Marc LaFleur

WebAuthenticationBroker & Facebook

2013-04-19T13:26:16Z

I needed to use Facebook authentication in a Windows Store app the other day. The Windows Runtime makes this trivially easy with it's WebAuthenticationBroker class. The web authentication broker allows apps to use Internet authentication and authorization protocols like OAuth and OpenID with minimal effort. Unfortunately the samples I found on the interwebs for Facebook were buggy/incomplete or assumed the I had a deep understanding of Facebook authentication. After a bit of work I was able to get...(read more)

Style In The Round

2013-03-13T15:47:20Z

As part of my job I get to talk with a lot of developers, designers and product managers. When the subject of User Experience comes up (and it always does), I always emphasize the importance of thinking "outside the box". Yes, I know. It is a horrible cliché, a vestigial remnant of bad management consulting that should have gone the way of sock puppets. But stick with me for a second, it isn't what you assume it is. When I say this,... Read More...(read more)

A Better Sample Data

2013-03-06T16:40:45Z

Scott Hanselman recently wrote about some placeholder images sites for web development. As is typical for one of his posts, it pointed me towards something I was completely unaware of. It also inspired me to solve a personally annoyance of mine. As a Technical Evangelist I spend a good deal of presenting Windows 8 development techniques. In most cases these presentations consist of my coding up an application in front of the audience. I almost always start with one of the... Read More...(read more)

Do It With Style

2013-03-04T21:11:19Z

Along with the introduction of Windows 8 came the induction of formalized user experience design guidelines. This was a pretty revolutionary step in Windows development. The historic lack of any formal UX guidelines for previous versions of Windows had been bemoaned by for years. Developers were left to their own devices with predictable results; including entire web sites devoted to shaming some of the more horrendous examples. While some members of the community did an excellent job of attempting...(read more)

Word as Blog Editor

2013-01-16T19:36:27Z

Did you know that Microsoft Word also makes an excellent blog editor? In fact, this post made using Word 2013. So how do you set up Word for blog editing? It is rather simple, albeit a little round about. The process starts by opening Microsoft Word and selecting "Blog Post" as the template. This is the convoluted part, even if you are looking to edit and existing post you start by opening a new Blog Post template. Like I said, it is a... Read More...(read more)

Custom Headers with HttpClient

2013-01-09T13:53:33Z

I while back I talked about Basic Authentication with HttpClient. Kaysha posted an excellent question about custom headers for things like User-Agent and Content-Type. Here is how you handle those headers. HttpClient is extremely simple to use out of the box. Most of the plumbing is automatically handled for you. In some cases however you need to change some of that plumbing. As with most abstractions however, you often need to take a few steps back when you need to change the assumptions... Read...(read more)

Too Clever By Half

2013-01-03T21:33:34Z

So I'm a bit of a stickler for fool-proof configuration, sometimes to my own detriment. In response to my earlier Bing Maps SDK issue with x64 I thought I would be really clever and just remove x64 as a target platform from the solution configuration. I thought it was clever. Heck, It was clever....too clever it seems. It turns out that removing a Solution Platform from your solution will result in a rather unceremonious Visual Studio crash when you attempt to Create App Package for... Read More...(read more)

Bing Maps SDK

2013-01-03T15:22:57Z

I've been playing around with the Bing Maps SDK over the holidays. The documentation includes a step-by-step guide for adding Bing Maps to my app that got me up and running. I had to make some small changes like targeting specific CPU and not the default 'Any CPU' target and (since this app is written in C#) I had to add a reference to the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Package in addition to the Bing Maps SDK. Once I had the project... Read More...(read more)

Settings Charm

2012-11-19T04:10:19Z

One of the nice things about Windows 8 for developers adoption of some clearly defined (and long needed) user experience standards. While in the past we relied on conventions (Help -> About for example) those conventions were not always followed and often didn't make a lot of sense (Help -> About for example). A great example of these UX standards are the Charms. Here we'll take a look at the Charm you're most likely to encounter; the Settings Charm. Why is the... Read More...(read more)

Windows Store Apps

2012-11-07T05:50:39Z

I've run into a couple of developers asking where "Metro Style Apps" went in the RTM version of Visual Studio 2012. Don't worry, they are still there. They just have a new name. That term "Metro" was just a placeholder during the beta phase. There are two different types of Windows Apps. The first is the classic "Desktop App" which you either buy off the shelf (for those under 20, this is how we "old timers" used to buy our software)... Read More...(read more)

Moved to Azure

2012-11-07T05:25:12Z

Well now I've gone and done it, I've moved this site over to Azure. Overall the experience was pretty painless. Created a new Windows Server 2012 VM instance Installed WordPress and MySQL via the Web Platform Installer Imported my old MySQL Database I have run into a few issues around MySQL. I exported my old data from MySQL using the only tool at my disposal, an automated backup from my old hosting provider. The problem with this method is that my character set information... Read More...(read more)

Basic HTTP Authentication in WinRT

2012-07-30T03:49:20Z

I’m on vacation right now, getting some much needed time with the family and preparing for my wedding at the end of the week. So what does a geek do in the midst of 6 kids and the chaos of wedding planning? Why build a Metro style app of course. Duh! For my little application I’m working with a REST API that requires Basic HTTP Authentication. This is pretty commonplace and something I’ve done it many times in the past in... Read More...(read more)

The Internet is for FUD

2012-05-25T17:42:14Z

Sometimes I think Avenue Q got it wrong; The Internet is for FUD. When it comes to generating Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt the internet reigns supreme. Oh the television was good, but it has limitations. When you need to simultaneously scare the pants off someone in NYC and an uncharted island off the coast of New Guinea, only the internet will do.... Read More...(read more)

Windows Azure for Amazon AWS Users

2012-05-22T21:21:29Z

One hurdle I run across while talking to AWS users about Azure comes down to terminology. Every cloud vendor has their own vernacular and this can be a source of endless frustration when one starts to compare the two services. Developers that have already wrapped their mind around AWS’ parlance often find themselves struggle to understand Azure’s. There is of course a intrinsic difference between the two platforms which contributes to the confusion. And before we draw any lines between the two.....(read more)

Windows 8: Sleep, Restart & Shutdown

2012-04-20T15:40:56Z

Of all the questions I’ve seen regarding the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, “How do I shutdown?” seems to be the most prevalent. I’ve spent my share of time on various social networks showing people how to do it but that just doesn’t scale. As such, I’ve decided to instead simply consolidate the various answers to the question. I’ve broken them down into two categories; Keyboard/Mouse and Touch. Keyboard/Mouse Users WinKey + I This key combination will bring up the Settings panel. There are... Read...(read more)