Here’s a tool that makes your emulator’s start screen look less like an emulator and more like a phone. If you look at screenshots in the Marketplace that show the Start Screen, you will notice something strange – they all look the same – usually an Internet...

In addition to being able to leverage their HTML5 and Javascript skills to target Windows Phone, developers can now enjoy a selection of PhoneGap Plugins that support social networks and a solid integration into Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone...

My colleague IT Pro Evangelist in California just posted a clear and exciting explanation of the changes to System Center to create a Private Cloud in enterprises leveraging Microsoft technologies. As you may have heard, there have been some big...

My colleague Developer Evangelist in Southern California, Bruno Terkaly, recently presented a compelling web cast on Building a Massively Scalable Platform for Consumer Devices on Windows Azure. Don’t miss this! The webcast is based on a talk...

One of our Colorado Storage MVPs, and coordinator of the Windows Technology User Group , recently wrote an article Search Data Center addressing 5 of the core questions around SSD. Everyone wants better storage performance and solid state drive...

I love to see the great insights our partners are making: At the Build conference in September 2011, Microsoft provided details about their next operating system release, code name “Windows 8.” Leading up to this conference there has been...

Wow, what a fascinating question! Scott Gutherie deals with that and other great questions during his User Group presentation to LIDNUG on Jan 16, 2012. What is the future of Silverlight? Will Silverlight desktop apps run on Windows 8? What's new in ...

Windows Server 8 is introducing seriously big and awesome enhancements for the enterprise. As a cloud-optimized operating system, Storage Management has a host of new features and requirements. My colleague IT Pro evangelist, Chris Henley, in California...

Your Windows Phone application is fast. Your Windows Phone application uses animations. Your Windows Phone application is Metro. How can you make it better? Think about your user at a bus stop. They see the bus coming. “Oh!” they think, remembering they...

In a previous post I walked through the five must-have animations for a Windows Phone application . Since then, some readers have offered a 6th – the “Delete from a List” animation. This animation is also a great opportunity to tout the virtues of the...

A Windows Phone application is made up of a frame and pages. The Pages are made up of XAML that define the UI and the Application Bar . The Application Bar is made up of Application Bar Icon Buttons and Menu Items . MSDN : The default Application Bar...

One of the most powerful aspects of XAML is it’s rich and dynamic support for data binding. MSDN : Data binding provides a simple way for Silverlight-based applications to display and interact with data. The way data is displayed is separated from the...

If I could ask God one question, it would surely be “Where am I going to die?” That way I could avoid it. With my bad luck He would likely say “the bathroom.” D’oh! Seriously, for Windows Phone developers there’s a lot of information to know (about the...

Metro Principles There are four Principles of Design for Windows Phone applications. MSDN : Metro is the name of the new design language created for the Windows Phone 7 interface. When given the chance for a fresh start, the Windows Phone design team...