wintellect-blogs|Oct 24, 2012

Windows 8 Hands-On Videos from Engadget Round-Up

With the launch of Windows 8 right around the corner, OEMs are releasing a ton of exciting hardware. In fact, there are so many options for Windows 8 machines that it is causing information overload. I thought I’d help simplify things by pulling together some of the hands-on videos I’ve watched over the past few…
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wintellect-blogs|Oct 17, 2012

The Microsoft Surface and Apple iPad 3 Head to Head

I was in a recent discussion about the Microsoft Surface and how it will be received by the consumer market. Obviously there are a lot of emotional reactions. Everyone is speculating about the price points, comparing features, and wondering if average consumers will even care. I would argue that there is a technical aspect to…
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wintellect-blogs|Oct 10, 2012

Windows Runtime Components in a .NET World

The new type of program known as a Windows Store app—optimized to run on Windows 8 devices—has a default view with a full-screen window and no distracting chrome, so the content is the focal point. Windows Store apps support fluid layouts that adapt and scale to a variety of screen sizes and resolutions. They provide…
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Blogs|Oct 2, 2012

Building Backbone Applications with TypeScript

Hot off the press, TypeScript was announced earlier this week and has resulted in an explosion of commentary over Twitter and various blogs. The language claims to be tailored for application-scale development using JavaScript by providing a typed superset. It compiles to JavaScript so it will work in any browser. The promise is to make…
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Blogs|Sep 18, 2012

Entity Framework: Expressing the Missing LINQ

I have worked on quite a few projects that use the Entity Framework. It is a powerful ORM and does quite a lot out of the box. I’ve worked with code-first, database-first, and every other flavor in between. If I were to name the one reason I believe developers enjoy working with LINQ the most,…
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wintellect-blogs|Aug 25, 2012

Using OData in Windows 8 Apps for Windows 8 RTM

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of my book, Building Windows 8 Apps with C# and XAML. The Open Data Procotol (OData) is a web protocol used for querying and updating data. It is a REST-based API built on top of Atom that uses JSON or XML for transporting information. Windows 8 applications…
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wintellect-blogs|Aug 16, 2012

Quick Tip: Activating your Windows 8 Installation

Like many of you reading this, I was eager to jump online and download my copy of Windows 8 when it became available to developers yesterday. I pulled down the Windows 8 Enterprise SKU and installed it on my Samsung Series 7 Slate. The install went quickly – I was up and running in about…
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wintellect-blogs|Aug 9, 2012

Synchronous to Asynchronous Explained

I’ve posted several articles about the new async and await keywords that are available in Visual Studio 2012, but I still see some people struggle with the concept. How do you make a task asynchronous? When and where do you use the async keyword? The answer is not simple because the need to process asynchronously…
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wintellect-blogs|Aug 8, 2012

Hello Nokia Lumia 900 – and thanks, Endomondo

After years of using a Samsung Focus (older generation) for Windows Phone 7, I recently received my brand new neon blue Nokia Lumia 900. A trip to the AT&T store had my SIM quickly moved from the regular SIM card for the Samsung to the micro SIM that the Nokia uses. I was up and…
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wintellect-blogs|Jul 22, 2012

The Unsung Story of the Windows 8 Desktop

When developers first got their hands on the Windows 8 Developer Preview, I heard some comment that it was Windows 7 with some touch-friendly menus added in Metro. While most now know that is far from the case, there is a heavy focus on the Metro-style features and I think it is easy to miss…
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