In Canada, we’re fortunate to have many community experts and MVPs. Throughout the month, they write about and talk about some really cool things. Many of you have told us that you’d like it to be easier to discover them and what they’re writing about. The team and I will be curating top picks and sharing them with you in frequent technology post round ups.
Windows 8
- Interacting with Windows 8 Maps app using WindowsMapsHelper Library by Andrei Marukovich
The WindowsMapsHelper library aims to simplify communications with Maps app. It encapsulates maps protocol into a few strongly typed classes. Find out how to use it. - File system change notifications in WinRT by Andrei Marukovich
WinRT provides an alternative mechanism for folders monitoring to the now removed FileSystemWatcher class. - Windows 8 Blog Reader using JSON and WordPress Part 1, 2, 3 by Paul Patterson
Walkthrough of creating a simple Windows 8 Blog reader using JSON and WordPress. - Control the way your site looks in Windows 8 Metro by Shai Petel
Buildmypinnedsite.com allows you to control the tile created in Windows 8 for your web site when a user pins it to the Start Menu.
Windows Azure
- Website Pricing, Shared or Reserved by Tyler Doerksen
On September 17, there was an update to Windows Azure Websites. This update added a third option for hosting websites, the Free option. - Keeping your Free Costs Down by Bruce Johnson
If you have an MSDN subscription, then you have access to Windows Azure functionality at no cost. Unless, that is, you’re not careful. - How to backup Azure databases by Bruce Johnson
There is a number of various tools available to backup Windows Azure databases, but they usually require a separate install and they are never free. Although, sometimes, they are fairly inexpensive. Bruce likes free ones better though. - BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 4 Sending Messages to Service Bus Topics by Kent Weare
Back again with Part 4 in this series. This time around we are going use BizTalk to send a message to an Azure Service Bus Topic using the new SB-Messaging Adapter.
Web
- A Web Developer's Look at the MVC4 Request Pipeline by James Chambers
This article is indented to give you a solid understanding of how client requests move through the ASP.NET MVC 4 Pipeline. As developers, you need to know what options you have to override default behaviour, modify or augment requests as they arrive (and as they're executed) and extend the pipeline as requirements dictate.
Visual Studio
- Executing NUnit Tests using the Visual Studio 2012 Test Runner by David Paquette
Microsoft has completely re-written the Test Runner in Visual Studio 2012 and opened it up for anyone to write Test Adapters for any unit test framework (not just MSTest). - Microsoft Test Manager–links to power tools by Bruce Johnson
Check out links to a few usual tools. - Removing Another User’s Lock in TFS by Bruce Johnson
Step by step walkthrough to remove another user’s lock in TFS. - Sample Browser for Visual Studio 2012! by Laurent Duveau
Remember the "All-In-One Code Framework", a set of cool code samples available on CodePlex? Well, the same team along with MSDN just released a Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension for Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2010.
.NET Programming
- Introduction to Code First by David Paquette
Slides and code of the session delivered at Prairie Dev Con. - Introduction to Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 by Andrei Marukovich
[VIDEO] Learn about what's new in the recently released version of Visual Studio, covering the new tools, the IDE, and the .NET Framework improvements. You will also explore the new asynchronous development model for C# and relevant language changes. No matter how you use Visual Studio – for Web, mobile, or desktop development – you will understand what the new version will bring to your development life. - Implementing an asynchronous settings service Part 1 and Part 2 by Jerome Laban
This article is part of a series about implementing asynchronous services contract, and starts by an the creation of basic functionality for a User Settings storage service using C# 5.0 async features
SharePoint
- Interesting Difference Between “View Only” & “Read” Permission Levels by Reza Alirezaei
As the saying goes, the devil is in the details! Make sure you are aware of the differences when planning your site permissions. - SharePoint Online 2013 – Change the Look and Feel of your Public Website with Themes by Isha Kapoor
With the new Office 365 SharePoint 2013 Online now you can Change the look and feel of your Public SharePoint site with some awesome Out-of-Box Themes. - Traps in SharePoint 2013 API b Shai Petel
So, SharePoint 2013 has almost full API backward compatibility? Sure. That’s great! I mean, Microsoft did a great job making our lives easy in upgrades.
C++
- Back to the Future with Resumable Functions By Kenny Kerr
This is the last of three articles where I explore alternative techniques for achieving concurrency in C++.
SQL Server
- You Can “Do Science” Anywhere By Michael J Swart
Science is about learning how Nature behaves. Well what if we replace Mother Nature with SQL Server? SQL Server’s not as pretty, but we can still learn things.
Of Interest
- How do I become a Microsoft MVP? by Stephen Cawood
Quite regularly, the question appears on forums, heard at conferences, or asked of current MVPs. There is no simple answer, but here’s Stephen’s stab at it.
If you’ve come across a great technology post and think we should share it, please let us know by sharing the post in the Canadian Developer Connection LinkedIn group. Make sure to share how the post helped you get something done. I’m sure your fellow developers would appreciate the insights.
Until next edition!