Test Post

Saturday, November 03, 2012 10:24:59 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Test post from Word on my Surface RT

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The Post Function Key Era?

Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:57:56 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Almost every personal computer I’ve owned throughout the years has included “function keys” on the keyboard. According to Wikipedia:

A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard which can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions.”

From my Commodore 64 and Amiga’s, every desktop and every laptop I’ve owned there have been the familiar site of that row of keys. Even my MacBook has them, although they try to hide but…. The function key has always been there through the history of the PC.

Smartphones and their on screen keyboard have made us very familiar with a reduced selection of keys. Windows 8 makes touch devices with no physical keyboard attached are enabled for typing through an on screen keyboard which has a reduced number of keys and modes that you can switch between to access additional characters, such as numbers. Missing from the on screen keyboards are the function keys.

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One of the most talked about elements of the recent Microsoft Surface unveiling has been the keyboard cover, providing a physical keyboard for the tablets. If you look closely at the top row of keys… you’ll see something different from the majority of keyboards attached to PC’s today…

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Those familiar F1-F12 function keys are gone, replaced by keys for volume, search, and web.

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Is this the end of the function key? As developer write Windows 8 applications, they can no longer rely on the existence of the “F-Keys” for user interactions. Will other keyboards follow along? Do we care? What will be the next key to go? Will the Post-PC era also be the Post-F-Key era?

[Parting side note: Second to only the “Not enough memory to eject disk”error on early Mac’s, by favorite BIOS boot error of all time is “No keyboard detected: Press F1 to continue”]

Posted in Mobile | Windows  | Comments [2] 


If You Want It Done Right Do It Yourself? Microsoft Surface

Tuesday, June 19, 2012 4:24:45 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Today after much speculation and drama around a mystery launch event in Los Angeles, Microsoft unveiled a Microsoft Tablet. It’s not the first time that Redmond has sold hardware. I currently make use of a Microsoft mouse end webcam, and have a keyboard or two around here somewhere. There’s also the Xbox 360 and Kinect. Then there is also the Zune, ZuneHD, and I think at one point in time way back even a Microsoft cordless phone along the way somewhere. So yes, they have seem some mixed results in their efforts.

Microsoft relies heavily on partners to make their products a success. From building the software to run on them to building the hardware to run on, partners have played a key role along the way. HP, Dell, any many other computer manufacturers would be very different companies today, or maybe not even exist if they had not been able to build and sell product running Windows.

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With partnerships playing such a key role, there is something to be said for not stepping on the toes of those partners and turning them against you. Some have said that Microsoft getting into the hardware game could have that effect, and turn manufacturers away from building for Windows. I truly hope the opposite is true however, and hardware manufacturers take this as an opportunity to raise the bar and deliver products above and beyond what Microsoft has put forward here. I’ve long been a fan of Tablet PC’s, going way back to my Toshiba m200 and Samsung Q1, but those devices have never truly had the ideal combination of hardware and software to provide the best experience possible.

I’ve felt as if many manufacturers gave into Microsoft and agreed to ship a couple of higher priced models with “that tablet stuff” on them, but never really embraced the platform. With iPad sales increasing and PC sales decreasing you wouldn’t think that those manufacturers would need additional reasons to innovate to keep their marker share in the “post PC era”, but apparently they do.

It’s a bold move, but I’m glad that Microsoft has put enough skin in the game to showcase what can be done, and not just in a prototype but a shipping product. If Samsung, HP, Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, and others show up to the game with better products that innovate in features and design the entire ecosystem will benefit. If they don’t show up, and least there’s a serious product out there for running Win8 on a tablet.

For more, visit the Microsoft Surface Website

Posted in Mobile | TabletPC | Windows  | Comments [3] 


Who Moved My SPA? (Single Page Application Template)

Friday, June 01, 2012 4:17:00 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

If you’ve downloaded and installed the latest ASP.NET MVC 4 RC bits, you might have noticed one of the recently added MVC4 project templates is not longer there. The Single Page Application (SPA) project template that shipped with the ASP.NET MVC 4 Beta as an early preview, will not ship with the final MVC 4 release. It will however continue to evolve outside of the MVC 4 release.

