SpinWait.SpinUntil and the Task Parallel Library
Often blocking and checking is combined with some sort of timeout. SpinUntil, a static method on the SpinWait structure, combines blocking, waiting, and timeouts. New in the .NET Framework 4.0, SpinUntil simplifies many different scenarios involving the Task Parallel Library (TPL). Jeffery Juday shares some common recipes employing SpinUntil alongside TPL.
Integrating Facebook Login with your Website
The most common approach of website authentication is to store membership information into a database and validate users based on their user names and passwords. Bipin Joshi shows you how to use Facebook Helper for WebMatrix to integrate your website authentication with Facebook instead.
Creating Your Own NuGet Package
NuGet is a free, open source package management system for .NET applications. The primary goal of NuGet is to help developers simplify the process of incorporating third party libraries into their .NET applications. This step-by-step article shows what it takes to create your own NuGet package.
Microsoft Looks to 'Elevate America'
The software giant says its initiative of technology training tools and resources could help millions of people in their quest to find a better job.
Introduction to Entity Framework Code First
Entity Framework (EF) allows you to program against a model, creating models directly at code level. This approach is referred to as Code First because you focus on the source code of the model classes first and let Code First generate the database tables out of those model classes.
Understanding JavaScript Web Workers
Microsoft's recent Windows 8 announcement makes HTML5 and anything HTML5/JavaScript related an important subject for any Windows developer. To most developers HTML is a "tag" based user-interface specification. However, HTML5 is more than just new "tags". Yoked to, but separate from the HTML5 specification is a specification defining background running scripts called Web Workers.
Scaffolding in ASP.NET MVC
Scaffolding involves creating base templates for code or markup of project items through an automated method. In this article Bipin Joshi explains the basics of using the MvcScaffolding package to generate a CRUD interface for a database table.
Building LightSwitch Extensions Part 1
Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch version 1.0 is targeted at quickly creating useful line-of-business applications, but it is quite capable of doing much more. The key to rapid development centers around accessing data and presenting it to the user on template-driven screens. Read on to learn more.
Timers and the Task Parallel Library TaskCompletionSource
Developers typically choose a Timer to have an application perform a concurrent background process after some elapsed interval. Wouldn't it be nice to couple results and Timer control in a single class? Task Parallel Library (TPL) includes a class called TaskCompletionSource that enables this scenario.
Auto-detect CSV Separator
CSV files use various characters, such as [,], [;], [\t] as separators. It is hard to build a generic CSV reader when the separator is unknown. This article gives one possible solution for how to figure out which character is used as a separator in CSV file.
DataBinding in Silverlight
Silverlight is the application framework that allows us to create apps that provide rich interaction in a web environment. One of the most important concepts in this technology that one must clearly understand is Databinding. This article will explain the composition, creation and inner workings of databinding in Silverlight.
Connecting Azure Services Using Windows Azure Connect
Windows Azure Connect allows Azure developers to enable IP-level network connectivity between Azure services and external resources. This article discusses how you can go around using Windows Azure Connect to create a virtual network of all our computing assets.
HTML5 Isn't Replacing the Windows Client Any Time Soon
Early previews of Windows 8 have caused quite a stir in the developer community due to the emphasis on HTML5 and JavaScript as the "primary" way for building new apps for the Windows 8 platform. At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference there was a slightly different picture presented.
Generating Code Using Text Template Transformation Toolkit (T4)
Visual Studio 2010 includes what is known as Text Template Transformation Toolkit (T4), which comes with its own set of directives and blocks that allow you to you define the boilerplate for code generation. This article introduces you to T4 basics and familiarizes you with the various parts of a T4 template.
What Developers Should Know About Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch
From an application perspective, LightSwitch is aimed at minimally complex applications with straightforward requirements. In many situations the basic need is to grab some data and throw it up on the screen. You might call LightSwitch the ad hoc developer's tool, although that's probably not what Microsoft had in mind.
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