XAML and UI, whever it is found. Phone, Surface, Silverlight or WPF
Posted in Windows Phone on Oct 19th, 2011
Microsoft is starting their fall marketing campaigns for Windows Phone developers. They have announced a number of contests. This one caught my eye. If you publish a quality Windows phone app to the phone marketplace and submit you app to this contest you could win ONE MILLION AD IMPRESSIONS. Doing the numbers So how much [...]
Posted in Windows Phone on Oct 1st, 2011
I seems that the performance claims from Microsoft that Windows Phone 7.5 is faster than the 7.0 version are true. I’ve heard from several of my friends that their benchmarks prove that Mango is faster. I didn’t profile my phone before updating so I don’t have my own numbers to share. Here are some stats [...]
Posted in Silverlight, Windows Phone, WP7, WPF on Jan 15th, 2011
There are times when I want to preview file content in Windows Explorer. The Preview pane in Explorer makes this a simple task. Just click the Preview pane button and select the file as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2. Figure 1: The preview pane button. Figure 2: Viewing a .txt file. In [...]
Posted in Windows Phone, WP7 on Nov 12th, 2010
Microsoft created a compact on-screen keyboard for the Windows Phone 7. The keyboard is winning praise among users for being fast and easy to use, even if you have big fingers. But there is one task that seems to stump a lot of new users ; how to find certain symbol keys on the keyboard. [...]
Posted in Windows Phone, WP7 on Nov 9th, 2010
I heard this nugget from Derek Lakin on Twitter: Press and Hold is the discovery combination that every Windows phone 7 user should know. We were having a conversation around the Windows Phone 7 on-screen keyboard. In order to keep the keyboard compact Microsoft stows alternate character beneath common keys. Take punctuation for example. [...]
Posted in Windows Phone, WP7 on Nov 1st, 2010
All Windows Phone 7 applications undergo a security analysis when uploaded to the Windows Phone Marketplace. The analyzer checks to see what services your app requires and verifies that you have requested those services in the Application Manifest. Windows Phone provides a capabilities-driven security model where a user must opt-in to certain functionality within the [...]
Posted in Windows Phone, WP7 on Oct 29th, 2010
I’m working on a Windows Phone 7 application that is using the Microsoft ad network. Microsoft simplifies the process by providing an AdControl control in the Advertising SDK. To add the control to your XAML is easy. <my1:AdControl Grid.Row=’0′ ApplicationId=‘ba766 etc.’ AdUnitId=’100xxxxxxx’ Width=’480′ Height=’80′ HorizontalAlignment=‘Center’ VerticalAlignment=‘Center’ /> Next, [...]
Posted in Windows Phone, WP7 on Oct 7th, 2010
I’m one of the lucky few to have access to a developer device. I’m currently using the Samsung Taylor and it is really a nice phone. I’m looking forward to seeing the production phones, which have a faster processers, more RAM etc. Having the device is invaluable for debugging and testing. For example one of [...]
Posted in Windows Phone, WP7 on Oct 4th, 2010
You can customize the image shown in your Windows Phone 7 Tile. All you need to do is change the BackgroundImageURI value in the WMAppManifest.xml file. <Tokens> <PrimaryToken TokenID="MyAppToken" TaskName="_default"> <TemplateType5> <BackgroundImageURI IsRelative="true" IsResource="false"> /Images/Coins/tileImage.png</BackgroundImageURI> You can also change this value in the Visual Studio 2010 Property page. Figure 1: Change Background Image in Property [...]
Posted in Windows Phone, WP7 on Oct 4th, 2010
It’s easy to embed information inside your assembly. Just add it to the assemblyInfo.cs/assemblyInfo.vb file or use the Visual Studio properties window. Reading the AssemblyInfo data When you want to read this information from a Silverlight/WindowsPhone assembly you can call on the Assembly class to get the desired data. You can use the GetExecutingAssembly method [...]
