Support and Suggestion Links for Visual Studio and Windows Phone

This post is as much for my benefit as it is for anyone else :-)  Although I have frequented all of the sites referred to below, it sometimes takes me a minute or two to come up with the link.  Being able to reference this blog post just might save me a little time in the future.  Along with that, it may also point out a few support sites that you weren’t aware of.

The links below are specific to Visual Studio and Windows Phone.  As these are two of the most common technologies that I interact with on a daily basis, I thought I’d point out a few shortcuts on where to submit feature ideas, bugs, as well as where to ask questions.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio UserVoice – Do you have a great idea that you feel should be implemented in Visual Studio?  Add your idea to the Visual Studio UserVoice site and let others vote on it.  You can also vote and/or comment on other’s suggestions.

Visual Studio Forums – Ask your tough questions here.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of answered questions within the Visual Studio forums so there is a good chance your question has already been answered.  This link covers a lot of Microsoft development products so here are a few links that are more focused on specific products:

• Team Foundation Server
• Visual Studio

Microsoft Connect – If you have discovered a bug within Visual Studio (or think you have discovered a bug) then file it within the Visual Studio Microsoft Connect site.  From here, you will be able to track the status of the bug and any possible workarounds that are posted.

Windows Phone

Windows Phone Consumer Links

Windows Phone – Of course, the best place to start searching for support information for Windows Phone is the main site itself – windowsphone.com.  This site provides all sorts of information regarding your Windows Phone as well as many links to tutorials, blogs, forums, etc.

Windows Phone UserVoice – Windows Phone is great but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.  Add suggestions for new features in Windows Phone and/or vote and comment on existing feature ideas (e.g. such as this one regarding a keyboard shortcut that I just created).

Windows Phone 8 Support – This site provides a preset list of “how to” and troubleshooting categories, each with a set of linked topics available for viewing:

Windows Phone 8 Forums – for those more difficult situations where you can’t seem to find the answer, check out the Windows Phone forums.  Odds are, someone will be able to help you out.

Windows Phone Developer Links

Windows Phone Dev Center – this site is a great resource for Windows Phone developers.  It provides access to videos, samples, blogs, news, and related events.

Windows Phone Development Forums – whereas the Windows Phone 8 Forums link above is more geared toward consumer-oriented questions, the Windows Phone Development Forums relies upon the developer community to help with those tough-to-answer Windows Phone development questions.

[Updated: added a couple more links based on feedback]

Team Foundation Sidekicks for TFS 2012

If you make use of Team Foundation Server and you don’t have Attrice’s Team Foundation Sidekicks in your toolbox, you should!  I have been using the Team Foundation Sidekicks for years now and would hate to be without them.  As of today, Attrice has made available a new version compatible with Team Foundation Server 2012 – both the on premises version as well as the Team Foundation Service (i.e. Microsoft’s cloud offering for TFS).

From their blog:

This release functionality is mainly identical to the version of Sidekicks for Visual Studio 2010, with support of TFS both on premise and in-the-cloud (Team Foundation Service).

For 2012 we support both stand-alone client application and Visual Studio integration package; the latter uses VS 2012 extension registration mechanism and is available through VS Extensions Manager. Note that there are separate installations for stand-alone app and VS package.

A quick review of the individual “sidekicks” included are:

• Permissions Sidekick
• Code Review Sidekick
• Shelveset Sidekick
• Labels Sidekick
• History Sidekick
• Status Sidekick
• Workspace Sidekick

You can view all the details and get the latest version here.

//build/ 2012 100GB SkyDrive Voucher Never Expires

For those lucky enough to attend the //build/ conference this year, you not only received a Microsoft Surface RT tablet PC and a Nokia Lumina 920 smartphone but also a voucher for 100GB of additional SkyDrive storage. After applying my voucher code to my existing SkyDrive account, I had a total of 125GB of storage. The extra 100GB shows up as an "enthusiast bonus" as shown here:

Naturally, the first question I had after adding the additional storage was - Does the Enthusiast Bonus ever expire? After posting my question to the SkyDrive forums and not getting an answer after a couple of days, I contacted the SkyDrive Billing Support team. After about 12 days, I finally received the following response:

Thank you for your patience. We have already gotten word from the billing escalation team regarding your inquiry. The SkyDrive Enthusiast bonus for 100 GB once redeemed, will not expire as long as you keep your SkyDrive account active. Sincerely, Tier 2 - Microsoft SkyDrive Billing Support

So, there you have it... the 100GB is yours to keep! :-)

My Premise on Premises

I want to start this post out by stating that I am not normally one to get hung up on specific terminology.  In general, if everyone understands the intent and direction of a given conversation (or a topic being read) then the end goal has been accomplished.  However (there is always a “however”, right?), for as long as I can remember, I have also had a tendency to judge written articles, e-mail messages, etc. based upon the number of misspelled and/or misused words – keeping in mind that I am not a grammar or spelling expert.

