The One Where You Can Get Rich & Famous
As some of you may have heard, Windows 8 is coming. What you may not have heard, however, is that Microsoft is offering you an incredible opportunity to:
- Get an app in the Windows Store on Day #1.
- Get that application into the Windows Store for free.
- Have your app reviewed in an “Excellence Lab” to give it extra awesome.
Retire on your yacht and private island.
How do I get started?
First, you’re going to want to have an idea for an app. Go ahead. Get one. (If you can’t come up with one, you’re trying too hard. Stop worrying about whether someone has built it already, or if you know how, or even if it can make millions of dollars. Take a note from Christopher Shireman. He came up with 100 ideas in less than an hour.)
Second, you are going to want to get on the schedule of these App Excellence Labs. To do this, you need to reach out to me, and I can nominate your entry. I’m not here to judge your ideas…I’m only here to help you make them awesome. Seriously…reach out to me. My email address is
jeblank [at] microsoft [dotcom]
Third, start building that app. You may not have a single idea where to get started, but again, that’s what I am here for. Here’s a few good starter links:
Everything You Need to Start Building Windows 8 Apps. SDK, Samples, Tools, etc.
Learning How to Convert Windows Phone Apps to Windows 8 Apps
Metro UX style and design principles
Creating Your First Metro App with C#/XAML
What if I need some hands-on instruction NOW?
I’ve got that covered for you as well…but they’re SOON. These are 1/2 day workshops that will provide you with an overview of getting from Windows Phone or Silverlight to Windows 8. You’ll learn how leverage XAML and .NET skills, and have technical experts available to answer questions and help you navigate getting your app into the Windows Store.
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Option One
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Option Two
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![clip_image001[1]](http://www.jeffblankenburg.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/clip_image0011.png "clip_image001[1]"){kind=small}
Mouse Without Borders
Several months ago, I was discussing a common problem I face all the time: I have multiple machines, but when I’m at my desk, I don’t want to have to use multiple keyboards and mice.
I started with hardware solutions. I looked for a KVM switch that would serve my purposes. I looked all over the place, and was incredibly disappointed. Most every KVM that I found ONLY used VGA video connections, and the ones that dared venture into the world of HDMI were marked up so high I couldn’t justify the price.
What is $220 more expensive about HDMI?
| IOGEAR 2-Port VGA KVM Switch | IOGEAR 4-Port HDMI KVM Switch |
 |
 |
|
$19.99 |
$244.86 |
So I mentioned this issue to my friend, Kevin Dutkiewicz, and he suggested a software solution instead. Mouse Without Borders. He had a laptop sitting next to his dual monitor gaming rig, and merely slid his mouse from those giant screens to his laptop screen effortlessly. He clicked on a browser, and started typing a URL, and it worked. I was impressed.
No effort. No switching. No nothing. Just move your mouse. That’s it. It seemed too good to be true. Oh, and it’s free.
I’ve included a video of my setup, which includes three different computers (a Dell XPS 8500 with dual monitors, a Samsung Series 7 Slate running Windows 8 CP, and a Samsung Series 9 laptop running Windows 7.) I think that seeing this effect is far more compelling than reading about it. So here it is:
Dropbox vs. Skydrive
As many of you may know, I’ve been a HUGE advocate of Dropbox over the years. You get a free 2GB of offline storage, which can be upgraded if you ever need more space. The greatest benefit of the service, however, is that it is automatic. I save files on my local hard drive, and they are automatically synced to my online Dropbox storage. That’s huge. I’m currently subscribed to get 100GB of storage from them, and it costs $199 a year. We store our entire collection of family photos, videos, files, etc. in there, with the confidence that if something terrible happened to our computers (or our house), our data would be safe.
Now, some of you just balked at that price. $199 annually seems like a big chunk of cash for 100GB of storage. Take a step back from it now. If your house burned down last week, how much would you be willing to pay to get all of your children’s photos back? I’m betting that price is higher than $200.
