And in other news, someone let Heidelberger on TV again… Did I mention that Governor Dennis Daugaard’s HB 1234 is a really, really bad idea? Save your school! Sign the petition! Call your legislators! Update 19:57 MST: KDLT found it worth their while to report on the groundswell against HB 1234 as well. KDLT also [...]
Madville Times

In this third part of our exploration of Windows 8 and WinRT, we’re going to start applying the concepts we learned about in the 2 first parts by using them in code. By now, you should have a good understanding of what Windows 8 Metro style applications are all about. In part 1, we’ve thoroughly explained how Windows 8 applications work inside the Metro environment. We’ve also looked at the improvements made to the desktop mode of Windows 8, which is a place where a lot of us will be spending most of their time I assume.

In Part 2, we’ve seen some very important concepts. We’ve covered WinRT itself: we’ve looked at its architecture and its cornerstones, such as the runtime broker, Windows Metadata and asynchronous development. We’ve also touched on the Windows 8 tailored profile.

This brings us to Part 3. In this article, we’ll start writing code that makes use of WinRT components. Although most of us like to write XAML and C# code, we’ll leave the regular path for once and we’ll write some JavaScript/HTML as well. After some “Hello Worlds”, we’ll dive in more advanced concepts including Capabilities, the Share contract, working with the webcam and some more. Here we go!

Hello World… This time for real

In part 2, I already had the same heading. However, we hadn’t really written any code yet. So let’s do that right now. Note that for all the code we are writing here, you need Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Developer Preview installed on a Windows 8 machine. To keep things simple, when I use the term”Visual Studio” from now on, it’s this version I’m referring to. If you have Visual Studio 11 installed on your Windows 8 environment as well, the templates that come with the Express edition will also be added to VS11.

A small disclaimer is in place here: the code written in this article is written and tested on the developer preview and may not work correctly with later releases.

Hello Visual Studio

When opening Visual Studio, you’ll notice that things haven’t changed a lot (of course, at the time of writing, we’re using a very early version). When clicking on the New Project link on the Start Page, you get the New Project dialog, shown below.

In part 2, we talked about the so-called language projections of WinRT. A language projection makes it possible to use WinRT, which is written in native code, from another language. Because of this, developers can keep using the language of their choice to write Metro style applications. The language projection makes sure that language constructs remain intact. Things like a constructor, the var keyword, the await keyword all remain the same if you choose to use WinRT from C#. The language projections that are available can be seen here: we can build Metro style apps from JavaScript, C#, VB and C++. All languages have the same project templates available as well.

Let’s start by selecting the C# option. Create a new project (just select the regular Application template for now) and name it HelloWinRTFromCs. Visual Studio opens a designer that should look familiar to the Silverlight developer. We have our regular drag-and drop interface and a XAML editor, as shown below.

In the XAML editor, we can start writing our typical “Hello World” application as follows:

<UserControlx:Class="HelloWinRTFromCs.MainPage"

    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"

    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"

    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"

    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"

    mc:Ignorable="d"

    d:DesignHeight="768"d:DesignWidth="1366">

    <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot"Background="#FF0C0C0C">

        <TextBlock Name="HelloWorldTextBlock" FontSize="42" Margin="20"></TextBlock>

        <Button Content="I'm the Hello World generator button" Name="HelloWorldButton"

            Click="HelloWorldButton_Click"></Button>

    </Grid>

</UserControl>

In the event handler of the Button, we write the following code:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

using Windows.Foundation;

using Windows.UI.Xaml;

using Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls;

using Windows.UI.Xaml.Data;

namespace HelloWinRTFromCs

{

    partial class MainPage

    {

        public MainPage()

        {

            InitializeComponent();

        }

        private void HelloWorldButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

        {

            HelloWorldTextBlock.Text = "Hello World from SilverlightShow";

        }

    }

}

Ready? Start your debugging engines! Simply hit F5 as you’re used to. Your first Windows is now being prepared. If you take a look in the Output Window, you can see that an *.exe is being created and that *.exe is being packaged into an *.appxrecipe. This file is basically the deployment file that will be “hosted” inside of the Metro environment. After a few seconds, you’ll see your Metro app up and running as shown below. Hit the Button and you’ll be greeted with a nice Hello World from your app when you click the button.

