The Most Common Errors in Windows Store Submissions and How to Avoid Them

 This resource will show actions you can take -- and links to additional references -- that can help you resolve issues found by the certification of Windows Store apps.

An Engaging and Inviting Live Tile

 If you are, or are planning on writing a Windows 8 app for any device, this article is a MUST read.  These tips/tricks will give you an advantage in the approval process and more downloads!

Working With Live Tiles Locally

 If you are developing an application or game  for Windows 8, making sure you have an engaging, inviting, or informative live tile is one of the most important things.

5 Points Developers Need to Know about Windows RT

 Most of us have already started developing for Windows RT, so it make sense to have a better understanding of the runtime.

Get Your Windows 8 Up-to-Speed

 With the release of Windows 8 on MSDN, I want to share with your two tools: one that helped me get up to speed fast, one that will help me up to speed even faster the next time I want to reset my PC.

How to: Change the Start Page of a Windows 8 App in Visual Studio 2012

 If you want to change the default start page of the Windows 8 App from MainPage.xaml to another file for example (firstpage.xaml) , you can do that by following the below steps.

AZR323A Building Robust Windows Azure Applications

 Building applications for the cloud.  Resource sharing and economy of scale drives lower cost.  Sharing CPU, memory and storage but come at a cost – resource contention et cetera.

I think I Just Snapped

 One of my biggest pains with porting my WP7 app to Windows 8 is the “Snapped View”, an interesting feature added to Windows 8 to provide “smart” docking for apps and properly allow 2 apps to run simultaneously on screen.

You are the Controller: A Step into WP7 -> Win8 Networking

 One of my age old dreams with game development (even prior to XNA) was to be able to pick up my mobile device and use it as an alternate display or additional controller, at the time it was my trusty Windows Mobile PPC, times have evolved but my vision is still fresh.

Local LINQtoSQL Database For Your Windows Phone 7 Application

There aren’t many applications that are of value without having some for of data store.  In Windows Phone development we have a few options, so this article will help.

WP to W8: View States using Visual State Manager

 In my last blog post I talked about using the Visual State Manager to deal with different screen resolutions and the new Snapped view. I thought it would be helpful to share an example of how to do it.

Asynchronous Loading Text Files in Metro/C++/DirectX Apps

 By just adding a simple modification to the existing ReadDataAsync function, we can load text files asynchronously, here's how...

Windows 8: Scheduled Tasks & the Lock Screen

 Windows 8 apps are like a stack of cards. Only the top card is active – the rest (apps) have their threads suspended. Windows 8 snap view actually allows for two active apps. That’s pretty cool.

SQLite For WinRT Available on Visual Studio Gallery

 I’ve found that there’s an easier way to add SQLite to your Windows 8 application rather than the manual one described in previous posts!

User Interface from Windows Phone to Windows 8

 One of the biggest adaptations developers needed to make coming from any other platform to Windows Phone was learning to use the Metro design language in an effective way.