Release: ThinkGenealogy for Windows Phone

August 22, 2012 in News, Windows Phone 7

PRESS RELEASE
The ThinkGenealogy app is a valuable reference to guide you through the research process and help you do professional quality research — whether you are a professional genealogist or a family historian. The app is currently available for Windows Phone with other devices under consideration.
Features:

1. A map so you won’t get lost while you are doing your genealogy research.
2. Shows how important concepts are related.
3. Includes a concise explanation of the Genealogical Proof Standard.
4. Follows concepts in Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills.
5. Glossary of genealogy terms.
6. Helpful links.
7. A video tour of how to use the app.

You can see the features in action on YouTube: http://youtu.be/Rrpqjt9PjEA?hd=1

To purchase the application, visit http://www.shazaml.com/thinkgenealogy

If you are interested in a version of the application for your device, have ideas for how to improve the app, or have other feedback, complete this 9 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RYDFF53

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Release: Pumpkin Face Free

October 27, 2011 in News

Pumpkin Face Free is now available from the Marketplace.  It lets you create fun or spooky pumpkin faces.  You can even save them to the Pictures Hub where you can use them later.  Here is a link to Pumpkin Face Free.

If you tweet your image to @shazaml, then your face could appear on this site and even as a sample screen in the Marketplace.  How about them bragging rights!

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Compass Expert 1.1 Released

September 16, 2011 in News

An update to Compass Expert is available in the Marketplace.

Compass Expert is the only Windows Phone compass that is designed to look and work like a real baseplate compass. Use it for hiking, backpacking, orienteering, scouting, and camping.

Free Trial available.

Features:
1. Set the compass dial and rotate the baseplate until the needle is in the house.
2. See the declination for your current location.
3. Understand important concepts by reading the included guide.
4. Works while in airplane mode and with GPS disabled.

Added in 1.1:
1. Ability to add multiple users; compass settings and training saved per user.
2. Added more entries to the guide.

Direct link: http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=8d988c39-0b30-4599-ba0b-2b75ac876c4a

App.net: http://app.net/compass-expert

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More Complete WP7 Mango Database Update Walkthrough

September 15, 2011 in Silverlight, Uncategorized, Windows Phone 7

The MSDN documentation gives a walkthrough of how to update a local database application on the Windows Phone over time. The documentation gives quite a bit of detail but seems to miss a likely scenario. So let’s investigate the process step-by-step.

Initial Version

We are creating the first version of our application and decide that we need a User database table with the following columns: Name (primary key), LastAccessedDate

So we create a User class as follows:

[Table]
public class User : INotifyPropertyChanged, INotifyPropertyChanging
{
  private string name;
  private DateTime? lastAccessed;

  [Column(IsPrimaryKey = true, CanBeNull = false, AutoSync = AutoSync.OnInsert)]
  public string Name
  {
  get { return name; }
  set
    {
      NotifyPropertyChanging("Name");
      name = value;
      NotifyPropertyChanged("Name");
    }
  }

  [Column]
  public DateTime? LastAccessed
  {
    get { return lastAccessed; }
    set
    {
      NotifyPropertyChanging("LastAccessed");
      lastAccessed = value;
      NotifyPropertyChanged("LastAccessed");
    }
  }

  // Version column aids update performance.
  [Column(IsVersion = true)]
  private Binary version;

  // INotifyPropertyChanged Members
  // INotifyPropertyChanging Members
}

Read the rest of this entry →

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WP 7.5 Mango ISETool Gotcha

September 15, 2011 in Silverlight

The Isolated Storage Explorer (ISETool.exe) is a command-line tool that comes with the Windows Phone SDK.  It allows you to copy files and directories from isolated storage on the phone (or emulator) to your PC file system.  One use for this is to take snapshots of your database over different versions in order to test upgrade scenarios.

To copy from the emulator’s isolated storage to your computer’s file system use:

ISETool.exe ts xd 11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 “C:\MyApp\DbVersion1″

Where:

  • ts – take snapshot
  • xd – emulator
  • guid – product GUID from WPAppManifest.xml
  • desktop dir – where to copy the isolated storage files

 

To later copy those files from my desktop directory back to isolated storage on the emulator, use:

ISETool.exe rs xd 11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 “C:\MyApp\DbVersion1\IsolatedStore”

 

In this case rs means restore snapshot.

But the restoring wasn’t working for me.  I would restore the snapshot, run my code and no database would be found so my code would create a new database.  It took me a few times to notice that what I was doing wrong was reusing the take snapshot command line and changing ts to rs.

But the problem with that is that the directory that you specify with ts is different than the one needed for rs.  Notice that rs adds “\IsolatedStore” to the end.

Hopefully this will save you from pulling  a few hairs out.

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WordPress for WP7

December 15, 2010 in Uncategorized

Just minutes after downloading the WP7 app, I was able to tap out a post. Why did they not use an InputScope that included the word hints?

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

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Windows Phone 7 Development Links

November 13, 2010 in Windows Phone 7

Microsoft Tools

App Hub – http://developer.windowsphone.com (http://create.msdn.com/en-US/)

  • Visual Studio 2010 Express
  • Expression Blend for Windows Phone
  • Windows Phone Emulator
  • XNA Game Studio 4.0
  • Silverlight/.NET Framework

Code Samples (Silverlight) – http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/article/wp7_code_samples

Code Samples (XNA) – http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/?contenttype=4&devarea=0&platform=0&sort=1

Application Bar Icons for Windows Phone 7

  • 32-bit computers – C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Icons
  • 64-bit computers – C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Icons  

Theme XAML files

  • 32-bit computers – C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Design
  • 64-bit computers – C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Design

Windows Phone Developer Registration

Application Deployment

Capability Detection

GUI – http://mobileworld.appamundi.com/blogs/petevickers/archive/2010/11/02/gui-interface-for-capabilitydetection-exe.aspx

Silverlight Performance Analysis tool – Coming Soon (announced at PDC10) – http://www.shazaml.com/archives/silverlight-performance-analysis-tool-coming-soon

 

Documentation

Fundamental Concepts – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff967549(v=VS.92).aspx

Windows Phone Design System – Codename Metro  – http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=189338

Design Templates for Windows Phone 7 – http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=196225

UI Design and Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 – http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=183218

Summary – http://www.shazaml.com/archives/summary-ui-design-interaction-guide-for-windows-phone-7

Windows Phone 7 Application Certification Requirements – http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9730558

Summary – http://www.shazaml.com/archives/summary-of-windows-phone-7-application-certification-requirements

Top 10 Tips for a Successful Marketplace Certification – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jodonnell/archive/2010/10/06/windows-phone-7-top-10-tips-for-a-successful-marketplace-certification.aspx

WP7 Training Course – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/wp7trainingcourse.aspx

Fiddler and the Windows Phone 7 Emulator – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/fiddler/archive/2010/10/15/fiddler-and-the-windows-phone-emulator.aspx

 

 

Presentations

16 MIX10 Videos – http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2010/03/17/videos-of-mix10-windows-phone-sessions.aspx

Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 Performance Tips (SilverlightTV) – http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/SilverlightTV/SIlverlight-TV-47-Silverlight-and-Windows-Phone-7-Performance-Tips

PDC10 – http://player.microsoftpdc.com/

Silverlight Video Resources – http://www.silverlight.net/learn/videos/windows-phone/

 

Open Source  & 3rd Party Tools

Open Source

Silverlight Toolkit (WP7) – http://silverlight.codeplex.com/releases/view/55034

 

Json.NET – http://json.codeplex.com/

High performance ProgressBar – http://www.jeff.wilcox.name/2010/08/performanceprogressbar/

Sterling Isolated Storage Database – http://sterling.codeplex.com/

LowProfileImageLoader – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/delay/archive/2010/09/02/keep-a-low-profile-lowprofileimageloader-helps-the-windows-phone-7-ui-thread-stay-responsive-by-loading-images-in-the-background.aspx

DeferredLoadListBox – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/delay/archive/2010/09/08/never-do-today-what-you-can-put-off-till-tomorrow-deferredloadlistbox-and-stackpanel-help-windows-phone-7-lists-scroll-smoothly-and-consistently.aspx

Windows Phone 7 Design Templates – http://wp7designtemplates.codeplex.com/

Turnstile control – http://turnstile.codeplex.com/

MVVM Light Toolkit – http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com/

Caliburn Micro – http://caliburnmicro.codeplex.com/

 

Fee

Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone – http://www.telerik.com/products/windows-phone.aspx

Perst database – http://www.mcobject.com/june30/2010

 

 

Books

Programming Windows Phone 7 (Charles Petzold) – http://www.charlespetzold.com/phone/

101 Windows Phone 7 Apps, Volume I: Developing Apps 1-50 (Adam Nathan) – pre-order

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Free Event: Silverlight Firestarter – 2 Dec 2010

November 12, 2010 in Silverlight

Silverlight Firestarter: The Future of Silverlight Starts Now

Learn what the future holds for Silverlight at this online event.

