Blog on DVLUP

Password Purgatory, a C# Scammer Trap

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is a reimagined version of Troy Hunt’s Password Purgatory ; written as a dotnet app and automatically published to Azure. It is not a 1:1 recreation of Troy’s, but maintains its spirit, see all the source code on GitHub at dotnet-password-purgatory

Just imagine, thousands of dollars is only a button click away, but your password keeps failing because of with the following rules:

- First entry form seems normal, some standard client-side validation to make sure I complete both fields.
- Okay, so I didn’t have a number in my password…
- Whoops, maybe I shouldn’t have just jammed a “1” on the end of the password…
- Ugh, okay, an upper-case character (starting to feel annoyed).
- This seems my own fault, nothing lets you use short password anymore.
- Wait, what? This is starting to seem like I’m being given the run-around… but adding ‘dog’ to the end is easy enough…
- Really, cat? Okay, three letters, lets add it and keep going because I want to see where this is going.

If they keep going…

Automating Dependabot Pull Requests

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most of us are familiar with Dependabot and how it can open an Issue in your GitHub repo when there’s a pending dependency update or a security issue. However, did you know that you can also have it automatically open a Pull Request, do all the builds, make sure checks pass, and merge it, too?

I find this capability very helpful and time saving when the dependencies are not core SDK components. Particualrly with node.js projects, there are can be a lot of updates that are not related directly to the code, but instead of part of the toolchain or IDE. These updates take time to manually do and can be annoying to maintain.

Use Windows AI APIs to Your App in 10 Minutes

Sat, 17 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There has been a lot of news around generative AI and LLMs. As a traditional client app developer you might have wanted to add this capability to your app, but there’s usually something that is a roadblock… you don’t want to learn something new right now, you don’t want to pay for a cloud service, or just don’t have the time to invest in that one app.

These excuses are hard to justify now you have the Windows AI APIs in the WinApp SDK; it’s all available on-device and can be done in a few lines of code.

Trusted Signing

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Say goodbye to managing PFX files and problems code signing your apps. Over the past year or so, I’ve been working with Microsoft to test a service that lets you sign your code using an HSM-backed private key. This means your identity is verified by Microsoft, and you can sign all your stuff with a simple API call!

Azure Trusted Signing

I have a real-world app where I code sign the app and appinstaller automatically. I walk you through how that is done so you can copy it, but first I should step back and explain what the service is.

Migrating from WordPress to Hugo

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve written a new post. This was mostly due to an ongoing battle with trying to move my Wordpress installation from an older Windows app Service on Azure. There is a new Linux-based App Service option that can do it, but Azure requires some expensive components to support it. So, I thought why not take this opportunity to try new things?

Exporting

The first thing I needed to do was export the 10+ years of posts that already existed. This was relatively easy enough, there are many Wordpress Exporter/Importer plugins, but I liked the results from All-in-One WP Migration and Backup the most. It is free up to a certain export size. Mine was quite large (>250mb), so I needed to upgrade but was worth every penny.

Mica or Acrylic with WinUI and .NET MAUI

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When using .NET MAUI, we have some great capabilities to affect the way the native platform works. We can take advantage of this part of lifecycle to check if:

Is the runtime platform is Windows?
First attempt to use Mica, if the user’s device supports it (Windows 11).
If it doesn’t support Mica, then we try to use Acrylic.

Here’s what the end result looks like in your MauiProgram.cs code, nice and clean thanks to using lifecycle builder extension methods.

Windows Subsystem for Android and .NET MAUI

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know you can deploy and debug your Android projects from Visual Studio 2022 (17.3+) to WSA (Windows Subsystem for Android)? This is a quick post to show you how to have your WSA appear in the list of target Android devices in Visual Studio.

WSA as the target device

First, make sure you have WSA installed and enabled, find the instructions here Windows Subsystem for Android™️ | Microsoft Docs . Once it is installed, start the Amazon App Store app to ensure WSA has been started.

Free Yourself With DevOps

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As you evolve as a developer, you start to venture into the world of CI-CD. This is because you want to spend more time coding and less time with the repetitive and tiresome nature of compiling for different targets, packaging and publishing.

I frequently write content about CI-CD; whether it is Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions or just a PowerShell command that does a ton of work for you. In today’s post, I’m going to take you on a journey that shows you how to use Azure DevOps to automatically build, package and publish your app to the Microsoft Store.

Building .NET MAUI with GitHub Actions

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re a fan of using GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps, you might have had some trouble configuring builds for .NET MAUI. This is likely due to needing specific workloads installed and understanding what parameters to use for a single project to compile for multiple target platforms.

In today’s post, I’ll show you how to setup your build that will work for any MAUI target platform. If you would like to review the final result as you read through this, here’s the workflow file => DevOpsExamples/main_build-maui.yml .

Pull Requests in GitKraken

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

One of the hallmarks of a professional workspace is an efficient workflow with powerful tools. It is a win for everyone when you can consolidate multiple tasks into a single workspace and workflow. This is why I love the new support for GitHub Pull Requests in GitKraken.

In today’s post, I’m going to show the high level set of features inside of GitKraken that let you achieve the basic set of operations that are needed when you’re reviewing and approve a Pull Request. For more in-depth information, please visit this official documentation . If you don’t have GitKraken yet, you can get it using my personal invite link .

Windows 11

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a visual walkthrough of the Windows 11 installation and initial desktop experience, with Dark Mode. There will be very little words in this article, my intention is to let you explore the image galleries (click to enlarge any image).

I will say this, it not a repeat of the windows 7 to Windows 8 upgrade. I really like the experience moving around the OS; it feels smooth, lots of color and well polished. I recommend that you not judge on the pictures alone, use it for a day with your normal workflow and see that your cheese has not been moved :)

Microsoft Build 2021

Tue, 25 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’m honored to be chosen by Microsoft to be a Dev M.C. for Microsoft Build 2021! Part of my duties as an MC is to help guide you through the gamut of sessions and resources available to you. This post is to share these things with you.

It’s almost halfway through 2021 right now, at this point most of us have become proficient at attending remote events. From sending the kids to virtual school, 1:1 work meetings, or major conferences requiring a personal agenda, we’ve learned to navigate the virtual landscape of bringing the remote venue into your home.

Automatic OneDrive Backup

Sun, 09 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As a part of my ongoing “Tools That I Use” series, I wanted to share another favorite, RichCopy 360 . On premise, I have a 80 TB HDD array, separated into multiple drive pools by Stablebit DrivePool (post coming soon). However, to meet the critical Rule of 3 , I needed to add a 3rd off-site option.

