April 17, 2012
April 10, 2012
Desktops / Laptops / Tablets / Smartphones
Continue reading "Desktops / Laptops / Tablets / Smartphones" »
March 26, 2012
Smooth Streaming in Windows 8 Metro Application
Continue reading "Smooth Streaming in Windows 8 Metro Application" »
March 9, 2012
Changes in the Windows 8 consumer preview
Continue reading "Changes in the Windows 8 consumer preview " »
February 23, 2012
Migrating Phone 7 applications to Windows 8
Continue reading "Migrating Phone 7 applications to Windows 8" »
February 20, 2012
Windows 8 App Store
While the official name seems to be Windows Store, it is a no brainer that the initial set of applications will be targeted to Windows 8 only and will be Metro apps. Though very similar in concept with the existing Phone 7 Store, it is a different store as the apps built for one aren't automatically available on another due to different programming platforms as of now. With Apollo some of this stands to change.
Details of the new store have started to make appearance on the new Windows Store blog. Prior to the store's launch, MS is attracting people to build initial set of applications that can be deployed on the store. The first round of contests is already over and list of winners is awaited.
February 8, 2012
Phone 7, Mango, Windows 8, Windows 8 on ARM, Apollo (Phone 8)... phew!
It is hardly two years since Microsoft had showcased Windows Phone 7. The SDK came out in September 2010. In Asia the availability of Phone 7 has just completed an year and we have already had a version upgrade to Mango (7.5).
On desktop/tablet side, Windows 8 developer preview was first made widely available in Build Conference in September 2011. The beta is expected anytime soon and then later this year the final release of this product.
Continue reading "Phone 7, Mango, Windows 8, Windows 8 on ARM, Apollo (Phone 8)... phew! " »
February 3, 2012
Database access in Windows 8 Metro Application
Even though what we have is still the initial developer preview, creating Metro applications seems to be gaining popularity in developer communities. Although we can create interesting applications using HTML5 and WinJS or XAML and C# or VB.NET, on top of WinRT, there are some unanswered questions like working with databases.
Any enterprise applications typically will work with some database at the backend. As of now, however, WinRT does not have any API for database connectivity.
Continue reading "Database access in Windows 8 Metro Application" »
January 30, 2012
Share Text Content between two Windows 8 Metro Application
In Windows 8, content can be shared between two metro applications using Share Contract. Content can be of below types.
- Plain Text
- URI
- HTML
- Formatted Text
- Bitmaps
- Files
- Data from isolated storage
Continue reading "Share Text Content between two Windows 8 Metro Application" »
January 25, 2012
What it means to develop Metro Applications for Windows 8
I have been coming across a lot of confusion regarding development of Windows 8 Metro style application. Will try to clear out some of the confusion in the air.
What is Metro about it?
Metro Applications follow the design principles of Metro like content before chrome, focus on typography, fast and fluid, alive in motion etc. Focus of metro application is on the content that needs to be displayed .Hence all menus, taskbar and other unnecessary controls have moved to the app bar or charms . Charms can be considered to be a system level menu that is used to perform common applications like Search\Share etc. across Metro Applications. There is a lot of emphasis on fonts, scale and weight in the Metro design. Microsoft has come up with Seago UI font for developing Metro applications. Metro UI relies on usage of tiles that are alive with notifications and animations. New controls provided with XAML and WinJS are already designed according to the Metro design principles. Hence when you use Expression Blend\Visual Studio 2011 etc. and use the controls as per the technologies selected(XAML\HTML), your application gets a Metro look automatically.
Continue reading "What it means to develop Metro Applications for Windows 8 " »
January 24, 2012
Windows 8 convertible laptops: Who will get it right?
Continue reading "Windows 8 convertible laptops: Who will get it right?" »
January 10, 2012
Windows 8 Blogs
We have been working on Windows 8 for few months now and understanding the new programming paradigm for Metro apps along with understanding of HTML5, WinJS, WinRT, XAML Apps etc.
We will be sharing our learning here. Keep checking back for updates. For starters, my colleague, Mani, has written her first blog here.
January 9, 2012
Understanding lifecycle of Windows 8 apps
One major differentiating factor for Metro applications on Windows 8 is that the application lifetime would be managed by the OS. To the end user, this would mean that they would be unable to close applications using a close button. This has also been discussed here .
Let us now understand how the OS handles the application lifetime and what are the implying considerations for Windows 8 development. An application can be in one of the 3 states - Running, Suspended and Terminated. When an application is brought in the foreground, it becomes a running application. If second application is launched, the first one moves to the suspended state after a short delay. Again, if a third application is launched, both first and second applications move to the suspended state. This repeats until the system becomes low on memory. When the system becomes low on memory, the applications consuming maximum memory is terminated. Applications can also get terminated due to system shutdown, application crash or if the user terminates it from the task manager.
Continue reading "Understanding lifecycle of Windows 8 apps" »
December 27, 2011
Windows 8: Shutdown
December 26, 2011
Immersive Experiences with Microsoft Technologies
In Immersive Technologies Track we are working on some exciting technologies related to data visualization, touch, gesture and augmented reality. The main products on our radar are Phone 7, Surface and Kinect. We recently published a technology roundtable newletter sharing some insights of our work. You can get to the newsletter from here.
Comments are welcome.
November 14, 2011
Silverlight 5
I had talked about Silverlight 5 earlier here and here. Though Silverlight is still used to build RIA apps for the web and is the platform of choice for Phone 7/7.5 development, Microsoft has not been very forthcoming on its future.
According to Mary-Jo Microsoft is about to release Silverlight 5. This is good, but it is also clear that Silverlight no longer retains the status of platform for cross device compatibility. That has been taken over by HTML 5.
Follow us on
Infosys on Twitter
Recent Posts
Categories
- .NET 2.0
- .NET Fwk 3.0
- .NET Fwk 3.5
- .NET MicroFramework
- .net 4.0
- ASP .NET
- Augmented Reality
- Big Data
- Cloud Computing
- Collaboration
- Expression Blend
- General
- HPC
- Infrastructure Optimization
- Kinect
- Legacy Modernization
- Microsoft Business Intelligence
- Microsoft Design Technologies
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Microsoft Products & Technologies
- Microsoft Surface
- NUI
- Orcas
- Phone 7
- SQL Server
- SharePoint Technologies
- Silverlight
- Software Factory
- Solution Accelerators
- Testing
- Unified Communications
- VS2008
- Vista
- Win 7
- Windows 8
Archives
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006