Back after a few days. I found out yesterday that I have been awarded as a Visual C# MVP for the 3rd time (4th MVP award overall). Thanks to the MVP Award program & C# Team and congrats to the other new and renewed MVPs out there!
Top Links
- Touch hardware and Windows 8 (Steven Sinofsky)
 - Thoughts on ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web API, and ASP.NET Web Pages (Razor) open source announcements (Jon Galloway)
 - Knockout.js Performance Gotcha #1–if/with bindings are not always cheap (Ryan Niemeyer)
 - TWC9: VS Ultimate Roadmap, MVC/Web API/Razor Open Source, WP SDK 7.1.1 and more (Brian Keller, Dan Fernandez & Greg Duncan)
 
.NET / Visual Studio
- Compare and contrast: Performance implications of method signatures (Oren Eini)
 - A LINQ Style Range Generator (Richard Carr)
 - Session summary: New Features in Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Visual Studio 11 beta (Zubair Ahmed)
 - Using the Implicit Operator in C# for Maximum Nerdy Good Times (Bobby Johnson)
 - C#/.NET Little Wonders: Skip() and Take() (James Michael Hare)
 - A Simpler MapReduce with MongoDB and C# (K. Scott Allen)
 - And One More Thing About 1.5… (Kinect for Windows Team)
 - Writing functional code in C++ II – Function composition (Luca Bolognese)
 - Talk: Async Part 1 – the message-loop, and the Task type and Talk: What’s new in VB11 (VS11 Beta) (Lucian Wischik)
 - TFS Service Credential Viewer and TFS Field Annotator (Martin Hinshelwood)
 - Windows 8: flickR searching demo in .NET and JS (Mike Taulty)
 - Team Foundation Server (TFS) 11 – Exploring Local Workspace Concept in TEE 11 (Subodh Sohoni)
 - How to get distinct values from the List<T> with LINQ (Vincent Maverick Durano)
 - Moles – Troubleshooting in Visual Studio 11 / .NET 4.5 (MS Research)
 - LINQ Extensions Library 1.0.2.7 and JSON Toolkit 3.1 (CodePlex)
 - WebSocket Support In Windows 8 and Is IQueryable A Bad Choice For APIs? (Roopesh Shenoy)
 - A Quick Overview of .NET Reflector (Adam Driscoll)
 - .NET and Metro: The Windows Runtime and the CLR on Windows 8 (Jeremy Likness)
 - CoreImage with MonoTouch (example) (Craig Dunn)
 - INotifyPropertyChanged, The .NET 4.5 Way – Revisited (Dan Rigby)
 - RabbitMQ for Windows: Exchange Types and RabbitMQ for Windows: Direct Exchanges (Derek Greer)
 - Migrating VSIX Extensions To Dev11 (Karsten Januszewski)
 - Teaching .NET Gadgeteering and Missing Macros in VS11 getting you down? John Robbins shows us how to use NuGet and PowerShell as an replacement (Greg Duncan)
 - Transform app.config and web.config (Mehdi Khalili)
 - Date Issue in Excel Export (Michael Sync)
 - JustCode Extension Improvements in 2012 Q1 SP (JustCode Team)
 
