Blogs|Sep 2, 2015

Creating a Secondary (bottom) iOS Toolbar in Xamarin Forms

Xamarin Forms is a really great platform for mobile app development – we have used it on several apps now and had much better results than when trying to use the native SDK’s directly. Every now and then though you run up against a roadblock with the default renderer implementations where some feature (perhaps a…
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javascript|Aug 20, 2015

Azure DocumentDB Adds JavaScript Language Integrated Queries

Microsoft is continuing to build on it’s cloud based document database designed for web applications and today is announcing support for JavaScript Language Integrated Queries. Azure DocumentDB’s database engine is purposefully designed from the ground up to provide first class support for JSON and JavaScript. Our vision is for JavaScript developers to build applications without having…
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News|Aug 19, 2015

Windows Server 2016 Preview with Containers Support Released

Microsoft has released its latest Technical Preview for Windows Server 2016 which includes support for Docker Containers baked in as well as new features and functionality in its Nano Server edition. Today we are excited to release the first preview of Windows Server Containers as part of our Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 release.…
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News|Aug 18, 2015

Windows Phone Developers Can Get Xamarin for Free

The folks at Xamarin are showing some love for Windows Phone developers with an offer for a free Xamarin licenses.  The offer is targeted at individual independent Windows Phone developers who have currently have an App in the Windows Phone app store. This free community edition includes Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android as well as Visual Studio…
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visual-studio-alm-tfs-and-scrum|Aug 13, 2015

Visual Studio Code Updated

Microsoft has released an update to their multi-platform code editor Visual Studio Code.  This release brings improvements in documentation, PHP snippets, and support for Roslyn based quick fixes. Documentation improvements include better organization and additional information about how to extend VS Code. Since VS Code was released there have been a large number of questions…
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Blogs|Aug 12, 2015

Understanding Native Image Sizing in Xamarin Forms Apps

This post is about probably my least favorite part of mobile app development – figuring out and assembling all of the various images needed to build an application and publish it into the stores. Each platform has its own requirements for this, and often you will need to provide multiple resolution versions within each platform…
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News|Aug 11, 2015

Windows 10 IoT Core Released

Microsoft has released another Windows 10 version this week with support for the Rasberry Pi2 and MinnowBoard MAX devices.  Dubbed IoT Core, it’s designed for embedded devices which may or may not include a screen.  This version doesn’t include the usual user shell experience and so you have to write a Universal Windows App as…
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News|Aug 6, 2015

Team Foundation Server 2015 Released

Microsoft announced the release of the final version of Team Foundation Server 2015 today which includes numerous improvements in Agile Project Management, a brand new build system, Git support enhancements, and extensibility.  While there are literally dozens of major and minor enhancements, here’s a quick highlight of some of the best. Agile Project Management: The…
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Uncategorized|Aug 3, 2015

Wintellect Becomes Premier Xamarin Consulting Partner

It seems that all roads in software development today lead inevitably to mobile apps. Building apps that span multiple mobile platforms is no easy task, but Xamarin makes bridging those environments much easier. And so it’s with great pleasure we announce that Wintellect has become a Premier Xamarin Consulting Partner. Wintellect employs a dedicated team…
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Blogs|Jul 30, 2015

Taming the SplitView Control in Windows 10

Of all the new controls featured in Windows 10, SplitView is perhaps the most emblematic. SplitView makes it easy to implement “hamburger menu” interfaces like the ones featured in Windows 10’s built-in News, Sports, and Photos apps, among others. A hamburger icon consisting of three horizontal bars sits atop a ribbon on the left side…
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Blogs|Jul 28, 2015

Where Oh Where Did My Response.SignOut Go in ASP.NET v.Next beta 6?

If you’ve just fought through an update from ASP.NET v.Next beta whatever to beta 6 and now you’re staring down the last few red squiggled lines only to come across this little gem about SignOut no longer existing, I can help you get back to signing out in just a few steps.     AuthenticationManager…
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News|Jul 28, 2015

JIT Compiler Bug in .Net 4.6 Discovered

Of course no software is ever released without bugs, and the .Net Framework is no exception.  With .Net 4.6, Microsoft has moved to using a new JIT compiler called RyuJIT that is specifically designed for use with 64-bit systems.  However, Nick Craver at StackOverflow has found that this new JIT compiler has a significant bug…
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