Visual Studio also comes with a simulator. To use it to test your app on, simply select it from the debug options. The simulator is shown below.

Hello C++

Managed developers should feel reassured already a bit now that they’ve seen that it’s pretty much the same thing we’re doing to build a Metro style app. But what about C++ developers? Let’s build the same app but now from C++. The XAML code can be directly copied and pasted inside the new project. This will work since all XAML classes (such as Button and TextBlock) have now moved into the Windows.UI.Xaml namespace. This namespace is part of WinRT and it is thus the same one we’re using in both C# and C++.

The C++ code for the event handler is shown below.

void Application33::MainPage::HelloWorldButton_Click(Platform::Object^ sender, Windows::UI::Xaml::RoutedEventArgs^ e)

{

HelloWorldTextBlock->Text = "Hello World";

}

When running the application, you should get the exact same result. Behind the scenes, our C++ code is being compiled into a native x86 instruction stream (if we would be running this on an ARM-based device, this would be an ARM instruction stream). C++ is directly interacting with the WinRT components.

And why not… Hello JavaScript and HTML

To make the circle complete, let’s write a Hello World app from JavaScript as well. Of course, we’re unable to copy the XAML; JavaScript works in combination with HTML code. Create a new project and select JavaScript this time.

In the HTML code, write your Hello World app as follows:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

    <meta charset="utf-8" />

    <title>WinWebApp6</title>

    <!-- WinJS references -->

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/winjs/css/ui-dark.css" />

    <script src="/winjs/js/base.js"></script>
   1:  

   2:     <script src="/winjs/js/wwaapp.js">

   1: </script>

   2:     <!-- WinWebApp6 references -->

   3:     <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/default.css" />

   4:     <script src="/js/default.js">
</script>

</head>

<body>

    <b>Hello World</b>

</body>

</html>

More WinRT

Although new development platform or language you learn starts with Hello World, it doesn’t get you very far. Let’s look at some more concepts.

Selecting files on the local file system using the FileOpenPicker

Metro apps can’t directly access system resources such as the file system. It’s pretty much the same story as Silverlight that we have here: in-browser Silverlight apps can only get access to file if the user selects the file through an OpenFileDialog. In that case, Silverlight gets read-only access to the file. Apps with elevated permissions can get access to the local system.

In WinRT, we have file pickers. Such a picker allows the user to select a file on the “underlying” Windows desktop environment. In the following code, we are using the FileOpenPicker to allow the user to select an image, which we’ll then display in an Image control.

private async void SelectImageButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

{

    var filePicker = new Windows.Storage.Pickers.FileOpenPicker();

    filePicker.FileTypeFilter.Add(".png");

    var selectedImageGuFile = await filePicker.PickSingleFileAsync();

    BitmapImage bitmapImage = new BitmapImage();

    bitmapImage.SetSource(await selectedImageGuFile.OpenAsync(Windows.Storage.FileAccessMode.Read));

    myImage.Source = bitmapImage;

}

Notice the line where we are selecting the file. It makes use of the await keyword. Every call that can take longer than 50ms is done asynchronously by default in WinRT. Silverlight developers are already used to writing async code: when accessing a service, this is the default. Traditionally, we solved this with a callback method. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, this new approach using the await keyword, makes things cleaner: all the lines that are behind the line with the await keyword are only executed when the asynchronous call is completed. Note that the method itself has the async keyword added to it.

When clicking the Button, the file picker displays itself as follows:

Again, through language projections, the asynchronous development is made natural in the language. In JavaScript, the same can be achieved through a JavaScript promise:

var picker = new Windows.Storage.Pickers.FileOpenPicker;

picker.fileTypeFilter.append(".jpg");

picker.pickSingleFileAsync().then;

Accessing the picture library and Capabilities

Next to the pickers API, Metro-style applications can also access some folders directly such as the pictures library. Although stating “directly” may not be very good, let me explain.

