tl;dr: Fill out this form. Contribute to a great cause. Learn that thing you've been putting off.A year and change ago I did a Getting Git workshop at my coworker spot in Seattle, Office Nomads.Getting bootstrapped--self-sufficient--on new technologies is tough, especially if you don't have a good relationship with someone experienced. Conferences and user groups can be intimidating and rarely offer opportunities to dig in from the beginning--especially for more than the length of a 50-minute presentation.I've learned a lot of fun technology since I left Microsoft 5 years ago--has it been that long?--in no small part because people in the ... More →

Here’s a fun tip about the HTML5 version of Cut the Rope. If you launch the game with this web address: http://www.cuttherope.ie/?boxbackgrounds=true …then you’ll get a page background that changes depending on the box your playing. In the first box (the cardboard box) nothing changes. In the fabric and toy (IE) boxes, you’ll see updated background images (the background for the whole page). It doesn’t directly effect the game, but it’s pretty fun. More importantly, no one knew about this until now so you can impress your firends with your insider knowledge! Here’s how it happened: I was tasked with designing the “box edges” ... More →

Update: A build that fixes the Flash-related loading problems (see below) in Firefox has gone live. That build also fixed the loading issues with the game on iOS devices and added some (very) basic support for touch events (both iOS and IE10 / Windows 8). Play it at www.cuttherope.ie. Monday was a big day Pixel Lab. We had the incredible opportunity of developing the HTML5 version of Cut the Rope for ZeptoLab (the brainiac creators of the game) and Monday was the launch. Overall, the feedback has been incredibly positive. It’s been cool to see people get excited about what ... More →

Its alive! Cut the Rope is now available in HTML5 on the web at www.cuttherope.ie I was fortunate enough to be a part of this project and am pleased to see it up and running. Hats off to ZeptoLab for creating a great game with such a fun visual style.  And much praise to the two masters Joel Fillmore (JS Game Engine Lead) and Robby Ingebretsen (Project/Visuals/Everything Lead). For more information on the developer story, checkout the Behind the Scenes site and grab some developer candy while you’re there. Om nom, nom, nom.

Freckle is an awesome service that takes the friction out of tracking your time and is great for freelancers, consultants and small teams. At Pixel Lab we use it for our timesheet system and it works great for permanent employees and per-project contractors. As a long time Windows Phone user, the first thing I wanted was an app to use with this service, but there isn’t one. There’s a third-party app for iOS and I believe they’re working on an official client, but there’s nothing for Windows Phone. So, as a Windows Phone developer, I set myself the challenge of creating ... More →

The WinJS Animation library provides some pre-scripted animation functions that allow you to easily reproduce the signature animations of Metro-style apps.  Since there is no “Animated Application” template (and I don’t think there should be).  I thought I’d share the first couple of steps needed to use the library in your own application. 1. Create a new JavaScript (Blank Application) Project in VS11 Express. 2. In default.html, add an element to be animated.  I chose a header taking advantage of the provided classes of the theme CSS. <h1 class="pageTitle win-title">First Animation</h1> 3. Next add a reference to the Animation library which is defined in the “animations.js” file ... More →

Please excuse the superfluous exclamation point in the title, this is not a true emergency. Most JavaScript developers have moved on from debugging with the alert function, but sometimes the quick and very dirty function comes up as an old instinct. This instinct will be squashed if you attempt to use alert or its siblings, confirm or prompt, when beginning your Windows 8/WinJS education.  A call to one of these functions will cause the Visual Studio debugger to break and throw an undefined exception. Thankfully there is a JavaScript console available in Visual Studio so you can simply call console.log(). The following steps will ... More →

One of the more distinctive features of Windows Phone is the Start screen – which includes nice big live tiles that you can add and organize however you prefer. Up until the latest release, pinned items have been limited to applications, contacts, websites and other native or system level items. With the latest release, a new feature has been added for app developers called Secondary Tiles. The new tiles allow users to create shortcuts on the Start screen to a deep location (at least one-level beyond the homepage) of an application. This is a big win for app users as it allows them ... More →

I was asked to guest post on The Digital Lifestyle about my trip to Nokia World yesterday. It’s just been published, so go ahead and enjoy my thoughts on the event and Nokia’s entry into Windows Phone and the Lumia 800: http://wp.me/p1ubeI-8Au Filed under: events & conferences Tagged: lumia, nokia, nokia world

Windows Phone Development on Windows 8 via Windows Phone from the Trenches Filed under: tips & tricks