I considered several different ways to do this and decided on taking advantage of my OneDrive for Business disk space (OneDrive gives you up to 5 TB). So, what do I use to copy that data up to OneDrive?

Scott's Ultimate Tools via Winget

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As a nice year-end present for us, he has done it again, visit Scott Hanselman’s 2021 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows .

Someone had left a great comment about compiling a list of all his suggestions as Windows Package Manager (aka winget) or Chocolatey package IDs. I mentioned this to Scott and he thought it was a great idea, too. So I offered to compile the list.

Why is this a wonderful suggestion? You only need to run a quick one-liner command, winget install <id> or choco install <id>, and you have installed the software.

DevReach 2020

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In case you missed it, I spoke this year at DevReach 2020. DevReach is Europe’s Premier Developer Conference that takes place every year in Sofia, Bulgaria. This year’s conference was online only, but was still a lot of fun.

In my session, I show you how to write GitHub Actions workflows for a full CI/CD experience that automatically builds and releases your Xamarin.Forms, Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.iOS and UWP apps.

My session starts at 53:22 and I go until 1:36:12

USB Support for Home Assistant in Hyper-V

Fri, 23 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re running Home assistant in Hyper-V, you’ve probably encountered a significant limitation… Hyper-V doesn’t let you pass-through a USB device, so you can’t use your Z-Wave dongle or zigbee dongle.

So why am I writing this blog post? I have found a way to make it work, feast your eyes on the following screenshot!

Click to enlarge. Z-Wave USB dongle available to Home Assistant container inside Hyper-V

The left side is Home Assistant’s frontend in the web browser, open to the Open Z-Wave Add-On page. Notice in the yellow highlight, that is a Z-Wave USB dongle plugged into the Windows 10 machine.

Installing Home Assistant on Hyper-V

Mon, 25 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This post is a quick tutorial you can follow to get Home Assistant working on Hyper-V so you can take advantage of your PC’s compute power instead of running it on a Raspberry Pi. This installation method is really quick and doesn’t require any command line setup.

**Important**: If you want to use USB devices in Home Assistant, please this different tutorial -> [USB Support for Home Assistant on Hyper-V](https://www.dvlup.com/2020/10/23/usb-in-hyper-v/). The approach used in this article doesn't allow for USB devices.

Step 1 - Create Hyper V Machine

Download the VHDX file (hassos_ova-[version].vhdx.gz) from the home-assistant GitHub Releases page .
- I recommend only using the latest non-beta release so you won’t have trouble with HA’s built-in updater. As of writing this, that is version 3.13:
Right-click on the downloaded .gz file, select “Properties”, check the “Unblock” checkbox and click OK.
Extract the .vhdx file from the.gz file (you can use 7-Zip to do this). Don’t worry about where you extract it to, Hyper-V will make a copy.
Open Hyper-V Manager app on Windows 10.
In the right pane, select Quick Create (at the top right).
Choose “Local Installation Source” option for an OS and use the extracted .vhdx file.
You’ll be presented with the VM’s Settings window before starting it up. Here are some recommendations:
- In the Memory tab, set the RAM to at least 2048 MBs or higher and disable Dynamic Memory
- Under the Security tab, make sure Secure Boot is disabled:
- Under the Automatic Stop Action tab, change the setting to “Shut down the guest operating system”:
- Finally, select the Automatic Start Action tab and set your preferred option:
Start the machine and wait for initial setup to complete and you see the Welcome to HassOS prompt.

Migrate to Unraid from openmediavault

Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I have stopped by the Unraid website several times, longing for those the features on offer… like Charlie looking into Willy Wonka’s front gates imagining the wonders that lay beyond.

However, I got scared off each time when I read the setup instructions and never took the next step to implement it. I wish I had done this sooner, it was really easy… literally plug and play (with a couple button clicks to confirm I wanted to format the drive 😊).

Setting up Home Assistant in Docker for Windows with Port Forwarding Enabled

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I hope that you’ve landed here before spending hours/days trying to find a solution as to why you can’t forward the Home Assistant port in Docker. The solution is frustratingly easy.

Problem

The install Home Assistant in docker on Windows instructions are great, with one exception. It explains the required prerequisites to make sure docker has access to a host disk. However, those instructions have outdated instructions to setup the port-forward rules, which ultimately makes it a waste of time.

Using Windows IoT, SignalR, Azure Custom Vision and Xamarin Forms to Flush a Toilet

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My cat uses the human toilet. However, he doesn’t know how to flush when he’s done. So, I thought, “Why not train a custom trained machine learning model to know when to flush the toilet for him? That way, I can go on vacation without asking friends to stop by.”

That single thought began my trip through some great modern developer tools and tech to build a full solution for the problem. In this post, I’ll walk you through everything and you can explore the code and parts list here https://github.com/LanceMcCarthy/Flusher .

Custom TypingStarted and TypingEnded Events

Thu, 02 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You know that little indicator in a chat that shows if someone is currently typing? I am working on a new post (coming soon, link will be here) that uses SignalR to communicate who is currently typing in a chat room along with the messages themselves.

To determine who is typing, I use a timer and the TextChanged event. The timer logic itself is straightforward, in the TextChanged event starts a timer.

Unblocking .NET DLLs on Mac Catalina

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a new headache in town. If you run self-hosted Azure DevOps agent, or .NET Core project, on a Mac running Catalina (v 10.15+) and Microsoft Edge, you will have noticed a new behavior where the OS prevents the .NET assembly from working.

This is because it has been marked with a “quarantine” file attribute when it was downloaded with the browser. It’s a security measure that I’m familiar with on Windows. I would typically remove this attribute by right clicking on the file, select “Properties”, then check “Unblock”:

Preparing apps for Windows X and Surface Duo or Neo Devices.

Thu, 03 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Preface - This is not Microsoft-provided information, just my guess after digging around the Microsoft.UI.Xaml source code after a conversation on Twitter. This is not coming from any MVP-NDA or other NDA source. I will update this post when official information becomes available.

There is suspiciously missing control from the XAML Gallery app - TwoPaneView. It’s in the WinUI 2.2 release, but there’s no documentation, guidance or examples of it being used (yet). The only thing you’ll find is the API reference, which is automatically generated during the build process.