In Windows 8, Metro style applications can declare capabilities. A capability is a way for the application to declare that for it to function properly, it needs to have a certain permission. Such a permission can be accessing the webcam, sending text messages, accessing the picture, movie or documents library and quite a few more. This information will be used in the Windows Store: with this information, the Windows Store can notify the potential user that the application will have the declared permissions so that the user may decide on not installing the application. This is the same process as in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Let’s take a look at working with capabilities. We’ll try them out using a project which can access the picture library. Create a new C# project and name it WorkingWithCapabilities.

To define a capability, we can open the appxmanifest file, included in each Metro style project. In the Capabilities tab, check the “Picture Library Access”.

In the XAML, add a GridView (we’ll look at the GridView later on, for now, just remember that it’s a control allowing you to scroll through items horizontally) as follows:

<GridView Name="PicturesGridView" Height="500" VerticalAlignment="Center"></GridView>

In the code-behind, add the following code:

public MainPage()

        {

            InitializeComponent();

            LoadImages();

        }

private async void LoadImages()

{

    StorageFolder picturesFolder = KnownFolders.PicturesLibrary;

    IReadOnlyList<IStorageFile> fileList = await picturesFolder.GetFilesAsync();

    foreach (IStorageFile file in fileList)

    {

        if (file.FileType.Equals(".JPG"))

        {

            var bmp = new BitmapImage();

            var f = await file.OpenAsync(FileAccessMode.Read);

            bmp.SetSource(f);

            Image image = new Image();

            image.Width = 200;

            image.Height = 200;

            image.Source = bmp;

            imageControls.Add(image);

            image.Tag = file;

        }

    }

    PicturesGridView.ItemsSource = imageControls;

}

Notice that we are accessing the Picture Library through the use of the KnownFolders enumeration, which gives us access to the folder from code. This code will however only work when you have indicated in the Capabilities tab that your app needs access to this folder. Then, we read out the files through another async call (remember, we are accessing the drive, which could be a slow process, hence, the async call). Finally, through data binding, we bind a list of images to the GridView. The running app is shown below:

Summary

In this article, we have done our first development in WinRT. We have looked at the first concepts as well, such as the file pickers and the capabilities. In the next article, we’ll continue on this path, exploring more concepts such as contracts/charms in Windows 8.

About the author

Gill Cleeren is Microsoft Regional Director (www.theregion.com), Silverlight MVP (former ASP.NET MVP) and Telerik MVP. He lives in Belgium where he works as .NET architect at Ordina (http://www.ordina.be/). Passionate about .NET, he’s always playing with the newest bits. In his role as Regional Director, Gill has given many sessions, webcasts and trainings on new as well as existing technologies, such as Silverlight, ASP.NET and WPF at conferences including TechEd Berlin 2010, TechDays Belgium – Switzerland – Sweden, DevDays NL, NDC Oslo Norway, SQL Server Saturday Switserland, Spring Conference UK, Silverlight Roadshow in Sweden, Telerik RoadShow UK… He’s also the author of many articles in various developer magazines and for SilverlightShow.net and he organizes the yearly Community Day event in Belgium. He also leads Visug (www.visug.be), the largest .NET user group in Belgium. Gill recently published his first book: “Silverlight 4 Data and Services Cookbook” (Packt Publishing). His second book, Silverlight 5 Data and Services Cookbook will be released March 2012. You can find his blog at www.snowball.be.

Twitter: @gillcleeren

SilverlightShow: Silverlight Community

South Dakota’s schools deserve solutions that work. Sign this petition to tell Governor Daugaard to take time to find the right solutions. Governor Dennis Daugaard insists that South Dakota’s schools are failing, even though neither he nor anyone else has clearly defined just what the problem with our K-12 system is. The Governor says drastic [...]
Madville Times

Here is the new SilverlightShow content for Monday, February 13th, 2012.

