Matt Harrington

How to get your app into the Windows Store

Matt Harrington MSFT — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:43:00 GMT

This post can also be reached via http://bit.ly/windows8token.

Windows 8 is coming in the near future. You can download, use it, and develop apps for it today. As of May 2012, the Windows Store is not open for everyone to deploy. However, we are looking for the first wave of great applications which highlight the power of Metro and Windows 8, especially from developers who want to get to market first and build their brand.

In order to submit your application today you need a token. This is something I can help you get.

Create a great application or game.
Let me know about it by contacting me via my blog’s contact form.
I’ll help you register so you can get your application through our Application Accelerator Labs, where the app will get reviewed to confirm it's complete and conforms to the Metro guidelines and certification requirements.

This is a great opportunity to not only be first to market with your app, but also to get feedback from a Microsoft Services Engineer to make your app great. If you are serious about creating an application, this is a chance that you probably don’t want to pass up.

In addition, our team is holding a series of events and office hours to help you. We want to make sure you have what you need to be successful. Come learn more about how to build apps for Windows 8, or show up and build your app with one of our evangelists or others in the community.

Windows Developer Camps (to learn about Windows 8 development):

Redmond, WA. May 11, 2012. Register
Denver, CO. June 1, 2012. Register
Chandler, AZ. June 8, 2012. Register
Other locations

Windows Application Accelerator Labs (to build your app):

Redmond, WA. May 15 - 17, 2012. Register
Mountain View, CA. May 22 - 24, 2012. Register

Note that to get a Windows Store token, you’ll still need to contact me to get your app reviewed.

Code samples for Metro interactions from the Windows 8 SDK

Matt Harrington MSFT — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:27:31 GMT

Here are the 5 code samples from the Windows 8 SDK that I’ll be showing during my session at the Windows 8 Anchor Camp our team is holding today in Los Angeles. I’ll update this post later with more details, but wanted to give people a resource they can turn to right now at today’s event.

How to share your Metro style application for Windows 8 with another developer

Matt Harrington MSFT — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 02:26:00 GMT

If you’re writing a Metro style app for Windows 8, here’s how you can share it with another developer. Note that both the source and destination machines need a valid development license. Verify this with the PowerShell cmdlet Get-WindowsDeveloperLicense.

In Visual Studio, choose Create App Package under the Store menu:

Select Create a package to use locally only:

Make note of where the package will be saved, and then click Create:

Navigate to the package location, right-click on your package’s folder, and select Send to –> Compressed (zipped) folder. You don’t need the .APPXUPLOAD file.

Mail the zipfile to another developer, or otherwise transfer it to a second machine. Remember that the destination machine must have a valid developer’s license. Extract the zipfile, and then run Add-AppxDevPackage.bat as Administrator. The app will then show up in the target machine’s Start Screen.

For more information, watch John Sheehan’s presentation Under the hood: installation and updates for Metro style apps from the September 2011 Build conference.

(Screenshots made with Snagit by TechSmith.)

Imagine Cup 2012: Vote for the People’s Choice

Matt Harrington MSFT — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 18:43:11 GMT

We asked students from all over the world to come up with innovative uses of technology that would make the world a better place. They stepped up to the challenge, and the Imagine Cup US 2012 competition was on.

Imagine Cup is a global technology competition, enabling students worldwide to use technology to transform the world we live in. Every year, the Imagine Cup inspires eager students to shine, developing skills that will power their futures, and applying what they have learned to make a positive impact in the world and build a brighter future.

Last year, over 325,000 students participated in Imagine Cup. Today, 22 teams from across the country have made it to the Imagine Cup US finals, developing solutions and providing awareness to issues that address environmental stewardship, the worldwide obesity epidemic, and the plight of children in war-torn Africa.

Now it’s up to you: These teams need your votes to win the Imagine Cup People’s Choice award. The team with the most votes by May 19, 2012 will travel to the Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals in Sydney, Australia this July. Vote now!

Your vote is powerful. By helping select the Imagine Cup People’s Choice winner, you’ll not only be raising awareness for critical social issues, you’ll also be supporting the future of technology innovation here in the US.

And of course there’s something in it for you, too. Every time you vote, you qualify to win prizes like a laptop, an Xbox, or a Windows Phone.

Visit the Imagine Cup US Facebook page to check out our US finalists and vote for your favorite—it’s fast and easy. And remember, the more often you vote, the more often you can win, so stop by every day.

Windows 8 for JavaScript developers video from SFJS

Matt Harrington MSFT — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 01:59:00 GMT

On March 15, 2012, I gave a presentation at the San Francisco JavaScript meetup about Windows 8 development. Thanks to Dave Edelhart, here’s the video. I wish there had been time to show more code and get into Visual Studio, but that will have to come in a later talk. It’s exciting there were so many questions from the audience. I’m also excited that this was the first time the majority of the audience had seen anything about Windows 8. The presentation starts at 1 minute, 20 seconds.

