Columns


Redmond Unshackled

On Nov. 2, 2001, Microsoft and the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) reached a settlement in the antitrust action against Redmond. The terms of that decree expired in May.

Test Plans with Microsoft Test Manager 2010

Visual Studio 2010 brings testers and developers closer together and provides testers the tools they need to be able to do their job more effectively. We look at Test Plans in Microsoft Test Manager 2010 and discuss how they are used within the testing framework.

ASP.NET: Exploiting DataSources' Events

If you're using the ASP.NET DataSources, you may be missing an important part of their functionality: the power of their events. But sometimes the right event isn't on the DataSource.

Reactive Extensions: Just What the Doctor Ordered (Part 1)

The Reactive Extensions (Rx) Library is a set of extensions for the IObservable<T> and IObserver<T> interfaces that greatly simplifies the orchestration and composition of asynchronous functions and events.

The IronLanguages Open Source Project

Late last year Microsoft took IronRuby, IronPython and the Dynamic Language Runtime projects open source. Here's a look at the open source dynamic language resources for Visual Studio.

Exploring the New Consumer Features of Windows Phone Mango

Mobile Corner columnist Nick Randolph breaks down some of the key improvements announced at yesterday's Windows Phone "Mango" launch event, and says the raft of new consumer-oriented features make Mango a more attractive developer target.

Retrospective Meetings: Agile Learning from the Past

Aaron Bjork talks about the power of learning from the past and gives some insight into how to get the most out of your retrospectives in your Agile projects.

Build Consistent WP7 User Interfaces Using Resources

Nick Randolph walks through how to create and consume resources within your Windows Phone 7 application.

Issuing SQL in Entity Framework

If you're considering a move into the world of LINQ and Entity Framework, you have to consider the possibility that LINQ and Entity Framework won't let you issue some bizarrely complicated SQL statement. Don't worry -- should that ever happen, you have options.

Agile Dev Planning with Urban Turtle

Mickey covers the basics of Urban Turtle, an Agile development planning tool for Team Foundation Server.

Clear Cross-Cutting Concerns with Aspect Oriented Programming in .NET

How to use the PostSharp AOP library to encapsulate cross-cutting concerns into efficient and re-usable modules.

From Unstructured to Structured Data with HTML 5

The emerging HTML 5 specification provides for structured documents that can support rich hierarchies and enable deep interoperability.

Windows Phone Layout Using Grid

Nick Randolph walks through how to use the Grid to layout your Windows Phone 7 application.

Redmond, 'Start-up' Your Engines

Microsoft's needs to make its cutting-edge products and research more visible if it hopes to capture young organizations that today often align with the LAMP stack.

Visual Studio Solution Architecture for a WPF Application

Complex applications require careful architecting to reduce the amount of code movement between Visual Studio projects and the renaming of corresponding namespaces and folders.

Performance Tips: Speed up Data Access

Faster performance in business applications comes down to reducing the "critical two" -- disk I/O and trips to the server. Doing that means doing a lot of things right, starting with your database design -- and tweaking your ADO.NET code helps, too.

Tale of the Cryptic Encoding

Someone named Robbie had created a posting asking for assistance in resolving a problem with a simple Visual Basic .NET console application. It was used to retrieve and process product registrations and credit card transactions via the Internet for a piece of niche shareware.

Is Visual Studio LightSwitch the New Access?

The LightSwitch RAD platform generates apps with "no coding required." What's in it for you? .NET apps that are easier to maintain and extensions built on the Managed Extensibility Framework.

ViewModel Questions

Benjamin Day's exploration of leveraging the ViewModel in Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 development ("6 MVVM Tips") generated plenty of feedback.

SQL or No SQL for Big Data in the Cloud?

The relational model and SQL dominate today's database landscape, but NoSQL is gaining adherents in the era of "big data." But Roger Jennings says SQL and NoSQL may not be as exclusive as many developers think.

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