Jeremy Likness

When learning a new framework I often find it is useful to examine the source, use the framework, then go into a separate project and build the functionality from scratch to better understand the motivation behind the framework and what...

The WebSockets protocol provides full-duplex communication on top of a TCP connection that is initiated by an HTTP handshake. The fact that it runs over existing HTTP and HTTPS ports allows it to pass easily through most existing firewall configurations....

In 2011 I heard the first rumors about Windows 8 and knew immediately what my next book would be about. Unlike Designing Silverlight Business Applications that captured years of experience writing Line of Business (LOB) apps in Silverlight, this book...

Microsoft held an event called re//build in Atlanta and I had the opportunity to speak about what’s new with WinJS. The event used a lightning talk format so with only 30 minutes to present, I decided to make the presentation...

In case you missed the big announcement, Microsoft has open sourced their Windows Library for JavaScript, otherwise known as WinJS. Many of you may not have noticed this because, like me, you assumed WinJS was just a shim for accessing...

This past Thursday I had the pleasure of presenting for the Linked In .NET Users Group. The topic was TypeScript. My goal was to show how well TypeScript works to solve common problems in the enterprise to tackle it from...

Silverlight made its debut in 2006 with the confusing acronym WPF/E (that’s Windows Presentation Foundation, Everywhere). Indeed the original dream was that a slimmed down version of the .NET Framework could run as a plugin in any browser (including smart...

The purpose of this post is to provide an introduction to the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern. While I've participated in lots of discussions online about MVVM, it occurred to me that beginners who are learning the pattern have very little to...

There is no doubt that AngularJS – the self-proclaimed “superheroic JavaScript framework” – is gaining traction. I’ll refer to it frequently as just “Angular” in this post. I’ve had the privilege on working on an enterprise web application with a...

An important component of the decision to use a framework should be the amount of ceremony and ritual involved. You must carefully weigh what it takes to ramp up on the technology and how common tasks are performed. It does...

While writing Chapter 14 of my book, Designing Silverlight Business Applications: Best Practices for Using Silverlight Effectively in the Enterprise (Microsoft .NET Development Series) I focused on an area that is quite common with line of business applications: extremely large...

Some Silverlight projects may require that you render HTML content - perhaps a non-Silverlight control or web page. Unfortunately unless the project runs Out of Browser (OOB) the WebBrowser control isn't an option. What can you do? While there is...

I learned about chaos theory quite by accident. On a family vacation we stopped by a campground along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Appalachian Mountains. I was not an outdoor enthusiast at the time so while my parents were...

First, let me say that I realize Silverlight in no way “owns” the Model-View-View Model pattern. I’ve written on this extensively in my article “MVVM Explained.” However, I believe it gained the most public exposure through various implementations on that...

For the past decade Wintellect has been helping developers like you improve what you do by sharing how we do it with our enterprise customers. We’re not just trainers, but hands on consultants who have spent combined centuries of experience...

To continue my series on the power of Zone, I examine yet another powerful and useful way you can use zones to improve your application. If this is your first time learning about Zone, read my introduction to Zone titled...

In my last post I described an open source tool from the Angular team called Zone that allows you to execute a JavaScript workflow within an execution context. I demonstrated how to instrument a sequence of asynchronous events using Zone....

I recently learned about a new project by the Angular team called Zone. This project is one of those rare gems that is only a few lines of code but is so groundbreaking it literally takes time to wrap your...

While I was at the Angular ng-conf I had the opportunity to sit down with .NET luminaries Ward Bell, John Papa, and Dan Wahlin to discuss why Angular is so important to .NET developers with Ian Smith. We cover lots...

Yesterday was a fantastic day. I spent the afternoon helping out at the Wintellect booth. There is a rumor I may have been seen challenging attendees to a game of 9-ball in the game room once or twice. I also...

The world’s first public Angular conference kicked off today in Salt Lake City and I was excited to attend with Wintellect. Our company has been using Angular along with other tools like TypeScript to build enterprise apps scaled across large...

Angular provides it’s own dependency injection that supports everything from annotations to decorators. Interception is a feature that allows you to extend, intercept, or otherwise manipulate existing services. It makes it easy to monkey-patch existing APIs to suite the specific...

I’ve read quite a few posts (as well as questions posed) about the differences between services and factories in Angular. I’ve seen just as many attempts to explain it and even fell victim to trying to force an explanation for...

A big “thank you” to the Chattanooga .NET Users Group for hosting my talk last night. I presented “Windows Runtime and the Web.” Although this talk is similar to one I presented earlier at DevLink, I updated the content exclusively...