If anything I said wasn’t clear, please check these authoritative sources:

Building Windows 8 blog
Windows Store for developers blog
Videos from the September 2011 Build conference
Windows Dev Center

To get started developing your own Metro style app, check out my post called Windows 8 resources for JavaScript and HTML5 developers.

Create a Windows 8 image with recimg.exe to preserve your Desktop apps after a refresh

Matt Harrington MSFT — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:04:00 GMT

Windows 8 supports two new ways to revert your system to an earlier state. From the Settings charm, access More PC settings and then click General. Towards the bottom, you’ll see these two choices:

Refresh your PC without affecting your files. This choice keeps your personal data, system settings, and Metro style applications. Desktop applications will be removed, unless you create a custom image as I detail below.
Reset your PC and start over. This choice is like a factory reset. All of your personal files, Metro style apps, and Desktop apps will be removed. You can optionally write random data to your drive for added security.

Use option 2 if you’re going to sell or give away your system. All of your personal files will be erased. The rest of this post is about option 1.

Option 1, refreshing your PC, keeps your personal data and reinstalls Metro style applications. Desktop apps will be removed, and their names will be placed in a file on your desktop called Removed Apps.

Reinstalling all of your Desktop apps can be time consuming, so Windows 8 offers a command called recimg.exe to make this easier. recimg creates an image which is used by the refresh facility when restoring Windows. Not only will your personal data and Metro style apps be saved, but so will Desktop apps you have installed at the time you create the image. This can save you a lot of time.

After installing Windows 8 on a new system, the first thing I do is install Visual Studio and Office. I then do this as Administrator:

mkdir C:\RefreshImage
recimg /CreateImage C:\RefreshImage
recimg /ShowCurrent

Refreshing my PC will then preserve my Desktop apps. Any Desktop apps I install after creating the image will not be copied over to the refreshed system. However, the old system is preserved in C:\Windows.old.

For more information, run recimg /help. Also read the Refresh and reset your PC article by Desmond Lee on the Building Windows 8 blog.

How to create a bootable USB drive from an ISO image for UEFI systems

Matt Harrington MSFT — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:42:00 GMT

At the time this post is being written, March 2012, at least some UEFI systems don't boot to NTFS USB thumb drives. These UEFI systems will only boot to FAT32 USB thumb drives. I have no idea if this will change in the future. The details of UEFI are outside the scope of what I typically deal with.

There are several utilities for creating a bootable USB drive from an ISO image, but you’ll most likely end up with something formatted with NTFS. This won’t boot on some UEFI systems. Instead, right-click on your USB drive and select “Format…”. Ensure that FAT32 is selected as the file system and click “Start”. You can also format a drive from the command line using format or diskpart if you like.

If you’re on Windows 8, double-click your ISO image to mount it. If you’re on earlier versions of Windows, use a 3rd party utility to mount the ISO. Just search the web and you’ll find options. Or, burn the ISO to a DVD and then mount it. Once the ISO is mounted, copy all files and directories over to your newly formatted USB drive by dragging and dropping. You can also do this from the command line using robocopy or xcopy.

You’ll then have a USB drive which will boot on UEFI systems. It will also boot on systems which use a BIOS instead.

I hope this saves people some time. I spent quite a while wondering why I couldn’t get a USB drive to boot on one of my newer systems.

Windows 8 Event in Silicon Valley, April 4, 2012

Matt Harrington MSFT — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:23:00 GMT

Are you interested in experiencing the next great app platform opportunity, Windows 8? Do you want to learn how to get started building apps for this new platform?

We are inviting the Silicon Valley startup community to a full-day, knockout, deep dive event taking place on our Silicon Valley Campus. Developers and designers alike will take the stage to show you how to take advantage of this new platform opportunity. Several startups will demo their brand new apps and talk about their early experiences developing for Windows 8, while the Microsoft team will provide attendees the opportunity to play with the platform and the tools needed to get started. Sessions will cover designing for the new Metro UI, building for the platform, and monetizing your apps.

April 4, 2012
Registration: 12:00 PM
Event: 1:00 PM-7:00 PM
Microsoft Silicon Valley
1065 La Avenida, Building 1
Mountain View, CA 94043

(650) 693-4000

Register here: http://introducingwindows8.eventbrite.com/

Agenda:

Time	Topic
12:00 PM	Registration
1:00 PM	Welcome & Kick-Off Dan’l Lewin, Corporate Vice President, Strategic and Emerging Business Development
1:15 PM	Windows 8 Introduction, Keynote, Demo, & Metro UI App Design
2:15 PM	Break \| Windows 8 Hack Stations
2:30 PM	Windows 8 Showcase Panel
3:15 PM	Windows 8 Marketplace Opportunity Robert Youngjohns, President, Microsoft North America
4:00 PM	Break \| Windows 8 Hack Stations
4:15 PM	Build & Reimagine your App on Windows 8
5:00 PM	VC & Entrepreneur Panel
5:45 PM	Closing Remarks & Next Steps
6:00 PM	Reception & Windows 8 Hack Stations

Join us! You won't want to miss this first of its kind event, put on by Microsoft’s BizSpark program and Microsoft’s developer evangelism team.