• Upcoming SilverlightShow Webinar: Windows Phone Raw Camera Access
• A Case Study for Building Advanced Windows Phone Applications – Code Samples
• WP7 Sample: Use Location Services *and* get Certified!
• Background audio in Windows Phone 7.5 (Part 1)
• Silverlight Video Tutorial: Importing Photoshop Files into Expression Blend
• Windows 8 is not all about Tablets, it’s about the future
• The Gradual Decline in Silverlight Adoption
• Get the tilt effect and the click event, everywhere
• Learn Windows Phone 7 Development in 31 Days – Day 13 – Working with Tile Notification in WP7
• Creating A LightSwitch Collection Control Extension
• Silverlight Video Tutorial: Make a Sliding Panel ALL in Blend (NO Code-Behind) with ONE Toggle Button
• Build a Windows Phone Game with the Farseer Physics Engine (Video)
• Uploading an Image to Facebook in Windows Phone 7 (Silverlight)
• How to download and save images in WP7 Media Library

Missed last week’s news? Check them out at our End-of-week Content Recap!

SilverlightShow: Silverlight Community

Upcoming SilverlightShow Webinar: Windows Phone Raw Camera Access
 

March 15th, 2012, 11 am PDT (check your local time)

Register for this webinar
 

Webinar topic summary:
Starting with the “Mango” release, developers have programmatic raw access to the cameras on Windows Phone devices. This enables a whole set of new possibilities for application authors, for example to capture video and stills, to perform real-time manipulation of the camera feed, and to create augmented reality scenarios. 

In this webinar, we will learn how to access and integrate the camera feed in our applications, work with some of the related features like choosing between the main and front-facing cameras, adjusting focus and using the flash, and see how to access and manipulate raw image data. We will also learn about limitations and potential problems you will run into when you work with raw camera access.

Presenter: Peter Kuhn. 

Give your feedback on this webinar in our post-webinar survey! Three if you will win Peter’s SilverlightShow ebook ‘Getting Ready for The Windows Phone 7′ Exam 70-599′.

Sign up as a Silverlight Show member or follow us on Twitter / join our LinkedIn Group to get notified about next scheduled SilverlightShow webinars. Or, visit our webinars page.

About the webinar presenter:

Peter Kuhn, aka “Mister Goodcat” is an MCPD for .NET, Silverlight and Windows Phone 7, and has earned the Microsoft Community Contributor award in 2011. He has more than ten years of experience as developer, project lead and technical director. Today he works as trainer for Microsoft .NET, Silverlight business application development and the Windows Phone 7 platform (both Silverlight and XNA), and as technical author. You can find his trainings and more info on http://www.goodcat-trainings.net/.

Peter is the author of many SilverlightShow articles, among which the appreciated 14-part article series ‘XNA for Silverlight Developers’ (also available as an ebook) and ‘Getting Ready for the Windows Phone Exam 70-599′ (available as an ebook too). He also delivered the following SilverlightShow webinars:

• Networking with Sockets in Windows Phone 7 (watch the recording)
• XNA for Windows Phone 7 (watch the recording)
• Unit Testing for Windows Phone (watch the recording)

Who is this webinar appropriate for:
Windows Phone developers
    
Duration:
60-70 minutes, including Q&A

Technical Requirements:
Internet connection and computer speakers for audio.

Want to see more scheduled or past webinars? Check SilverlightShow Webinars page.

SilverlightShow: Silverlight Community

Below you may find a summary of all new content we’ve published on SilverlightShow throughout the week February 6-12, 2012:

• New Article Series
• Webinar News
• Ebook News
• SilverlightShow Contest
• 50+ fresh new stories by our valued bloggers and community sites

New Article Series

How should you develop your apps for multitude of devices (on the net, on a desktop, on a phone, on a tablet, …)? Are there best practices? Can you reuse code, and if yes, should you? How can you keep costs in check?

Find out the answers of all these questions in Kevin Dockx’s new article series for SilverlightShow, by building the same type of application as an HTML5, Silverlight (web), Silverlight (OOB), Windows Phone and Windows 8 Metro application. The first two parts of this series available here:

• Part 1: Developing for a multitude of clients: Strategies for code reuse and keeping costs in check
• Part 2: Developing for a multitude of clients: Strategies for code reuse and keeping costs in check
  

Webinar News

February is definitely a month of great Gill Cleeren’s webinars! This week, Gill delivered the second part of his session “Metro and WinRT for the Silverlight/WPF Developer” (watch recording of Part 1/get demos & slides). Below is some information related to this live session: 

• Who gets the free ebooks from yesterday’s Metro/WinRT webinar part 2
  
• Recording of Webinar ‘Metro and WinRT for the Silverlight/WPF Developer: Part 2′ by Gill Cleeren
  

Also, check out SilverlightShow Webinar Newsletter for February online! Be the first to find out about new webinars and updates by registering at SilverlightShow and enabling the newsletter option in your member profile.

Ebook News

Check out SilverlightShow ebook offer for February (valid thru Feb 29th). Get a bundle with our most popular article-based ebooks with more than 40% off. The full offer available here:

• A Bundle With The Top 10 SilverlightShow Article-based Ebooks
  

SilverlightShow Contest

SilverlightShow and Visual Studio Live are giving away one free pass (,095 value) for Visual Studio Live! Las Vegas event taking place March 26-30, 2012 in Mirage Resort & Casino, Las Vegas! Complete a simple sentence, and you are in for the draw. Check out the complete contest rules:

• Win a free pass for Visual Studio Live! Las Vegas in SilverlightShow Contest
  

See which are the two Silverlight/WPF sessions that will grab your attention at the Visual Studio Live! Las Vegas Conference!

50+ fresh new stories by our valued bloggers and community sites

Top 5:

• Pixel Manipulation in Silverlight
  
• Tile Flip Animation using XAML, Silverlight, and Expression Blend 4 (WP7, WPF, Silverlight)
  
• A Simple Pattern for Creating Re-useable UserControls in WPF / Silverlight
  
• Learn How to Build your First Windows 8 App with XAML and C#
  
• Why Custom Controls are underrated
  

All other news we published:

Monday (February 6th, 2012)

• More Json With Windows Phone
• Testing Windows Phone Application
• Enhancing A LightSwitch Detail Control Extension
• Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 – and the future of syncing and sharing
• Windows Phone 7 Development Best Practices Best Practices – Project Separations
• Creating a LightSwitch Business Type Extension
• Trial is as Native to Windows Phone as Metro
• What Windows Phone 8 Tells Us About Windows 8
• 7 Deadly Sins for Windows Phone Developers: Day #5 Greed
• WP App Lifecycle Series – Maintaining Your Apps: Dealing with Crashes
• Windows 8 Start button removed by Microsoft in ‘Consumer Preview’
• GIF to JPEG for Windows Phone 7 – via a WCF service
• The KeyCode Glitch in Windows Phone 7
• Working with WP7 RadBusyIndicator control from Telerik

Tuesday (February 7th, 2012)

• JSON deserialization with JSON.net: class hierarchies
• Windows 8 Composition and Content
• Designing Windows 8 or: How to Redesign a Religion
• Windows Phone Local Database tip: Exploring multiple UPDATEs and rowversion impact
• Nokia dev tool creates dynamic banners for your apps
• Silverlight ComboBoxItem IsEnabled, SL5 Style
• Winning on the Marketplace: Tips on getting promoted
• 31 Weeks of Windows Phone Metro Design | 15 Designing Windows Phone Icons
• 7 Deadly Sins for Windows Phone Developers: Day #6 Gluttony

Wednesday (February 8th, 2012)