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More information is available on the ASP.NET SPA Home Page:

“An official release of ASP.NET SPA won’t be ready in time to ship with the final ASP.NET MVC 4 release. You can find the source code for ASP.NET SPA and follow the development effort on the ASP.NET CodePlex site.”

If you look closely you will also notice another change. While it appears that a new “Basic” template has been added, the previous “Empty” template has been renamed to “Basic” and a new, much more empty “Empty” template has been added to give a bare bones empty starting point for an MVC4 project.

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ASP.NET MVC 4 Beta Released–ASP.NET Web API Basic Intro

Friday, February 17, 2012 4:03:44 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

In case you missed the news, the beta of ASP.NET MVC has been released. You can download these latest bits MVC 4 Beta bits here using the Web Platform Installer or you can download the complete stand alone setup package instead. This installs side-by-side with ASP.NET MVC 3 so you can started working with the latest in 4 without impacted your existing MVC3 projects. Also important to note, this release includes a “Go-Live” license so you truly can start using this release. (Note, that all standard caveats apply, test your stuff, things may change before RTW)

The top features listed in this new release are:

  • ASP.NET Web API
  • Refreshed and modernized default project templates
  • New mobile project template
  • Many new features to support mobile apps
  • Recipes to customize code generation
  • Enhanced support for asynchronous methods

And much, much more!

One of the new and exciting additions mentioned in the list above is the ASP.NET Web API. Originally know as the WCF Web API (Codeplex Link) it has now be integrated tighter with ASP.NET. And why do you care? In this day and age, almost anything worth connecting to on the web has some sort of API, facilitating communication from a wide range of clients from browsers, to phones and tablets. The ASP.NET Web API provides a “modern HTTP programming model.”

It’s easy to get started by selecting the “Web API” template after selecting an MVC 4 Project type.

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The new project will contain a sample ValuesController class that shows how to get things rolling.

public class ValuesController : ApiController
    {
        // GET /api/values
        public IEnumerable<string> Get()
        {
            return new string[] { "value1", "value2" };
        }

        // GET /api/values/5
        public string Get(int id)
        {
            return "value";
        }

        // POST /api/values
        public void Post(string value)
        {
        }

        // PUT /api/values/5
        public void Put(int id, string value)
        {
        }

        // DELETE /api/values/5
        public void Delete(int id)
        {
        }
    }

Now if you’re familiar with both MVC and common Web API’s, the next step should come as no surprise. Making a call to http://localhost:33214/api/values will call the ValuesController, and execute the Get method. In a browser the result may at first appear like this:

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Here’s where you may be confused if you’re not familiar with web API’s. To understand what’s going on I would encourage you to take a look at the browser’s request and associated response returned using a tool such as the F12 Developer tools in IE9, Fiddler, or Firebug or other developer tools in other browsers.

By enabling the F12 Developer tools, selecting the “Network” tab and clicking on Start Capturing, you will be able to see details for the http traffic.

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The key think to note is the Type, or mime type associated with the response. You will see that it is “application/json” instead of the normal “text/html” that an HTML page would normally return. If I go ahead and tell IE to open the file and look at it in notepad we will see the json representation returned by the controller.

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This result corresponds directly to the controller code:

 // GET /api/values
        public IEnumerable<string> Get()
        {
            return new string[] { "value1", "value2" };
        }

Simple, and extremely powerful. I’ll be posting more on the new ASP.NET Web API and other ASP.NET MVC4 features in the days ahead.

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TRINUG December Event

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 4:03:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

In an ongoing tradition, the Triangle .Net Users Group will be hosting a special December main meeting featuring a number of “Lightning Talks” by local presenters and a pot luck dinner. It’s a great way to get a full dose of technical info while enjoying a fun and festive gathering with your peers in the local .Net community.

sign up to give a talk ...

sign up for a dinner item...

Please help spread the word! I look forward to seeing you there!

NOTE : Meeting is Wednesday December 14, 2011.

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Getting Back to Blogging

Monday, November 14, 2011 2:14:40 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I’ve been blogging for quite a while now, and I’ve been amazed how my posting here have introduced me to many great people, helped others, and resulting in some really interesting opportunities for me. Over the last year and a bit, with the rapid flow of information through twitter and other online resources I’ve slipped out of the habit of frequent blog posts that I’ve previously done and enjoyed.

