MSDN Flash - Volume 19, Number 19: September 21, 2015
Top News Worldwide
AzureCon, September 29: 60+ sessions, 1 virtual event, zero cost to attend
Enter the Know It. Prove It. Backstage Pass Sweepstakes
The biggest VMs available in the cloud: New Azure GS-VM Series
Managing hidden apps, beta apps, and visibility of in-app purchases in Dev Center
Sponsors: DevExpress, and Red Gate Software
Your next great dashboard starts here
How would you resolve a critical .NET performance issue?
Best practices, anecdotes, and insights from developers who are building using Microsoft technologies
Episode #1: The Power of Cross Platform Development with Universal Apps and Xamarin. James Montemagno, Developer Evangelist at Xamarin, talks about why C# is his favorite programming language and how it empowers developers and enterprises to scale across platforms and devices.
Microsoft Azure Tour
Through March 1, 2016, worldwide
This one-day technical training event is designed to help you be more successful in the cloud. Choose between traditional sessions or a unique hands-on experience that will get you closer to the cloud. You’ll end the day with a working Azure web and mobile application.
We’re on the road to self-driving business applications – blog post by Steve Guggenheimer
Just like self-driving cars, which use data to make smart decisions when interacting with the world around them, Unit4’s ERP system is built around the same principles: interpreting available data, then applying it to determine a user’s intentions.
Build Windows 10 games with Unity 5
Get the details on some of the hundreds of new features available in the latest version of Unity, including how to build 3D games for the Universal Windows Platform. Explore audio mixing, illumination, camera modes and effects, and lots more.
Build a Xamarin app with authentication and offline support
In the second article in their series, the authors discuss how they use Xamarin to target multiple mobile client platforms, and show how to implement authentication and maintain a synchronized client-side cache of the data.
Streamline code with native profile-guided optimization
Profile-guided optimization (PGO) is an important type of optimization supported by the Visual C++ compiler. Although it requires some effort to use, PGO almost always results in significant reductions in the size of the generated executable and improved performance.
Extend secure identities to your customers and partners
Learn about new capabilities from Microsoft that you can use to extend secure identities to partners, contractors, and your consumer-facing applications. Learn more about identity-driven security.
Community corner: An interview with Andy Abott from BookedOut
Technical Evangelist David Giard welcomes Andy Abott, co-founder and SVP of Engineering at BookedOut , to discuss what BookedOut does, how it got started, and how their devs use Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Azure in their service.
Memory compression in Windows 10 RTM
Understand why the System process in Windows 10 is taking more memory and why it's a good thing. The OS is doing optimizations that allow your processes to trim some of the memory but not necessarily page it out to disk.
Unity 5.2 and Visual Studio Tools for Unity 2.1
With the release of Unity 5.2 and Visual Studio Tools for Unity 2.1, we’re really excited to share with you some of the results of this partnership.
VP9 support is coming to Microsoft Edge
We’re excited to announce that WebM/ VP9 support is now in development in Microsoft Edge. VP9 is an open source video format that offers efficient compression to stream HD content at lower bit rates, and is well suited to UHD streaming.
Use inking and speech to support natural input
With Windows 10, it’s now easier than ever to support natural input in your apps. This post will highlight using inking and speech to interact more naturally with your users.
Dynamically detecting features with API contracts
Apps that adapt their behavior for different devices or OS versions are called “adaptive apps”. There are three possible adaptive dimensions for most apps: responsive user interface, version adaptive, and platform adaptive. This post focuses on the version and platform adaptive dimensions.
New sensor features in Windows 10
Gain an overview of three sensor features in Windows 10: sensor batching, ReadingTransform, and custom sensors.
Protect sensitive information with Azure Key Vault
With the rise in security vulnerabilities and data breaches, managing and securing sensitive information has become more critical than ever. The Microsoft Azure Key Vault service helps safeguard your cryptographic keys and other sensitive information in the cloud.
Enabling DevOps on the Microsoft stack
There are many technologies and tools that can help with DevOps. These tools and processes support rapid release cycles and data collection on production applications, and are essential aspects of a successful DevOps strategy.
Toast notifications using Windows Bridge for Web Apps
Hosted web apps are Universal Windows apps. By leveraging your existing web workflows and continuous deployment, you can update your experience without redeploying to the Windows Store. This tutorial goes in-depth on how to call native Windows notifications with some basic browser fallbacks for web notifications.
Panacea: Patient bedside engagement solution using Visual Studio and Azure
“I’ve been a Microsoft partner for a few years,” said Christopoulos, the inspiration behind Panacea, an award-winning patient bedside engagement solution, “and it really feels like Microsoft with Satya Nadella at the helm are getting back to their roots…” Read more for details.
Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio Online
An important advantage of Visual Studio Code is integration with Git, and therefore GitHub. However, once you want to create a private repository or have access to number of tools which help you to support software development life cycle, look to Visual Studio Online.
App development with Cortana
In this episode, Robert is joined by Nick Landry, who shows us how to integrate Cortana into apps. Among the topics Nick covers and shows are voice commands, speech recognition and synthesis, background voice commands, and continuous dictation.
The DEVintersection Countdown Show
Join your favorite Microsoft leaders as they kick off this new series leading up to the event in Las Vegas October 26–29. DEVintersection brings together the best speakers from Microsoft and the larger community to explore the hottest technologies that you can put to work for you today.
Not using Visual Studio 2015? (Take a short survey and tell us why!)
This is a survey for developers who have not upgraded to Visual Studio 2015. Our goal is to reach out to learn more about your applications, requirements, and needs. Completing the questionnaire should take about 20 minutes to finish.
Data Science Virtual Classroom Course
Starting September 24
Join experts from M.I.T and the industry, partnering with Microsoft, for this five-week edX course. Learn key concepts of data science and machine learning with examples on how to build a cloud data science solution with R, Python, and Azure Machine Learning from the Cortana Analytics Suite.
Events
Let’s dev this. | Cloud Tour
September 22–October 29, 2015, nationwide
Use the new features of Visual Studio 2015 and Microsoft Azure to build a powerful, enterprise-grade cloud platform you can trust. Please join us for this full-day event to learn to build and move a variety of apps to the cloud.
Register Today: DEVintersection Conference
October 26–29, 2015, Las Vegas, NV
Your favorite Microsoft leaders take you on a journey with exciting new announcements this fall. Industry experts and Microsoft architects help you navigate the new releases and technologies in over 175 in-depth sessions. They will provide you real-world solutions to take back to your company.
Student News
Code with data from NASA
Microsoft and NASA are offering young coders the chance of a lifetime. Build a science-themed app or game using NASA data and you could win US$3,000. Sign up for Imagine Cup Earth today.
Explore Microsoft Azure
Want to learn cloud computing basics, but aren’t sure where to start? Sign up for the new monthly Hello Cloud Challenge from Microsoft Imagine and start your journey with Microsoft Azure today.
Resources
Free offers from Microsoft partners
Downloads and tools for Windows 10
Get started with app development
Try Microsoft Azure for 1 month free
Microsoft Virtual Academy – new training
Testing tools for web developers
Get the latest information from Channel 9
Free software and training for startups from Microsoft BizSpark
Code editing tools for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications
