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All posts by Callon Campbell [MVP]

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Development

Microsoft Virtual Academy “Achievement Unlocked” T-Shirt Offer (MSDN)

Unknown's avatar on December 6, 2013

Get your “Achievement Unlocked” t-shirt by completing 2 or more of Microsoft Virtual Academy courses:

Microsoft Virtual Academy has courses that cover the entire Microsoft developer platform. Complete two (2) or more of any of these MVA courses and we’ll send you an awesomely geeky t-shirt that will help you share the knowledge achievement that you’ve unlocked!

To claim your “Achievement Unlocked” t-shirt:

  1. Start and complete two (2) more modules of any course listed below between 12/1/2013 and 1/31/2014.
  2. Take a screenshot of the course page (as shown below) showing you logged in, Canada as your country, and at least 2 completed (green) modules.
    image
  3. Send your screenshot to mvachallenge@microsoft.com with
    Your first name
    Last name
    Mailing address.

Your transcript will be validated and your t-shirt will be sent to you! Simple as that!

 

Please see the following post from the Canadian Developer Connection blog for more details:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cdndevs/p/mvachallenge_msdn.aspx

Offer expires January 31 2014.

Enjoy!

DesignDevelopment

Windows Store apps–App features, start to finish

Unknown's avatar on October 24, 2013

Came across an excellent resource for Windows Store app development that goes over the app features from start to finish.

This start-to-finish series helps you add features to your app to engage your customers and to create the kind of experiences that draws people in and delight them. Each guide walks you through building an app from scratch to app certification. Start with a basic flat or hierarchical app and add features from there!

List of app features lists on the site are:

  • Flat navigation
  • Hierarchical navigation
  • App UI basics
  • App state
  • File handling
  • User interaction
  • User interaction customization
  • Media playback
  • Geofencing

Each of these features includes both an HTML and XAML guide. Check it out.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn263202.aspx

Enjoy!

DesignDevelopment

Idea books for commercial and enterprise app design (including sample code)

Unknown's avatar on October 24, 2013

Came across a great post on the Windows App Builder Blog for creating Windows Store apps.

Create great Windows Store apps that provide elegant, engaging, consistent and compelling user experiences in Windows. Idea books are a great starting point to inspire you when designing your Windows Store app. Idea books target different app categories and show what’s possible as well as how to create best-in-class experiences in your app.

idea-book_thumb_034E5836

From the blog post, you can see the current list of idea books that have an accompanying code sample:

Enjoy!

References

http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/appbuilder/archive/2013/08/02/idea-books-for-commercial-and-enterprise-app-design-with-sample-code.aspx

Uncategorized

How to: Unblock a downloaded file to avoid security warnings

Unknown's avatar on October 22, 2013

Have you ever downloaded a file from the Internet or copied it from another computer and noticed that the file doesn’t behave as expected. This is most likely the result of certain security warnings that Windows has imposed on the file as it can’t determine trust.

To solve this issue, you need to Unblock the file.

To “unblock” a file, right-click the file in Windows Explorer and choose Properties from the context menu:

sshot-519

Then click the Unblock button in the lower right-hand corner of the Properties dialog, and click OK or Apply:

sshot-515

It’s important to note that ZIP files need to be “unblocked” before their contents are extracted otherwise the contents won’t be extracted and/or behave correctly.

Enjoy!

Development

Brian Keller’s 5 reasons for Team Foundation Service

Unknown's avatar on October 17, 2013

Came across a great little video that Brian Keller created on his top 5 reasons for liking Team Foundation Service that I would like to share…

http://vimeo.com/microsoftvisualstudio/review/74686407/42c694668d

Enjoy!

Development

Microsoft launches Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1

Unknown's avatar on October 17, 2013

Today Microsoft announced the release of Visual Studio 2013 and .NET Framework 4.5.1. You can checkout what’s new with Visual Studio 2013 page for more information.

Visual Studio 2013 is the best tool for developers and teams to build and deliver modern, connected applications on all of Microsoft’s platforms.  From Windows Azure and SQL Server to Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8, Visual Studio 2013 supports the breadth of Microsoft’s developer platforms.

As part of the Cloud OS vision, Visual Studio 2013 enables developers to build modern business applications that take advantage of the cloud and target a variety of devices and end-user experiences, all delivered within today’s rapid and dynamic application lifecycles.

There are great new features and capabilities in Visual Studio 2013 for every developer, including innovative editor enhancements such as Peek and CodeLens, diagnostics tools for UI responsiveness and energy consumption, major updates for ASP.NET web development, expanded ALM capabilities with Git support and agile portfolio management, and much, much more.

vs2013

You can download these tools now and start using them today. They’re also available to download through MSDN Subscriber Downloads page.

Enjoy!

