, which is called “Advanced File System”. This component includes..."

Bloggers : Alexander Wechsler
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Starbucks in Japan is Using Kanban for Quality

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:50:44 GMT

Stephen Forte writes "...Kanban is also being used in operations outside of manufacturing and software. In his book, Kanban, David Anderson described how Kanban is used to do crowd control at the Imperial Gardens in Tokyo...I had a similar experience this past weekend...When you look at this system as a whole, it is pretty simple, yet brilliant. Maybe we can start to use visual signal cards as part of the QA process in software development..."

Bloggers : Stephen Forte
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Knowing When to Turn Off Your Attention to Detail

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:47:34 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "...New grads carry that obsessive attention to every detail into their first assignment...The professional world is different. The projects are larger. The teams are larger. Projects aren’t designed around semesters and small teams; projects are scoped to business needs...As a developer, you still must pay attention to detail...But, you also need a new skill: You must ignore those details that don’t help you achieve your goal. You must learn to trust that libraries and components do what..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Removing File Extensions in Windows 7

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:43:52 GMT

Scott Golightly writes "...Today I was working with someone and thought we had a permissions problem opening a .DLL file in a particular directory. I had them open the file with notepad.exe to check to see if they had rights. Before I could warn them about the checkbox to always open .DLLs with notepad they had clicked on the OK button. I wanted to clean up the association...I found this process and it worked for me..."

Bloggers : Scott Golightly
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Microsoft Windows Client

Using Visual Studio 2010 in Different Environments

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:42:04 GMT

Sergey Zwezdin writes "...In these situations you will need to change development environment settings frequently that...become strongly ineffective. And in this case the logical decision to automate these actions. Two approaches can be the solution of this problem: [1] Usage of prepared settings for IDE for each case. [2] Usage of several isolated instances of IDE. Let's consider each of them..."

Bloggers : Sergey Zwezdin
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Visual Studio

Troubleshooting MS.Internal.WrappedException

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:41:41 GMT

Marcel de Vries writes "...In my quest on finding what was going wrong I opened the page in Expression Blend, to see if that might give me a clue. and what do you think, it immediately showed me the message “Invalid XAML”!...The great thing about blend is that it not only showed me that my XAML was incorrect, but it even showed me that the culprit of the problem was the value converter. So my advice if you run into..."

Bloggers : Marcel de Vries
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

A Scrum Comparison of the MSF-Agile and VS Scrum Templates

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:38:54 GMT

Richard Hundhausen writes "...While it’s possible for a Scrum team to use the MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0 process template to implement Scrum, it makes more sense to use the Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 process template, as it was created specifically for teams using Scrum. That said, I wanted to share with you an objective side-by-side comparison of the two templates:..."

Bloggers : Richard Hundhausen
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Standup Isn't About What You Say, It's About What You Hear

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:30:30 GMT

Bill Wagner writes "... If you spend 30 minutes to save another project team hours, that helps optimize the whole...some one else will probably be able to save you hours by spending 30 minutes helping you...even though we have grown to the point where we now have anywhere from 5 to 10 projects running concurrently. That cross-project communication helps all our projects. It’s also one way to..."

Bloggers : Bill Wagner
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Working with XAML Screen Layout

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:25:48 GMT

Paul Sheriff writes "...When you first start designing XAML screens in either WPF or Silverlight there are several approaches you can take...Which one you choose has ramifications to how well your application looks and feels across a wide variety of resolution sizes. This article will explore the impact of each of these....download this article and many samples like the one shown..."

Bloggers : Paul Sheriff
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Robocopy Exclude Director Syntax

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:19:57 GMT

Venkatarangan Tnc writes "...I am an ardent user of Microsoft’s free command line utility “Robocopy” for copying folders between drives or perform a manual backup of my documents to an external drive. I have been using this for more than a decade now. Over the years the folders that I want to be excluded while copying has increased and I have never bothered to check the parameters. Today I realized I have been inadvertently copying..."

Bloggers : Venkatarangan Tnc
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

DevTeach in Ottawa This Year, Early Registration

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:47:14 GMT

Guy Barrette writes "...DevTeach will be presenting a conference in Ottawa (November 2nd to 4th)....Take advantage right now of our low prices. If you register to the main conference before August 1st..."

Bloggers : Guy Barrette
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Modern C++, Not Your Father's C++!

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:45:10 GMT

Kate Gregory writes "...If you think C++ means manual memory management, strings as arrays of characters and a strange cast of global functions, and longing for a library or framework that might rival what .NET has to offer, then you haven't been keeping up with C++...You know there's been a lot of talk about the C++ Renaissance. I'm happy to see that phrase get picked up, and I've got another one for you..."

Bloggers : Kate Gregory
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk