Build 2018

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Another year and another Build conference. Last year I said I’d go this year given the opportunity, and I was given the opportunity. The original build conference was billed as //build/ Windows. You could bring whatever tools you knew to build great Windows apps. This conference has morphed over the years and is now //build/ Azure. This is disappointing to me. Like last year the first day keynotes were centered around the server and Azure.…

AppUrlHandlers

Monday, November 6, 2017

The promise of web-to-app linking is that a developer can associate an app with a website. That way when you load the website the app will launch. Really cool! However, the sad truth of the matter is that you have to do a Windows Key + R to Run the website. Normally I, and I assume most people, go to their browser to view websites. There’s simply no point in running the web page.…

Installing Windows 10 from a Flash Drive

Thursday, July 20, 2017

8 and a half years ago I wrote about Installing Windows from a Flash Drive . These instructions have served very well for all that time. Like most things, however, times change and instructions that used to work need tweaking. I recently got a Microsoft Surface Laptop and it’s a great machine. The first thing I did was to upgrade from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro. Then I installed a Windows Insiders build on it and that’s when things started going bad.…

Build 2017

Monday, May 15, 2017

Microsoft Build is the ultimate conference for me. It’s a developer conference that focuses on Microsoft’s roadmap for the coming year. Every year after the keynote and first day of sessions I rush to a computer to try out what I’ve learned. It’s such a rush to, as everyone says, drink from the firehose. This year, however, was different. The first day was about server technologies. Normally they save that for the second day.…

Windows CompactOverlay Mode

Thursday, March 2, 2017

The Creators Update of Windows is coming soon. One of the new features coming with it is a way to keep your UWP app on the screen above all other windows. It’s called CompactOverlay mode, but you probably know it better as Picture-in-Picture. All of the examples that I’ve found online of how to do CompactOverlay mode (all? I mean all one of them ) is written in C#. In my work on a day to day basis I work in JavaScript.…

Visual Studio Code Tips and Tricks

Friday, February 24, 2017

Visual Studio Code has quickly replaced Sublime as my editor of choice. Well, second only to Visual Studio itself that is. Code is very customizable. To the point that I have different configurations on each of my main computers. Kind of a drag. Anyway, Microsoft has put together quite the list of Tips and Tricks for using Visual Studio Code. It can be found on GitHub . This should be recommended reading for all users of Visual Studio Code.…

Bower is Dead

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Starting from a blank piece of paper or an empty notepad can be a daunting task. Where do I start? How do I get to the productive place? Most of the help that I find on the Internet start with, “Run these 15 npm install commands and then copy this code into these files.” Sure, doing that gets you to someone’s productive place, but rarely does it get me to my productive place.…

Microsoft Surface Touch Keyboard

Sunday, November 1, 2015

This week was a big week for Microsoft. The Surface Pro 4 and the Surface Book came out. Along with them came a host of new accessories including a new Type Cover for the Surface Pro 4. This keyboard/cover is also compatible with the Surface Pro 3 and that is why I was so excited about it and got one. As I may have mentioned earlier, this keyboard is full size chicklet style and utilizes Microsoft’s vast knowledge of building keyboards.…

Links of the Week

Sunday, November 1, 2015

The first link I have this week is Future Visions by Microsoft. It is a collection of original science fiction stories based on projects currently being researched in Microsoft Research. It isn’t available until November 17th, 2015, but it promises to be really good. I’ll be sure to add this to my reading list. The second link I have is Small Basic from Microsoft. My daughter came to me earlier this week and said she wanted to learn how to program.…

Links of the Week

Sunday, October 25, 2015

I don’t have thousands of tabs open in my browser like some people do, but I do tend to save things I want to read for later. I then like to spend some time on Saturday going through the tabs and see what there is to learn. This week I thought I’d share the experience with you my dear readers. My first tab is a blog post titled, “Mastering the Arcane Art of JavaScript-mancy for C# Developers .…