That said, there has been a lot of articles, blog posts, discussion, etc. around the topic of the “cloud” over the past few years.  One of the discussion points that come up quite frequently these days when discussing 3rd party products (or even in-house products), for example, is whether the product runs in the “cloud” or on premises.  It is this word, premises, that I have seen misused over and over again for the past couple of years in favor of the word “premise”.

Just in case you’re curious, here are the basic definitions of these two words (based on the Bing Dictionary):

Given that, when a service, web site, etc. runs within your company’s ecosystem (as opposed to in the cloud), it is considered to run on premises --- not premise.

The reason I am thinking about this now is because I’ve spent the past couple of days researching API Management vendors (for managing publically exposed APIs for mobile applications) and I am continually coming across the term “on premise” when it should technically be “on premises”.

Again, I understand their intent – i.e. their product can run within my organization.  However, in the back of my mind I’m still judging the professionalism (right or wrong) of the company that is misusing this term.

Here are a couple of examples:

I’ve actually come across several others over the past couple of days but didn’t want to copy/past them all in :-)

So, what’s the point of this blog post, you ask?  Well, although it provides an outlet for me to let everyone know how I feel about the terms premise vs. premises, more importantly it serves as a reminder that there are people out there, like me, that might judge a company’s professionalism (and, potential value) based on how they use (or misuse) common terms.

As for my search for API Management vendors, I am not letting the misused term cloud my judgment :-)

(At Least) 5 Things I Hope to Learn at //Build/ 2012

Now that //Build/ 2012 is finally upon us, there are a few things I’ve been wondering about that I hope to finally learn more about this week.  These items include:

1. What's new in the Windows Phone 8 SDK.  Although there have been leaked versions of the Windows Phone 8 SDK, I have not given it much thought because a) It is unlikely the SDK is incomplete, b) You are trusting the SDK has not been tampered with (i.e. I don't want to introduce any malware), and c) I'd simply just rather wait for the official SDK.
   
2. What's new in Windows Phone 8.  Many new features have been announced for Windows Phone 8.  However, it has been stated that there are unannounced features as well.  In fact, this has been rumored as the main reason behind not releasing the Windows Phone 8 SDK up until now.  With all the hush, hush around Windows Phone 8, I really hope there is at least one surprise left for us :-)
   
3. Which Windows Phone 8 devices will carriers offer?  There has been plenty of speculation and rumor but I’d like to know what my options truly are.  Hopefully we’ll get more solid details this week.
   
4. Integration.  It is apparent that Microsoft has a desire to provide a certain level of integration across their various products and services such as Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Xbox, Office 365, etc.  I hope to gain a better understanding of their "grand vision" through the various sessions at //Build/.
   
5. Line of Business Apps for Windows 8.  I would like to learn more about how Microsoft envisions line of business (LOB) apps being creating as Windows Store apps.  I have mixed emotions about “fully immersive” LOB apps but I’d like to see Microsoft’s perspective on this subject.

I have no doubt I’ll learn a great deal about these items during //Build/ this week.  I also expect to learn about many topics that I haven’t listed.  I am looking forward to what this week brings and am very excited about the new technologies, both software and hardware, that Microsoft will be presenting.  It promises to be a great week in technology!

Get TeamCompanion for Free (if you act fast)!

With the launch of Visual Studio 2012, Ekobit sim-ships TeamCompanion 4.7.  If you are not familiar with TeamCompanion, it integrates many of the Team Foundation client features within Microsoft Outlook.  For example, with TeamCompanion, you can easily create Work Items with an e-mail (or vice- versa).  You can also create new Outlook Tasks from Work Items.  There are many other features, such as scheduled Work Item queries, available within TeamCompanion that can simply make life easier for those of us who spend their days working with TFS (click here for further details).

If you act fast – i.e. between now and Friday, September 14th at midnight PDT (UTC-7:00) – you can get a free TeamCompanion license!  There are three ways in which to do this:

1. Follow TeamCompanion on Twitter and retweet the announcement tweet as soon as possible.
2. Like TeamCompanion on Facebook and then share the post announcing the contest.
3. Join the TeamCompanion circle of friends on Google+

Read this blog post for more information regarding the giveaway.

Introduction to Windows 8 Development–Go Metro!

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at this year’s Heartland Developers Conference (HDC).  I gave an introductory talk on developing “Metro” applications for Windows 8.  The goal of the talk was to cover some of the basic features that every developer writing Windows 8 apps would have to face when first getting started.  Some of these features include:

• Obtaining Windows 8
• Obtaining the developers tools – e.g. Visual Studio 2012
• Understanding the Windows Runtime framework
• Specific application features such as:
• Roaming data (e.g. app settings) to the cloud
• Contracts and extensions
• Using the File Picker
• Implementing application settings (via the charms bar)
• Create app bars
• Understanding the application lifecycle
• Windows Store
• Registration
• Packaging
• Publishing

The talk went very well and I was pleased with the turnout of my session as well as the conference overall.  As always, HDC has turned out to be a great developer resource.  I look forward to returning next year.