Anyways, this article is actually a discussion of Dropbox vs. Skydrive. Last week, I would have told you a story about how Skydrive is this service that Microsoft has had for years, and it gives you 25GB of cloud storage for free. In fact, if you have a Windows Live ID, you already have a SkyDrive account. But, there wasn’t a great way to sync with it. There were some workarounds, like mapping your SkyDrive as a drive on your computer, but it was awkward, and wasn’t automatic, which is without question the greatest feature of Dropbox.
Yesterday, however, that story changed. Skydrive now has an application that is available for Windows 7, Vista, and Windows 8, in addition to Mac. It provides all of the functionality of the Dropbox that I’ve known and loved, plus some surprises I wasn’t expecting.
- All of the functionality of Dropbox, but it starts at 7GB, instead of 2GB.
- If you log in this week, they’ll let you keep your 25GB of storage for free.
- Upgrade prices are SIGNIFICANTLY less expensive than Dropbox. Remember that 100GB I was paying $199 a year for? Skydrive offers an additional 100GB for $50 a year.
- By linking your computers to your Skydrive account, you not only get online access to all of the files you stored in your Skydrive, you also get online access to all of the files on your computers that are connected.
- On Windows Phone, all of my files are already synced to my Skydrive account, so now I don’t have to manually move them to my Dropbox for backup.
Needless to say, this is the first time that I’ve ever dropped a service or product that I absolutely loved. But the price and functionality of Dropbox just got destroyed by Skydrive. I’ll be switching today.
To read more about the new features of Skydrive, you can check out the full article by Steven Sinofsky.
The One Where I Mention Imagine Cup
Let’s start at the beginning: have you heard of Imagine Cup? It is the Superbowl of student technology competitions. For over ten years, Imagine Cup has gathered the brightest students from around the world to solve some of the toughest problems facing the world today with technology.
The finalists have already been selected, and part of the competition involves a People’s Choice vote. This allows us, professional software developers, to chime in on what we think is an amazing entry in this competition.
Head over to the voting booth, and check out the remarkable projects these students have put together, and then vote for your favorites!
http://on.fb.me/2012imaginecup
The One Where I Love Board Games
For those of you that know me personally, you’ve probably noticed my steadily growing collection of (and addiction to) board games. I’m not talking about games like Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders, mind you. There’s definitely a place for those, but those aren’t the type of games this article is about. The games I love involve a rich layer of strategy spread over a game thick with replayability, with a side of geekery, if possible.
Instead, I’d like to introduce you to some of my favorite games, with a little explanation of each. I’m publishing this article today, in celebration of (evil?) Wil Wheaton’s new online show called Tabletop. (You can read all about it on the Geek & Sundry website.) I have no idea which games they’re going to be covering in the show, but I’m looking forward to it.
Finally, if you’re attending the Stir Trek conference on May 4th, don’t forget that there is a Nerd Dinner the evening before, on May 3rd. We’ll be camping out in a mall food court to meet the speakers and organizers, as well as play many of the games listed in this article.
OK, the wait is over. Here’s my current list of favorite board games.
Settlers of Catan ($37)
Up to 4 players, expandable to 6. My 8-year old daughter mastered the game mechanics at 6 years old, and is getting stronger on the strategy side of the game. This is a great family game.
Settlers of Catan was probably the “gateway drug” for many of you that have ventured into board game land in the past 10 years. The basic idea behind this game is that you are settling on a new island, and are trying to expand your civilization by collecting the five different resources that the island possesses: sheep, ore, brick, wood, and wheat. Because the game encourages players to trade, and even create “alliances,” you’ll likely hear the phrase “I have wood for sheep” more than once.
In order to collect these resources, you build your settlements at the intersections of hexagonal tiles. Each tile is assigned both a resource type, as well as a number between 2 and 12. Each player’s turn begins with a roll of two dice, and the resulting roll awards the specific resources to the players that have settlements on the appropriately numbered tile.
