If you find articles you enjoy here, please consider…
- Subscribing to this blog
- Following me on Twitter
And take a look at the side-bar on the right, where you’ll find Key Topics, Popular Posts, and complete archives by Month and by Category
Subscribe?
Posted in News
Comments Off on Subscribe?
Creating An Open Source WP7 Application
There has been some thrashing about the HyperVideo player. This note is both an update and an invitation for you to participate.
Posted in Community, Essentials, HyperVideo Player, News, WindowsPhone
Tagged Community, HVP, WindowsPhone
1 Comment
Coding Without A Net
I recently imposed on myself the constraint of coding without comments. Why?
- Comments rust faster than code, even when you’re careful
- Well written code can be read, and comments are annoying footnotes
- Comments make for lazy coding
Now, setting the bar at no comments at all seems a bit fanatic, but any value greater than zero is an invitation to using comments when better approaches are available, and like any addiction, I bet you can’t stop at one.
Absolutely Incredibly Essential Utility of the Month
A couple months ago I wrote a column about two “Indispensible” utilities, one of which was Launchy. I had to issue something of a retraction:
Update June 23, While this program is incredibly useful, I’ve noticed [what] looks like a nasty memory leak, and while I do like this program, I’ve suspended it for now.
Subsequently I’ve learned of a wonderful, stupendous substitute: FARR (Find And Run Robot).
It has it all. Set up takes zero time. The defaults are excellent so you can just run it. If you want to tweak it, there are more options than on the space shuttle. And it is wicked fast, and does a lot more than finding your applications, but it does that incredibly well.
Posted in Essentials, News, Tools and Utilities
8 Comments
Random Walks For Windows Phone 7
It makes me a little crazy that every time the markets go up or down the newspapers cannot resist attributing a reason (though they’re not so good at predicting!). Today’s NY Tim
es: “Markets down 2% on concerns about slowing economy.” Oh Yeah? How do they know that’s the reason? Maybe it is the cost of oil, the situation in the middle east, unemployment, gamma waves… So I decided to try an experiment: let’s predict up or down randomly, and give reasons, and we’ll see how well we do.
Now, I believe in modeling that ADHD and other such things are nothing to be ashamed of. Simple brain chemistry; doesn’t make you a bad person. But what many folks don’t realize is that ADHD involves hyper-focus as much as inattention, and so setting off to build a simple random number generator… well the truth is I already have one. But what a great opportunity to build a Win Phone Application. So, I got this working in 20 minutes. And then tinkered for a few hours.
10 Programming Books You Absolutely Want Within Easy Reach
To make this list, a book must be on my “close” shelf, and must
- Be useful today
- Be incredibly well written
Posted in Blend, Data, Essentials, Languages, News, Opinion
116 Comments
WP7 Mini-Tutorial Lists & Master/Detail
This tutorial begins the discussion of lists and of presenting the ubiquitous Master/Detail relationship in data.
To do this, we’ll revisit the Nerd Dinner application, this time using the Beta Refresh and making sure we focus on best practices, especially the use of MVVM, as we go.
Posted in Mini-Tutorial, Patterns & Skills, WindowsPhone
Tagged WindowsPhone, wp7Tutorial
5 Comments
Ten Rules For Moving Your Blog Without Falling Off The Edge Of The Web
Moving your blog is like riding a motorcycle: if you know what you are doing, and you are very careful, and you take every precaution: it is dangerous as hell.
That said, it can be done, and without losing your following, subscribers or mind.
Here are 10 absolutely essential things to keep in mind….
Posted in Essentials, Opinion
1 Comment
You May Already Be A Windows Phone 7 Programmer – Reloaded
As mentioned in the first post in this series, I am launching a series of intensive WP7 tutorials. To get started I thought it was important to revisit this earlier post and make sure all the code is up to date.
[ Note, the intent is not to suggest that writing for the phone is the same as writing for the PC; they are very different platforms (see, for example, my discussion of TransMedia) but only to demonstrate that many of the coding skills you have as a Silverlight programmer will carry over, making the learning curve a good bit flatter ]
On Thursday, August 14, John Papa will air an episode of Silverlight TV in which we examine the premise that Silverlight Programmers are instant WP7 programmers. To demonstrate this, I created two applications side by side: a traditional Silverlight (Web) application and a WP7 application using the same code. (This refresh article brings the code up to the Beta release).
A Gem In C (remember C?)
I have no idea who wrote this, I’ve been carrying it around for at least 25 years and I truly love it. If you know the original source please let me know.
Hints: Reach char with the ch as in cheese (a char is a character, 1 byte)
#include "yourdreams" /* for the future */ /* * find the important things in Life, the Universe, and Everything */ typedef short some; /* some things are short */ typedef some very; /* some things are very short */ #define A /* The first letter of the English Alphabet */ #define LINE 2 /* 2 points define a line */ #define TRUTH BEAUTY /* truth is beauty */ #define BEAUTY 10 /* and beauty is a 10 */
Windows Phone 7 Programming For Silverlight Developers – Reloaded
This is Tutorial number 0, in a new, intensive series of tutorials (and videos) on Windows Phone 7 Application Development targeted at Silverlight Developers.
There are many good sources of information on WP7 programming now; what makes this one different is that it assumes you are already familiar with Silverlight and with C# and it has a specific course outline of material that we’re going to cover, culminating in the creation of a new open source application.
Async Data Validation
This is the sixth posting in a series on Templates and DataValidation.
[ First In Series Previous In Series ]
In this posting I’ll extend the data validation mechanism we’ve been examining to support asynchronous data validation (allowing for validation by objects on a web service).
Silverlight is all about client-side code, and client-side validation is often exactly what you want; however there are times that you do not want to expose your validation algorithm in the client or in which you need to do a dynamic database lookup (credit ratings come to mind). In that case, you’ll want your Silverlight application to be able to validate against a web service, but to keep working while it does so. That’s just what we’ll do today.
Posted in Data, Mini-Tutorial, Styles and Templates, Tools and Utilities
8 Comments