References

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2013/10/17/visual-studio-2013-available-for-download.aspx

DevelopmentWeb

Using the new F12 Developer tools in IE11

Unknown's avatar on September 20, 2013

With the introduction of Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft completely overhauled the F12 Developer Tools.

We rebuilt the F12 tools from the ground up in IE11. They have a brand new UI and new functionality to make your developing and debugging faster and easier.

With the new F12 Developer tools, you can debug, test, profile, update the CSS layout, find a memory leak, emulate and checkout UI responsiveness, plus a lot more.

There is a great article on the Internet Explorer Dev Center for Using the F12 developer tools. I recommend you take a look at the article as it goes in depth for how to use the new tool.

UIResponsivenessTool

Internet Explorer 11 comes with Windows 8.1 and will be made available for Windows 7 at around the same time that Windows 8.1 is released or shortly there after I would imagine. There is a IE11 RC available for Windows 7 now.

These updated developer tools are a welcome breath of fresh air and should provide to be very useful for every developers needs.

Enjoy!

References

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ie/bg182326(v=vs.85).aspx

DatabaseDevelopment

Including Data in a SQL Server Database Project

Unknown's avatar on September 16, 2013

The other day I found myself looking at how I can include reference data in a new database as part of my SQL Server Database Project. Typically for my existing databases, I’ve just create post-deployment scripts to add/update/delete reference data as needed with each release. However with my new database, I have a number of tables and rows in each that I’ll need to deploy the first time.

The first option that comes to mind would be that I can do this as per usual and create a v1.0 script to populate the data, but I thought there should be a better way to maintain and deploy this data. What if it ever changes and I need it updated? I’ll then have to script specific post-deployment scripts. Not ideal.

I did a little searching and came across this old post on the SQL Server Data Tools Team Blog for Including Data in SQL Server Database Projects. This seems like a great option, but I already see there are a number of people complaining that this isn’t good enough and I would agree. I also have the added annoyance that I’m still stuck using SQL Server 2005, so the MERGE option isn’t even an option for me.

Further research shows another post on how to Mimic MERGE with the OUTPUT statement in SQL Server 2005. This looks like it will work for SQL Server 2005, but makes things more complex in my opinion. I really just want to declare in my database project the values the table should have on deployment and then let the build and deployment process determine what needs to be done.

I think for now I’ll stick with my first option and create an initial v1.0 post-deployment script. I’ll then take a look at what comes in Visual Studio 2013 later this year and if there are new options for addressing this issue.

We are moving to SQL Server 2012 by year end, so I can at least migrate to doing the MERGE approach at that time if there is nothing else available.

I hope this helps others in the same situation.

Enjoy!

Mobile

Nokia unveils its connected car platform: Here Auto

Unknown's avatar on August 30, 2013

Here is an awesome article by Kevin Fitchard about Nokia’s unveiling of its connected car platform called Here Auto.

After years of being the auto industry’s mapmaker, Nokia on Friday announced its intention to become a much bigger technological force in the vehicle. Nokia took the wraps off of Here Auto, an embedded infotainment and connected car system, which it hopes to sell to the world’s car manufacturers.

Nokia Here Auto Screenshot 1

But unlike other embedded navigation systems, Here Auto isn’t walled off, Van-De-Klashorst said. It’s the same app you access on the smartphone or through a PC browser. All of your bookmarked destinations, preferred routes, contacts and preferences are stored in the cloud and synched between devices. If you map out a route on your phone and PC, the same route will be waiting for in your car as soon as it connects to the network. If the car loses its connection to the internet, the most recent route maps and settings remain saved in the car’s memory.

Nokia Here Auto Screenshot 2

I’m an avid fan of Nokia and it’s Here maps. I’m really looking forward to seeing this come to market and how it evolves. I guess I can always mount my Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone and get similar results.

Enjoy!

Source: Gigaom | Nokia unveils its connected car platform: Here Auto

CloudDevelopmentWeb

Windows Azure Web Sites: How Application Strings and Connection Strings Work

Unknown's avatar on August 29, 2013

Great article on how Windows Azure Web Sites: How Application Strings and Connection Strings Work.

Windows Azure Web Sites has a handy capability whereby developers can store key-value string pairs in Azure as part of the configuration information associated with a website.  At runtime, Windows Azure Web Sites automatically retrieves these values for you and makes them available to code running in your website.  Developers can store plain vanilla key-value pairs as well as key-value pairs that will be used as connection strings.

Since the key-value pairs are stored behind the scenes in the Windows Azure Web Sites configuration store, the key-value pairs don’t need to be stored in the file content of your web application.  From a security perspective that is a nice side benefit since sensitive information such as Sql connection strings with passwords never show up as cleartext in a web.config or php.ini file.

 

Enjoy!

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