I wanted to update my poor neglected blog and let everyone know that I am officially back from maternity leave.  Here’s a picture of my little baby girl rocking her Microsoft “future developer” shirt.    My current focus will be on developing...

Following my earlier product announcement , I’m excited to announce that after a long nine-month development period, Marsman V2.0 has been released.  Features include 10 fingers and 10 toes, a cute little upturned nose, and (so far) a decent sleep...

I hope that this week’s introduction to HTML5 has been useful.  Here’s what we covered: Semantic Markup and Page Layout Canvas Audio and Video Using HTML5 while retaining support for older browsers Resources, Websites, and Tools But also note that...

So far this week, we’ve discussed lots of cool new functionality in HTML5, including the new semantic elements , the canvas tag for drawing , and the audio and video support .  You may think that this stuff is really cool, but you can’t possibly...

One of the big features that is new in HTML5 is the ability to support playing audio and videos.  Prior to HTML5, you needed a plug-in like Silverlight or Flash for this functionality.  In HTML5, you can embed audio and video using the new <audio>...

Another new element in HTML5 is the < canvas > tag.  It is essentially a blank surface for drawing.  You need to use JavaScript to manipulate and draw on the canvas.   You may want to give your canvas element an id attribute...

This week, I will be publishing a 5-part blog post series on HTML5.  This series is an introduction to HTML5 and some of the cool new functionality it provides.  In this first blog post, I’ll discuss semantic markup.  Semantic elements...

Microsoft recently released a great 10-minute video showcasing some of our datacenters.  It’s fun to see the racks and racks of servers that make cloud computing possible.  The video also shares some of the details of how the datacenters are...

I recently published a new screencast on Channel 9 on transitioning to Windows 7. It is available at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Windows-Development-Boot-Camp/Windows-7-Development-Boot-Camp/Windows7ApplicationCompatibility1 . Here is the official...

On Thursday of last week, we launched the Kinect for Windows SDK Beta .  In case you missed it, the entire Kinect launch event was recorded and is now posted at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/KinectSDK/BetaLaunch .  You can download the Kinect...

Last weekend at the CodeStock conference, Mike Neel and I ran a session entitled “ Why aren't women speaking at CodeStock? (and other WiT issues) ”.  A little background on this session: Mike Neel is the organizer of CodeStock and a longtime champion...

Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled the first official look at the “Windows 8” user interface.  To see Windows 8 in action, check out this YouTube video from Microsoft .  Building “Windows 8” Here are some additional resources: Microsoft press release...

I recently published a new screencast on Channel 9 entitled “Introduction to Multitouch Development in Silverlight” at http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Introduction-to-Multitouch-Development-in-Silverlight .  It’s a quick (5-minute) introduction to...

The great David Giard asked me to be a guest on his webcast Technology and Friends .  I spoke on Internet Explorer pinned sites.  This episode is available online , and it was also shown on Ann Arbor’s Channel 17 TV!  The episode was really...

I like to close a blog post series with a list of resources for further exploration. In that spirit, here’s some great info on site pinning and Internet Explorer.  Internet Explorer Sites These websites showcase everything that the latest version...

In the last 4 blog posts, I’ve demonstrated using JavaScript to create various experiences in your pinned site ( dynamic Jump List categories , overlay icons , thumbnail toolbar buttons , and flashing taskbar buttons ).  You may have been wondering...

You have probably seen flashing taskbar buttons before.  Perhaps you have an instant messaging program which flashes the taskbar button when a new message comes in?  Flashing taskbar buttons are used to signal users that their attention or interaction...

When you hover the mouse over a Taskbar button of a running application or website, a “thumbnail” pops up.  This is a little image of the running window.  With pinned sites, you can create thumbnail toolbar buttons, which are small buttons that...

Do you have the next million dollar idea that you just can’t find the time to finish? Do you already have an app for Android and iPhone that you want to expand into new markets? It’s time to turn your napkin sketches and leverage your hard work into real...

Today, we’ll dive into how to implement overlay icons in your pinned site.  Overlay icons are used to surface notifications or status to the user.  When you pin a site to the Taskbar, remember that it is now always available in your Taskbar...

Remember how in an earlier post , I mentioned that there were two parts to the msSiteMode API to integrate pinned sites with the Windows 7 taskbar: some things were implemented in HTML and would apply to anyone visiting the website, and some things were...

In yesterday’s post , we saw how to implement site properties in pinned sites.  Today, we will learn to implement Jump List Tasks, which (like the site properties that we looked at yesterday) will apply to anyone who visits the site.  Jump List...

Now that you have the background on what pinned sites are and why they’re useful , let’s start looking at some code!  I previously mentioned that web developers can use the msSiteMode APIs to integrate pinned sites with the Windows 7 Taskbar. ...

In yesterday’s blog post , I introduced what pinned sites are and showed how they are available to any website.  However, as much as we developers love to play with shiny new technology for the cool factor, you can’t adopt technology for the fun...

In Internet Explorer 9, a new feature called pinned sites was introduced.  In this post, I’ll explain what pinned sites are.  In future posts in this series, I’ll discuss why they are worth implementing and how to do it using HTML and JavaScript...