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…

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…

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…

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…

Talking about Windows 8

This month has been a busy and productive one for me with Windows 8. In addition to the recorded webinar, The Top 10 Features Windows 8 Metro Developers will Love, I also participated in two interviews about Windows 8. The first interview was with Jesse Liberty. I’ve known him for several years now. We’ve met…

Video: The Top 10, er, 11 Features Developers will Love about Windows 8

I downloaded the Developer Preview for Windows 8 within minutes of it being announced during the major //BUILD conference in September 2011. Since then, I’ve been working with Windows 8 on both a laptop and a slate and have come to love several features. I wrote about the top 10 features I think developers will…

How to Debug a Windows 8 Metro Secondary Tile

I’ve been working on Chapter 7 of my upcoming book, Designing Windows 8 Metro Applications with C# and XAML. This chapter focuses on tiles and toast notifications. In the Windows 8 runtime, it is incredibly easy to prompt the user to pin a secondary tile. This is a tile that has a deep link for…

The Task: Async and Await in a Windows Runtime World

In my last blog post, I covered how to wrap your arms around the Task class and its relationship to the new async and await keywords. I mentioned that the post was focused on the .NET Framework only because the Windows Runtime handles these operations differently. In this post, I’ll cover what those differences are.…

Designing Silverlight Business Applications Officially Released

  In June of 2011 I started the journey of writing a Silverlight book. The Silverlight team was about to release version 5 with an incredible set of new features that would revolutionize how it can be used in the enterprise. I knew there were already a number of books available to use a reference…

The Top 10 Features Windows 8 Metro Developers Will Love

Windows 8 Metro is a new platform for developing applications that are tailored to the devices on which they run. These devices may include traditional desktops and laptops as well as the new tablet and slate form factors. In this article I cover the top ten features developers will love about the new development environment.…

.NET and Metro: The Windows Runtime and the CLR on Windows 8

Many developers tend to look at Windows 8 as a completely new platform and even question whether it heralded the imminent demise of managed code. After spending many months digging into the Windows Runtime (WinRT), Metro style or “tailored” applications, and exploring how they related to the .NET Framework, I’ve come to the conclusion that…