Starting today I plan to change that.

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to try and make up for lost time with a landslide of new posts today, but I do plan to return to a more consistent routine of posts. If you’re still reading this, thanks for sticking around.

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RDU Code Camp – Saturday November 5, 2011

Saturday, October 29, 2011 4:41:37 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

One week from today, on Saturday November 5th a number of North Carolina software developers will be spending the day at camp… Code Camp. If you’ve never attending a Code Camp, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to learn, network, and be both inspired and motivated to expand your skills. A number of speakers from near and far will be presenting on a variety of topics. To top it off, this event is free thanks to the support of a number of generous organizations.

For more information and to register visit http://codecamp.org.

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Build Windows–Now We Know

Tuesday, September 13, 2011 11:18:56 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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After weeks of waiting, enduring silence and rumors, developers finally got their first public look at Windows 8 at Microsoft’s BUILD conference. People here at the conference were pretty excited about what they saw, and I can imagine many, many more watching remotely were also excited, or even relieved to see the details. Having talked to a number of people about their expectations a lot of people were very concerned to learn about the future of the technologies they have invested in both personally learning and financially building into projects. 

For people who were worried, maybe the biggest news for them is that if your application runs under Windows 7 it will continue to run under Windows 8. That being said, we can not expect innovation without change at some point along the way. Windows 8 introduces “Metro style Apps”, a new multi-language, multi-view technology. By multi-language it means that native languages such as C and C++, managed languages like C# and VB.Net, but also JavaScript and have equal access to the Windows (WinRT) APIs to interact with windows. In reference to the views, it allows the use of HTML/CSS with JavaScript and XAML with both C# and C++ applications. The “Metro Style” applications are part of an “immersive”, “touch first”, “no compromise” user experience that spans all aspects of Windows 8.

 

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[slide borrowed from \\Build\  keynote

As you can see in the above diagram, the new “Metro Style” apps run along side the traditional “Desktop Apps”. Again, this means that the app you are working on today will continue to work on Windows 8. In many ways, today marks the begging of a new era in Windows application development. Well that may sound sound a bit outlandish, it’s true. This no application model not only allows a new model for application interactions, it promotes it with a variety of services to let apps communicate with each other and with other devices through the cloud.

Bottom line, Windows 8 is going to be a game changer that creates many exciting opportunities.

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Have You Been to the MSDN Site Lately?

Sunday, June 12, 2011 2:59:17 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Have you been to the MSDN site lately? I ask because I know that personally when I need to lookup something information related to my development efforts I’ll just search for it, often getting a mix of hits, instead of heading right the “the source” for much of this info. Admittedly, in the past some information had been hard to find on site, but if you haven’t checked it our recently, the MSDN website has undergone some changes.

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A quick glance at the site shows a much cleaner looking design, with what seems to be much better organized information. For a fun comparison, here’s what the site looked like a few years ago.

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Below the main menu, the site is dividing into three “portals” separating content by Platforms, Tasks, and News.

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The Platforms page provides some overview information and easy access to dive further into Desktop, Web, Cloud, and Phone development areas.

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For other areas, a quick click on the “All Developer Centers and Hubs” link takes you to a nice site map for all of the major areas. As you continue to drill into topic areas, the trend of better organized information continues, pulling together a variety of documents, videos, links to articles, and other great sources of information.

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Microsoft Build Windows Conference and Windows 8

Friday, June 10, 2011 1:18:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Recently at the D9 conference Microsoft demonstrated then next version of Windows.

“Windows 8 is a reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface. A Windows 8-based PC is really a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse. ”

In the demos, Microsoft showed off a some of the new interface and features. This video shows off some of it.

Microsoft also officialy announced a new conference this September called Build Windows where they will be sharing much more information with developers regarding Windows 8. In fact, most requests for additional details about Win 8 generates a “learn more a Build” response.

Since these announcements there has been a lot of speculation by individuals on what this means for current technologies and future development.  While I’ve heard some very interesting interpretations by people, I’ve also heard some things that I feel are completely inaccurate.  However not knowing all of the details myself, I’m not in a position to say what is accurate or not, but would encourage everybody be cautious about what they hear and read based on this early information, and of course…. “Learn more from Build”`

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