Continuing my series based on the presentations I’m giving on Europe, today I return to Tiles to look at creating Secondary tiles. 
A secondary tile can be created by the user and pinned to the start menu to provide deep access into your program. A classic example of a secondary tile would be to pin a tile for your home town in a weather application, or a specific stock in a portfolio program.
Continuing my series of Blog posts that distill the presentations I’m giving this month in Europe and the UK, today I’ll take a look at creating a Live Tile. 
Live tiles tell the user that something interesting is happening in your application, or that you have new information for them.
I recently started a series of postings from my tour of presentations in Europe
and the UK. Today I’d like to return to Searching (which I started to cover here), and this time take a look at what it takes to have your application offer Search suggestions as the user types into the Search box.
In my previous posting I said that I’d be distilling parts of my presentations into blog posts. This post continues that idea, focusing on the App Bar.
If we are going to place Content Before Chrome and remove as much of the navigation from the content as possible, we need a way to make the chrome (e.g., navigation and command buttons) available to the user on demand. That is the role of the appbar.
I am in Europe this week and for the next three weeks, traveling from city to city and giving presentations on Windows 8. Along the way I will be distilling these presentations into blog posts, adding in commentary about what I’m learning as I give the presentations.
Last summer I followed Jeff Blankenburg’s lead and asked What’s In Your Computer Bag?, and then I posted what was in my bag at the time. As I get ready for my trip to Europe and the UK, it seems like a good time to take a new inventory.
Windows 8 Store Applications can take advantage of the shared “Charms” that you see when you swipe in from the right edge of your Windows 8 device (or press Win-C). The top charm is searching and it provides tremendous functionality at relatively little programming effort.
When you click search Windows 8 assumes you want to search the current application if that application has registered a Search “contract.” If it has not, Windows 8 will assume you want to search the applications, as shown in the figure (click on the figure for full size).
Talking with Charles Petzold and Jon Galloway about Charles’ newest edition of his 
iconic book Programming Windows (6th Edition).
Charles Petzold may be one of the best known writers in the .NET industry because of his book Programming Windows. In this discussion we talk about his newest edition (on Windows 8 programming for Metro applications), his decision to write the book in XAML and C#, his particular interests and perspectives on Windows 8 and on some of his other, perhaps less well known books.
Estimates are that there are over 690 million Windows 7 installations. 
If they convert to Windows 8 at one per second, day and night, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, it will take over 20 years. Better hurry up.
690 Million potential Windows Store customers.
690 Million.
As you may know, I recently went to work for Telerik. I chose Telerik because I really like their products and their support for the developer community. As I’ve said before, I don’t like Telerik products because I work for the company, I work for the company because I like the products.
Some of you who read this blog are Telerik customers and partners. If you are happy with your Telerik tools (from our RadControls for Windows 8 to our other RadControls to TeamPulse to our our Productivity add-ins like JustCode and JustMock to our Testing Tool Test Studio to our CMS Sitefinity), please take a moment to vote for us (details below).
If you are not happy with Telerik tools, please reach out to me and let me know why. I want to get that fixed!
It’s that time of year when DevPro Connections and Windows IT Pro opens up the polls to the community at large to share support for your favorite products and services. We’re nominated in 25 categories this year and would like you to take a minute to vote for us.
Click here to vote DevPro Connections “Community Choice Awards”
Click here to vote Windows IT Pro “Community Choice Awards”
The voting for the “Community Choice Awards” ends Friday September 28 so please cast your vote today!
Intel sent me an IvyBridge Ultrabook to review, and since it runs Windows 8 and has a multi-touch screen I couldn’t wait to get my fingers on it. 
The book weighs in at about 3.5 pounds and has a USB-3 on either side, along with a mini-HDMI connector, a headphone jack and a hole for the power cord (which is a bit bigger than I might have hoped – the cord, not the hole!).
The Ultrabook has a light-sensor, magnometer and GPS as well as a gyroscope. It has a 1.5MP web-cam camera and a 5-point touch screen.
Talking with Glenn Block, Senior Program Manager for Microsoft currently working in 
Shanghai China and Jon Galloway, Technical Evangelist for Microsoft, about Node.js and about life in China.
