There’s a tradition in our family (well, my wife’s family but it’s now “our” family) that people write a list of items they’d like to receive as Christmas / birthday presents. Then other people pick from the list. Going “off-list” is generally frowned...

Yes, that’s right. After a successful CTP of VB for Windows Phone 7, the team have now released “ Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer Tools – RTW ”. If you just want to download the good stuff, here’s the link: Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer...

Out guest writer for this issue is Mark Bloodworth , an Architect Evangelist at Microsoft UK, who kindly offered to write a brief introduction to F#. Mark’s interests extend to all those “other” languages like Ruby, Python and F# so we should be in safe...

“Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” Benjamin Lee Whorf This week, given our feature article is on a (relatively) new .NET programming language, we’d like to know which is your favourite.

Well it turns out that most of us could have retired by now had we only been able to charge by the “I-told-you-so”. We asked you “If I had a pound / dollar / euro for every time someone assumed it would be easy to build that app / add that feature, I...

If you’ve looked at Windows Phone 7 development, you’ll almost certainly have come across push notifications , a mechanism for efficiently delivering messages to a device whether or not your application is currently running. The architecture looks like...

If you weren’t able to make it along to the Windows Phone 7 DDD event in Manchester last month you’ll be pleased to know that all the sessions were recorded. The first few sessions are now available and I’m publishing them on Channel9 so as many people...

I’ve just noticed that the “extra” Windows Phone 7 Jump Start sessions added at the end of October don’t seem to have been that well publicised (in a very unscientific check of the number of bit.ly links to them). So, in case you missed them, here are...

I’m often asked about Office on Windows Phone 7 (typically how much does it cost it comes bundled with the OS, no extra charge). It struck me though, that if you don’t have a phone (or you haven’t had a chance to play with one) then you wont have seen...

I just noticed this new C9 series yesterday and added it to my list of WP7 resources but think it’s worth a separate callout here. If you’re completely new to development (unlikely if you’re reading this) or you know someone who is but fancies getting...

This Friday (tomorrow!) at 10am PST (so that’s 6pm if you’re in the UK), LIDNUG (Linked.NET User Group) are holding their next virtual meeting with Scott Guthrie. In fact this is their 7th “Talking Shop” meeting with Scott and it’s understandably very...

I updated my list of WP7 Resources again today to at least make sure it has the latest links. I’ve also added the PDC10 WP7 sessions to it. There’s a lot more scope for me to add useful stuff but given the size of the list already, I think it might make...

This week’s MSDN Flash guest author is….. well, me. Now Windows Phone 7 has launched in all markets and you can wander down to your local high-street retailer and take your pick of whichever device most takes your fancy (see below)…. I thought it was...

Yes, you can watch the Silverlight Firestarter event online on 2/12. Given the amount of coverage, debate and FUD that’s been thrown around recently, perhaps it’s the most important one yet to tune into. The agenda looks like this (5pm start in the UK...

Having asked what type of work you were involved in , I then asked what type of work you’d really like to be doing and the results are quite interesting. In the data below, the “Preference” column represents the results from the latter poll and the “Actual...

I’ve created a list of my favourite PDC10 videos for next week’s MSDN Flash and thought I’d share it here first so you get early access. The Future of C# and Visual Basic The Future of F# Lambdas, Lambdas Everywhere LINQ, Take Two – Realizing the LINQ...

Maybe I just got out the wrong side of the bed this morning but I’m fed up with assumptions (not my own, just other peoples, mine are just fine). Does anyone else share my frustration? Or is it just me?

… on my phone. Dolt that I am (wondering how I could get this document from my PC to my phone when all I had to do was click on the download link in IE on the phone) it took me a minute or two to figure this out. In fact, the experience is really nice...

…Programming Windows Phone 7 by Charles Petzold. Given it runs to over 1000 pages I may overrun into tomorrow as well. In case you didn’t see the announcement , Charles Petzold’s latest book on Windows Phone 7 is available as a free (yes free) eBook....

Iain Lobb is a Flash developer specialising in (very addictive) games . He expressed an interest in porting some of his games to Windows Phone 7 and Martin managed to hook him up with a developer device. He’s just blogged his early thoughts. I’m really...

9/11/2010 MSDN Webcast: Integrating Sensor and Location Support 11/11/2010 MSDN Webcast: The Associated Press: Embracing a Multi-screen Ecosystem for News Delivery 18/11/2010 MSDN Webcast: Better User Experience with Windows 7 Multitouch and Gestures...

From the Windows Phone Developer blog “Microsoft is partnering with PreEmptive to provide Dotfuscator for Windows Phone for free to developers through March 31 st , 2011.  Both companies are committed to working to ensure that come March 2011, there...

UKAzureNet is relaunching under the new name of “Cloud Evening”. The first event is on Thursday 11th November at Skills Matter in London. The agenda looks like this: 6:00pm-6:30pm: Registration 6:30pm-7:30pm: Real world experience of a startup using Azure...

This week’s MSDN Flash features a PDC10 round up by Andrew Sinclair – a valiant effort given Andrew wasn’t there in person but took advantage of the live streaming of PDC10 as well as the on-demand facility. Below are a few photos I took at the Reading...

In MSDN Flash Poll #10 we asked what type of software development you were currently doing. It seems logical and interesting to ask the complimentary question, what type of software development would you like to be engaged in? It also saves me from having...