Settlers of Catan, is, without question, one of the best combinations of strategy, game play, and ease of learning (which you will find becomes very important when teaching your friends how to play) It’s easy enough to pick up and play that you can teach your friends very quickly.
Ticket To Ride ($38)
Up to 5 players. Recommended age is 8 – 12. Haven’t played this one with my daughter yet.
My wife and I love this game, and it has become a family event favorite when our parents come to visit. The basic concept of this game is that you are an up and coming railroad tycoon looking to expand throughout the United States (there are also excellent variations on this game for Europe, Asia, India, and even the Nordic Countries.)
With a randomly selected set of route cards, you have to connect all of the cities those cards indicate. You do this by collecting sets of rainbow colored train cards, and trading them in to capture routes across the map. You’re competing with the other players, however, and before you have a chance, the route you were hoping for gets taken. You’re constantly balancing between having enough trains and capturing routes quickly enough, and since you have new routes every single game, it’s a completely new experience every time.
Of all of the games on this list, this is probably the easiest one to learn. There’s little to no math, and there’s almost no reading either. In fact, the most challenging part of this game for newcomers might just be their personal strength in geography. It is increasingly valuable to know where cities are on the map, without having to scour it for your city.
Dominion ($32)
2 – 4 players. Once you explain the simple game mechanics, I’ve seen 6 year olds grasp the concept and strategy of this game pretty quickly.
Dominion is one of the most popular new games available right now. The entire game is based on a large set of 300 cards, and really introduced the concept of a “deck building” game. In short, you start with a small set of 10 cards that is identical to your opponents. Dealing 5 cards on each turn, you use these cards to acquire even more cards, without ever actually discarding any of them permanently. They end up in your personal discard pile, and when you run out of cards, you reshuffle your discard pile and keep on rolling.
Cards you can aquire might give you more money, more cards in your current hand, or even the ability to buy more than one card on this turn. Ultimately, you’re trying to acquire as many of the “Victory” points you see in the photo below (they are the green ones with the numbers 1, 3, and 6.)
Your deck accumulates many more cards quickly, giving you a completely random hand of 5 powerful cards each turn. What makes this game great, much like the rest of the games on this list, is that it is constructed to be a completely different game each time.
In the photo above, you can see that there are 10 “types” of cards you can buy (the two rows of five cards). The game actually comes with 25 different types, which means you’re highly unlikely to play the same game twice.
This is another game that is very simple to learn, but I think that the true strategy of this game comes only after you’ve played it a few times. There are many beginner pitfalls that you will discover, and after a few games under your belt, I think you’ll find your approach completely changes.
This game has exploded with expansions lately, and there are currently 7 stand-alone editions of this game available. While similar, each game has its own theme, but can be combined with the original for even more variety.
Quarriors ($40)
2-4 players. My 8 year old daughter LOVES this one.
Quarriors is, in many respects, much like Dominion (above). Instead of collecting cards, however, you’re collecting dice. And instead of buying Victory points, you get to summon spells and monsters to destroy your opponents’ monsters, which ultimately also scores you some points.
Ah, the dice. These richly colored little cubes make the game exciting. Instead of randomizing a deck of cards, you keep your dice in a small bag, and you randomly pull six of them from the bag on each turn. By rolling these dice, you can gain money (referred to in the game as Quarry), monsters, spells, portals, and any number of other fun things.
It has the same concept of a “store” where you can purchase a new die on each turn, which gets added to your bag, and eventually makes its way to the table for rolling.
This is another simple game for you and your friends to pick up, but I will issue a warning on this one: your non-geek friends are not going to respond in a positive way to creating dragons that have a defense of 6 and an attack of 8. It definitely happens, and it’s core to the game. There’s goblins, primordial oozes, wizards, you name it. The moment my wife heard the words “how many defense points does your monster have?,” she was uninterested in playing.
I persevered, and showed her that it’s actually a fun game, and I’m not going to be dragging her down into the graph-paper laden Dungeons & Dragons. She’s definitely a fan now (as she already liked Dominion).
