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I just completed a simple app and got it in the store in about 24 hours.  Students that I work with have gotten apps in the store in less than 3 hours or so.  It isn’t difficult but you do need to get some practice.  Like a doctor who is learning how use the DaVinci Robot, it takes about...

This is an awesome article about how to port a WIndows Phone app to Windows 8.  Instructions, etc. Well written. As you might think: “Well Written?  This can’t be written by Sam then!”  And that would be correct, it is on CodeProject: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/375173/Hacking...

Charles Petzold free eBook is great , except that it doesn’t cover the use of Sliverlight-XNA tools that are in the current version of Windows Phone. One of the most reliable source on how to use the Silverlight XNA hybrid is the MSDN Article at: How to: Combine Silverlight and the XNA...

I had converted an image to a XAMLfile using Expression Design 4.    Then I added the existing Image.XAML to Blend 4 then converted the Image.XAML from an image to being a Usercontrol, which means that it has a “code behind” C# project connected to it.  (I got turned on this process through...

If you looked at the code for the sdkExcecutionModelCS uses a View Model. The code sample does a nice job of using the View Model. By that I mean that usually the View Model samples are complex and hard to understand without lots of writing. To keep the post shorter, in this blog I am only covering...

Well the Ace WhipperSnapper, Kenny Spade, send me an email with an attachment that contained a simple example of how to do tombstoning with XNA Phone. Wow! I am so impressed, I am going to carefully share (or steal) his excellent code. After a screen sharing session using Lync, which is totally cool...

Wow, if you got no money and you are looking for something to do that might make you money, then consider using Expression Blend to build phone apps. Quick easy and requires no case on your part if you are a student or have a .edu email account! I am recently impressed by the ability of Expression...

It’s so simple that you might now quite get it, there is a first screen, like a splash screen, then the main play screen appears. You could add code to include a help screen, etc. Or not. In this case a splash screen appears for 3 seconds, total time, then another screen appears that has a molecule...

With some software considerations, you can easily move the background image around to fit the orientation of the phone. To get to the attached zip file, you will need to scroll down to the bottom of the page. Code Snippet using System; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft...

Here is a simple example that shows how to determine the Screen Orientation on Windows Phone 7 The example project is zipped at the bottom of the code. You may need to scroll down to see it. Leave a comment if you do download it! Orientation using System; using System.Collections...

This is the code that is used at the pre-Hackathon training session on Thursday. The code is explained using the “Flower” type of comments (don’t use this in production, it is used by me to illustrate many points in the code). If you do not open the attached (scroll down to the...

  $$$$$$$$$$$$ Making Money $$$$$$$$$$$$$$: Get your Dreamspark account attached to your LiveID (Free Stuff) http://www.dreamspark.com If you don’t have a LiveID you can sign up here, using ANY EMAIL address, but use the one you read normally! http://bit.ly/USCLiveID Get your “free” AppHub account...

Oh crude, what is that headline, what has happened to my titles?  Have I gone crazy?  No, no more than normal.  Ok, maybe. The accelerometer is turned on in the phone by using the the following reference and using statement in your code.  Gyros may be available in the future, Set...

Just when I thought that MSDN was a big pile of out of date information, confusing search returns, it morphs into a better place then I was thinking it about.  Or it might be that I h ve been listening to closely to the students who make up most of my customers.  After all, Steve Jobs pointed...

Lecture for tonights class, which I would like to share with you dear reader, the first part is about how to position fonts on the screen using the least number lines of code. Unfortunately, it requires a lot of variables, but there you go, complexity comes in many forms. Variables are easy to understand...

Often I think about the Codecs supported by Windows Phone 7, and when I do, I take a look at the URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff462087(v=vs.92).aspx Pretty nifty, but always make sure to check to see if the codec is really supported by your device targets. And in this case MSDN...

Let's face it, in MSDN documentation there is often a very constrainted information about development tools, often to the point of being unusable. But there are many ways to get around that, one way, read blogs, not just this one. For example you might type in “Video Class XNA” into my...

Geez, got off track with the Expression Design 4 comparison to Adobe, I really want to get better at Expression 4 design, looks like a lot of fun.  Understanding how the art is created is an important part of the game design.  Also, how do designers think about their game in a way that they...

First a word of warning, you will be working with some seriously funny, but ugly images in this post, so if that doesn’t sound like fun, then there is plenty of boring stuff on the web.  Including much of what I write.  My wife got me a new expresso maker, which is very cool, ummmm. First off...

Ok, it isn’t Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, but it is a way to write programs directly on your Windows Phone 7.  If you are like me, I get a “jones” when I don’t write at least some code everyday.  Of course it is badly written code, but it is code none the less.    Here is a video...

Finally, the chaos of the extreme computer scientists have been tamed, someone figured out that there are a bunch of people who just don’t care about the minute detail of software development and want to build stuff! So you don’t have to mine the iron ore, melt it, make into a hammer head...

To add a revenue stream for your phone advertisements, you will need to do the following steps: Download Visual Studio Windows Phone Express or have the Phone development system set up in your development platform Go to http://pubcenter.microsoft.com and download the SDK from the download link from this...

  I was l ooking at the MSDN article at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.itemscontrol.aspx After scrolling through: 1 constructor, 142 Properties, 1 Attached Property, 225 Methods, 110 Events, 16 Fields and 3 Explicit Interface Implementations, you finally get down...