December 2012 - David Overton's Blog

I was looking for a book to bring me up to date with WPF and XAML and talking to my publishers, Packt Publishing, then offered me the Windows Presentation Foundation 4.5 Cookbook by Pavel Yosifovich. I was hoping to review this book sooner, however Christmas and illness got in the way, so here is my slightly late review.  In simple terms, this was an excellent book for me.  I write in both C# and VB.Net (more VB than C#).  I’ve never used WPF or XAML except in the designers from Microsoft and my work is basically hacking those tools without enough experience.  There are lots of features that I could not get working, so I simply coded around them with my 10-20 year old programming knowledge.  This book has enabled me to change this. The book is 437 pages long excluding the index and there are 80 “recipe's” in the book.  While you can dip in and out at random, as with all good knowledge acquisition, starting at the beginning offers the best platform to understand the more complex tasks further on in the book.  There are plenty of screen shots to ensure things are clear and easy to understand in a platform that ultimately delivers UI. If you are interested in WPF, XAML and especially data bound controls, this is a fantastic book for you, even if your experience with XML and C# is not top notch.  As you would expect, this books covers UI elements, controls  and animation, however I also learnt about the Background Worker component as a simple alternative to threads as well as the basics of parallel tasks using the Tasks Parallel Library.   I hope you enjoy the book. It can be purchased on Amazon UK , Amazon US or from Packt Publishing .   ttfn David

Hi, just a little note as I’ve been using this for a little while now.  You can access the Windows 8 store, search it and filter from this web site - http://metrostore.preweb.sk/ .  It is unofficial, however Vlko and Peter both seem open to suggestions too.   Enjoy David

Hi, I’ve always been open and honest on my blog and it is time to share broadly the news that I’ve left Microsoft.  I’ve been considering my career and a few things became apparent. I wanted a break .  When I joined Microsoft over 12 years ago, a sabbatical was part of the deal.  While this changed during my employment, I’ve decided to take one anyway, so I’ve been putting my feet up over the last few weeks and will continue to do so into the new year.  Obviously, I’m not sitting at home completely idle, but it does mean that I’m generally here when my girls get home from school and cannot say a pressing piece of work is keeping me from spending time with them.  This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but not been able to do so while in full time employment.  Playing The Gunstringer (includes Fruit Ninja Kinect) with Lizzy or visiting the Royal Institute with Molly tonight for the filming of the Christmas Lectures are just two highlights. Finding a new passion .  Looking at this blog, you can tell that the things that made me passionate, that I can share in public, have reduced as has the time to blog on them.  Well, I want that to change, so I’m considering the options for a new adventure out there.  I think cloud is going to grow beyond the expectations of many of my former colleagues along with BYOD, traditional desktops and on-premise server technology.  I’m focusing on something that can light one of those passions again in a way that I can publically share. What about Windows Intune and SBS I may hear you ask?  Well, I think Windows Intune will continue to grow and fill a broader set of needs, reducing some of those that were previously filled by SBS.  The SBS marketplace has changed with many finding an e-mail solution in the cloud more than meets their needs.  For some, the pricing needs tweaking, however I feel that this is becoming more of a commodity, so the SBS license + servicing costs are moving towards the fee paid by the cloud...