Really cool… if the person visiting your site/blog has Spotify. If the reader doesn’t have Spotify, they are promted to install it. I was hoping they would at least get a little clip of the music.
“Programming Entity Framework: Code First” by Julie Lerman & Rowan Miller; O’Reilly Media;
I have worked with Entity Framework 4 a little, mostly on side projects and working through various tutorials on the web, but they typically don’t get to the deep dive level. Julie Lerman’s book does just that. After reading this book and working through some of the examples, I feel comfortable enough with Entity Framework 4 to use it on a production project.
I was especially pleased to learn more about customizing the database that Entity Framework creates (location, name, etc.) and seeding the database with data.
BindableApplicationBar in Windows Phone 7 Mango
UPDATE: Nicolas Humann has updated his project to support Mango – you can check out his blog post here.
For my second Windows Phone 7 app, built for the Mango release, I decided to use the MVVM Light framework. After reading through the getting started documentation and a great series by Jesse Liberty, I dove in. One of the first issues I encountered was the fact that you can’t bind a Command to the standard ApplicationBar buttons. I did a little Googling with Bing, and found a blog post by Nicolas Humann, a developer in Lyon, France. He built a project he calls Phone7.Fx.Preview – it’s a Bindable Application Bar. Perfect, just what I need! Not so fast…
WP7 App First Run Logic
I’m currently building an app that will take advantage of SQLCE in the Mango release. I have two sets of data – static (lookup) data and user data. I debated using two separate databases, creating the two databases, populating the lookup data and shipping them with the app. For simplicity’s sake, I ended up just creating the database the first time the app is run. I also check to see if user data has been created. If it hasn’t, I redirect to a setup page. If it has, I continue to MainPage.xaml. Here’s how.
P90X – Bring It!
So as it turns out, lugging 20 extra pounds around the rugby pitch for 80 minutes isn’t much fun. Especially when you’re eligible to be playing Old Boys but still trying to keep up with the youngsters.
A little background… I played rugby in college. 15 years ago. This spring I decided to pick up the game again with a local club, the Richmond Lions. I started training with them in February. The best way to describe my performance this spring is… “I survived.”
Detect a WP7 Theme and Apply a Style
For my WP7Tracker app, I needed to change the text color depending on whether the user had selected the light theme or dark theme. Turns out it’s pretty simple.
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var v = (Visibility)Resources["PhoneLightThemeVisibility"];
if (v == System.Windows.Visibility.Visible)
{
// theme-dependent code here
} |
Piece of cake, right?