I think there’s a similar level of strategy to Dominion in Quarriors, but I can’t help feeling like the game was designed to be WAY too short. Most games last 30 minutes or so, but it often feels like you’ve FINALLY gotten the dice you need to be successful when the game ends. I can’t recommend playing to 20 every time, no matter how many players you have.
Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot ($22)
2 – ? players. My daughter had no problem playing this game at 7 years old, but there are many pop culture references that are either WAY over her head, or slightly inappropriate.
This is probably my favorite game in the list. Not because of the strategy, though there is some. Not because of the gameplay, because it’s ridiculous. I love this game because the “playing” of the game is far more rewarding than the actual “outcome” of the game. I will tell you up front, that winning this game is the result of shuffling a deck of cards, and hoping one of your cards matches the one on the bottom of this shuffled deck.
The basic concept of this game is simple. You have a gigantic deck of cards, and everyone draws cards from it. You have a queue of two cards that lie face down in front of you, and 5 additional cards in your hand. The two queue cards are referred to as your “top run” and
bottom run” cards. Perhaps a photo illustration will help.
On your turn, you turn over your “top run” card, and do what it says. That’s the incredibly refreshing part of this game that, with expansions, can have over 800 cards in the deck: all of the rules are written on the cards.
By following the instructions on the cards, you slowly try to acquire bunnies, which then unlock your ability to use more and more aggressive cards against your opponents. Not having a bunny makes you a very docile player, because it really limits what you can do in the game. Thankfully, the deck is stocked full of all sorts of bunny cards. On the downside, it’s also full of devestating weapons and devices designed to kill them as well.
You use your cards to acquire as many of the Magic Carrot cards as you can, and once all of the carrot cards have been “gotten,” the game is over, and results in a random draw for the winner.
Along the way, you’ll see every kind of interaction you can imagine, with an inside joke or pop culture reference behind every one of them. You’ll build alliances, only to turn on your friend the moment it benefits you in the slightest.
This game, while good as the base game of Blue and Yellow decks, gets increasingly more fun, interactive, and outrageous as you add in the expansion decks. I can’t recommend getting all of them enough, but start with the original Blue & Yellow first. Make sure you like the game before investing in the rest, because this game will definitely run you up over $100 when all is said and done.
Summary
So there you have it. A quick summary of some of the games from my ever-growing collection. If you already own all of these, I might also recommend a few more here, without the exhaustive writeups. In addition, if there are games that you are playing, and you absolutely love, leave them in the comments. I’m always looking for a new challenge.
The One Where I Stopped Using Amazon
I, like many of you, am an avid Amazon.com shopper. I would be willing to bet that I buy a few physical things from Amazon every month, and plenty of virtual goods, like music, books, etc. as well.
In mid-February, I actually ordered 4 different things in four different orders, on the same day. Normally, I just use my credit card. For whatever reason, this day I decided to use an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) from my ING Direct bank account #0002938475*.
As it turns out, I had a typo when I entered the bank account information. Nonetheless, Amazon allowed me to enter the information, make my four purchases, and receive merchandise two days later thanks to Travis Smith and his shared Amazon Prime subscription.
Ten days after my purchases has already arrived (and been given as gifts to my daughter, mind you), I received four letters in the mail from a company called TRS Recovery Services.
[Mind you, TRS stands for TeleCheck Recovery Services, which means the name of this organization is TeleCheck Recovery Services Recovery Services.]
Each of these letters indicated that my “electronic bank account payment [I] attempted as part of my recent order was not successful.” Each letter represented one of the 4 orders I had placed that day, and each one came with its own $25 returned check fee, totaling $100 for those of you unwilling to do the math.
I frantically called Amazon to determine what could have happened. They told me that TRS gets involved on faulty and fraudulent EFT issues, and that was probably what had happened, and that I should call them to resolve it. So I did. They explained that the bank account I had attempted to use for my purchases was closed, and that they were not able to get the funds for the orders I had submitted. I asked them for the account number in question, and that’s when we determined I had made a typo.