There are numerous scenarios to throttle input so that you aren’t reevaluating your filters every time they change. The more appropriate term is “debounce” because essentially you are waiting for the input to settle before you invoke a function, so...

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times now. “AngularJS teaches HTML new tricks.” The way it does that is through directives. In my last related post I covered how to build a testable filter. Directives can be tested in a...

The T6502 Emulator displays a set of registers to indicate the status of the program counter (where in memory the CPU is looking for the next set of instructions), the values of registers (temporary storage in the CPU) and a...

Windows 8.1 eliminates the concept of a “snapped” or “filled” view and allows apps to run at a variety of sizes. The minimum default size is set to 500 pixels wide, but this can be overridden for legacy apps or...

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been spending a lot of time working with a combination of technologies that I believe make it easier and more efficient for large development teams to build enterprise web applications. TypeScript gives JavaScript some...

I recently took a vacation the same week as the 4th of July and had lots of time to reflect upon my career to date. It was a little shocking to realize I’ve been writing code for nearly 30 years...

I’ve grown to appreciate the value that testing adds to software development. In my opinion many developers spend far too much time focusing on the red herring of code coverage or writing tests just to check them off, rather than...

Any developer who has worked with MVVM in WPF, Silverlight, or Windows Store apps has likely run into the issue of executing an action on the UI thread. This most often happens when work has to be done on another...

Developers who are writing Windows Store apps using C# and XAML might find some of the support for Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) lacking. Both WPF and Silverlight provided specific interfaces that enabled you to store validation context about fields on a context...

Various providers often provide documentation and even SDKs that make it easier to connect with and authenticate to their service. The problem is that most scenarios assume a web-based application or specific mobile clients. The process in general looks something...

The WebView control allows you to display content from sites in your app using a small window that renders the HTML using the same rendering engine as Internet Explorer. It does have some limitations and most likely if you are...

Windows Store apps have a variety of tricks up their sleeve for engaging the user even when they are not running. Tiles are a perfect example because they provide at-a-glance information to the user from the start screen. Tiles can...

This week I had the pleasure of attending my first CodeStock event in Knoxville, TN. Let me start by saying it was an amazing event. I give many thanks to the attendees, for keeping it a strong and thriving community,...

My last evening at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Los Angeles was amazing. My colleague, Wes Brock, and I attended an event in Hollywood. One of the great benefits of attending the conference is, of course, the networking. While...

It seems there is quite a bit of anticipation surrounding the imminent release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I've read the speculation about what it will actually include, or not include, and if this release really means anything in...

I've been doing quite a bit with Reactive Extensions (Rx) for Silverlight lately. One idea that I keep exploring is the concept of creative intuitive sequential workflows for asynchronous operations. You can read about my explorations using Wintellect's own Power...

Mastery of the art of debugging is rare. I know this from years of experience working on enterprise systems. If it was simple, more people would be doing it and everyone would be able to track down bugs. The reality...

I've been building enterprise applications for more than a decade now, and have specialized in Silverlight line of business applications for the past several years. The term "enterprise" seems to inspire images of complex, large, difficult-to-maintain software systems but a...

Thanks for everyone's support and votes. I have been selected to present two sessions at CodeStock 2012. Per the CodeStock website: CodeStock is a two day event for technology and information exchange. Created by the community, for the community —...

Free stuff! Got your attention? Read on to learn more … Last year I focused on completing my book about enterprise solutions using Silverlight. Since the release of Designing Silverlight Business Applications, much has changed. The book itself was well-received...

I have to admit that I may have rolled my eyes a bit when I first learned about the KnockoutJS library. It sounded too much like forcing a square peg into a round hole. Isn’t Model-View-Controller (MVC) already it’s own...

I can still remember the day I learned how to program. I was only 7 years old and was staying home with my TI-99/4A that had no games or cartridges available. Bored, I pulled out the BASIC reference guide and...

The Model-View-View Model (MVVM) pattern is more popular than ever and is built into the Visual Studio templates for creating Windows Store apps. Developers familiar with Silverlight already encountered the platform shift to using asynchronous operations because it was impossible...

There are several reasons you may wish to show HTML content in your Windows Store app. You may have information that is updated frequently and makes the most sense to consume as HTML data. Your app may aggregate feeds that...

After several months of comparing various Windows 8 devices to replace my old 1.5” thick 6-lb. Dell laptop, I finally settled on the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13. My requirements are fairly straightforward: I want 8GB of RAM and a minimum...

Most people think of the Windows Runtime as being synonymous with the formerly-known-as “Metro” applications, now called Windows Store apps. To add to the confusion, of course, is the fact that the ARM-based version of the Windows OS is branded...

My daughter turns 13 today and to celebrate, our family took a trip to Paris, France. We celebrated Christmas and New Year’s Eve (bonne année) there. I recently purchased an ASUS VivoTab RT and turned over my Samsung Series 7...

Ivy Bridge. Clover Tail. No, wait, Cloverview. ARM? Atom! Understanding the processors that drive today’s tablets and laptops is definitely like wading through alphabet soup. If the fact that there are two versions of the latest Windows operating system (Windows...

Does the snapped view required for Windows 8 apps provide insights into the future of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 development? Windows 8 app developers are required to create a snapped view for their applications. This is the one...

I recently purchased an ASUS VivoTab RT (the TF600 SKU, 32 GB of storage). As it is one of the less popular WindowsRT models I wanted to write a short review to explain why I made the purchase and how it is working o

The other day I was browsing some archives on an old disk drive and came across the T64 formatted binaries of some demo software I wrote for the Commodore 64 in the 1980s. Demo software is fun to write and...

The other day I read an article about Windows 8 and “six long-term Windows 8 users tell all.” The premise? Several columnists over at ZDNet had been using Windows 8 for quite some time, and were interviewed about the experience....

A few years back I wrote a little program that would generate Koch snowflakes in Silverlight. After brisk walk in the cold weather today, I decided it was time to port it over to Windows 8, more just to see...

The event aggregator is a useful mechanism for decoupling notifications. Typically, notifications happen through events. In JavaScript, an event is a notification that happens as the result of an action. You can think of it as a notification that is...

I’m extremely excited to be a part of an event this coming Tuesday, November 13th, geared towards answering your questions about Windows 8. An estimated 4 million PC users upgraded to Windows 8 during the first weekend of its release....

“Jeremy builds real apps for real customers. That’s why I can heartily recommend this book. Go out and write some great apps … and keep this book handy.” – from the forward by Jeff Prosise. When my wife stuck her...

With the launch of Windows 8 right around the corner, OEMs are releasing a ton of exciting hardware. In fact, there are so many options for Windows 8 machines that it is causing information overload. I thought I’d help simplify...

I recently picked up a new DVD that I wanted to watch … only I was hoping I could tap into the convenience of my tablet and take it with me. Of course, the tablet doesn’t have the form factor...

I was in a recent discussion about the Microsoft Surface and how it will be received by the consumer market. Obviously there are a lot of emotional reactions. Everyone is speculating about the price points, comparing features, and wondering if...

The new type of program known as a Windows Store app—optimized to run on Windows 8 devices—has a default view with a full-screen window and no distracting chrome, so the content is the focal point. Windows Store apps support fluid...

As part of the cross-platform example in my book, I built a tiny IOC container mainly to avoid having to reference and explain MEF, Unity, or any of the other choices. This is not a full-fledged container with tons of...

Hot off the press, TypeScript was announced earlier this week and has resulted in an explosion of commentary over Twitter and various blogs. The language claims to be tailored for application-scale development using JavaScript by providing a typed superset. It...

I have worked on quite a few projects that use the Entity Framework. It is a powerful ORM and does quite a lot out of the box. I've worked with code-first, database-first, and every other flavor in between. If I...

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of my book, Building Windows 8 Apps with C# and XAML. The Open Data Procotol (OData) is a web protocol used for querying and updating data. It is a REST-based API built...

Like many of you reading this, I was eager to jump online and download my copy of Windows 8 when it became available to developers yesterday. I pulled down the Windows 8 Enterprise SKU and installed it on my Samsung...

I've posted several articles about the new async and await keywords that are available in Visual Studio 2012, but I still see some people struggle with the concept. How do you make a task asynchronous? When and where do you...

After years of using a Samsung Focus (older generation) for Windows Phone 7, I recently received my brand new neon blue Nokia Lumia 900. A trip to the AT&T store had my SIM quickly moved from the regular SIM card...

When developers first got their hands on the Windows 8 Developer Preview, I heard some comment that it was Windows 7 with some touch-friendly menus added in Metro. While most now know that is far from the case, there is...

This month has been a busy and productive one for me with Windows 8. In addition to the recorded webinar, The Top 10 Features Windows 8 Metro Developers will Love, I also participated in two interviews about Windows 8. The...

In the traditional Windows environment, the user manages the lifetime of their applications. The user launches the application and it continues to run until the user decides to close it. The problem with this model is that applications continue to...

I downloaded the Developer Preview for Windows 8 within minutes of it being announced during the major //BUILD conference in September 2011. Since then, I've been working with Windows 8 on both a laptop and a slate and have come...