How to pronounce Segoe, the font or typeface

Matt Harrington MSFT — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:51:00 GMT

In Windows 8 and Windows Phone, you’ll see widespread use of a typeface called Segoe. I’ve always wondered exactly how to pronounce this. It could be SEE-goh, see-GOH, SEG-oh, seg-OH, etc. I took a look at its Wikipedia page, and learned that the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) pronunciation is /ˈ s iː ɡ oʊ /. According to my understanding of the IPA, I concluded that its pronunciation is SEE-goh, with emphasis on the first syllable. It sounds a little like the English word seagull.

However, I often hear it pronounced seg-OH, with emphasis on the second syllable.

Being the curious type that I am, I decided to do some detective work. I poked around Bing and learned that the font is named after Segoe Road in Madison, Wisconsin. On Yelp, I found a yoga studio which was near there and called them up.

Them: “Hello, this is Inner Fire Yoga.”

Me: “Hello, my name is Matt Harrington, calling from California. I have a strange request. I see on Yelp that you’re near Segoe Road. How do locals pronounce that name?”

Them: “SEE-goh.”

Me: “So it would sound funny if I pronounced it seg-OH?”

Them: “Yes.”

So there you have it. The font, or more correctly the typeface, was named after Segoe Road in Madison, Wisconsin, and locals definitely pronounce it SEE-go. If English is your second language, start by learning to pronounce the English word seagull, and then change the last part from gull to go.

Windows 8 resources for JavaScript and HTML5 developers

Matt Harrington MSFT — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 06:23:00 GMT

This post can also be reached via http://bit.ly/win8nextsteps.

If you’re reading this blog post, there’s a good chance you just saw me give a presentation on Windows 8 development with JavaScript, and now you’re looking for more resources. If instead you arrived here through a search engine, then welcome all the same.

This post assumes you’re brand new to the Windows world. I’ll tell you what to install and what to learn.

First off, visit the Windows Dev Center to download Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I use the ISO version myself, and either burn a DVD or follow my colleague Daniel Egan’s instructions for making a bootable USB thumb drive. You can install Windows directly on a PC, in a bootable VHD, or in a virtual machine. The choice is yours.

Once you have Windows 8 running, go back to the Windows Dev Center to download the tools and SDK. You’ll end up with Visual Studio 11 Express Edition, which is free. Other editions of Visual Studio 11 can run on Windows 7, but the Express Edition only runs on Windows 8.

Next install the sample app pack, also from the Windows Dev Center. This gives you several hundred megabytes of sample code. While there, also consider downloading the design assets if you’ll be working with a designer who uses Photoshop.

Now that you have Windows 8 and the developer tools installed, take a look at some online videos from the Build conference, which happened in September 2011 and was where Windows 8 Developer Preview was unveiled. This was an early version of Windows 8 suitable for developers. Keep in mind that if you see content about Windows 8 development from before 29-Feb-2012, the author is most likely using the Developer Preview and not the Consumer Preview. You may encounter differences between these two builds.

Start with these “Big Picture” videos. You can pick and choose among other videos I list later, but I wouldn’t skip these four:

Day 1 Keynote with Steven Sinofsky, Julie Larson-Green, Antoine Leblonde, Mike Angiulo, and Chris Jones.
8 Traits of Great Metro Style Apps with Jensen Harris
Platform for Metro Style Apps with Aleš Holeček and John Sheehan
Tools for Building Metro Style Apps with Chris Sells and Kieran Mockford

Next, take a look at concepts which are common across all development options (JavaScript/HTML5, .NET, and C++):

Lap Around the Windows Runtime with Martyn Lovell
Async Everywhere: Creating Responsive APIs and Apps with Ben Kuhn
Share: Your App Powers the Windows 8 Share Experience with Billie Sue Chafins and Steve Seixeiro
Search: Integrating into the Windows 8 Search Experience with Priya Vaidyanathan
Integrating with the Windows Device Experience with Marc Pottier
Using Tiles and Notifications with Kip Olson
Designing Metro Style: Principles and Personality with Samuel Moreau
Designing Metro Style Apps That Are Touch-Optimized with Jan-Kristian Markiewicz and Kay Hofmeester
Create Metro Style Apps Quickly with Built-In Controls with Paul Gusmorino
Windows Runtime Internals: Understanding “Hello World” with Matt Merry

You’ve now got a solid foundation to build on. Next, turn to these videos which dive deeper into JavaScript and HTML5:

Metro Style Apps Using HTML5 From Start to Finish with Scott Dickens
Using the Windows Runtime from JavaScript with Luke Hoban
Introducing the Windows Libraries for JavaScript with Chris Tavares
Building Metro Style Apps Using JavaScript with Chris Tavares
What’s New With HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3 with John Hrvatin
A Deep Dive into Expression Blend for Designing Metro Style Apps with HTML with Christian Schormann
Build Polished Collection and List Apps in HTML5 with Ryan Demopoulos
Build Data-Driven Collection and List Apps using ListView in HTML5 with James Clarke and Sam Spencer
Bring Apps to Life with Metro Style Animations in HTML5 with Dale Rogerson and Jason Beaumont
Building Beautiful and Interactive Apps with HTML5 and CSS3 with Ted Johnson
The Web-to-Windows Journey: Turning your Web Assets into a Windows App with Rey Bango, Edgar Banguero, and Jerome Holman
Code with Confidence: Dynamic Web Content in Metro Style Apps using HTML5 with John Hazen
Make Great Metro Style Apps That Are Touch-Optimized Using HTML5 with Nick Waggoner and Reed Townsend
Best Practices for Writing Safe and Secure Metro Style Apps using HTML5 with David Weston and Kamen Moutafov
Building Windows Runtime Sockets Apps with Peter Smith and Dave Thaler
Building Real-time Web Apps with HTML5 WebSockets with Ravi Rao
Designing Metro Style Apps Using CSS3 with Christian Stockwell
Debugging Your Metro Style Apps Using HTML with Erik Saltwell and Jeff Fisher
Reaching More Customers with Accessible Metro Style Apps in HTML5 with Guy Barker
Stand Out with Styling in Your HTML App with Chris Jones and Phil Cupp
Building Great Networked Media Devices for "Play To" Apps with Edwin Heredia and Zane Salim
Building High Performance Metro Style Apps Using HTML5 with Mathias Jourdain
Building Offline Access in Metro Style Apps and Websites using HTML5 with Israel Hilerio
Create Reusable Custom Metro Style Controls with Jeff Fisher
Manual Testing of Windows Metro Style Apps Built Using HTML with Mathew Aniyan
50 Performance Tricks to Make Your Metro Style Apps and Sites Using HTML5 Faster with Jason Weber
Reach a Worldwide Audience by Building a World-Ready App with Kipling Knox
Building a Sample Metro Style Canvas Paint App Using HTML with David Owens
Building Responsive Apps and Sites with HTML5 Web Workers with Travis Leithead
Anatomy of HTML5 Sites and Metro Style Apps Using HTML5 with Tony Ross
Programming SVG and Canvas Graphics in a Metro Style App Based on HTML5 with Patrick Dengler
Reach Your Customers’ Devices with One Beautiful HTML5 User Interface with Markus Mielke and David Washington
Progressively Enable the Mobile Web with ASP.NET MVC4, HTML5, and jQuery Mobile with Phil Haack
Building Data-Driven HTML5 Apps with WCF RIA Services with Asad Khan and Dinesh Kulkarni

There are even more videos from Build, and it’s worth taking a look at other titles available. Just head over to http://www.buildwindows.com. Also, training companies such as Pluralsight have created Windows 8 content.

The following sites, updated daily, aren’t specific to HTML5 and JavaScript development. However, they contain Windows 8 articles and general news about the Microsoft development world:

Lastly, and most importantly, add the Building Windows 8 blog to your feed reader. Steven Sinofsky and the Windows team post there. Consider it the final word on all things Windows 8.

If you have any questions, the best place to turn is http://forums.dev.windows.com. Microsoft employees make sure that all questions are answered there.

How to fix Node.js npm permission problems

Matt Harrington MSFT — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:44:00 GMT

With node version 0.6.10 and npm version 1.1.0-3, you may run into this error when installing a module on Windows, not just the Azure module:

PS> npm install azure
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/azure
npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/azure
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/azure/-/azure-0.5.2.tgz
npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/azure/-/azure-0.5.2.tgz
npm ERR! Could not unpack C:\Users\Matt\AppData\
  Roaming\npm-cache\azure\0.5.2\package.tgz 
  to C:\Users\Matt\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\azure\0.5.2

npm ERR! Error: EPERM, operation not permitted 
  'C:\Users\Matt\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\
  azure\0.5.2\___package.npm\package'
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.
npm ERR!
npm ERR! System Windows_NT 6.1.7601
npm ERR! command "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\nodejs\\\\node.exe" 
  "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\
  npm-cli.js" "install" "azure"
npm ERR! cwd C:\Users\Matt\Documents\src\node
npm ERR! node -v v0.6.10
npm ERR! npm -v 1.1.0-3
npm ERR! path C:\Users\Matt\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\
  azure\0.5.2\___package.npm\package
npm ERR! code EPERM
npm ERR! message EPERM, operation not permitted 
  'C:\Users\Matt\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\
  azure\0.5.2\___package.npm\package'
npm ERR! errno {}
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\Matt\Documents\src\node\npm-debug.log
npm not ok

It turns out that you don’t have to run the command again as Administrator, and doing so won’t fix the problem. Try npm cache clean first. If that doesn’t fix things, take a look in %APPDATA%\npm-cache, or if you’re using PowerShell, $env:APPDATA\npm-cache. After cleaning the cache, you may still be left with remnants. Manually remove everything in that directory, and try again. This has always fixed things for me.

Orchard CMS virtual meetup, Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Matt Harrington MSFT — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:27:00 GMT

Join us for an Orchard CMS developer’s meetup, which will be held online on Tuesday, March 6, 2012.

Date:	Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Time:	8 AM Pacific, 4 PM UTC (other timezones)
Location:	http://www.livestream.com/microsoftdevelopers
Register here (free):	http://orchard-mar-2012.eventbrite.com/

Bertrand Le Roy will present on what’s new in Orchard version 1.4. Matt Harrington will demonstrate how to run Orchard on Azure using a 3 month free trial. There will be time for questions from the chatroom. No prior experience with Orchard is necessary, but consider downloading WebMatrix beforehand to become familiar with it.

Important: this blog page will be updated with any late breaking news. Check here for any last minute details the day of the event.

Bertrand Le Roy started his professional developer career in 1982 when he published his first video game. He then spent a few years studying math and physics, got a Ph.D. and then went back to software development. He released in 2002 what was probably the first CMS to run on ASP.NET. A year later, he was hired by Microsoft’s ASP.NET team and moved to the US. He has worked on ASP.NET versions 2.0 to 4.0, ASP.NET Ajax, contributed to making jQuery an official part of the .NET developer’s tool chest, and represents Microsoft in the OpenAjax Alliance’s steering committee. In his spare time, he’s a gamer, a pretty good skier, a very mediocre golfer and he wonders who really reads bios. He blogs at http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/ and is @bleroy on Twitter.

Matt Harrington, yours truly, is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft, and is based in San Francisco. Coincidentally, like Bertrand I also have a background in physics. An interest in F# brought me to Microsoft, and I’m also excited about Windows 8, Windows Phone, and Azure. I blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/matt-harrington/ and am @mh415 on Twitter.

MatterPort brings 3D reconstruction to the masses with Kinect

Matt Harrington MSFT — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:19:00 GMT

With the recent release of the Kinect for Windows hardware and SDK, I thought I’d highlight the cool work my friends Matt Bell and Dave Gausebeck have been doing at MatterPort. In the early days of Kinect programming in late 2010, countless hobbyists came up with very clever hacks using skeletal tracking to do all sorts of things. Some of my favorites are augmented reality applications which show people shooting fireballs or lasers from their hands. Then there’s a whole class of hacks which use the Kinect to control robots or anything with a motor. Great stuff.

There are far fewer examples of using raw 3D data, like what MatterPort is working on:

In the not so distant past, 3D reconstructions required expensive hardware and rare expertise. Now anyone with an inexpensive Kinect and MatterPort’s software can capture 3D models in just a few minutes. Think of the opportunities for real estate agents, sculptors, fashion designers, industrial designers, carpenters, mechanical engineers, and hobbyists of all sorts. Yes, they’re even working on a hobbyist edition.

How to use Node.js with the local Azure Storage Emulator

Matt Harrington MSFT — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:01:00 GMT

As you may know, the Azure SDK for Node.js includes a Storage Emulator for development purposes. This lets you code against a local storage system using the Azure table, blob, and queue APIs rather than needing something configured in the public cloud. Need to develop on your laptop while midair on a flight? No problem.

You can switch between using the local Storage Emulator and the public cloud by using environment variables. Take a look at the open source SDK on GitHub, and you’ll see in serviceclient.js that several environment variables are parsed:

/*
* Used environment variables.
* @enum {string}
*/
ServiceClient.EnvironmentVariables = {
  AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT: 'AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT',
  AZURE_STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY: 'AZURE_STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY',
  AZURE_SERVICEBUS_NAMESPACE: 'AZURE_SERVICEBUS_NAMESPACE',
  AZURE_SERVICEBUS_ISSUER: 'AZURE_SERVICEBUS_ISSUER',
  AZURE_SERVICEBUS_ACCESS_KEY: 'AZURE_SERVICEBUS_ACCESS_KEY',
  AZURE_WRAP_NAMESPACE: 'AZURE_WRAP_NAMESPACE',
  HTTP_PROXY: 'HTTP_PROXY',
  HTTPS_PROXY: 'HTTPS_PROXY',
  ALL_PROXY: 'ALL_PROXY',
  EMULATED: 'EMULATED'
};

If an environment variable called EMULATED is set, the Azure module will use the Storage Emulator without you having to explicitly pass credentials to the storage service. Here’s how you set it in PowerShell:

PS> $env:EMULATED = "true"
PS> ls env:EMULATED

Name                           Value
----                           -----
EMULATED                       true

Incidentally, ls and dir are just aliases to Get-ChildItem. You could also use Set-Variable and Get-Variable. Once set, you can create a handle to the storage service without passing in any credentials. Here’s how it looks for table storage:

var azure = require('azure');
var tableService = azure.createTableService();

If you like, you can still pass in the credentials for the Storage Emulator without setting an environment variable. The credentials are also defined in serviceclient.js. Aaron Stannard has a blog post which shows you how.

If you want your Node application to run on your local machine and talk to a live Azure service in the public cloud, keep an eye out for a blog post I’ll be making next.

You can automatically set environment variables by storing the commands in your PowerShell profile, which is simply a script which runs when PowerShell launches:

PS> $profile 
C:\Users\Matt\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

PS> test-path $profile
False

PS> mkdir $HOME\Documents\WindowsPowerShell
PS> notepad $profile

Make sure you’ve enabled the running of scripts with Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned first. Run that as Administrator.

Node applications on any platform can use the Azure module to talk to the public cloud, but the Storage Emulator is only available on Windows.

How to enable logging between Node.js and Azure

Matt Harrington MSFT — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:16:00 GMT

I’ve been playing with Node.js on Azure for the past couple of weeks. In case you didn’t know, Node is a fully supported development option on Azure. There’s an official open source SDK, which as of version 0.5.2 supports Azure tables, blobs, storage queues, ServiceBus queues, and ServiceBus topics. You can even deploy to Azure from the Cloud9 online IDE using a Mac. If you're a Node developer and are looking for a cloud provider, you should take a look at Azure.

There’s a lot of documentation on the Node.js Developer Center for Azure, and the GitHub page for the SDK, but I don’t recall seeing how to enable logging as of the release date for version 0.5.2 of the SDK. It’s quite simple:

var azure = require('azure');

var tableService = azure.createTableService();
tableService.logger = new azure.Logger(azure.Logger.LogLevels.DEBUG);

var blobService = azure.createBlobService();
blobService.logger = new azure.Logger(azure.Logger.LogLevels.DEBUG);

var queueService = azure.createQueueService();
queueService.logger = new azure.Logger(azure.Logger.LogLevels.DEBUG);

All sorts of information will then show up in the console which you can use to get a better understanding of what’s happening behind the scenes. Comment out the lines which set the logger property to disable logging.

Learn about Windows Server 2008 R2 virtualization

Matt Harrington MSFT — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:48:26 GMT

Virtualization is here to stay. It doesn’t matter if you're an IT Professional for a multinational company, or running a small business, chances are virtualization is making an impact on how you work. Developers are also leveraging virtualization to gain efficiencies, stabilize their test environments and more.

Chris E. Avis, an IT Evangelist here at Microsoft, is posting a blog series on virtualization that you may find interesting. The series has a strong focus on delivering the skills required to take and pass the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Virtualization Exam (70-659). Even if you aren’t interested in taking the exam, the information provided is invaluable to anyone that is just starting to use the Microsoft virtualization platform. Also planned is some deep dive technical information for those who already work with virtualization.

Check out the series at his blog:

Passing the Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Virtualization Exam (70-659) – Part 1 – Study Resources

Passing the Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Virtualization Exam (70-659) – Part 2 – Skills Measured

Passing the Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Virtualization Exam (70-659) – Part 3 – Installing and Configuring Host and Parent Settings

Passing the Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Virtualization Exam (70-659) – Part 4 – Creating and Configuring Guest VMs

Passing the Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Virtualization Exam (70-659) – Part 5 – I’m a Developer! Why Virtualize?

Free stuff for startups - sign up before February 14, 2012

Matt Harrington MSFT — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:40:19 GMT

Do you like free stuff? Are you a startup?

Microsoft supports Startup America, which offers the following for free:

Expertise -

Weekly pitch coaching sessions with Nathan Gold
Ask the VC Virtual Round Tables with folks like Brad Feld and David Cohen of TechStars

Services -

BizSpark: free software and other benefits from Microsoft to qualified startups
Dell offers special discounts on Latitude laptops to Startup America members
All eligible member firms receive 6 months free online Intuit payroll service

Talent -

Two free months of LinkedIn's Premium Business service
Post job openings for free with Startup Hire and gain access to their Talent Vault with over 100,000 profiles

Customers -

Enterprise level CRM from LeadMaster
SearchManager by Clickable for American Express OPEN provides members access to all major search engines, including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Facebook

Capital -

Funding Fees Offer from IndieGoGo, the world's largest open funding platform
Premium membership from Biz2Credit

... and more.

We're trying to see how many startups we can enroll between now and February 14, 2012. It only takes 3 minutes to sign up and it's free. Use this URL, so I can keep track of how many people signed up after reading my blog: http://ar.gy/mharrin.

San Francisco Windows Phone Study Group: next meetup is Thursday, November 17, 2011

Matt Harrington MSFT — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:59:00 GMT

Due to travel, I haven't been able to have a Windows Phone study group meetup in San Francisco for a few weeks, but that's about to change. On Thursday, 17-Nov-2011, I'll present Chapter 3 from Adam Nathan's book 101 Windows Phone 7 Apps. The app we'll build stores vital information about yourself that can be used in an emergency. For example, you can list your allergies. It's a simple app, but building it will explore:

Page orientation
Dealing with both the on-screen and hardware keyboards
Input scopes
Scroll viewer
Size properties
Margins and padding
Emulator-specific code

Be sure to download the free Windows Phone development tools beforehand.

