Peter Torr's Blog
Posts about Windows [Phone] application development. And other stuff.
Drop-Down Menus in 100% Pure Markup
The samples lately may have seemed a bit "script heavy" for a system that is supposed to be markup...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 07/11/2006
More Interlaced / Progressive Info
Seems not everyone believes me when I say that for filmed content (24fps), 30i gives the same end...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 07/10/2006
Dead Man's Chest
Just a quickie tonight -- I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest last night....
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 07/08/2006
Pretty Buttons
Tonight's sample is for animating buttons in a generic way. As with all the samples on my blog, this...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 07/07/2006
Radio Groups in iHD
One of the things you take for granted in many programming environments is the default "widget" set...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 07/02/2006
Beyond "Beyond High Definition"?
There have been a lot of reviews of the new Blu-ray discs recently... and none of them are positive....
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 06/30/2006
Inheritance in JScript - Part 1
JScript (JavaScript / ECMAScript) is not a class-based language like C++ or Java; rather it is a...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 06/13/2006
Something About Lies and Statistics...
CNet is running a story about reader reaction to the new Windows Media Photo format. From the fine...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 06/01/2006
Consumer HD DVD site on microsoft.com
Microsoft just launched a consumer-oriented page for HD DVD at https://www.microsoft.com/hddvd. This...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/24/2006
Would the Real "Bourne Supremacy" Please Stand Up?
If you were at CES or NAB this year, you probably saw Microsoft's "concept" demo for Universal...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/24/2006
HD DVD Commercial
This message was sent with low priority. Toshiba has a cool HD DVD commercial up on their website at...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/20/2006
Hello World, Part 4: Script and a Movie! [Part iv: The Script]
The light at the end of the tunnel! We've looked at the Playlist and the Manifest file, and the...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/19/2006
Hello World, Part 4: Script and a Movie! [Part iii: The Markup]
Now we've looked at the Playlist and the Manifest file for our sample, let's look at the markup...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/19/2006
Hello World, Part 4: Script and a Movie! [Part ii: The Manifest]
In the previous part, we looked at the playlist. Now we'll look at the Manifest file, which is...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/19/2006
Hello World, Part 4: Script and a Movie! [Part i: The Playlist]
Now comes the exciting part -- actually interacting with a movie -- and the doubly-exciting part:...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/19/2006
Is A Picture Worth 1,000 Spams?
Every now and then, one of my friends will send me a link to an on-line photo album that...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/17/2006
Next-Gen DVD Features have Little to do with Capacity
The other day I was talking to a friend about HD DVD (and Blu-ray) and why they offered a better...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/17/2006
Blogging from Word 2007 Beta 2
Just a test blog entry to see how this goes... this is pretty cool, and means I won’t need my VSTO...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/16/2006
HD DVD Jumpstart Kit Beta Available
Now you can start building and testing HD DVD interactive content on your home computer! After some...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 05/04/2006
iHD Authoring Support
The HD DVD Authoring Forum is live on MSDN, and you can download a couple of samples on the HD DVD...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 04/26/2006
HD DVD -- Live in Las Vegas
Seems like only yesterday we were here at the Las Vegas Convention Centre talking about how HD DVD...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 04/25/2006
I'm with Stupid - Part 2
Now the video is up. Of course, it makes a lot more sense (and is very clever) if you are familiar...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 04/14/2006
Hello, World Part 3: Dealing with State
In the last post, we looked at a very simple (and useless) animation. Today we will look at state...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 04/14/2006
Updating Firefox as non-admin
Firefox , like all web browsers, needs to be regularly updated to keep up with security patches....
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 04/14/2006
I'm with Stupid
I'm a little behind the times, but the amazing new Pet Shop Boys single I'm with Stupid is available...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 04/11/2006
Hello, World Part 2: Simple Animation
In the last Hello, World example, I showed you how to place a simple text label on the screen. In...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 04/05/2006
HD DVD Launches in Japan
In case you hadn't seen the news, Toshiba launched their first HD DVD players in Japan today! Only a...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 04/01/2006
Quick Intro to iHD
After posting my Hello, World sample, I realised I hadn't really explained what iHD was. You might...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 03/31/2006
Hello, World in iHD
It's traditional to introduce any new programming language or environment with a "Hello, World"...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 03/29/2006
There's more to HD than, uh, HD
A lot of consumers are under the impression that higher-resolution images are the only thing that HD...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 03/21/2006
Back up and running?
Another server, another web service to code against, another job... hopefully I'll be posting more...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 03/18/2006
High Definition Facts
High Definition FactsIf you follow tech news, you’ve probably heard about High Definition...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 03/16/2006
Blindly trusting detection tools
Imagine I have a house cleaner that comes in once a week to clean the house. After a while I start...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 08/17/2005
What is Microsoft doing for security?
A recent comment on the IE Blog made it pretty apparent that not everybody is aware of Microsoft's...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 08/17/2005
IE Blog
For those of you who haven't already heard, the IE team has a blog and recently they've started to...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 08/05/2005
The Evil Problem
Over on the IE Blog, a commenter made a very good point -- why is it that IE flags scripts as...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 08/05/2005
Fun Weekend
I had a blast yesterday -- and not just because I was playing Halo 2 with the new Multiplayer Maps...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 07/24/2005
Adding URLs to an application securely
An Anonymous Reader writes: Dear Peter, I am writing a desktop application that contains links to...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 07/17/2005
Dear Diary...
I haven't really blogged in a while, mostly because it's hard to blog about the kind of work I do...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 07/17/2005
So that's what happens...
Today I did something I haven't done in a long time: I downloaded and installed some unsigned code...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 06/15/2005
More updates to my blog posting app
With the shift from https://weblogs.asp.net (on .Text) to https://blogs.msdn.com (on Community Server)...
Author: Peter Torr - MSFT Date: 06/05/2005