The woman on the phone told me that I have a right to dispute the fees, but that they are rarely waived, but that unless I could produce proof that I had paid for these items, she was going to need me to settle up on the phone immediately. Since I had checked my account, and knew that technically I had not paid for these items, I complied, and paid the balance of my items, less the $100 in service fees. I told her I would like to dispute those, as I received no warning from Amazon that there was a problem.
In order to dispute these charges, I have two options: fax or mail a letter to a physical address with my reference numbers and a “personal statement.”
It gets even better. While I was on the phone with TRS, but after I had given them my credit card information, I received an email from Amazon stating:
“At this time, we have requested that TRS Recovery Services cease any further collection action for the previous order(s) placed using your bank account.”
I’ve tried the dance of customer service with both Amazon and TRS, to no avail.
I faxed the letter this morning. I will keep you posted.
Discussion Questions
- Amazon took my order with a typo, processed the order, and shipped me my items without a single warning or problem. Shouldn’t I, as the consumer, be warned about a typo before I’m expected to pay a $25 service fee?
- In 2012, we still have companies that only accept fax or snail mail? This smells of scam every time I encounter it. Consumer Protection should specifically eliminate business practices that explicitly make it harder for the consumer.
- The title of this article is “The One Where I Stopped Using Amazon.” That’s a bold-faced lie meant to draw you into the story. If it would have fit, I probably should have titled it “The One Where I Stopped Using EFTs With Amazon.” My apologies for being misleading. They have the best prices on nearly everything. I have no intention of quitting Amazon for good. Does that make me a bad person? Would you?
- How would you have handled this situation?
* Account number has been changed to protect the innocent.
FitBit: The Gamification of Weight Loss
As many of you that follow me on Twitter know, I recently acquired a new bit of technology in my life: the FitBit. This article is a story about my first 30 days with the device, and how I’ve already lost 7 pounds.
This is not your father’s pedometer.
This has become a consistent subject of conversation with people I talk to, primarily because it’s a cool device that I always have with me, and I love talking about tech. When I show it to people, and give them my explanation that the FitBit keeps track of steps, calories, flights of stairs, sleep cycles, and more, the response is generally the same:
“Oh, it’s a pedometer.”
Perhaps in some ways it is, but for me, it’s incentive. The device wirelessly syncs with a base that plugs into my USB port, and my tracking data is automatically uploaded to their website (privately) so that I can see reports over time. Here’s my activity chart, for example (I work at a computer all day, don’t judge):
As you would expect, there are also achievements to be gotten. While I would have expected them to motivate me more, to this point, they’ve only been small blips of celebration rather than the motivation they are supposed to provide. That being said, I do look forward to the opportunities I have to get a bunch of walking in, and I keep an active eye on getting to my 10,000 step-a-day goal. (I’m only averaging ~5,000 steps per day right now.) I have the strong desire to take more steps each day, but that hasn’t been enough to actually get me outside taking some. I hope that as the weather turns warmer, my feeling on this will change.
With all of this rich data, I really thought that this device was going to be the thing that kept me aware of my activity levels, and would be the breakthrough I needed to finally lose some weight. It wasn’t.
Calories are more important than steps.
Part of the tools for FitBit include tracking for a great number of other considerations: your activities (you swam a mile today? log it.), your weight (a manual entry process, but they are coming out with a wireless scale that logs it automatically), sleep, heart rate, blood pressure, and even glucose levels. Obviously, you have to measure all of this data yourself, but it’s nice that you can keep it all tracked in one place. There’s also a journal for you to measure your mood, energy, allergies, and your thoughts on each day. All of these are great, but the greatest tool in their arsenal is the food tracker.
This is where gamification has affected me dramatically, and here’s the best part: it’s actually free for anyone to use, even if you don’t buy a device.
Never in my entire life have I really worried about what I’ve eaten. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been gorging myself on Twinkies and Hostess Pies, but I’ve also never been a guy to turn down another piece of pizza. That has resulted in my gaining about 4 pounds a year, every year, since high school. Yes, I am actually (as of today) 70 lbs. heavier than I was when I graduated high school. But I was also a three-sport athelete good enough to be a Division 1 collegiate diver. I graduated high school at 135 pounds, and don’t have any expectations of getting back to that. My target weight is 170.
Back to the food tracker. I enter everything I eat, after every meal. 80% of the time, the site already knows about my food. Most restaurants’ entire menus are listed, with nutritional information, and I can just search for my entrée. For the food I make at home, most of my groceries are represented, or a similar substitute is there. If there isn’t, they give you the ability to update their database with your new item in about 5 seconds, and then add that food to your log.
This little box is almost exclusively the reason I am losing weight:
There’s only three pieces of data, but they absolutely dictate how I’m going to eat the rest of the day. First, there’s how many calories I’ve eaten today. It’s a useful way to make sure that I have consciously added all of the food I’ve eaten. If the number seems low at 3:00pm, I probably didn’t enter my lunch food yet, and I should do that.
Second is the “under goal” number. This number, for me, is a "you will not exceed this number,” type of value. I never, ever let myself eat something that will take me over that limit. This is where the gamification, for me, comes in. If I get invited out to one of my favorite restaurants, I am not going to opt for the salad while crying little tears for my favorite foods. (I’m looking at you, 900 calorie Firecracker Chicken at Molly’s Woo’s.) Instead, I make compromises with myself. “I can have that delicious chicken, but I’m going to have to be careful at dinner. Maybe just a bowl of soup and some crackers.” By never letting myself go over the number, I am losing weight at a record pace (for me), and I’m still not hungry. In fact, I’m still eating whatever I want, for the most part. But I might only have 1 slice of pizza at a user group meeting instead of my standard three.
Finally, there’s the weight goal. This is how everything gets determined. When you first set up the tools (which again, are free for anyone to use), it asks you to set a weight goal.
Next it asks you about how aggressive you want to be in getting to your goals. I chose “Medium”, primarily because “Easier” seemed too easy, and “Kinda Hard” and “Harder” seemed almost unhealthy.
Every morning, I step on the scale, and add it to my FitBit log. Based on the weight I’ve lost (or gained, it happens), it will dynamically update my estimated date until completion. I don’t want to see that date move into the future, I want it to get closer to now. This is my motivator.
The Wrapup
In short, I’m losing weight effectively for the first time in my life, and I haven’t even started adding real exercise to my regimen. As the weather warms up, I’m sure I’ll take a few trips around the neighborhood each night. It’s still very early, but I truly believe that having a consciousness about what I’m eating is having a direct impact on my life.
I think that the FitBit device is an astounding piece of technology engineering, and it is providing me with the confirmation that I’m a sedentary software developer that needs to get on his feet more. I don’t think that the device alone is enough to have an effect, however.
You need the desire to change your eating habits, if only slightly, and the willingness to record everything you eat. Omitting that Baby Ruth is only cheating the system for yourself.
If you do decide to pick up a device, add me as your friend on the site. My username, not surprisingly, is jeffblankenburg. I’d love to have a few more people pushing me to take a few more steps every day.
Finally, there’s apps available for using FitBit on the go (there’s also an API, if you’re feeling ambitious). You can’t sync your device remotely (unless you have the receiver plugged in to your internet-connected laptop), but you can enter your data, food, weight, etc. Here’s my picks:
Windows Phone Business Cards
At Codemash, I finally gave away my last business card, and so I decided to make some new ones (if you’ve met me, you know my aversion to corporate business cards.)
Since I’ve been focused on Windows Phone for almost two years now, and plan on continuing that for the foreseeable future, I wanted to make a business card that reflected my current technology passion. With that, I present to you my new Windows Phone business cards:
And the final product, in terrible lighting…(the cards are actually a dark black).