• SilverlightCream Top 5 News for Week Jan 30 – Feb 5, 2012
• 7 Deadly Sins for Windows Phone Developers: Day #7 Lust
• Learn Windows Phone 7 Development in 31 Days – Day 8 – Working with Camera in WP7
• Mango Sample: A Cloud-based Phone App in 5 Minutes
• What Makes End-Users and the Marketplace Love Your Windows Phone App?
• Improving power efficiency for Windows 8 applications
• Windows Phone Unified Ad – Part 1 – Introduction
• Clouds using Expression Design with Expression Blend & XAML for WP7
• Creating Big Silverlight Windows and Getting Monitor Resolutions and Positions with PInvoke

Thursday (February 9th, 2012)

• Virtualizing storage for scale, resiliency, and efficiency in Windows 8
• Windows Phone Fast Application Switching and Page State
• Microsoft to host Windows 8 Consumer Preview on Feb. 29
• The Curious “Today” Button in Windows Phone
• High performance HTML5 content in Metro-style Apps
• Unified Ad for Windows Phone – Part 2 – Basic Usage
• Correcting Pinch Zoom in Silverlight for Windows Phone
• Treadmill Assistant Windows Phone 7 App Released
• Windows Phone Mango Sample: Give your app the Finger!
• Introducing Rate Application Reminder for Windows Phone
• HTML5 and CSS3 on Windows Phone: Dark and Light Styles

Friday (February 10th, 2012)

• Building Windows for the ARM processor architecture
• Learn Windows Phone Development in 31 Days – Day 10 – Working with Pivot Control in WP7
• Aviary bringing photo-editing tech to Windows Phone apps
• Windows Phone Tutorial: The Accelerometer and the Emulator
• Windows 8: The Facts about ARM, Metro, and the Blue Stack
• WPUG Talk: Developing cross-platform mobile applications with PhoneGap for Windows Phone 7
• Creating A LightSwitch Group Extension
• Windows Phone 7.5 Live Tiles
• Microsoft pubCenter Ad SDK Country-List and eCPM Issues

Enjoy your weekend and return at SilverlightShow on Monday for a whole new week full of exciting news and content!

SilverlightShow: Silverlight Community

As the bad news rolls in about the South Dakota Republican Party’s continuing war on teachers, I take small comfort in seeing our legislators having the good sense to whack at least a few bad ideas. I noted the demise of Wisconsin-style union bashing, home school handouts, and bad interstate insurance policy earlier; now I [...]
Madville Times

Below you may find a summary of all new content we’ve published on SilverlightShow throughout the week January 30 – February 5, 2012:

• New Articles
• Webinar News
• Ebook News
• Forum News
• 50+ fresh new stories by our valued bloggers and community sites

New Articles

• Using the Live SDK in Windows 8 XAML/C# Metro Applications by Michael Crump
  
• Windows 8 and the future of XAML: Part 2: The Windows Runtime (WinRT) by Gill Cleeren
  

Webinar News

• Recording of Webinar ‘Metro and WinRT for the Silverlight/WPF Developer: Part 1′ by Gill Cleeren
  
• Winners of free ebooks from our yesterday’s Metro/WinRT webinar
  
• Part 2 of the Webinar ‘Metro and WinRT for Silverlight/WPF’ scheduled for Feb 9th
  

Ebook News

• Top 5 SilverlightShow Ebooks for January, 2012

Forum News

• SilverlightShow Most Active Forum Members for January Announced
  

50+ fresh new stories by our valued bloggers and community sites

Top 5:

• 7 Deadly Sins for Windows Phone Developers: Day #1 Pride
  
• LeakEvent -> WeakEvent in Silverlight
  
• New Silverlight Video Tutorial: How to make Sliding Panels all in Blend
  
• Refactoring Windows 8 Code-Behind to MVVM
  
• Why Windows Phone needs WinRT
  

All other news we published:

Monday (January 30th, 2012)