Web Development
- Fluent Security – Getting Started (Kristoffer Ahl)
 - 3 Quick JavaScript Tips for .NET Developers (John Papa)
 - Implementing an XML-RPC Service with ASP.NET MVC (Charles Cook)
 - CSS layout gets smarter with calc() (Alex Danilo)
 - The JavaScript “Ah ha!” Moment (Chris Coyier)
 - People of HTML5: Andrew Betts on building the FT.com HTML5 app (Chris Heilmann)
 - HTML 5 Games, Tooling & 3D (Code Inside Team)
 - Proxies And Decorators In JavaScript (Derick Bailey)
 - Fun with ASP.NET Web API – push-like messaging from one application to multiple subscriber applications (Filip W)
 - Building your first HTML Metro Style app with the Style Smooth Streaming Player walk through (Greg Duncan)
 - ASP.NET MVC Now Accepting Pull Requests (Phil Haack)
 - Adding AjaxOnly Filter in ASP.NET Web API (Imran Baloch)
 - JavascriptHelper–Managing JS files for ASP.NET MVC (James Curran)
 - Phaxio integration using HttpClient & ASP.NET MVC (Jarod Ferguson)
 - How to fork the ASP.NET Web Stack to GitHub (Jimmy Bogard)
 - New in 4.0: Easier JavaScript Library Scope Configuration (Konstantin Ulitin)
 - The AT&T API Platform SDK for HTML5 (Michael Mullany)
 - Building ASP.NET MVC, Web API, and Web Pages source code (Michael Sync)
 - ASP.Net WebAPI (Mike Stall)
 - CSS: fast to load, easy to maintain (Scott Knaster)
 - Introducing Grunt (Ben Alman)
 - ZenGallery: a minimalist image gallery for Orchard and Overriding the Pager rendering in Orchard (Bertrand Le Roy)
 - Web API Design Book – Crafting Interfaces that Developers Love (Bienvenido David III)
 - Moving Applications to the Cloud, 2nd Edition – Book Download and Project Silk – September 2011 (MS Downloads)
 - JavaScript’s two zeros (Axel Rauchmayer)
 - Service logging in JSON with Bunyan (Trent Mick)
 - Detecting Touch Hardware in IE 10 (Steve Lydford)
 - Redesigning my blog for adaptive layout (Tim Heuer)
 - OAuth 2.0 Playground: new features (Scott Knaster)
 - Getting Cozy With Underscore.js (Siddharth)
 - firstImpression.js: A micro-library for detecting new visitors (Rob Flaherty)
 - Codename Antares: A new Microsoft hosting platform for Web apps (Mary Jo Foley)
 - Defining Dynamic Assets – PHP Project pt. I and Constructing Dynamic Assets – PHP Project pt. I (Josh Adell)
 - Node.js – The objective is absolutely fast I/O (J. Vaughan)
 - Web Workbench and your automated build process (Ivan Towlson)
 - Just release: Azure User Management Console – AUMC (Frank)
 
Design / Methodology / Testing
- My Rants on Scrum (Ankush Bansal)
 - Learn How to Start Unit Testing (Avi Kaye)
 - TDD Best Practices: Don’t Mock Others (Derek Greer)
 - Unit Testing against the Team Foundation Server 11 API (Martin Hinshelwood)
 - Is Agile Stifling Introverts? (Todd Charron)
 - A CQRS Journey – with and without Microsoft and P&P CQRS Journey Post Clarification (Udi Dahan)
 - Inversion Of Control: An Architect’s Version of Global Variables (Rob Conery)
 - “Done”. “Done Done”. When is a feature really done? (Vassil Terziev)
 - Visualizing Code to Fail Faster (Jeff Atwood)
 - The confusion around QA: why doesn’t the industry agree? (Jeffrey Palermo)
 - Don’t be a tool (Eric Brechner)
 - Practice Code Kata’s And Learn (Gregor Suttie)
 - Design is Resize (Alex Giron)
 - Continuous Testing (Greg Young)
 - Gmail as an issue tracking system (Davor Crnomat)
 
Silverlight / WPF / Windows Phone
- Working with the Windows Phone Application Bar (Nick Randolph)
 - Porting a Windows Phone application to Windows 8 – A Look from 10,000 Feet Above and Fixing a Streaming Issue in ShoutStreamSource on Windows Phone and Using the Coding4Fun ChatBubble and ChatBubbleTextBox in a Windows Phone Application and Porting Visual Studio Achievements for Windows Phone to Windows 8 Article Series (Den Delimarsky)
 - Things I Missed So You Won’t Have To – WP7 SDK (Doug Rathbone)
 - MVVM and Animations in Silverlight (Kevin Logan)
 - Displaying Large Text Files in Windows Phone Apps (Bil Simser)
 - The Animated Pie Slice in Windows 8 (Charles Petzold)
 - Lives Tiles in XAML based Windows 8 Metro Application and Isolated Storage Helper For C# and XAML based Metro Application (Dhananjay Kumar)
 - PhoneGap on WP7 Tip #7: Marketplace tricks (Glen Gordon)
 - Make Your Windows Phone Vibrate with PhoneGap (Senthil Kumar)
 - How to Retrieve Contact Information in WP7 using the AddressChooserTask? (Kunal Chowdhury)
 - MVVM Light V4b1 for Windows 8 Consumer Preview (with installer) (Laurent Bugnion)
 - Windows Phone 7/7.5 + Phonegap = ???? (Michael Sync)
 - Attached behaviors for Windows 8 Metro Style XAML and Porting the DragFlickBehavior from Windows Phone 7 to Windows 8 Metro Style (Joost van Schaik)
 - Released: New Version of Expression Blend for Silverlight 5 (Pete Brown)
 - Handling Authenticated Zip Files in Windows Phone (samidip)
 - 2000 WPF Things #526 – Use Adobe Kuler to Create Color Themes and #527 – Colorful Expression Add-in Connects to Adobe Kuler (Sean Sexton)
 - Extended WPF Toolkit – 1.6.0 (CodePlex)
 - Marketplace now open in 13 new markets. Are your apps available? (Todd Brix)
 - Optimize Startup Time (Mike Battista)
 - LightSwitch IIS Deployment Enhancements in Visual Studio 11 (Beth Massi)
 - Working with Tiles for Windows Metro Applications (Derik Whittaker)
 - Difference between Application created using Metro UI guidelines and Real Windows 8 Metro Application (Dhananjay Kumar)
 
Podcasts / Screencasts / Videos
- .NET Rocks! – Carl and Richard Geek Out on Solar Power (Carl Franklin & Richard Campbell)
 - Lucian Wischik: What’s New in VB11 (Charles Torre)
 - Technology & Friends Episode 203: Malcolm Sheridan on MVC Lessons Learnt From Being Burnt (David Giard)
 - Windows Phone Dev Podcast Episode 061 – “Students Support Magenta Phones” (Ryan Lowdermilk & Travis Lowdermilk)
 - Herding Code 137 – Mass Assignment, New New iPad, JavaScript libraries, Windows 8, Visual Studio, and Sad Trombones (Jon Galloway)
 - Major Nelson Podcast Show 434: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13, Battlefield 3 and PAX East (Larry Hyrb)
 - Bytes by MSDN: Peter Isensee and Jerry Nixon on Windows 8 and Xbox Live (MS Podcasts)
 - Let’s Play TDD #177: The Time is Worthwhile (James Shore)
 - Agile2011 – Adam Sroka – Jokes, JavaScript and My first Employee (Agile Toolkit)
 - Inside Windows Phone # 35 | Ali Heron from Microsoft Advertising talks Ads (Larry Lieberman)
 - Windows Phone Minute: Group your pals (Laura Foy)
 - Jeff Sandquist Shows off Project Detroit (Don Burnett)
 - Cloud Plumbing Podcast – Chad Miller (Ryan Parsley)
 - Distributed Podcast Episode 12: LMAX (Jonathan Oliver, Jonathan Matheus, Rinat Abdullin & Andreas Ohlund)
 - Defrag: Moving My Docs, BluRay Troubleshooting, Change Default File Type in Paint. (Larry Larsen)
 - Windows Weekly 254: The SKU Spew (Paul Thurrott)
 - Observed Tech PODCAST Episode 46 (Richard Hay)
 - The Verge Mobile Podcast 021 – 03.28.2012 and Engadget Podcast 287 – 03.29.2012 and The Vergecast 024 – 03.30.2012 and Engadget Mobile Podcast 132 – 03.31.2012 (Trent Wolbe)
 - Cloud Cover Episode 74 – Autoscaling and Endpoint Protection in Windows Azure (Wade Wegner)
 - C++: A Language for Modern Times (Robert Hess)
 - On The Verge, Episode 004: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (Nilay Patel)
 - Nokia Lumia 900 advert (Steve Clayton)
 
Community / Events
- Great Places to Work: Microsoft Employees Always First to Use New Software (MS JobsBlog)
 - What you need to know about the Microsoft MVP Award (Rachel Appel)
 - Indy Hall 3.0 – The Future of Indy Hall (Alex Hillman)
 - The HackReady.Phone WebCast Series (Bob Familiar)
 - eLearning event on HTML5 for Mobile with jQuery Mobile (Wally McClure)
 - Code Academy: the student developers building the Windows Phone ecosystem (Tom Warren)
 - Build apps with the experts at Windows 8 Dev Camps (Neil Hutson)
 - Get (Hack)Ready to Develop for Windows Phone (Jim O’Neil)
 
Database
- SQL Server Monitoring Management Pack (MS Downloads)
 - SQL SERVER – Difference between DATABASEPROPERTY and DATABASEPROPERTYEX and SQL SERVER – Online Index Rebuilding Index Improvement in SQL Server 2012 and SQL SERVER – sp_describe_first_result_set New System Stored Procedure in SQL Server 2012 and SQL SERVER – A Puzzle – Illusion – Confusion – April Fools’ Day and SQL SERVER – Use ROLL UP Clause instead of COMPUTE BY (Pinal Dave)
 - You don’t need to shrink a database to get a smaller backup (Denis Gobo)
 - Automated SSRS deployment with the RS utility (Stacy Vicknair)
 - Improve SQL Performance – Know Your Statistics (Ian Stirk)
 - Truncating Tables in SQL Server (Richard Carr)
 - Let’s Talk About Joins (Jeremiah Peschka)
 
SharePoint
- Introducing SharePointR (Bil Simser)
 - SharePoint 2010 Upgrade – Important Updates (Joel Oleson)
 - SharePoint 2010: Connecting to SQL Server Using the External Content Type Feature (Mahesh Sabnis)
 
PowerShell
Miscellaneous
- Skills Cloud Résumé (Derek Greer)
 - Don’t cry for me, Steve Ballmer (Joe Wilcox)
 - Sneak Preview – New CodePlex UI (Mark Groves)
 - The Windows 8 Power Users Guide Now Available for Pre-Order on Amazon (Mike Halsey)
 - If your software matters, you will write it in C++ (Chris Smith)
 - Software is not epic (Scott Berkun)
 - Who and What makes a Good Customer? (Wally McClure)
 - How to Avoid the Common Pitfalls of Mobile App Development (Christine Erickson)
 - Why Arrays Normally Start At Zero (Karl Seguin)
 - Microsoft Looks to Create App-parity Between Windows Phone and iOS (Jason Lefevers)
 - Official and unofficial apps in the iOS, WP7, and Android marketplaces (Bil Simser)
 - How to control access to apps on your kid’s Windows Phone (Jac Fitzgerald)
 
More Link Collections
- Interesting Finds: March 29, 2012 and Interesting Finds: March 30, 2012 and Interesting Finds: March 31, 2012 and Interesting Finds: April 1, 2012 and Interesting Finds: April 2, 2012 (Jason Haley)
 - Cheatsheet: 2012 03.23 ~ 03.31 (yuanjian)
 - Distributed Weekly 148 (Scott Banwart)
 - Maker Geek Roundup 010 for 4/1/2012 (Pete Brown)
 - Double Shot #847 and Double Shot #848 and Double Shot #849 (Mike Gunderloy)
 - MVP Friday Five: March 30, 2012 (MVP Award Program)
 - Monthly Summary – March 2012 (Kunal Chowdhury)
 - Pie in the Sky (March 30, 2012) (Larry Franks)
 - Windows Azure Community News Roundup (Edition #12) (Himanshu Singh)
 - Daily News Digest 3/29/2012 and Daily News Digest 3/30/2012 (Silverlight Show)
 - The Morning Brew #1075 and The Morning Brew #1076 and The Morning Brew #1077 (Chris Alcock)
 - Windows Dev News for March 28, 2012 – #0060 and Windows Dev News for March 29, 2012 – #0061 and Windows Dev News for March 30, 2012 – #0062 (Dave Campbell)
 - Re-blog – March 23 – March 29 (Jason Strate)
 - Retrospective 78 – CAO, Certified Agile, Tester, RIP (Peter Saddington)
 - Daily WP7 Development News 30 March 2012 (Windows Phone Geek)
 
The Geek Shelf
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JavaScript & jQuery: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland |