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The Brain Dump

My brain poured out on paper (or so to speak)

Blog migration

Hi all,My blog is moving to a new location (merging with my personal project blog) :...

Date: 05/07/2019

Raw threads and async lambdas

Using async methods/lambdas where they are not expected causes unexpected problems. The typical...

Date: 08/27/2018

Accessing a .NET bot's state via dependency injection

[NOTE: This post refers to version 3 of the Bot Framework] When using the .NET BotBuilder SDK’s...

Date: 02/13/2018

Async Main() is available, but hidden

How did I miss this? I love C# and I try to keep up with the latest features. What I didn’t realize...

Date: 12/08/2017

Setting up Xamarin Live Player

[UPDATE] You no longer need the preview version of Visual Studio. Updated directions can be found in...

Date: 05/12/2017

An alternative to ConfigureAwait(false) everywhere

One of the general recommendations you may often read is to use ConfigureAwait(false) in library...

Date: 02/09/2017

Quick dev directory cleanup tip

When cleaning up drive space, the first thing I do is remove the ‘obj’, ‘bin’, and ‘packages’...

Date: 09/21/2016

Asynchronous infinite loops instead of timers

Did it occur to you that an infinite loop, with async/await inside it, isn't really an infinite...

Date: 06/30/2016

Waaaaay oversimplified async/await plumbing

Often, when someone asks "how does this async await stuff actually work"? There is a lot of hand...

Date: 03/28/2016

Windows Live Writer lives on as Open Live Writer!

I am happy to be posting this blog entry from the newly announced Open Live Writer! The most...

Date: 12/11/2015

Tasks are (still) not threads and async is not parallel

I talk to a lot of developers who are either new to .NET or are moving from an older version to the...

Date: 09/10/2015

Visual Studio Tip #8: Adding existing files with Show All Files

Sometimes instead of adding a new file to your project, you need to reuse an existing file. That...

Date: 05/21/2015

Visual Studio Tip #7: Whole line editing

OK here is a quick simple one. How do I move or edit entire lines of code? #1 Just don’t...

Date: 05/14/2015

Visual Studio Tip #6: Turn on those line numbers (with Quick Launch)

Writing code is very often a collaborative process and to discuss something you need to be able to...

Date: 04/24/2015

Visual Studio Tip #5: Quickly adding a namespace “using” statement

One thing that slows down new C# users is the requirement to add “using” statements to...

Date: 04/15/2015

Visual Studio Tip #4: Code Snippets

There is lots of code that we write that follow standard patterns with some minor changes for our...

Date: 04/15/2015

Visual Studio Tip #3: Use “Navigate To”

I spend a lot of time looking at other people’s code. That means a lot of time searching other...

Date: 04/09/2015

Visual Studio Tip #2: Pin your data tips

Most people know that when you are debugging, you can hover the mouse over a variable in your code...

Date: 04/08/2015

Back to basics: Visual Studio tips

Lately I’ve been working a lot with developers who are completely new to C# and/or Visual...

Date: 04/07/2015

Tasks and awaits and Rx! (And Drones!) Oh My!

A few people I work with are tinkering with an off-the-shelf drone in our spare time and so we are...

Date: 04/14/2014

async/await does not “release the thread”

There is some language around async/await that I am going to stop using. I’ve heard others use...

Date: 03/25/2014

Simple consoles and async

[UPDATE: 12/11/2017 - Asynchronous Main methods are now directly supported in c# 7.1. See this post...

Date: 11/21/2013

Cancellable “awaiting” on .NET events continued

Compose, compose, compose. Reuse, reuse, reuse. In the last post on cancellable “awaiting” on .NET...

Date: 08/06/2013

Drag and Drop with Tasks & Async

Lucian has an excellent series on turning things into Tasks so that you can can be compose them and...

Date: 07/25/2013

Tasks are not Threads

One of the common misconceptions I’ve encountered when developers first start using the Task...

Date: 04/24/2013

Windows 8 ViewModel Property Code Snippet

Visual Studio provides a bunch of good code snippets for creating boilerplate code. For example if...

Date: 10/12/2012

Windows Phone MessageBox implements scrolling!

Helpful quick and dirty debugging tip: I never noticed this before, but if you send a large amount...

Date: 08/06/2012

Managing multiple web service calls with Rx

Lets say I have a phone app (or any app really) that needs to make several web service calls at...

Date: 06/15/2012

Give formatting its own line

I got bitten by this not once but twice on Sunday as I hurriedly worked on a new phone app. Can you...

Date: 02/21/2012

Using Rx? Subscribe to exceptions!

I have an app in the Windows Phone Marketplace which suddenly saw a spike in Little Watson email...

Date: 01/12/2012

Rx ensures Unsubscribe

I recently had an ObservableCollection which did not currently contain the item I was interested in,...

Date: 11/08/2011

Windows Phone travel tip – pin your map locations

Whenever I’m travelling I always have two freshly pinned tiles at the bottom of my start screen....

Date: 11/07/2011

Populating Windows Phone view models with Rx

I’ve gotten rather fond of using the Reactive Extensions for populating my data from the web in my...

Date: 11/01/2011

Type, don’t look!

Just a quick tip for Windows Phone users regarding the onscreen keyboard. Most people I’ve talked to...

Date: 08/18/2011

Mango goodness for devs today!

From the App Hub’s news comes information on how to update your Windows Phone to Mango today in...

Date: 06/29/2011

Pivot Title Templates

By default the Pivot Control on Windows Phone 7 simply displays a TextBlock as the title of the...

Date: 06/23/2011

Don’t ForkJoin your Events

I’ve been using Reactive Extensions for .NET to attempt to wait until multiple async calls to load...

Date: 03/31/2011

A Windows Phone update is going out!

No, unfortunately its not that update. It’s a small update designed to improve the software update...

Date: 02/21/2011

Windows Phone 7 Developer Quickstarts

The Windows Phone 7 development articles are now published. They are aimed at guiding you through...

Date: 02/11/2011

Custom Page Transitions in WP7 (part 2)

In the last post I discussed how to create a custom page transition with the Silverlight for Windows...

Date: 02/08/2011

Windows Phone Developer Tools January Update

Come and get it! The new developer tools include updated reference assemblies, a new version of the...

Date: 02/04/2011

Custom page transitions in WP7

The Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit provides the mechanism for creating animated page...

Date: 02/04/2011

Need a little Push?

The Windows Phone team recently released the Windows Phone 7 Recipe for Push Notifications which is...

Date: 01/18/2011

Sweet, sweet, data

I forgot to post this yesterday when we saw it go live but … Windows Phone Marketplace reporting is...

Date: 12/09/2010

Hidden Features in Windows Phone

My pal Girish has a whole host of tips for Windows Phone interaction.The vast majority come down to...

Date: 12/06/2010

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