UK company looking to publish a Windows 8 application into the upcoming UK Windows Store?

Posted on March 29, 2012 by ericnel

Then check out the details over on the MSDN blog before doing step 1 – apply to join our shiny new UK Windows 8 for Application Developer LinkedIn Group which opens up the possibility of being invited to an Application Excellence Lab at Microsoft in Reading.

I would also encourage everyone to come along to one of our events or camps ( camp details will be announced soon on the MSDN blog).

And you will be able to find me at the following events:

Manchester, Friday, 27^th April 2012 – Register (Note: Registration Full / Waiting List Only)
Edinburgh, Tuesday, 1^st May 2012 – Register

These are exciting times to be a developer!

Gaurav Mantri of Cerebrata Cloud Storage Studio fame is in London on April 3rd

Posted on March 29, 2012 by ericnel

Cerebrata (now owned UK company Red-Gate) make awesome tools for Windows Azure – thanks largely to the work of Gaurav Mantri.

And it just so happens that the UK Windows Azure User Group has Gaurav speaking on April 3rd in London. Definitely a session worth attending if you are in London that day.

Gaurav Mantri, CEO of Cerebrata Software (recently acquired by Redgate) will be speaking to the UK Windows Azure Group about Cerebrata tools, how they are used and how they were built using underlying REST APIs provided by the Windows Azure Fabric. Gauriv is here for a short duration from India so this is a rare opportunity to catch him speaking. If you’re already building a project in Windows Azure then you almost certainly use Cloud Storage Studio, Diagnostics Manager and CmdLets. If you don’t you will be soon! Redgate will be at the meeting to offer some free product licenses to a few attendees. Please register for this meeting @ http://www.ukwaug.net/.

Just testing AtomPub Windows 8 SDK Sample

Posted on March 23, 2012 by ericnel

Hello from the Visual Studio 11 Beta and Windows 8 which has been run from the comfort of my garden in full sun – today I have a great job!

Worldwide Partner Conference in July – I will be there, will you?

Posted on March 22, 2012 by ericnel

I’ve just had confirmation that I will be off to Toronto in July to spend a weak immersing myself in our latest musings to our fantastic partners on Windows 8, Windows Azure, Private Cloud and more… whilst also having the opportunity to meet and chat with UK partners who are attending – and in theory we all get to stay in the same hotel! Surprisingly this is my first time at WPC even though I am soon entering my 16th year and I am really looking forward to seeing so many partners in one venue – and seeing first hand which announcements, technologies and products excite them and which puzzle them.

If you are a UK software product author attending and are interested in Windows 8 and/or Windows Azure then lets connect up via https://connect.digitalwpc.com

If you are a UK software product author and haven’t yet decided whether you should attend, then take a look at 10 Great Reasons to Attend WPC on the UK WPC Hub and… act soon as there is an early bird discount as well as the potential impact of the Olympics on flight prices to consider.

July 8th to July 12th

JavaScript Programming with Douglas Crockford

Posted on March 20, 2012 by ericnel

New to JavaScript programming?
Think you know what JavaScript is… but haven’t really used it for many years?
Considering building Metro apps for Windows 8 using JavaScript?

Then … you could do worse than setting aside a few hours to watch, well, pretty much anything by Douglas Crockford.

I’ve started with the following from 2007 but there are plenty more to go with:

History and introduction

The Good Parts

Douglas and his relationship with JavaScript is nicely summed up as

“a journey from deep scepticism about a flawed, half-baked scripting language in the earliest days to a growing affection for what is now a still-flawed but surprisingly beautiful and powerful language that has ‘radically changed my way of thinking about programming languages.’”

And…dusted off MetroTwit

Posted on March 20, 2012 by ericnel

Now my blog has a Metro vibe, I also felt it was time to revisit MetroTwit as my twitter client. I didn’t really get on with MetroTwit when it first came across it but it now seems a very decent client and good enough for me to keep Hootsuite for “power tweeting” (which I don’t really do at the moment)

Time for a little Metro…

Posted on March 20, 2012 by ericnel

I am spending more time on getting my head around Windows 8 application development, specifically Metro apps. Which made me check to see if there was a wordpress.com theme which had a Metro vibe to it – well, this one will do for now 🙂

My favourite Windows 8 Shortcut keys

Posted on March 12, 2012 by ericnel

In other words… the ones I know about and keep using …and need to jot down somewhere (here!) lest I forget 🙂

Charms and App Bar
Windows-C	Open the Charms bar.
Windows-I	Open the Settings charm.
Windows-K	Open the Connect charm.
Windows-H	Open the Share charm.
Windows-Q	Open the Search pane.
Windows-W	Open the Settings Search app.
Windows-F	Open the File Search app.
Windows-Z	Open the App Bar.

Multiple Monitors/orientation
Windows-PgUp	Move the Start Screen or a Metro-style application to the monitor on the left.
Windows-PgDown	Move the Start Screen or a Metro-style application to the monitor on the right.
Windows-O	Lock device orientation.

Moving Windows/Apps
Windows-Shift-.	Move the gutter to the left (snap an application).
Windows-.	Move the gutter to the right (snap an application).
Windows-Tab	Cycle through apps.
Windows-Shift-Tab	Cycle through apps in reverse order.
Windows-Ctrl-Tab	Cycle through apps and snap them as they cycle.
Windows-,	Temporarily peek at the desktop.
Windows-V	Cycle through toasts.
Windows-Shift-V	Cycle through toasts in reverse order.

Miscellaneous
Windows-Space	Switch input language and keyboard layout. (This is to remind myself how to fix this when I accidentally change it 🙂

Q&A: Can I use Visual Studio 11 to do Windows Azure development?

Posted on March 12, 2012 by ericnel

This one seems to keep popping up…

The following is true as of 12th March 2012

Short Answer: No. You will need Visual Studio 2010 or 2008.

Long Answer: You will need to setup a development environment for Windows Azure using Visual Studio 2010 before installing Visual Studio 11. You can find details here.

Day 3 of Windows 8 training… JavaScript OMG :-)

Posted on March 8, 2012 by ericnel

I am just completing the final day of some rather good Windows 8 Metro App developer training. 90% of the time we have been using JavaScript.JavaScript has many “omg” moments when compared to trusty C#. Which is why it has been very handy to have Mike T sitting next to me. If you find yourself “without Mike” (as I will next week), then I would recommend you take a look at his series of OMG posts!

JavaScript OMG! #1 to #5