I am one to share my work, however, so if you would like to download this template to use for your own cards, I’ve provided them in two formats: Expression Design and Adobe Illustrator. These were originally created in Expression Design, but the Illustrator files I’ve provided do work, but they’re just a little less accommodating (fonts are not editable, for example).
Download a 60-day trial of Expression Design.
Download a 30-day trial of Adobe Illustrator.
Once you’ve downloaded the templates and the software (if you need it), feel free to edit them to your heart’s content. Some of you may not have a YouTube channel. Others may not use LinkedIn. Make it your own. Change the colors. Definitely change the Tag.
Finally, you’re going to need a place to print them for a reasonable price. I’ve shopped around, and I found a print shop local to me that was willing to print 1000 of these cards on a heavy 16pt card stock, with a smooth UV coating, and rounded corners for $110. They’re familiar with the cards, and they will do a phenomenal job for you as well. You can find YesPress online at http://yespress.com. Their price was nearly 72% less than every other print shop I talked to, including the online card makers like Moo ($389.70), but their quality was exactly the same as Moo’s rounded corner business cards.
If you do make some cards for yourself, please post them in the comments here, so I can see what you’ve made! Until next time…
The Curious “Today” Button
[UPDATED: This article was meant to share a quick hack that I created. I am not endorsing this as a best practice that you should incorporate into your applications. I’m offering it as an option to those of you building apps that only use the English language.]
Yesterday, I was working on a Windows Phone application that is very date-centric. I show the user a list of events for a specific day, and the page always loads data for “today” by default. They can always change it (I’m using a DatePicker for that), but I wanted to give them an easy way to return to whatever “today” may be.
I’d seen this before, in the Calendar app that comes on Windows Phone by default. It looks like this:
As you can see, there is a “today” button in the ApplicationBar. (In the image, today must be July 7th.) Anyways, I did some investigation, and came to a conclusion that either that image is being generated on the fly, or they’ve included 366 images in their project, to accommodate every possible month/date combination.
Since I’ve never done any dynamic image generation before, it seemed like more work that I was prepared to accomplish in the short timeline I had to finish this application. So, I went ahead and created the 366 images that are necessary to make this functionality happen.
To change the IconUri property of an ApplicationBarIconButton, you just need this one line of code:
((ApplicationBarIconButton)ApplicationBar.Buttons[0]).IconUri = new Uri("/icons/dates/" + DateTime.Now.Month + "-" + DateTime.Now.Day + ".png", UriKind.Relative);
Finally, you’re probably interested in downloading this set of images, so you don’t have to spend the countless hours (it was less than 2) I spent creating them. So, here they are:
Or, if that’s not convenient, you can download the entire collection of Windows Phone Date Icons in a ZIP file here.
These images are completely free to use, I only ask that you comment here on how you used them. Fair?
6th Anniversary
407 articles ago, I started writing on this website. I’ve gone through several site rewrites, and numerous writing experiments, but I’m still just writing whatever comes to mind.
To celebrate, I thought I’d dig up some of my older, but most popular posts of the past. Some of them make me chuckle even to read the title. Here you go…the top 10 articles this site has ever posted.
10. How Technical Recruiters Get It Wrong (5/19/2011)
9. Are We Being Scammed on Our Displays? (6/6/2011)
8. Be A Creator, Not a Consumer (1/3/2012)
7. 31 Days of Mango: Day 1 – The New Windows Phone Emulator Tools (11/1/2011)
6. Source Control Software Is Too Intrusive (7/21/2011)
5. Why Is Everyone Getting Hacked? (6/30/2011)
4. 31 Days of Silverlight (6/9/2009)
3. 10 Reasons Zune Beats the iPod. Seriously. (11/5/2008)
2. 31 Days of Mango (10/31/2011)
1. 31 Days of Windows Phone (9/30/2010)
A sincere thank you to all of you who read my articles. Without readers, writing wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. Thank you, sincerely, and here’s to another big year of writing.