You don't need Adam's book in order to get something out of the presentation, but I recommend it. If you have an app you'd like to show the group, please let me know.

For more information and to RSVP, go here: http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/41137222/.

See you there!

Slides from the Windows Phone Camp in Sunnyvale, October 20 & 21, 2011

Matt Harrington MSFT — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:25:57 GMT

Thanks to those of you who made it to the Windows Phone Camp in Sunnyvale, CA on October 20 & 21, 2011. My talk was Building Windows Phone 7.5 Apps with Silverlight, and the slides are below. For those of you who couldn't make it in person, you can watch the video online.

Be sure to download the free tools from http://bit.ly/wpgetstarted. You'll get Visual Studio for Windows Phone, Expression Blend, XNA Studio, and the emulator. Everything is free, and you don't even need a device to start developing. That link will also show how to get started after you download the tools.

Windows Phone "Inner Circle" event in San Francisco, Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Matt Harrington MSFT — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 01:18:00 GMT

We recently announced the Windows Phone Inner Circle tour with stops all over the US this fall. Be sure to put Wednesday, November 2, 2011 on your calendar if you're in San Francisco. The event will be from 6 - 9 PM, but as of today I'm unsure of the venue. I'll update this blog as soon as I confirm the location. (Update: As William mentions in the comments, the venue is at 540 Howard Street in San Francisco.) The San Francisco event coincides with the HTC Radar 4G launch party.

From the registration page:

"Enjoy free appetizers and cocktails, be one of the first people to get your hands on incredible new Windows Phones, and meet the team that brought them to life. Share your experience and you'll be entered to win a Windows Phone and other great prizes."

The word on the street is that lots of phones will be given away. Be sure to register! See you there.

Also, be sure you've downloaded the "Mango" SDK here: http://bit.ly/wpgetstarted. The download couldn't be easier.

Free passes to the O’Reilly Android Open Conference reception on Monday, October 10, 2011

Matt Harrington MSFT — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:06:00 GMT

If you’d like a free pass to the O’Reilly Android Open Conference reception in San Francisco on Monday, October 10, 2011, just send me an email by clicking Email Blog Author on the right. Note that the free pass is only for the reception on Monday evening, not the entire conference. It’s from 5:30 – 7:30 PM at the Hyatt Regency, 5 Embarcadero Center, in San Francisco.

Broaden the reach of your Android app by getting it on Windows Phone. You don’t even need a device to get started. Learn more here: http://bit.ly/wpgetstarted.

Windows Phone Developer Group Formed in San Francisco

Matt Harrington MSFT — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:29:00 GMT

With the impending release of Mango, I thought it was time to start a group for Windows Phone developers in San Francisco. You can find us through the easily remembered URL http://create.msdn.com/sf, which redirects to the group’s homepage on meetup.com.

We’ll have weekly meetups throughout the fall covering projects from Adam Nathan’s excellent book, 101 Windows Phone 7 Apps. The first 11 projects provide a great foundation for Windows Phone development, and we’ll walk through a chapter each week. You don’t need to purchase the book, but I highly recommend it. You can even buy it minutes before our meetups using the Nook for PC app, or something similar. That’s what I do myself. I don’t even own the hardcopy version.

We’ll intersperse these weekly discussions about Adam’s book with monthly presentations from our own members. Several developers have already expressed interest in talking about apps they’ve made. Drop me a note if you’d like to present. This is the same format followed by the Silicon Valley Windows Phone Developers group (http://create.msdn.com/siliconvalley).

Our first meetup is scheduled for Thursday, September 22, in the Microsoft offices in San Francisco at 835 Market Street Suite 700, right above the Powell Street BART Station. Consider getting takeout from the food court in the lower level of the Westfield Centre beforehand, and bring it up to the meetup. We’ll start eating at 6:30 in the Microsoft offices and launch into the presentation after we’ve gotten to know each other.

Windows Phone development is a dream. I’ll almost go as far as saying it’s actually hard to make a bad app. Be sure to download the free development tools by clicking here. You don’t even need a phone to start developing. Everything you need is included in the free developer tools. Nokia's move to Windows Phone and the terrific new features in Mango make now the most exciting time to get started with Windows Phone development.

See you there!

Kinect content at Gamefest 2011

Matt Harrington MSFT — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 05:11:40 GMT

In case you’re not familiar with it, Gamefest is a conference for game developers and designers targeting Microsoft platforms including Xbox, Windows Phone 7, and Windows desktops. It will be held in three cities in the summer of 2011:

July 14-15 in London.
July 29 in Tokyo.
August 22-23 in Seattle.

There’s an amazing amount of Kinect content this year. Go to the Gamefest site to get all the details, but here’s a summary of the 22 Seattle sessions just related to Kinect. Note: most of these sessions are for the Xbox console.