The slides for my session have been uploaded here.  I have also published the corresponding demos (Windows 8, C#/XAML) on SkyDrive, here.  There are some great resource links in the last few slides so be sure to check them out.

How Many Windows 8 Apps are in the Windows Store?

Although there are roughly one bazillion (yes, I made that number up :-) “desktop” apps currently available that will run on Windows 8, the number of Metro “Windows Store” apps still measures in the hundreds (not hundreds of thousands, just hundreds).  If you’re curious about how many Windows Store apps are available in your marketplace, follow these steps:

1. Launch the Windows Store app.
   
   
   
2. Open the Charms Bar and tap Search (or press Logo+Q).
   
3. Enter * (an asterisk) as the search term and press Enter (ensure Store is the selected search source).
   
   
   
4. As of the time of writing this, there are 937 Windows Store apps available (in my marketplace).
   
   

NOTE: There may be a simpler, quicker way to determine the app count for Windows Store apps, I just haven’t come across it yet.  If you know of an easier way, please share it with us in the comments below.

HDC-Connect Format for Events

Overview

We are currently working on a set of mobile applications (Windows Phone, iOS, and Android) that will be used to scan QR Codes for conference attendee badges.  We want the information contained within the QR code to be basic contact information that is useful to both a conference vendor as well as other conference attendees.  When looking at the various standard QR Code formats, a couple of them stood out: vCard and meCard.

The vCard format contains fields for everything we wanted to store but also included fields we didn’t care about (e.g. address, city, zip, country, and URL).  We could just ignore those fields however this format also produces a more tightly filled QR Code which can be a bit more challenging for some mobile devices to read (especially on conference badges that may have glossy covers, be slightly bent, etc.).

The meCard format is basically a more compact version of the vCard format.  However, it doesn’t have the organization and title fields we desire and still has most of the extra fields listed above.

Another down side to the above formats is that, by default, most QR Code scanners will attempt to add information scanned in these formats as stored contacts.  This isn’t always a bad thing but, in our case, we simply want to store the information within our application for later retrieval as well as have the ability for the scanned information to be displayed in an easy-to-read format – without first storing it as a contact.

Based on these discoveries and our needs, we decided to create a simple, text-based QR Code format that fits our needs.  We have called this format HDC-Connect for QR Codes.

HDC-Connect is a specially formatted QR Code containing a small amount of contact information. The information provided by an HDC-Connect code typically provides just enough information to get in touch with a contact after the initial encounter.

HDC-Connect Format

A QR Code that utilizes the HDC-Connect format contains the following five pieces of information, each on a single line (followed by a carriage return/line feed):

1. Full Name - this is typically the contact's first and last name
2. Job Title - the contact's job title - e.g. Enterprise Architect
3. Company - the name of the company the contact works for
4. E-mail Address - the contact's e-mail address
5. Phone Number - the contact's phone number

If any of the above information is to be omitted, there should be an empty line with a carriage return/line feed combination in its place.  In other words, there should always be five lines of data contained within the QR Code, even if some of the information is excluded.

Here is a sample QR Code encoded using the HDC-Connect format:

If you scan the above QR Code, it will be decoded as the following text:

Joe Architect
Enterprise Architect
Super Systems Design
Joe.Architect@SuperSystemDesigns.com
(800) 555-1212

Each of the five lines of data in this QR Code correspond to the five fields described above.

Uses

The HDC-Connect format was designed for badges printed for conference attendees. The HDC-Connect code would typically appear on the back of the badge. The badge can be quickly scanned to obtain a conference attendee's contact information. Typical scenarios include conference vendors scanning attendee information as they visit vendor booths. Attendees may also elect to scan another attendee's badge as a quick way to gather contact information as they network during the event.  Depending upon the application being used to scan the QR Code, you may be able to quickly add the information directly as a contact on the mobile device.

Applications

Most applications that can scan a QR Code can interpret the HDC-Connect format. For example, Bing Vision on Windows Phone is capable of scanning the HDC-Connect format and displaying it in a typical contact card format. As mentioned above, we are also working on a set of mobile applications to scan QR Codes encoded using the HDC-Connect format.

License

The use of the HDC-Connect format is free of any license.

Summary

The HDC-Connect format as described above was really built for our own needs.  However, it is easy to see that the format may be useful to other applications and uses outside of what we intend to use it for (e.g. conference badges).  If you end up using the QR-Code format in your applications, please let us know.  We’d love to hear about it.

Visual Studio 2012 Available August 15th + Windows 8

Today Microsoft announced that the final build of Visual Studio 2012 has been completed.  The final bits will be available for download from MSDN and “elsewhere” on August 15th.  The official launch will be on September 12th via an on-line event.  You can find out more about the launch event here: http://www.visualstudiolaunch.com/

Also from Microsoft, today they announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows 8.  Windows 8 will be generally available on new machines as well as on-line on October 26th.  For more information about Windows 8 visit the Building Windows 8 blog.