September 2009

September 2009 issue  

Windows Mobile and Accelerometers: Shake and Skip to Interact with Your Music
This article describes an approach to using accelerometers with Windows Mobile to control Windows Media Player Mobile.
Chris Mitchell

Synchronization Coverage: Code Coverage for Concurrency
As more and more multi-threaded software applications get developed, software development professionals need to adopt new tools, techniques and metrics that can deal with multi-threaded software. Synchronization coverage is a simple, practical way to do this and this article covers a prototype synchronization coverage tool for .NET, called Sync Cover.
Chris Dern; Roy Tan

Parallel Debugging: Debugging Task-Based Parallel Applications in Visual Studio 2010
In Visual C++ 10 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4, Microsoft is introducing new libraries and runtimes to significantly ease the process of expressing parallelism in your code base, together with new tool support for performance analysis and debugging of parallel applications. In this article, you will learn about debugging support in Visual Studio 2010, much of which is focused on task-based programming models.
Stephen Toub; Daniel Moth

Event Tracing for Windows: Core Instrumentation Events in Windows 7
In the first article of a two-part series, the authors present a high-level overview of the ETW technology and core OS instrumentation.
Alex Bendetov; Insung Park

Message Orientation: SQL Server 2005 Service Broker: Microsoft’s New Messaging Technology
John Charles Olamendy

Columns

Editor's Note:
Find Your Anchors

This month, Howard Dierking explores the value of maintaining a few discrete technology interests in order to avoid being swept away in a sea of buzzwords and new technologies. Howard Dierking

Toolbox:
Caching, Object-Object Mapping, Blogs and More

This column covers Web application performance with distributed caching, a utility for object-object mapping, and a look at interesting blogs. Scott Mitchell

CLR Inside Out:
What’s New in the .NET Framework 4 Base Class Library

Just about everyone who uses Microsoft .NET uses the Base Class Libraries (BCL).When we make the BCL better, almost every managed developer benefits. This column will focus on the new additions to the BCL in .NET 4 beta 1. Justin+Van+Patten

Cutting Edge:
Exploring ASP.NET 4.0—Web Forms and Beyond

The upcoming ASP.NET 4.0 platform has the same foundation as the latest 3.5 SP1 version, but it provides further refinement in the areas of Web Forms, Dynamic Data controls, and ASP.NET AJAX. In this article, Dino takes a look at what’s new and improved in the Web Forms model. Dino Esposito

The Polyglot Programmer:
Concurrency with Channels, Domains and Messages

Axum is not a general-purpose language like C# or VB, but one aimed squarely at the problem of concurrency, designed from the outset to be part of a suite of languages that collectively cooperate to solve a business problem. Ted Neward

Security Briefs:
A Follow-on Conversation about Threat Modeling

This article explores the use of threat modeling to address security concerns in your applications. Michael Howard

Extreme ASP.NET:
Search Engine Optimization with ASP.NET 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 and IIS7

In this article, the author takes a look at SEO practices that the reader can apply when using the latest Microsoft Web technologies. Scott Allen

Foundations:
Charting with DataTemplates

For WPF programmers, one major revelation about the power of the DataTemplate comes with a demonstration of how XAML can turn business objects into bar charts. This column explores how to use DataTemplates to create different types of charts. Charles Petzold

Windows With C++:
Drawing with Direct2D

In this article, the author shows you how to draw with Direct2D by introducing Direct2D’s color structure and its various types of brushes. Kenny Kerr

Going Places:
An Introduction to IPsec VPNs on Mobile Phones

Many commercial phone models, including Windows phones, come with a VPN client. This article covers some of the basics of the technology behind IKEv2 and MOBIKE and how to use them to create and manage a VPN for a mobile phone. Ramon Arjona

Usability in Practice:
The Tao of Screen Design

This article describes methods for designing screens in a user interface and the technology frameworks that support screen design. Ambrose Little