If you're not cheating, you're not... using these new Windows Runtime Network API cheat sheets

Windows App Builder Blog - Network API cheat sheets available now in the download center

The network APIs have tremendous depth and enable your app to work in many ways.  But it can be hard to figure out how and when to use the different APIs.  To help you out, the Windows Networking Team has created poster-sized cheat sheets with overviews and code samples of the most popular network APIs.  And, we’re working on more!

The cheat sheets tell you about the different APIs. But which API is the right one to use, and when? Here's an easy way to figure it out:

• Are you connecting to an HTTP server?
  • For small, interactive transfers and to connect to web services for a mash-up type app, use the Windows.Web.Http HttpClient family of APIs. 
  • For larger transfers, or transfers that work even when your app is suspended, use the Windows.Networking.BackgroundTransfer classes.  It can also do FTP transfers. 
  • To pre-load data for your app, you can use Windows.Networking.BackgroundTransfer.ContentPrefetcher (which also works with the HttpClient classes)
• Are you connected to a classic TCP or UDP server?  Or to Bluetooth? Use the Windows.Networking.StreamSocket (TCP and Bluetooth) or DatagramSocket (UDP and Multicast) classes.
• Are you connecting to one of the new "WebSocket" servers?  They aren't classic sockets (and don't interoperate with classic sockets), but they can tunnel through corporate proxies and interoperate with up-to-date HTML5 browsers.  Websockets are in the Windows.Networking.Sockets namespace.
• Are you connecting to people in the same room? (For example, with Near Field Communication (NFC) tap to connect)?  If so, use the Windows.Networking.Proximity PeerFinder and related classes; this can give you back a StreamSocket that you can use to communicate with peers.

Our first pack of cheat sheets are for the HttpClient, Sockets, and Background Transfer APIs.  Download the pack now from the Microsoft Download Center. And let us know what other cheat sheets you need! [GD: Post Leach Level: 99%]

Microsoft Downloads - HttpClient. Background Transfer, and Sockets Network API Poster for Windows Runtime Developers

Windows runtime developers! This Network API poster describes some of the most popular Network APIs in the Windows Runtime classes. The set of posters includes HttpClient, Background Transfer, and Sockets 

Version: 8.1

Date Published: 11/13/2013

WinRT81-HttpClient-BT-Socket-Poster.pdf, 502 KB

The poster is provided in PDF format. When you print it from the PDF, specify the dimensions as landscape Tabloid size (11 inches by 17 inches).

Worse case, this will make for nice Cube Poster-ware... Best case it will help you build even more awesome .Net'enabled Windows Runtime app's... :)

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No If's here.. Jason Haley Web Appifys his Interesting Finds blog as SPA at ifreader.com

Jason Haley - The New IFReader (ifreader.com)

Last month, some of my project work slowed down – so I took the time to redesign and rewrite a useful single page application for reading the Interesting Finds blog entries.

The new site design is now out at http://ifreader.com (I have also started moving my other sites to the same style … the blog site is next).

IFReader.com has been around for awhile, but only provided the ability to see a daily or weekly listing.  The new app, allows you to filter and load more items of any of the sections that you want.  This is something I often want to do – just browse some links for a particular subject instead of all links for only a single day.

The new style uses bootstrap3, so it looks decent on a mobile device too.  I purchased a template from https://wrapbootstrap.com/ – which I first learned about from one of Shawn Wildermuth’s PluralSight videos (big thanks to him for mentioning it).  Saved me a ton of time.

The Views Count is incremented whenever someone clicks on the link (and yes if you click it multiple times I currently still increment each time).  The view count functionality has been there since the beginning – though now it is tied together using a custom knockout binding.

...

ifreader

I think it's a shame that Jason isn't a MVP yet. But maybe with his new SPA push, he can make to Web MVP'dom... And if not, we'll at least be able to follow him along on his journey.

In this case he's doing what I've always suggested to anyone who wants to learn a new dev area, technique, thing. Build around something you are personally interested in. And given how long Jason's been blogging, well...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Jason's Spa (err... I mean, Jason Haley's new SPA, Single Page Application, Resource page)

A Feed You Should Read #1 – Jason Haley’s Interesting Finds
You're reading Jason Haley's link blog... right?
Jason Haley - Human Feed Aggregator Extrodinare

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Viasfora - Your new favorite Visual Studio Text/*ML Editing Extension?

Winterdom - Introducing Viasfora

A couple of days ago, I unveiled Viasfora, my latest attempt at building a decently packaged extension for Visual Studio 2010, 2012, and 2013. I had already published a few VS Extensions before (Keyword Classifier, BetterXml, Line Adornments, and Xaml Classifier Fix), but it was not overly successful. The reasons for this were several:

What is Viasfora?

Viasfora is a combination of my 3 most significant previous extensions. Keyword Classifier, BetterXml and Line Adornments. It puts them all in a single, nice package that includes full customizability through the Tools -> Options dialog in Visual Studio, including the ability to turn individual features on/off.

So what does Viasfora offer? Check the website for the full details, but here are some highlights:

• Current Line Highlighting, a native feature in VS2013, but supported on VS2010 and VS2012.
• Custom highlighting of Control Flow keywords, LINQ-related Keywords and Visibility keywords for C#, C/C++, JavaScript and Visual Basic (new!).
• Highlighting of character escape sequences in C# strings, which makes it real easy to spot them!
• Custom highlighting of XML namespace prefixes in XML/XAML/HTML documents.
• Highlighting closing element tags in XML/XAML/HTML documents in a different color as the opening element tag. This is one of my favorite features and one I often miss from Vim.
• Matching (through highlight) of opening/closing element tags in XML documents (new!).
• Tooltips for easy lookup of XML namespace prefixes.

Hopefully having a nice (if simple) website for the extension with all the information makes it easier for people to find and get interested in it. As with my previous extensions, complete source is available on the https://github.com/tomasr/viasfora/ repository.

...

Viasfora v1.1 Published

Tonight I pushed a new version of my Viasfora extension for Visual Studio. In this version, I fixed some features that were not working on Visual Studio 2013 due to the introduction of a new HTML editor, particularly highlighting closing HTML tags.

What’s exiting to me, however, is the new feature: Rainbow Parentheses:

This is a Visual Studio version inspired by one of my favorite Vim plugins. Features:

• Supported for C#, C/C++ and JavaScript files.
• Highlights {}, [] and () braces.
• Supports 4 different nesting levels, format for each one can be customized through the Tools -> Options dialog (Rainbow Parentheses 1-4).

Viasfora

A Visual Studio 2010, 2012, and 2013 extension that adds miscellaneous (but useful!) enhancements to the VS text editing experience.

Just caught this today and I think the new Rainbow Parentheses is worth the price (well, it's free and open source, but you get the idea)...

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Battling the Console Wars, one mini-3d print job at a time. Add this Mini Xbox One to your arsenal

Dave Nunez's Blog v2.0 - Mini Xbox One

To fight a console war, you need a console army. But at $500 a pop, it’s going to be expensive to draft your Xbox One battalions. Never mind, you can just print a bunch!

The latest in my mini gaming machines series – grab the files to print your own at Thingiverse.

Okay Santa, forget what I said before, a 3D Printer is what I really want... I've been, well, um, not bad this year... mostly. :)

(Via: Mini Xbox One 3D Printed Model: Xbox 0.1)

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[Book Review] 'LÖVE for Lua Game Programming'

LÖVE for Lua Game Programming

Preface
Chapter 1: Getting Started with LÖVE
Chapter 2: LÖving Up!
Chapter 3: Before You Build a Game
Chapter 4: Making Your First Game
Chapter 5: More About Making the Game
Chapter 6: Pickups and Head-Up Display and Sounds
Chapter 7: Meeting the Bad Guy!
Chapter 8: Packaging and Distributing Your Game

What you will learn from this book

• Create different environments to make your games more interesting
• Add sound and music to your games
• Apply game physics and real-time particle collisions
• Animate game characters using sprites
• Deploy your games to Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms

In Detail

LÖVE is a game development framework for making 2D games using the Lua programming language. LÖVE is totally free, and can be used in anything from friendly open-source hobby projects, to closed-source commercial ones. Using the Lua programming framework, one can use LÖVE2D to make any sort of interesting games.

LÖVE for Lua Game Programming will quickly and efficiently guide you through how to develop a video game from idea to prototype. Even if you are new to game programming, with this book, you will soon be able to create as many game titles as you wish without stress.

The LÖVE framework is the quickest and easiest way to build fully-functional 2D video games. It leverages the Lua programming language, which is known to be one of the easiest game development languages to learn and use. With this book, you will master how to develop multi-platform games for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. After downloading and installing LÖVE, you will learn by example how to draw 2D objects, animate characters using sprites, and how to create game physics and game world maps.

LÖVE for Lua Game Programming makes it easier and quicker for you to learn everything you need to know about game programming. If you’re interested in game programming, then this book is exactly what you’ve been looking for.

...

I read this book on Friday (while waiting for UPS to deliver my Xbox One... ;) and found it well paced and easy to follow. The book takes an incremental approach easing you into programing with LOVE and Lua. It is NOT a programming tutorial. It assumes you have some programming background and doesn't waste space on the things you are assumed to already know (like looping, functions, variables, etc, etc).

The author also does a nice job introducing you to common game dev tasks, like level design, tile usage, character animation, and so on. With 106 pages, you don't get depth but you do get a great initial introduction and in the end, a working game.

The "who this book is for" is spot-on;

This book is for aspiring game developers with a decent understanding of Lua scripting language, and anyone who wants to learn video game design. If you are looking for a step-by-step approach to learn how to design a game from idea to prototype quickly with a robust and easy-to-understand game engine, this book is for you.

If you are looking for a fun way to get started writing games, using all free tools, games that run cross platform, this book will help you get started.

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe my readers will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

 

Related Past Post XRef:
[Book Review - Preview] 'LÖVE for Lua Game Programming'

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The TMI Infographic of the day... aka the world's saddest view of today's work environment?

Global Nerdy - The saddest infographic in the land

Let's see... Me, me, me, me, me, me and me... sigh...

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Windows Azure Learning Resource Link Round-up

Windows Azure Technical Support (WATS) Team Blog - Windows Azure Learning Resources

Microsoft has loads of resources to help you learn, understand and leverage Windows Azure cloud platform. This is our effort of listing the resources that are available to help you learn about the Windows Azure architecture, security, features and implementation.

• Architecture
• Features and Offerings
• Implementation Guide
• Understanding IaaS
• Windows Azure Security
• Windows Azure Training Kit

One of those days I'm going to have to Azure "for real" so thought to capture this nice and consolidated list of Azure training links...

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