So the official word was that the newly minted Windows 8 RTM build and Visual Studio 2012 would hit MSDN at some point on the 15th of August (possibly sometime in the US time zone). As of writing, still nothing has been published on MSDN Downloads. So to briefly divert […]
Those of you familiar with DVD technology may be aware of the region locking system imposed on consumers by content producers and manufacturers. Sadly, this practice continues with Blu-ray as corporations continue to shoe horn consumers into handy geographic regions. This continues to frustrate consumers who legitimately import authentic discs […]
Well it’s been leaked onto the world wide web for a bit over a week now, and I’ve finally managed to devote some time to taking a look at what’s been included in the leaked SDK. Although we’ve been waiting for what seems like forever to see something of the […]
As reported across the globe, Windows 8 has officially gone RTM as of August 1st. The official release date schedule shows when you might expect to get your hands on the new version: August 15th: Developers will be able to download the final version of Windows 8 via your MSDN […]
Introduction Recently, I started building up a WCF Service Application from scratch to implement a specific set of operations from an existing WSDL. This was a little cumbersome, but gave me an excellent opportunity to extend and play around with a concept I’ve been trying to perfect for a couple […]
This is probably a bit of a late announcement, but Microsoft has elected to make the Entity Framework an Open Source project on CodePlex! The first officially supported packages (from the open source project) are rumoured to be integrated as of Entity Framework v6 (as the Entity Framework team are […]
Hi All. This is a quick post to introduce you to SQL Server Data Tools – support and tools for database developers. Introduction Recently, I started a new solution in Visual Studio 2010. There is a need to build and maintain a database schema (for SQL Server 2008 R2), so […]
Hi All, One of my hobbies is building sets of Lego®. I’ve been a fan ever since I was a little kid, and I’ve always been fond of putting together kits – the bigger, the better. Recently I published a new fan site – the Lego Republic. As an adult, […]
The series so far: Part 1 – Setting up TFS Azure Part 2 – Configuring Visual Studio to use TFS Azure Part 3 – Registering Team Build controllers for TFS Azure Part 4 – Builds in the Cloud (this article) Introduction Following on from an earlier series of articles on […]
This evening I was scanning dzone.com and came across this interesting rebuttal by Adam Benoit on the shortcomings of Windows Phone 7. The 121 reasons listed as to why the Windows Phone 7 OS isn’t particularly good were rebutted fairly succinctly (although acknowledged; far too many shortcomings defer to the […]
Hi Everyone. I don’t normally post many articles about sales and such, but if you’ve ready visited my Criterion Collection page; you’ll know I’m a bit of a collector. This morning an email popped into my inbox from Criterion Co concerning a very nice little sale currently on in-store and […]
Word today from Redmond is that the much anticipated next version of Microsoft Windows – Windows 8 – will be released to manufacturers (RTM) in early August, 2012. Given how stable and far along the Release Candidate (RC) edition has been, this should come as no big surprise. What will […]
A double feature – two related posts in the same day! The Essential Question Following on from my earlier article on setting up a development environment for Windows Phone 7 development, the next obvious question to answer is: “what to build?”. Never has there been a more appropriate time to […]
Introduction This is the first of a number of articles focused on development for the Windows Phone 7 platform. I’m in no way new to Windows Mobile development, having suffered through many of the previous Windows Mobile releases. This time, (sincerity implied) it’s different. The Windows Phone 7 platform looks […]
Microsoft will be introducing a new file format (VHDX) for virtual hard disks as part of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012. The original format (VHD) has been around for many years, the new format provides a host of additional benefits. At a glance, the new format supports up to 64 […]