Register today: http://www.silverlight.net/news/events/firestarter/

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Silverlight Performance Analysis tool – Coming Soon

November 12, 2010 in Silverlight, Windows Phone 7

At PDC10 as part of the keynote, Scott Guthrie showed off the soon-to-be-released Silverlight Performance Analysis tool that would allow developers to profile their Windows Phone 7 applications and identify bottlenecks in frame rate and CPU and relate that back to specific storyboards and even Visual Tree elements.

The below screenshots were taken from the keynote video and you can see the timings at the bottom if you want to watch the video:

image

In addition to debugging on the device, you can profile the app by selecting Silverlight Performance Analysis:

perf1

The device will then be prepared for profiling:

perf2

After running the application, a graphical summary will be created with execution time on the x-axis.  It shows color-coded frame rates (green is good, red is bad) and relates that to CPU-usage and specific Storyboards:

perf3

In the above example, it appears that the first Storyboard might be leading to increased CPU usage and a degraded frame rate.  You can highlight and drill down to see details for a specific time frame (from approx 4.5 to 7.5 seconds into the profiling session):

perf4

The next screen shows CPU and GPU metrics as well as a list of warnings.  The first entry warns about 35 instances of ColorAnimation:

perf5

Scrolling down, you will see an Element Summary:

perf6

Followed by a Frames section with a CPU usage graph:

perf7

And finally the ability to drill down the Visual Tree and see problems highlighted:

perf8

This tool would be very helpful in analyzing app performance on the device.  ScottGu did not give a specific release date for this or any additional tools that might be coming.

Today I saw that there is a Silverlight Firestarter event scheduled for December 2, 2010 and wonder if the tool will be ready to release then. 

image

It would make a great time to announce it.

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7 Windows Phone 7 Marketplace Complaints

November 4, 2010 in Windows Phone 7

Soon many will be experiencing the Windows Phone 7 marketplace as they download apps for their new phones.  Here is a list of 7 complaints about the marketplace:

1. Cannot Search by Keywords

When I submitted the Cousin Calculator app to the marketplace, I was able to enter keywords that would make finding the application easier:

image

But when I search for the app using one of the keywords, the application doesn’t show in the results:

image

Currently it is going to be more difficult to find some apps.

2. Cannot Search for Subgenre

Multiple genres in the marketplace have subgenres, but it is not always easy to remember which subgenre goes with each genre.  If I explore the SHOPPING subgenre under LIFESTYLE, there are currently 27 apps.  If I do a search for “shopping” I only see 6 apps:

image

3. Missing Genres or Subgenres

Compared to iTunes, the marketplace is missing some categories such as:

  • Education
  • Games
    • Arcade
    • Dice
    • Role Playing

So if I am looking for flash cards, the periodic table, or other educational tools and games where in the marketplace should I currently look?

4. Cannot Filter Results Based on Language

Browsing the apps in the marketplace, currently I see applications for languages that I don’t read. The name of the app is in a foreign language and so are the description and screen shots:

 image

 image

I should be able to specify the languages of apps that I want to see in my results.

5. Cannot Sort by Top Rated

You can sort applications by Top selling and Release date and you can see the number of stars for their rating, but you can’t sort by Top rated.

6. Sort by Release Date Doesn’t Group by Date

When browsing the marketplace, if you sort by Release date, the only way to see the release date is to click to see the app details.  It would be nice if the results showed the apps grouped by date.

7. Missing Counts when Browsing Genres

When “window shopping” in the marketplace, it would be nice to see the number of apps in each genre and subgenre.

I am hopeful that we will soon see some of these changes coming to the marketplace.

What issues do you see with the marketplace?

What things do you really like about it?

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