Augmented Animation, Camera, and Controls. Lewey Geselowitz.
Avatar Navigation with Kinect. Todd Heckel.
Designing Compelling Player Experiences with Kinect Identity. Eric Langlois.
Gesture Detection Using Machine Learning. Claude Marais.
Heuristic Based Gesture Detection Techniques. Eric Langois.
Kinect and Kids: Pitfalls and Pleasantries. Deborah Hendersen.
Kinect Hands: Finger Tracking and Voxel UI. Abdulwajid Mohamed and Tony Ambrus.
The Magic Behind Kinect. Zsolt Mathe.
Making a Five Star Kinect Game. Jason Hewitt.
Natural User Input Joint Filtering Best Practices. Mehran Azimi.
Real-Time Classification of Gestures Using Kinect, with Emphasis on Dance. Darko Kirovski and Joel Pritchett.
Tips for Raw Image Manipulation with Kinect. Allan Murphy and David Cook.
An Array of Options: Driving Gameplay with Kinect Audio Input. Scott Selfon.
Emerging Markets for Motion Games: How to Maximize Your Market Share for Kinect Titles. Sheryl Flynn and Tiffany Shubert.
The Evolution of User Generated Content. Doug Park.
Feedback, Feedback, Feedback: Good Kinect UI Design. Ben Board.
Kinect Certification: Lessons Learned and Best Practices. Jean-Marc Goulet.
The Modern Dr. Dolittle: Talking to the Kinectimals with NuiSpeech. Mike Froggatt.
New and Improved: Functional Certification for Kinect. Daniel Jacobs.
Planning for Success: Kinect Compliance Certification. Brad Mues.
Voice and “Other Sounds” Interaction: Beyond Simple Speech Recognition. Pedro Cardoso.
“Xbox, Listen”: Using Speech Recognition with Kinect. Scott Selfon.

Not only is the content great, but mingling with the people behind the Kinect will be an invaluable experience. Hope to see you there.

Herb Sutter: C++ Now and Forever, June 29 in Santa Clara

Matt Harrington MSFT — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:41:00 GMT

For my inaugural blog post, I’d like to announce an exciting C++ event on June 29, 2011, in Santa Clara, CA. Microsoft and NVIDIA are teaming up to bring a full evening of C++ content.

Headlining the event is Herb Sutter from Microsoft, who’ll speak about the new C++0x standard and a new way to target GPUs called C++ AMP (Edit: added 15-June-2011). Following that we’ll have a talk on ALM tools coming in Visual Studio. We’ll then switch gears and have three speakers from NVIDIA who’ll talk about GPU computing. Find all the details below.

Herb is the chair of the ISO C++ standards committee, and author of four books: Exceptional C++, More Exceptional C++, Exceptional C++ Style, and C++ Coding Standards (with Andrei Alexandrescu).

Important: the event is free, but you must register here: http://bit.ly/june29cpp. Space is limited, so register early. Snacks and beverages will be supplied by Microsoft and NVIDIA.

See you there!

Title:	C++ and GPU Computing: A Look Ahead
Date:	Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Time:	5:45 PM to 9:00 PM
Location:	NVIDIA, 2800 Scott Blvd Building E, Santa Clara, CA 95050. Marco Polo room.

5:45 PM	Welcome and Registration
6:00 PM	C++: Heterogeneous Parallelism in General, C++ AMP in Particular Herb Sutter Principal Architect for Windows C++ Microsoft
7:15 PM	ALM Tools for C++ in Visual Studio 201X Rong Lu Program Manager, C++ Microsoft
8:00 PM	Parallel Nsight: Programming GPUs in Visual Studio Stephen Jones NVIDIA
8:20 PM	Parallel Programming Made Easy with CUDA 4.0 Justin Luitjens NVIDIA
8:40 PM	Thrust: C++ Template Library for GPGPUs Jared Hoberock NVIDIA

Special thanks to Marc Wolfson & Yesenia Alvarez of Microsoft, and Calisa Cole & Jennifer Anonical of NVIDIA for putting this together.

June 22, 2011 update. Here's the abstract of Herb's talk:

Title: Heterogeneous Parallelism in General, and C++ AMP in Particular

Parallelism is not just in full bloom, but increasingly in full variety. We know that getting full computational performance out of most machines — nearly all desktops and laptops, most game consoles, and the newest smartphones — already means harnessing local parallel hardware, mainly in the form of multicore CPU processing. This is the commoditization of the supercomputer.

More and more, however, getting that full performance can also mean using gradually ever-more-heterogeneous processing, from local discrete and on-die GPGPU flavors to “often-on” remote parallel computing power in the form of elastic compute clouds. This is the generalization of the heterogeneous cluster in all its NUMA glory, and it’s appearing at all scales from on-die to on-machine to on-cloud.

In this talk, Herb shares a vision of what this will mean for native software on mainstream platforms from servers to devices, and showcases upcoming innovations that bring access to increasingly heterogeneous compute resources — from vector units and multicore, to GPGPU and elastic cloud — directly into the world’s most popular native languages.