Another example of where you might want to access XNA APIs from a WP7 Silverlight application; touch gesture support. Although Silverlight offers manipulation support , it has no direct support for the higher level concept of “ gestures ” (eg tap, flick...

One of the things I showed at the WPUG meeting was accessing XNA APIs from Silverlight. In some cases because it’s the only way to achieve what you need (eg access to the microphone) and in others because it makes your life easier (eg gestures). In this...

Today we’re hosting one of our Windows Phone 7 deployment labs and I’ve been spending some time with a partner trying to determine if they’ll be able to do what they need to do on a Windows Phone 7 device. They have a rich media app which needs to be...

Paul’s post yesterday about his “WP7 Dev Lab in a box” made me question my whole approach to life. Here’s Paul’s setup:   My aspirations were a little lower. Here’s my setup:   Yes, those are my (clean) socks. Admittedly Paul has more devices...

Firstly thanks to Matt and WPUG for the great meeting last night and to all the people who braved the weather to turn up and listen to me chat about a few aspects of Windows Phone 7. I don’t have any slides to publish – I didn’t use any – but I did cover...

This week’s MSDN Flash guest post is from friend and colleague Eric Nelson . Eric’s just moved to a new role inside Microsoft (good luck Eric!) but was more than happy to put pen to paper for the MSDN Flash to share his thoughts on a couple of recent...

A new post by Brandon Watson on the Windows Phone Developer Blog announces that the final version of the Windows Phone Developer Tools will be available for download from 16th September. The final build will include the Panorama, Pivot and Bing Maps controls...

I accidentally hit the "compatibility view" button in IE8 while running HootSuite and was pleasantly surprised with the result - a gentle encouragement to upgrade, a clear set of options (with links) or the option to just carry on in the knowledge that...

Time to turn to serious matters in this MSDN Flash poll. When it comes to working late at the office, what’s the fuel that keeps your brain working best? What do you turn to when the chips are down (or still in the fryer)? What is your food of champions...

And, almost catching up with myself, here are the results of the Social Media poll from the last Flash (11th August). This is a slightly different style where you can rate from 1 to 5 (or opt not to vote at all for a particular option). The results below...

Apologies, I just realised that I’d missed out a complete set of  results from the MSDN Flash poll. Back in the 28th July edition we asked what your main job function was. Of course I got a lot of feedback saying “I do 7 of these” and the like. Honestly...

My colleague Paul Foster and I will be running some Windows Phone 7 deployment labs – as promised – to enable folks building WP7 applications to deploy and test their applications on devices. We have a series of London dates at the moment – we do plan...

All the sessions from the Windows Phone 7 Jump Start training are now available on demand. Follow the links below for access. That’s a total of about 12 hours of free training all delivered by our very own local MVPs Rob Miles and Andy Wigley . Introduction...

There are a couple of very smart and very useful projects I’ve come across for working with location data in the WP7 emulator. One is Peter Torr’s “ Mock Location APIs from my Mix10 Talk ” and the other is “ No Device? No GPS? No Matter! ” from @keyboardP...

Jaime Rodriquez has just published the recordings of the Windows Phone Design Days, an event held in Redmond for partners and agencies that delved into the inspiration, philosophy, goals and implementation details of the user experience on Windows Phone...

On Friday, at the Odeon Covent Garden, I did a session on developing for Windows Phone 7 while ScottGu presented 3 sessions on all that is good, current and new in the world of VS2010, ASP.NET 4 and ASP.NET MVC (with some other bits and pieces and plenty...

This is the first in a series of guest posts on a variety of topics for MSDN Flash feature articles. I want to thank all the people who’ve submitted ideas, abstracts and articles (I am working my way through them – honest) and in particular Shay Friedman...

I’m curious what the most popular social media sites are for readers – is everyone on Facebook? Or is Twitter where people hang out? (Feel free to friend me at @MikeOrmond ). Do people use Facebook as a tool for business as well as socially? How widely...

IE9 Platform Preview 4 is available now at the IE9 test drive site . What's new in preview 4? JavaScript is now natively integrated inside the browser (not bolted on the side) Single shared DOM between IE and JavaScript engine Improved performance improvements...

I’ve just done a major update to “ Mike’s Mega List of Windows Phone 7 Resources ”. Lots of new demo videos added as well as additional technical resources. If you come across anything you think I should add, please tweet me at @MikeOrmond . Same goes...

From ScottGu's blog post . Given my inability to remember anything at all, this has to be the most useful thing I've come across this year. Available for printing in standard paper sizes (yes, not just Letter but A4 too) and in VB, C++, C#, F#. I'll have...