I will be hosting weekly office hours to discuss Windows 8 app development and answer questions from Windows 8 developers. While discussing technologies, I will focus on apps that are built for government, healthcare and education. You can stop by during...

Microsoft Research has recently released a great Windows Phone 8 app named “ BLINK ” that takes continuous pictures. Unlike Nokia’s Smart Shoot , Blink takes more than a dozen pictures with one touch, and you can then play back the pictures and choose...

My colleague Kevin Ashley has shared with us his first-hand app dev experience and his success with a few Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 apps. His message was very clear to us: be there, be the first, be a change enabler for the industry. I will not say...

Set up dev environment on your Mac. You can create a virtualization solution for cross-platform development on OSX . Check out my previous post on how to install Windows 8 and developer tools on Mac. Learn how to build Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 apps...

Service Bus Notification Hubs are Service Bus entities that allow a user to send push notifications through third-party platforms, e.g. Windows Notification System (WNS), Apple Push Notification Service (APNs).  Note: Support for Windows Phone’s...

Working with Tile notifications in Windows Store apps is pretty easy. Check out this blog post and download and play with a great example from MSDN . Now, how do you send live tile notifications in your Windows Store apps? You can send tile notifications...

With Windows Azure Media Services, you can stream video to HTML5, Flash, Silverlight, Windows 8, iPad, iPhone, Android, Xbox, Windows Phone and other clients using a wide variety of streaming formats: Read ScottGu’s blog post for more detail. If you don...

The app makes finding what’s around you rather easy. Nokia explains on its web site: City Lens uses your phone’s camera display to reveal the best shops, restaurants, and points of interest as virtual signs overlaid on the buildings right in front of...

I came across similar questions at a few online forums such as MSDN and Stackoverflow and thought I’d share the answers. A direct answer to the question is “No, you cannot”. Since supported APIs in .NET for Windows Store apps do not include email function...

If you, your family or friends like painting, you’ve got to try this wonderful Windows 8 app (free). It’s so easy to use. You can save your very own art work as a png image file and share it with people if you like. See more info on the app, read the...

Publish your app(s) to the Windows Store and/or Windows Phone Store between December 20, 2012-February 28, 2013 to qualify for the following rewards: A Store registration reimbursement† AND a copy of Halo 4 for Xbox 360! A chance to win one of 12 Xbox...

A Microsoft team in India has created fabulous fifty Windows Store app templates. These templates will be available soon. For more detail check here .  

If you’d like to create a Windows Store App but don’t have access to a Windows 8 computer, you can build a virtual Windows Store app development environment (for free) using taking the following steps. Sign up for Windows Azure using the free 90-Day Trial...

At this series of free, in-person developer events at Microsoft Store at Mall of America , you will learn how to build Windows Store applications focusing on healthcare, education and government/citizen with Dr. Z, Microsoft technical evangelist. In some...

You can install Windows 8 on your Mac with two options below. Run Windows 8 in a virtual environment using software like VMWare Fusion 5 or Parallels for your Mac Run Windows 8 on your Mac natively using Boot Camp Both are good options, and will allow...

The Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) is holding a contest for the two best open source apps that are written on the SLC data store this weekend!  There will be two applications selected for a prize of $2,000 each. Check out http://dev.slcedu.org...

The December 2012 Refresh of the Windows Azure Training Kit includes two new demos from the BUILD 2012 conference that demonstrate how to use Windows Azure Mobile Services, Web Sites, and Cloud Services. It’s available to download here . The Windows Azure...

The Windows App Certification Kit (ACK) available in the   Windows SDK helps developers test their apps before submitting them to the Windows Store. Developers who want to test their apps on Windows RT can use the Windows App Certification Kit for...

Available in October 2010, Blue Button is a federal program that allows Veterans to download their personal health information from their My HealtheVet account. According to the web site of the Department of Veterans Affairs , VA developed the Blue Button...

Mayo Clinic , a leading medical practice and research institution in the world, publishes thousands of updated, authoritative health and medical articles and papers on its web site. After wining approval from the leadership, the team responsible for the...

The service is provided by MarkedUp LLC, a startup founded by Aaron Stannard, a former Microsoft developer evangelist and Erik Medina. According to the company’s web site, it is easy to use the service in your Windows 8 apps. The service is available...

This blog post discusses how to secure web services on Windows Azure Web Sites for Windows Store applications. Introduction to Windows Azure Web Sites Windows Azure Web Sites is a highly scalable web application hosting service on Windows Azure. From...

  To sign up for a free 90day Windows Azure trial account, click here .       Day One Introducing the Windows 8 platform and the Windows Store 9:00AM to 10:00AM Design differences between iOS and Windows 8 10:00AM to 11:00AM Tooling...

The Windows Azure Mobile Services provides full support for iOS developers with a number of improvements to the native, iOS Objective C SDK and support for Push Notifications via APNS. To try mobile services for free, sign up for the Free Trial  ...

Join other iOS developers around the world at the FREE Windows Store app development training live stream for iOS developers hosted by Channel 9 and streamed by the Verge on Dec 13 th and 14 th . Watch the Big Nerd Ranch and Microsoft discuss  the...