Today Steve Ballmer stepped up on stage and stated that while we’ve seen great change with things like cloud computing, Windows is the “heart and soul” of Microsoft. There are over 1 billion PCs including embedded machines and workstations. Windows...

The following post is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of my upcoming book, Designing Windows 8 Metro Applications with C# and XAML. Keep reading to learn how you can receive a free copy of the full chapter. Storing large amounts...

I've been working on Chapter 7 of my upcoming book, Designing Windows 8 Metro Applications with C# and XAML. This chapter focuses on tiles and toast notifications. In the Windows 8 runtime, it is incredibly easy to prompt the user...

In my last blog post, I covered how to wrap your arms around the Task class and its relationship to the new async and await keywords. I mentioned that the post was focused on the .NET Framework only because the...

Almost any software application today will likely contain a long-running process. “Long-running” may be a relative term but in the Windows Runtime it is specifically anything that could take longer than 50ms to execute. That’s a fairly small window, and...

I've received a few emails regarding the book that the code files are not available from the publisher website. I've spoken with the publisher about this and they are working to correct it, but I wanted to provide a link...

  In June of 2011 I started the journey of writing a Silverlight book. The Silverlight team was about to release version 5 with an incredible set of new features that would revolutionize how it can be used in the...

Windows 8 Metro is a new platform for developing applications that are tailored to the devices on which they run. These devices may include traditional desktops and laptops as well as the new tablet and slate form factors. In this...

Many developers tend to look at Windows 8 as a completely new platform and even question whether it heralded the imminent demise of managed code. After spending many months digging into the Windows Runtime (WinRT), Metro style or “tailored” applications,...

I finally managed to update and upload my To-Do List Reference Application. This is a Silverlight 5 application based on my Jounce framework that demonstrates a number of different features. I built it as part of my book, Designing Silverlight...

Part 1: Creating the Portable Library (this post)Part 2: Portability in Silverlight and WPF: a Tale of Type ForwardersPart 3: Portability in Metro: A CLR and WinRT Love Affair (this post) Portability in Metro: A CLR and WinRT Love Affair...

Part 1: Creating the Portable LibraryPart 2: Portability in Silverlight and WPF: a Tale of Type Forwarders (this post)Part 3: Portability in Metro: A CLR and WinRT Love Affair Portability in Silverlight and WPF: a Tale of Type Forwarders In...

Part 1: Creating the Portable Library (this post)Part 2: Portability in Silverlight and WPF: a Tale of Type ForwardersPart 3: Portability in Metro: A CLR and WinRT Love Affair The portable library tools have been available for several months now....

Here’s a quick and easy tip for developing Windows 8 Metro applications. Are you looking for decent icons to use in your Application Bar? Windows 8 makes it incredibly easy by using the built-in Segoe UI Symbol font. There are...

It’s finally here! Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you have heard the buzz around the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. If you haven’t had the opportunity to grab it and install it, I suggest you browser over to this...

Many eyes will be focused on Barcelona on February 29, 2012 when Microsoft releases the Windows 8 Consumer Preview or what many are calling the beta version of the new platform. You’ve probably heard quite a bit about the Metro...

I created a quick video to help you get started with using Jounce. The video starts with a blank slate, steps through installation of Jounce and the creation of a sample view model for a simple contact record that includes...

I'm pleased to announce the official release of Jounce 2.0 for Silverlight 5. There are quite a number of new features available that I'll review in this post. Most significantly, of course, the code base has been updated specifically to...

In 1983 author James Martin published a book called Managing the Data-Base Environment. It’s interesting the term database is hyphenated in the title; it hadn’t quite settled down as a mainstream term yet. I have not read this book myself,...

About a week ago, I purchased a Samsung Series 7 Slate PC to learn more about the Windows 8 operating system and to test applications I will be developing primarily with C# and Xaml. The laptop ships with Windows 7...

It is very exciting to see the release of Silverlight 5 today, despite all of the rumors flying around the Web. Read the original release announcement from the Silverlight Team here. This is proof positive the team made a commitment...

One of the reasons I prefer to manage navigation as an event, rather than a strongly typed interface or handler, is because it allows for so much flexibility and extensibility in the navigation pipeline. In my Jounce framework, for example,...

If you've worked with the Region Management pattern before, one source of frustration can be the lack of a design-time view. While you can compose individual views to be designer-friendly, the aggregate views that mark regions often end up devoid...

A common problem encountered in Silverlight applications is how to set the focus properly when transitioning between controls. For example, in the reference application I'm writing for the book Designing Silverlight Business Applications there is the option to either edit...