Postmortem - Child node "2" compilation error after updating to 18362 SDK

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

[Update May 2020] This has been fixed in the 19041 SDK. Install the 19041 SDK, set your project’s Target SDK to 19041 and finally Rebuild the project/solution**.**

One of the more frustrating things for me is not being able to debug a problem. After updating my UWP app’s Target SDK to 18362 (Windows 10 1903), I was no longer able to compile. I got a very vague error. that I had to dig out of the msbuild logs:

Draw Your Own Xamarin Pie Chart dynamically

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to draw your own pie chart just using lines and a list of data items. The code itself is in C#, but the concept can be used on any platform that has a drawing library and ArcSegments.

You can view the entire solution in this GitHub Gist . Okay, let’s get started!

Setting Up

The first thing you’ll need to understand is how the platform’s drawing library makes arcs. In this code, I’ll be using RadPath from Telerik UI for Xamarin most libraries work the same way. RadPath lets you use a custom Geometry which has RadArcSegment object, which has helpful StartAngle and SweepAngle properties.

Talk to the View

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

There are many scenarios where a UI component might not have a Command or bindable property available for certain features that you need to access from the view model. There is a simple, but powerful, thing you can do to allow this and not break MVVM or testing capability, leverage the Interface.

Scenario

Let’s imagine the scenario where we have a special ListView control that has a HighlightItem method that can only be called with a direct reference to that control. There isn’t a Command or DependencyProperty (aka BindableProperty in Xamarin.Forms) alternative, so it has to be done in the code behind.

Using PowerShell to Install an SDK in a DevOps Build Pipeline

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I have an open source UWP project that relies on the Ad SDK and Engagement SDK to be installed to Visual Studio. This normally isn’t a problem, because you can just run the MSI on your PC (see installation instructions here and here ).

I decided to move the project into DevOps so that I get some of that CI/CD goodness to build and publish new releases automatically to the Microsoft Store. However, there was a problem, when trying to build the project in a DevOps build pipeline, you’ll get the following error:

LoginDialog for easy Live SDK OAuth

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Almost every developer I speak with agrees that getting a nicely working OAuth flow can be difficult. After much trial and error, I’ve built a UWP ContentDialog that makes this easy and has built-in refresh token support.

Using the LoginDialog

This is very simple to use, when the app launches, instantiate the dialog by passing your Live SDK ClientID and let the LoginDialog do the heavy lifting:

// Pass your app's OAuth ClientId (sometimes called an AppId)
var loginDialog = new LoginDialog("YourAppClientId");

// *** Perform login **** //
// Case 1 - If the user was previously signed in, there is a refresh_token stored and no user-entered credentials are needed.
// Case 2 - If the access token fails, or if it's the first sign-in, the user will see a popup to enter credentials.
await loginDialog.SignInAsync();

if(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(loginDialog.Authentication))
{
 // This will be the access token you can use for API calls.
 var accessToken = loginDialog.Authentication;

 // Make your API calls with the accessToken, for example:
 var user = await apiService.GetUserProfileAsync(accessToken);
}

This works just like a MessageDialog, but instead will show a WebView for the user to sign in, or automatically sign them in silently if they were previously logged in.

The RS5 Update Resources and Tutorials

Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

My friends at Microsoft have put together an amazing compilation of resources of all the new stuff available in the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (aka RS5). Below is a list of some of those resources relevant to developers and enthusiasts, enjoy!

SDK Downloads

EXE - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=2023014
ISO - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=2022797 You can also install the
Visual Studio Installer - Choose the UWP workload and select 17763 SDK under additional components

New Samples and Sample Updates

XAML Hosting API Sample uses the new XAML hosting API and C++/WinRT to demonstrate usage of XAML controls within a Win32 application.
Customer Orders Database Sample has been updated to use the new Data Grid and other new controls in RS5.
Photo Editor C++/WinRT Sample has been updated to build with the RS5 SDK and to use the new single_threaded_observable_vector function to create an IObservableVector for data binding. An additional performance update will be coming out in a couple weeks.
Data binding and MVVM is a new topic that was identified as a need based on the Code First program. The topic describes the benefits of using the MVVM design pattern and how it has been applied to the sample apps.

Videos

Application Developer Resources

Dev Center site page updates (Home page , Get started , What’s cool , Desktop , Downloads , and more)
What’s New in Windows 10 for developers, build 17763
New APIs in Windows 10 build 17763
Fluent Design controls (CommandBarFlyout , MenuBar , TreeView , and more)
Motion in Fluent Design
Gaze input and interactions
Windows UI Library (WinUI)
MSIX
UWP Controls in desktop applications
C++/WinRT
DirectX Graphics Infrastructure (DXGI)
Project Rome
Windows Machine Learning
Store Analytics API
EdgeHTML 18
Progressive Web Apps
WebVR

Driver Developer Resources

Windows Hardware Dashboard
Debugger Data Model API
Windows Driver Framework (WDF)
Audio
Bluetooth
Display
Windows Kernel
Networking
Mobile Broadband
Sensors
USB
Wi-fi
Go here to see a list of comprehensive list of doc changes.

Error XF001: Xamarin.Forms targets have been imported multiple times

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re in the process of updating a Xamarin.Forms app to a more modern style project set up (NET Standard 2.0, PackageReference, etc), you may get the following error.

Error XF001: Xamarin.Forms targets have been imported multiple times. Please check your project file and remove the duplicate import(s).

This can be because of the move to using PackageReference for your NuGet packages and a simple fix awaits you.

Close Visual Studio and navigate to the Solution in File Explorer
Delete the hidden .vs folder
Go into each affected project sub folder and delete the following files; project_name.nuget.props and project_name.nuget.targets
Open the solution in Visual Studio, do a Clean and Rebuild,

Custom Events and Xamarin.Forms Effect

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post will walk you through setting up a Xamarin Platform Effect and show you how to wire up an event handler so you can leverage native APIs in the case that the Xamarin.Forms wrapper doesn’t yet have. For this example, I’ll use the Telerik UI for Xamarin RadCalendar.

tl;dr Full source code on GitHub here .

I get frequently asked how to enable RangeSelection (aka Multiple Selection) for the RadCalendar. The native platform calendar controls all have Range Selection available, so we only need to create a Platform Effect to access that native feature.

Epic Build 2018 Playlists

Wed, 09 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Your one-stop shop for Microsoft Build 2018 sessions, slide decks, post links, keynotes and much more.

Living Document Note:

These Playlists will continue to be reordered and updated in real time as new content becomes available. However, the links will always remain the same and you can refresh the playlist page to get any updated ordering/content.