• Create Your Own Skin For The Windows Phone 7 Emulator
• Accelerometer Sensor for Windows Phone 7
• Winning on the Marketplace: The differentiation game
• How to implement communication between Silverlight and the HTML host
• Templating a XAML CheckBox to a thumbs-up/down control using Expression Blend
• Creating a Visual Studio LightSwitch Screen Template
• Windows Phone Tutorial: Playing A Sound, Simplified
• How to Turn On/Off Synchronization of Windows 8 Personalization with Windows Live ID
• Windows 8 Metro style app recap
• 31 Weeks of Windows Phone Metro Design | #5 Choosing between Panoramas, Pivots and/or Pages
• How I ended up using WebBrowser instead of a TextBlock in a Windows Phone application
• Top 10 sharks using Expression Design, Free Blend & XAML
• WP7 – Changing Visuals Based on Phone Theme with ThemeToStateBehavior

Tuesday (January 31st, 2012)

• SilverlightShow ‘Metro & WinRT’ Webinar Split Into Two Parts. Slides for Part 1 Available!
• SilverlightCream Top 5 News for Week January 23-29, 2012
• Telerik Chart Legend in Metro Style
• Windows Phone 7 – Location Service and Bing Maps
• Something’s Missing from the WebBrowser Control
• More on the New OData T4 Template: Service Operations
• How to Write Your First WinRT XAML Metro App
• Creating A LightSwitch Theme Extension using Expression Blend
• Acting on file management feedback for Windows 8
• The Big Dummies Guide for Windows Phone Developer Resources

Wednesday (February 1st, 2012)

• Common Marketplace ingestion errors and how to avoid them
• Top 10 Tips for Building a Windows Phone App
• Code to send game invite to multiple user in Windows Phone
• Displaying static maps on the Windows Phone for performance and scenario wins
• Using JQuery with WinJS
• 13 Windows 8 features worth knowing about
• MVVMLight Hello World in 10 Minutes
• 7 Deadly Sins for Windows Phone Developers: Day #2 Envy
• How To Use leaderboards on Windows Phone with XPG
• Memory Profiling for Application Performance
• HTML5 on Windows Phone: A Simple Boilerplate
• Windows Phone Resources

Thursday (February 2nd, 2012)

• 7 Deadly Sins for Windows Phone Developers: Day #3 Sloth
• EvenTiles from Start to Finish, Part 16 – Using Launchers inside your application
• Implementing Trial Functionality for Windows Phone applications
• Deploying LightSwitch Applications to Windows Azure
• Learn Windows Phone 7 Development in 31 Days – Day 1 – Getting Started with WP7
• Register for Q1 Release Webinar by Telerik – Sharpen your .Net Ninja Skills
• Windows 8 Photoshop Templates
• Fixing the Mango Microphone Issue – Part 1
• Windows Phone Design Guidelines on MSDN

Friday (February 3rd, 2012)

• Windows Phone 8 Detailed
• Windows 8 Touch Events Interactions
• Get Your Windows Phone Applications in the Marketplace Faster
• 7 Deadly Sins for Windows Phone Developers: Day #4 Wrath
• Horizontal Scrolling in RadDataBoundListBox now available
• Using Skydrive in your Windows Phone applications: part2
• LightSwitch Community & Content Rollup–January 2012
• Missing Background Image on Panorama Control breaks ContextMenu and Causes Performance Issues in Windows Phone Applications
• The Windows Phone Marketplace Needs an Affiliate Program
• How to Databind SelectedItems of the ListPicker and RecurringDaysPicker

SilverlightShow: Silverlight Community

MDR’s Tom Lawrence gets Stephanie Strong on the record for her reasons for challenging Rep. Kristi Noem to a Republican primary. God made America a superpower, don’t raise debt limit, Kristi gone Washington, lives torn apart by welfare… …yadda yadda yadda. Check out the link at the bottom of the MDR story: StephanieStrongCongress.com! Whoo-hoo! Let’s [...]
Madville Times

Neither vote on Hickey legislation went the way I wanted it yesterday. The Senate approved Rep. Steve Hickey’s silly Bible-study-in-public-school resolution, HCR 1004, and didn’t have the courtesy to add a clause putting conscientious and unbiased secular humanists in charge of such literary instruction. Meanwhile, across the hall, the House killed Rep. Hickey’s perfectly sensible speeding [...]
Madville Times