Using a Sterling-database in Windows Phone as alternative to SQL CE 25 April 2012 Michael-Van-Wesemael Windows Phone, databases, Sterling I you remember my blogpost from a very long time ago, I wrote about using SQL CE with Windows Phone (you can find it here). SQL CE can be queried with LINQ to SQL, making it interesting for storing relational data. Recently I came in contact with the Sterling-database (check it here), an Object-data... [More]
Using Reactive extensions for feeding test sensor-readings in Windows Phone 29 March 2012 Michael-Van-Wesemael Reactive Extensions, Rx, sensors, testing, Windows Phone An interesting technology you might have heard of is Reactive Extension (MSDN Rx Site). It’s available for different types of applications, although you may need to add the necessary assemblies through NuGet. But in WP7.5 it’s included in the SDK. The only thing you need are references to Micr... [More]
File IO in Windows 8 14 October 2011 Michael-Van-Wesemael Windows 8, XAML, Metro Let’s leave Windows Phone for a moment, and let’s have a look at Windows 8. Recently the U2U-team was present at the Microsoft Build-convention in Anaheim, California, where Microsoft unveiled Windows 8. Now, what we saw is still just a preview, but it clearly shows the direction in which Windows is... [More]
Creating WP7 prototypes with Sketchflow 31 August 2011 Michael-Van-Wesemael With the upcoming release of Windows Phone Mango, you can create prototypes for Phone apps with Sketchflow. For people not knowing Sketchflow : it allows you to create prototypes that look like they have been drawn. When you present a “normal” prototype to a customer you get conversation... [More]
The return of SQL CE ! 11 August 2011 Michael-Van-Wesemael After playing a few weeks with the Mango-beta, I’m even more convinced that the Windows Phone 7 simply is the best smartphone available. Driving in your car, receiving a text-message, and suddenly a voice over Bluetooth asks me if the message should be read! And after the message has been read... [More]
Visual State Manager or rather Behavior ? (part 3) 20 June 2011 Michael-Van-Wesemael Behavior, Silverlight, Windows Phone So far, so good. I created a little application indicating the distance to my geographically closest friend. I used Visual State Manager for making my indicator change, depending on the distance I get from the Distance-service. It takes some practice to get used to it. Now, I have two little problem... [More]
Visual State Manager or rather Behavior ? (part 2) 19 June 2011 Michael-Van-Wesemael Silverlight, Visual State Manager, Windows Phone In part 1 I set up the service and the WP7-application. The WP7-application will poll the service regularly for asking the distance to the closest friend. Let's now finish the WP7-app so we can show the distance by a little indicator. When closer than 2 (km? miles ? light-years ? You choose) the ind... [More]
Visual State Manager or rather Behavior(part 1) 16 June 2011 Michael-Van-Wesemael Silverlight, Visual State Manager, Windows Phone During an interesting event last week, discussing the virtues of Silverlight apps out of the browser, I was confronted with Behavior. I should probably be ashamed because I never heard of them before. Because they have a high coolness- and awesomeness-level I checked if they were also available for ... [More]
Updating WP7 live tiles without push notifications 01 May 2011 Michael-Van-Wesemael Push Notifications, Silverlight, Windows Phone While experimenting with push notifications for updating your live tiles, I found the ShellTileSchedule-class. It sounded interesting enough to play around with it. On MSDN I found following description for this class : Creates an object which allows an application to schedule updates of its tile's... [More]
Saving an Image to the Pictures Hub 28 April 2011 Michael-Van-Wesemael Images, MediaLibrary, Silverlight, Windows Phone, XNA Something that will also be discussed during the upcoming Windows Phone course, here at U2U, is the cooperation between Silverlight for Windows Phone and XNA. At the end of my previous blog post, I was left with one more challenge: saving my modified picture to the Pictures Hub. Until shortly I tho... [More]