Migrating from PCLStorage to .NET Standard 2.0

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re a Xamarin Forms developer, you’ve likely used PCLStorage (or other Dependency Service) to interact with the target platform’s file system in the portable class library’s code. However, since November 2017, Xamarin.Forms now uses a .NET Standard 2.0 class library and PCLStorage is no longer supported.

System.IO.File

This isn’t a problem because in .NET Core 2.0 you now have access to System.IO.File’s GetFolderPath and SpecialFolder methods (see System.IO.File in .NET Core 2.0 docs ).

Windows 10 on ARM: Day-One Developer Experience

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

[EDIT Updated to include ARM64]

I was given the honor of having early access to Windows 10 on ARM (WoA) so that I could chronicle the experience and provide you with tips to ensure that your development experience is smooth. I’ll go through a list of potential issues you might encounter, along my fix for each.

What this post is:

This article is intended to be a quick guide on how to set up the device so that you can deploy and debug your apps. I will be writing this from a UWP developer’s perspective, sharing the experience of deploying and debugging this real time video effects test app .

Custom Themes in UI for Xamarin

Mon, 19 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Telerik UI for Xamarin comes with two themes out of the box, Default and Blue. You can easily style individual items, but you can also define an entire theme at once in a separate ResourceDictionary.

With this approach you can swap out ResourceDictionaries at runtime for a nice user-selected theme feature in your app’s settings. Let me walk you through a very simple demo to illustrate the approach.

Step 1. Create your custom theme’s ResourceDictionary

Xamarin.Forms doesn’t have a good ResourceDictionary template, so start with a Content Page (XAML) template and then change the ContentPage type to “ResourceDictionary” in both the XAML and code-behind.

Creating 3D Icons for your Mixed Reality UWP app

Wed, 06 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has opened up the ability to have a 3D app launcher to all developers in the Fall Creator’s Update. In this blog post, I’m going to show you how to build your own 3D app launcher from scratch (accompanying YouTube tutorial video embedded below).

What is a 3D app launcher?

App Launchers

Up until now, you’ve only been able to have a regular 2D tile in the Start menu and the user could place a 2D frame of your app on a surface in the Cliff House (the Mixed Reality home) or on a surface in your HoloLens mapped area. Clicking the app frame would launch the app in the same frame.

"Cannot download Windows Mixed Reality software" error fix!

Thu, 03 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Did you just get a new Mixed Reality headset? Were you so excited that you ripped open the box and plugged it in only to to find that after setting up your floor and boundaries that you got the following error:

Cannot download Windows Mixed Reality software

Screeching halt!

I spent a lot of time digging around the Hololens forums and long conversations on the Holodevelopers Slack and it seemed there was a wide variety of reason for this. However, after looking at my Developer Mode settings page (in Windows Settings), there was an incomplete dev package installation.

Easy XamlCompositionBrushBase

Sun, 18 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The upcoming Windows 10 update, the Fall Creator’s Update, introduces a new design system, Microsoft Fluent Design System . The design system has 5 major building blocks:

Light
Depth
Motion
Material
Scale

You can use any of these in a multitude of ways, however Microsoft has made it very easy to use in the latest Preview SDK (16190). Some of the things that used to be relatively hard, or at the least verbose, can now be done with a few lines of code.

Smart Shades with Windows IoT 1

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to be able to have my office shades go up or down automatically, depending on the amount of light outside. Then I thought, why not take it to the next level with Windows IoT? I could design a UI with the help of the recently open-sourced Telerik UI for UWP and also leverage a FEZ HAT’s & Raspberry Pi 3 to drive the motors, detect light levels and temperature.

Manipulation is easier than you think

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

You know that bottom drawer on the Windows 10 navigation app where the upcoming turns are in a list? You know how you can drag it up or down to show more or less of the content? Want to learn how to create it? You’re in luck because that’s what today’s topic is!

Here’s the result of what you’ll be able to do:

The Approach

Let’s get started. Since there are no built-in controls that do this, we’ll create a simple layout (links to source code at the end of the article).

Surface Dial and Real-Time Video Effects

Fri, 11 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I was given a Surface Dial the other day and I thought “what can I do with this to create a better experience for the user”. One thing came right to mind, applying real-time video effects.

I have a UWP app in the Windows Store, Video Diary , where you can apply real-time video effects while recording a video. One of the features of these effects is to increase or decrease the video effect’s properties. For example, the intensity of a Vignette effect, here’s what I want:

Build A Custom Win2D RadImageEditor Tool

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Telerik has recently ported the RadImageEditor to Windows Universal (8.1 Universal right now, UWP is coming very soon). It is powerful for something that only needs a few lines of code to use the 20 predefined tools.

But what if you wanted something not in those 20? Or what if you didn’t want to have a dependency on the Lumia Imaging SDK (needed for the built-in tools)?

One great features of RadImageEditor is the ability to make a custom tool, tool group or layer. Today I’ll show you how to create a Win2D tool group and add a custom GaussianBlurTool.

Sending Image Data with parameter using HttpClient Post

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I recently needed to send image data to a server for processing and thought I’d share how to do that using System.Net.Http.HttpClient in a UWP (Universal Windows) app. First, let’s start with the API’s requirements, it states:

Parameter: image - The image parameter should be the binary file data for the image you would like analyzed (PNG, GIF, JPG only). Files cannot be larger than 500k.

So that means I have to send image data as binary data with the parameter image. I can use System.Net.Http.ByteArrayContent for the image data. To get the image data from the file as a byte[] the approach I use is the following (there are other ways to do this):

Reward your users for feedback and bug reports

Wed, 14 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

One of the new features of DevCenter is the ability to generate Promotional Codes for your app. With this new ability, I’ve started rewarding my users for taking the time to make the app better.

Let’s be specific so that you know exactly what ’m talking about. I have a relatively popular app in the store and get all sorts of feedback, crazy nonsense and helpful alike. For those users whom send in a helpful bug report or would get the following email from me:

Telerik Universal on Raspberry Pi2

Thu, 30 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Most people think of IoT (Internet of Things) as a collection of tiny brains, without user interfaces, collecting data. Some think it’s a remote controlled animal shelter cat toy or a Grant Imahara style robot to do battle. The truth is that IoT is a very broad term, it covers many types of devices, including remote cat toys!

Here’s a Vine of what Windows IoT means to me… Telerik UI on IoT! This post is a overview tutorial, find the full source code on GitHub . (#bananaForScale)

DevCenter Promo Codes Not Working?

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

One of the great things about the new DevCenter is the ability to generate Promotional codes for your in-app-purchase products, so I generated 100 codes last night for the launch of Windows 10.

I gave out many codes today but I started getting “the promo code didn’t work” emails. After a quick investigation I found that the LicenseInformation for the user wasn’t refreshed automatically or even after the user restarted their phone. I suspect that this is just temporary, but I found a workaround…

Error : DEP3321 - Can't deploy to Windows 10 Mobile

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

With Windows 10 being rolled out as I write this article, there will be updated sample Windows Platform apps available soon (today). It’s also time to update your projects.

However, you may find yourself not able to deploy to Windows 10 Mobile after updating your projects or older samples to Windows 10 (build 10240). This post will show you how to resolve this problem.

The Problem

You’ll see an error something like this when deploying to a physical Windows 10 Mobile device:

One XAML for UWP, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1

Wed, 27 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently involved in a conversation on how to have the easiest way to maintain a XAML view across a UWP (Universal Windows Project) a Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 projects. There are a few options and the most straight forward way to do it with a UserControl residing in a Portable Class Library. However…

What if you wanted to have **tailored code for each **without littering your code with #ifdef but still share a XAML view? The XAML View might be what you’re looking for. This is a tutorial on how to do just that. An example project is available for download at the end of the article. Let’s get started:

Custom Pivot Header with Animation

Thu, 09 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I recently wanted to make a header with tabs for my app’s pages that have a Pivot. Something like Office Mobile, but without the drop-down menus. Here’s the result I got in my upcoming app. I decided to post a tutorial and provide a sample app.

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Notice the fast fade-in of the background color of the tab, this is important and is where you’ll be able to add your own flavor to the style after you’ve completed this tutorial. Ok, let’s get started!

Page Transitions for Universal XAML Pages

Sat, 07 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Normally, if you want different page transitions (NavigationThemeTransition ) for your Universal XAML Windows Phone 8.1 app, you’d set it on the page’s XAML directly. For example, let’s do a ContinuumTransition:

<Page.Transitions> 
 <TransitionCollection> 
 <NavigationThemeTransition> 
 <NavigationThemeTransition.DefaultNavigationTransitionInfo> 
 <ContinuumNavigationTransitionInfo /> 
 </NavigationThemeTransition.DefaultNavigationTransitionInfo> 
 </NavigationThemeTransition> 
 </TransitionCollection> 
</Page.Transitions>

However, if you have a XAML page in your Universal app’s shared folder, you can’t use XAML because page transitions are not available for Windows 8.1 apps. Since there isn’t a conditional compilation for XAML, we’ll need to do it from the code behind.

WinRT MediaCapture Tips

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As we approach Windows 10, many of you are considering updating your SL 8.0 apps to WinRT. In fact, Larry Lieberman and team recommend you do this and have shared some resources to help facilitate the move. I’ve done this for a couple apps so far and wanted to share some of my experience while migrating Silverlight AudioVideoCaptureDevice API to WinRT MediaCapture, because you’ll need to rewrite your approach.

The WinRT documentation helps with a lot of stuff, but there are holes that I had to discover for myself. To help ease the process, I’m sharing some of the solutions that I’ve discovered, uncovered and smash-my-head-on-the-desk about. Let’s get started:

Report progress - IAsyncActionWithProgress

Mon, 12 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

One of the best things you can do for your app’s users is to report the progress of an operation. Showing a progress bar can greatly increase the patience of the user, not knowing how long something is going to take can make the operation just feel longer.

Luckily, many WinRT Tasks will return an IAsyncActionWithProgress . I’ve seen many blog posts about this topic, but most are deeply involved and weren’t suited for a quick lookup. This post will show you a quick example, which you can apply in your app..

How to disable display timeout in WinRT

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

For those of you who are building multimedia related apps, you’ll want to consider disabling the display timeout of the user’s device. This prevents the screen from dimming or locking while the user is playing/recording media.

In my case, I have a view where the user is doing some video recording. so I don’t want the screen to time out on that page

1) Create a class scope variable::

private DisplayRequest dRequest;

EmailMessage class Approach for Windows

Wed, 31 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Unfortunately, there is no EmailMessage class for big Windows. It is such a nice feature of Windows Phone to be able to quickly compose an email programmatically and launch the built-in email app. However, I have created a working approach for the windows portions of my Universal Windows apps and I wanted to share it with you.

My first attempt was with using a ShareContract, but it doesn’t allow you to fill in the “To:” field and sometimes my error report data was too long to fit into DataTransferManager’s SetText() method.

Adding Telerik Universal

Mon, 10 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Telerik has released a new toolset, UI for Windows Universal . You can now use many components like Charts and Calendars in a shared XAML page in your application. If you already have the Telerik Windows Phone or Windows 8.1 XAML controls, you now have a license for the Universal controls, too.

It is very simple to add it to your project. Let me show you in a quick File > New example:

Read-only Address Bar for Webview

Sun, 26 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you are having a Windows Store application fail certification or being unpublished because you have violated Policy 2.1.2 - requires a visible address bar that displays a secure connection to users when they enter financial information or complete a transaction (see policy definitions ).

The reason for this rule is because you are bringing the user to a site that is using HTTPS and the user may be entering in secure information. You need to give the user confidence that you are not spoofing the website and stealing the entered information.

Invalid XAML error updating from WP7

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

We are now seeing the beginning of the fast decline of Windows Phone 7 as it exits the market over the next several months, many of you will need to act to update your app to at least Windows Phone 8. I did this for all of my WP7 apps and there was one error that was In just about every upgrade:

An error on this XAML namespace declaration:

xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls"

```Previous to Windows Phone 8, the Pivot and Panorama controls were part of a toolkit. The Windows Phone team did a solid by included these in the OS, they also added new controls like the LongListSelector to replace the toolkit's ListPicker . These controls are now found in the Phone namespace.

It's a very frustrating problem if you're seeing it for the first time. Don't worry, there is a really easy fix... Delete the xmlns:controls line and use only the xmlns:phone one or edit it and remove the ".Contols" part of the assembly pointer. Here is what it will look like after doing the edit option:

xmlns:controls=“clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone”

App Studio - Design-Time Sample Data

Wed, 02 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re like me, you like to fiddle and tweak things to get just the right result . Recently, Microsoft has really beefed up App Studio apps and if you explore the downloaded source code you’ll see a new Universal app structure leveraging MVVM. Let’s start with the before and after photo (click any image to view larger):

Before and after changes to the items lists

Attend Publish Boston & Win Big

Fri, 18 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Since the prizes are really awesome for this event (May 17th), I’m going to start off with them. We will be rewarding the best student, best individual, and best company in each of the categories below:

Top Windows 8.1 app
- Trip to the 2014 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix in Austin, TX.
- 9 runner-up Nokia Lumia 1520 prizes
Top Windows Phone app
- $10,000 to build your own “Dev Cave”
- 9 Runner-up Nokia Lumia 1520 prizes
Top Cross Platform app
- MakerBot 3D printer
- 9 Runner-up Nokia Lumia 1520 prizes
Breakthrough in App Innovation and Design
- MakerBot 3D printer
- 9 Runner-up Nokia Lumia 1520 prizes

But wait, there’s more! I will be giving away these prizes at the end of the day…

Transparent Live Tile For Windows Phone 8.1

Wed, 16 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Build 2014 Videos

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This year’s Microsoft Build conference was jam packed with Windows Phone goodness. In fact, there is too much to take in at once. So what I’ve done for you is break it down into sections so that you can bookmark this page and come back at your leisure.

These videos are in no particular order, so review them all before you choose, enjoy!

Windows Phone Development

Windows and Windows Phone Design related

DVLUPday NYC Highlights

Sun, 23 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

12 hours, 250 developers, 150 feet of Subway, 68 pizzas… one awesome day, priceless.

At the beginning of the day, I performed the developer equivalent of crowd surfing… the Vine surf

Photos

There lots of pictures taken and shared, you can see all of them here at #DVLUPday photos

Here are some of my favorites:

[ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [

Creating Design-Time Sample Data

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

One of the best things you can have when developing a Windows Phone app is design-time sample data. I will show you in this post how to create sample data from a class using Blend. (click images to view larger)

You can apply this technique to an existing class you have, but for the purposes of this tutorial I’ll be using a File > New Visual Studio 2013 Windows Phone project. If you have an existing app, you can skip to Step 3, but I recommend skimming the first two.

March Lumia Giveaway

Mon, 10 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: The winner for March is Shawn Murphy, congratulations!

To reward developers staying active, I am giving away a Nokia Lumia (winner’s choice of the 1020, 928, 925 or 920). Eligibility is simple::

Publish or update a Windows Phone app between Feb 1st and March 31st
You live in one of the following states: MA, RI, CT, NH, ME, VT, MI, OH, IL or IN (USA state abbreviations, not countries).

If you can say yes to 1 and 2, send me an email to ext-lance.mccarthy at nokia dot com with the following information (deadline is March 31st):

Monetizing App Studio with Ads

Fri, 07 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So, you’d like to put some ads in your awesome App Studio app? No problem! I thought I would write a post to show just how easy it can be. Follow these easy steps and you’ll start earning money from ads…

Ad provider

The ad provider is the service the AdControl in your app gets the ad to display and also where you earn the revenue. As of Windows Phone 8 there is a PubCenter AdControl built into the framework, all you need to do is get an ApplicationId and an AdUnitId. You get that information from Windows Phone DevCenter , find out how to get your ApplicationId and AdUnitId in this great blog post .

Using APIs for new app ideas

Wed, 19 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

For most applications that provide dynamic content, using an API is critical. It’s the engine of the engaging experience in a data based app. APIs can also be a powerful muse when you’re looking for a new idea for an app. Take a look at the two items below to start exploring the vast world of APIs and spark your imagination.

My recommendation is to go to Mashery first, create your developer account and get the API keys to the ones you want to use. Next, go to theRightAPI and start playing with the API, see the results you get from different queries. Then once you pick an API, you can use the output in theRightAPI to help create your object classes (for example, if you’re getting json results, you can use tools like Json To Csharp to generate your classes).

Make An App Dev Happy Day

Fri, 07 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The Windows Phone developer community is amazing in and of itself, but what happens when you add something like #makeAnAppDevHappyDay ? You get pure awesomeness. What is #makeAnAppDevHappyDay? Nokia DVLUP added fuel to an idea started by Dan Colasanti for developers to help them get the word out about their apps and generate app reviews.

Post your app’s name and link to the store on twitter with the #makeAnAppDevHappyDay, other devs will download your app and leave a review. you do the same for them (It’s also a great way for you to find new apps). Here is an example:

Get It In The Store

Tue, 21 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: This event is sold-out! If you were not able to register in time and need help getting your app published, send me an email and I’ll help you directly.

WPDev Day

Me and several other experts will be spending 6 hours with you on Saturday February 1st, 2014 to help you over come any obstacles that is preventing you from publishing an app. If you do not have any apps in the works, then come and build an App Studio app with our help. Click the Eventbrite button above to get your ticket.

Everything Must Go!

Sun, 15 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE The winners have been picked, congratulations to all (I emailed you directly if you were a winner)! If you did not win, keep your app up to date (update at least once every 60 days) and you’ll always be eligible for my giveaways.

I’m raffling off all my remaining gadgets and swag in two weeks (deadline is Dec 31st)! The only 2 conditions to enter are that you are in my region (see below) and that you published or updated an app in the last 6 months (since June 31st).

WpDev Success Kit

Sun, 08 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Now that you’re published, get this kit from my friends at Microsoft…

Get your app noticed with your personalized Windows Developer Success Kit. With customized promo materials specifically for your app, plus a little fun thrown in, we want to help you reap the rewards of your hard work.

Your Windows Developer Success Kit contains:

100 customized business cards with app tile & down…load directions for you to hand out
100 customized stickers with app tile to give away Promotion on MSDN East’s Facebook page facebook.com/msdneast
A $5.00 USD Starbucks card to keep you awake while you work on your next great app
1600 Xbox Live points for a gaming break between coding sessions

How to get your kit: Email: msdneast@Microsoft.com Include: Your name, your app name and deep link, your physical mailing address, and the workshop/city you attended if any.

Nokia DVLUP Day

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Registration has ended!

UPDATE Registration is closed, the hard deadline for stragglers was 12:00 PM 11-16-2013. Thank you for making this one of the highest registered events I’ve ever held at 90% of max building capacity!

IMPORTANT: Make sure you are present at the welcome presentation at 10 AM on the 4th floor. You will learn the answer to a secret question that proves you attended.

Event Description

Learn to make amazing Windows Phone apps at Boston Nokia DVLUP Day and win big prizes just for participating. Nokia Ambassadors, Lance McCarthy and Nick Landry, will provide hands-on Windows Phone development training. Whether you’re a seasoned dev or don’t know a line of code, you will walk away with the ability to write an app.

Get Prototyping

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE

This offer ends midnight, Sunday, October 20th, 2013. If you have been stalling, now is the time to get it finished up.

Here’s my current offer for all you devs who are sitting on the fence about creating a Windows Phone app:

I will give you a Nokia Premium Developer Program token ($1500 value) if you email me your working prototype for Windows Phone.

I’ll then help you finish the app by providing guidance, resources or whatever you need to get it ready for the store. You can use any number of resources to build this prototype:

Doesn't Get Any Easier Than This

Tue, 06 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has just launched a new Windows Phone app builder website, Windows Phone App Studio . You can now build a great looking app in no time and earn a free phone from me in the process. You don’t need to be a great programmer, but if you are… you get the source code for the app when you’re done with the template! No other app builder does that for you.

Mini Code Camp

Sat, 03 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’m doing an awesome one-night mini-code camp on August 21st. Pascal Rettig (@cykod ), organizer of the Boston HTML5 Game Development meetup group, is giving me the floor to show you how to bring your awesome HTML5 skills to the fastest growing mobile platform , Windows Phone. Go here to sign up, it’s free

Before I explain what I’ll be showing you, check out the prizes I am giving away…

Awesome Giveaways!

I will be giving away some great stuff, including:

Giveaway Time!

Sat, 27 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

[UPDATE] Winners announced!

Congratulations to the following developers:

Jerrell Blankenship: JBL Powerup
Marcus Vaal: Wenger Computer Backpack
Anthony Russell: Wenger Computer Backpack
Gary Ritter Jr.: Nokia Wireless Charging Plate
Austin Andrews: Nokia Purity In-Ear Headphones

I will reach out via email to get your shipping info and color preference (if applicable).

Giveaway Details

Yep, it’s time again and it’s a good one! The picture shows what I am giving away on July 31st, 2013, here is the exact list:

Redeeming a Nokia Premium Developer Program token

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

There have been many questions recently about how to properly redeem your shiny new Nokia Premium Developer Program. What better way than to record a video for you? Without further ado, here is how to redeem the token, as well as how to get at the Telerik goodness in the center.

After doing this, you’ll know how to get the Microsoft DevCenter token as well as the Buddy.com token because it is the same process to retrieve the individual tokens.

Make an Awesome Video for Your App

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Nokia has gone to great lengths to make it easy for developers to create promotional materials for their Windows Phone apps. This quick video shows you how to do it.

Steps to make your own

Got to the Marketing Toolkit main page (you’ll need to be signed in)
Select the checkbox under “Promotional Video”
Paste in the Store URL to your app
Select the platform of your choice (I chose Lumia 920)
Select a language
Click “Continue”

On the next page:

Nokia Lumia 822 and Lumia 800 giveaway [winner!]

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

[UPDATE] We have a winner!

Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to get their first app in the Windows Phone Store! Keep it up, as I have many more contests coming up. Update your app entry with a new feature, or optimize it’s layout, to get the app ready for my next contest ;)

Now, without further ado, the winner of the June giveaway… drum roll… Richard Huang of Boston, MA. Here is a link to his Windows Phone app entry for the drawing. To everyone else who didn’t enter, if you’re a developer who fits the qualifications below, email me to get a head start on my next giveaway.

Hackathon Winners

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I will be writing a more in-depth blog post (with videos and event pictures) on the Telerik website when all the media is done being edited. For now, I wanted to quickly get a post up to show the winners of The Boston Hackathon . There were over 40 apps created, submitted and presented! Every developer who went through my grueling training schedule on day one, built their app, got it in by 3:30PM on day two and had the courage to present to the audience, earned a Nokia Premium Developer Program token ($1,500 value)! They will all be able to publish their apps to the Windows Phone Store.

26.2 Smiles

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The Boston Marathon gives you 26.2 miles, but the The Boston Hackathon can give you 26.2 smiles!

[

I am throwing a huge bash of a hackathon during the weekend of the marathon (april 13th - 14th). Awesome prizes awarded for your guts, and recognition for your glory. Just showing up proves your level of awesomeness, so you’ll get $1,500 worth of goodies just for building an app

Here’s a snapshot of the prizes:

Lumia 620 Giveaway

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: We have a winner! Congratulations Imran Shaquif, of Dangling Neuron, who has won the March Lumia 620 giveaway.

March Lumia 620 Giveaway

I am giving away a Lumia 620 to a lucky WPDev.

The rules are simple:

You have published a new Windows Phone app (starting Feb 1st 2013)
You live in the US and are not in California, Texas or New York
You’re a member of Nokia’s https://www.dvlup.com (Go to https://www.dvlup.com and register, you don’t need a code anymore)

If you meet these conditions, send the following information to ext-lance.mccarthy (at) Nokia.com:

Deep Diving with Lance

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Grab your scuba gear because we’re diving into new WP8 features

Windows Phone 8 ushered in a bunch of new APIs to hook into. I am providing my Dvlup’rs with a one-on-one training experience via email (and soon, via Skype). Take a look at the topics below. I will do a mini-code camp with you on a topic of your choice, then we can apply what you’ve learned to your app idea.

Rewarding Quality

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Offer ends Feb 11th, 2013 5:00 PM PST

So you’ve published an app and you’ve worked hard to keep its rating at 4+ stars. You’ve had at least 50 ratings, proving that it’s not a fluke. Now what? Let me bring you into the fold of the elite.

You and your app will get:

Windows Phone Store Placement
App Highlights Placement (Nokia’s app that is preinstalled on all new Nokia Lumias)
NAX Credits for you to advertise your app in other apps

So if you meet the conditions (has minimum 50 ratings, is currently 4 stars or higher, and you’re DVLUP member or eligible to be) send me an email ext-lance.mccarthy@nokia.com

An Offer You Can't Refuse

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

One of my responsibilities as a Nokia Developer Ambassador is to help developers get started. I thought to myself, what better way to welcome new developers than give them a new phone and a DevCenter Token ($99 value) or a Nokia Premium Developer Program token ($1,500 value) for building your first Windows Phone app. I will knight you into the brotherhood of Windows Phone developers by giving you one of those sweet prizes and I made it as simple as possible to get one. If you are in my Ambassador area of coverage (see the bottom of the post for regions) send me an email to get started. Here are the three easy-breezy categories:

Developer Summit Awesomeness

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I just returned from the 2013 AT&T Developer Summit in Las Vegas, and boy can I say it was a good one! Approximately 50% of mobile apps submitted to the hackathon were Windows Phone apps and the #1 winner of it all was a… you guessed it, a Windows Phone app! The winner, Ruggero Scorcioni, took home a $30,000 prize for creating an app that uses brainwave readings to determine whether or not it is a good time to make or accept a phone call. We also had other winners who created awesome Windows Phone apps. I’ll write a future post on a list of the winners, for now, lets see some pictures.

Registering Extensions

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

With the entrance of Visual Studio 2012 we saw a new interface to edit your WMAppManifest file. This is a great tool to help you properly setup your app’s meta data. There is one limitation you should be aware of… there is no support for extensions. What are extensions? They are the added functionality that lets you tie your app into other parts of the OS and user experience. This blog post will cover the extensions for photos, but the process is the same for other extensions.

From The Ground Up

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This post is to get you started on Windows Phone Development “from the ground up” and is targeted towards people who have no prior experience with the Windows Phone SDK. At any time you can refer to my resources page for additional links to WPDev assets, tutorials and example code.

Ok, let’s begin.

The first thing you should know is that is does not cost a penny to develop for Windows Phone! The SDK and the tools are free. The only time you will need to pay is when you sign up for your Microsoft DevCenter account. The DevCenter is your portal to the Windows Phone Store. It is where you will submit, update and track your apps. I can help mitigate those costs for you. If you are an Android or iOS Developer and are porting an app, or a true “from the ground up” developer, I will pay for your first year’s DevCenter fee. Contact me for details.

Denied?

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

So, you got an email from DVLUP stating that your challenge submission was denied. Why were you denied? What did you miss? I wanted to write this post to share the top reasons for denial and how to fix it… 90% of these are due to the fact you didn’t edit your WMAppManifest file.

Here are the top offenders:

Not all Live Tiles Sizes
No animated Tiles
Not all WP8 resolutions

#1- You need to have all three tile sizes enabled for your app. Here is a list of the tile sizes from the MSDN Documentation . To rectify this problem, simply toggle the “Support for large Tiles” property in your WMAppManifest file. See the image in answer #2 for more details.

Get a loaner Windows Phone 8 device

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Are you building a Windows Phone 8 app but don’t have a device to test your app on? Are you using the NFC or Bluetooth APIs and having a WP8 device would finalize your testing? There are 3 ways to get a device: Earn one with your rewards points, Trade up your current phone for a new one, or get a loaner device.

This post is about the third option, I can line you up with a loaner device from Nokia. Take the following steps (if you are already a DVLUP member, skip to step 2) and let’s get your app to market!

How Rad is your app?

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I have another giveaway and challenge for my developers today. In addition to being a Nokia Developer Ambassador, I work full time as a XAML Support Specialist at Telerik, yep the awesome RadControls people. So, I’d like to ask you, “How Rad is your app?”

I don’t want this post to sound like an ad, but rather a testimonial. That’s why I make it a point to say that I used the RadControls long before I became an employee, their components are a powerful, indispensable part of my development toolbox. The RadControls make your app look like you had a whole team of designers. I just released an app powered by the RadControls, “Conferenced In”. Get it here so you can follow along with this post as I make a simple comparison.

Comatose Cursor

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

You’re sitting in front of your PC, steaming cup of next to you and your fingers are posed over the keyboard ready to strike. Visual Studio is full screen and Expression Blend is waiting to assist in the background, but your cursor is blinking steadily in the same place it was 15 minutes ago. You’re blank, the ideas aren’t flowing, the classes of objects haven’t materialized yet.

Getting Started: NAX and Windows Phone 8

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

[UPDATE]

NAX has been discontinued and rolled up into Inneractive accounts]

Original Post

The purpose of this post is to demonstrate how easy it is to get started using the Nokia Ad Exchange (NAX) SDK with your Windows Phone 8 (WP8) app. Although there is no specific SDK for WP8, the process is the same with only one difference. You need to manually check off the capabilities your app will use. Let’s get started.

To 3 or not to 3, that is the question

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Huh? Unless you were one of the developers I just gave codes to join the new Nokia program DVLUP , the title of this post makes no sense. So, what am I talking about?

If you build and publish 3 Windows Phone apps for me, I will give you a Nokia Lumia 800.

If you build and publish 5 windows Phone apps for me, I will give you a Nokia Lumia 900.

You have apps and I have phones, let's MeetUp!

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re going to be in the Boston area on Thursday December 6th, come on over to Microsoft Research & Development in Cambridge (NERD). I’m doing a 90 minute group explaining how Nokia’s new developer program (DVLUP) works and what it can do for you. I’ll also be introducing you to other the new stuff Nokia is providing for developers, most of it unprecedented and groundbreaking. Nokia fully believes in the fact that if you give developers the tools and resources, they will produce amazing apps.

Level Up with DVLUP!

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Got your developer hat on? Check. Got your gamer hat on? Check. Ready to earn awesome rewards for doing what you love? Check!

Great, then let’s get rolling! I am officially announcing the beginning of a brand new, groundbreaking program from Nokia for Windows Phone developers, DVLUP. You are formally invited to participate in this currently invite-only program where you earn points for your apps through completing challenges. Spend your XP on Xbox 360s, new Nokia Lumias and more.

I want to give you a white Nokia Lumia 900!

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Yep, you heard right. I really, really want to give away two Nokia Lumias (First place get a 900 and second place gets an 800). I need you to do something for me in return, build a winning app! So how do you win? There are two ways, one device for each of the following categories:

Create an awesome app for Windows Phone from scratch
Port your existing Android/iOS app to Windows Phone

Even if you don’t win a top prize this contest, you will be ready for my next giveaway. Bring the apps and I’ll bring the swag!

Nokia Developer Ambassadorship

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I am officially announcing that I’ve joined Nokia as a Nokia Developer Ambassador! So, what does this mean for you?

If you are:

An experienced Windows Phone Developer (WPDev) with tons of published apps
Have dabbled in WPDev, but haven’t published yet
An experienced iOS or Android Developer with apps (published or not)
Just getting started on any platform and are thirsty for more
In school and don’t know your Int from your Long
You have great app ideas but don’t know a lick of code

…then you’re in luck. If you want to bring an app or an app idea to life, I am your man.

Resources, Resources, Resources!

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I moved this blog post into its own page. Select the “Resources” tab above, or use this link .

If you have any questions, or if you are in the Boston area (New England), send me an email at nokia-dev@outlook.com or on twitter at @lancewmccarthy

Rich Content and Shortcodes

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This page is a living cookbook of content features available in this site. It combines standard Markdown, Hugo built-in shortcodes, and custom shortcodes in one place so future posts are fast to author.