Monthly Archives: July 2012

Stream SkyDrive media from your Windows Phone app

The app I’m working on could be given a little “oomph” by being able to stream media files from SkyDrive, so I looked in to it. I currently have a snipped of code that gets the downloadable URL for a SkyDrive file and uses that in some operations, but I’d seen an article on WindowsPhoneGeek (which… Read More »

Freakin’ AJAX call won’t pull the latest data

Was working on this really simple website at my job the other day. Since it was so simple, I decided to make the “data” area of the site a simple XML file that I’d just update and re-push out to the site to update data behind listboxes, etc. No big deal. Or so I thought.… Read More »

Access your SkyDrive files *without* chewing up disk space

Author’s Note: This post was created before the release of Windows 8.1 and the new management of SkyDrive (OneDrive) online/offline files. If you are running Windows 8.1, please see articles here and here for information on how you can much more easily accomplish this goal. If you are running Windows 8 or a previous Windows… Read More »

Handling application crashes

I’ve struggle for a while now trying to come up with a good way to handle app crashes in my Windows Phone applications. The problem I have is that in the Application_Unhandled event handler, there’s really no good way to pop up a task (i.e.: an email compose task) to send off debugging information. There… Read More »

Your *desktop* app in the new Microsoft Store

If you’ve been to any of the Windows 8 developer camps, then you probably were told all about the new Microsoft Store that’s debuted with Windows 8. And if you asked the right questions, they may have even told you that yes, even desktop apps will show up in the MS Store, not just ones written… Read More »

XAML Converter awesomeness

Ok so here’s the thing. I’m not going to be putting “Visibility” properties in the Models of my MVVM architecture in my apps. I would, however, expose some Boolean value on the ViewModel that might say “HasChildren”, etc. But the problem is GETTING those things to actually show or hide elements on the screen. Enter XAML Converters. By… Read More »

SkyDrive backup of your mobile app – Let’s get some common ground

I’ve seen a lot of Windows Phone mobile apps implementing a “backup” feature to SkyDrive thanks to the new Live Connect SDK that Microsoft kicked out. This is an excellent idea. However, do you really want your SkyDrive to start looking like this? [SkyDrive root] ‘- [Program 1] ‘- Photos ‘- [Program 2] ‘- [Program… Read More »

Commands are cool, but man they’re repetitive…

Using WPF/XAML databinding any good programmer comes along Commanding. It’s the thing you’re supposed to do instead of adding an EventHandler to the Click event of your button. But Christ, adding Commands everywhere gets to be damn repetitive. Enter awesomeness. Now, normally I hate using ‘object’ as a parameter to things, especially when it means you’ll be… Read More »

Windows 8: Remember what your mom said about books & their covers

So you’ve installed Windows 8 Release Preview like I told you to, yeah? Stop it. I can hear you from here. “wtf, where’s my damn start menu? how the hell…” I have been using Windows 8 as my only operating system at my workstation since Consumer Preview and here’s my recommendation: do not judge your… Read More »