
Mar 14, 2021
Top Tips for Building Applications for the Cloud
In today’s blog I will briefly talk about some Azure services that can be very useful for building the next generation of cloud solutions. Choosing which service [...]


May 30, 2021
SharePoint embraces AI revolution
Microsoft SharePoint is in a rampant trajectory of mind-blowing innovations. Despite its maturity and solid presence in traditional document management solutions [...]


Jul 21, 2020
Considerations When Implementing a Data Warehouse Solution
The foundation for a Business Intelligence (BI) solution for your company is a data warehouse. In today’s blog post we will go through some high-level [...]


Feb 02, 2021
Restoring the model database in SQL Server
Let's say you do occasional backups of the system databases, master, model and msdb, and you have lost the model database. In this blog you will see what happens if [...]


Nov 25, 2020
Using Code First Migrations in Entity Framework
In today's blog I will show you how to use Code First Migrations to update the schema of a database when the model classes in Entity Framework change. If you [...]


Sep 28, 2020
Semantic Tags and the File API in HTML5
HTML5 introduces new elements such as section, article, header, footer, nav, aside, figure, etc. to define the semantic structure of a web page. They are commonly [...]


Jun 21, 2020
Customising Entity Framework Code-First
In a previous blog post we compared the different approaches to create a Data Access Layer to MVC applications using the Entity Framework. In particular we went into [...]


Jun 10, 2020
Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint
Most organisations use a variety of systems to store their business data and very often they use different front-end interfaces to interact with those data repositories. [...]


May 30, 2021
Automatic null checking in C# 6.0
As programmers we are used to checking a variable value for null before we use it in a subsequent block of code. It's one of the most repetitive tasks we do every [...]


Apr 28, 2021
Asymmetric Encryption in the .NET Framework
Protection of confidential data is of paramount importance in any business application. In previous blogs we have seen the fundamentals of symmetric [...]


Apr 08, 2021
Protecting Confidential Data with Symmetric Encryption - Part 2
Protection of confidential data is a very important requirement in many business applications. In a previous blog we have seen the fundamentals of symmetric cryptography [...]


Apr 01, 2021
Protecting Confidential Data with Symmetric Encryption
A common requirement of many business applications is the protection of confidential data. In today's blog I will introduce you to some of the cryptography features [...]


Oct 02, 2020
Entity Framework Code-First
In today’s blog I will review how to use the Code-First approach with Entity Framework. Entity Framework (EF) is the preferred technology to create a Data Access [...]


Sep 18, 2020
What's a JavaScript Closure?
In today’s blog I will explain the concept of a closure in JavaScript. The best way to grasp this concept is by means of a step-by-step example. Let’s define a [...]


Sep 01, 2020
Using the WebView Control in Windows Apps
Let's say you are developing a Windows Store App using XAML with C# but you need to display interactive HTML5 content as part of the overall user experience. In [...]


Aug 13, 2020
Remote Events in SharePoint 2013
Earlier versions of SharePoint provided support for event receivers that allowed server side code to run in response to events like adding items to lists, creating new [...]


Jul 10, 2020
Implementing live tiles in a Windows Store App
Windows Store apps use tiles to launch the app from the start screen. Tiles can be static or they can be live, receiving notifications from your app or from some [...]


Jun 26, 2020
Code sharing strategies in Windows Universal Apps
I have previously introduced you to the amazing concept of Universal Apps, which essentially means that you can share most of the source code between Windows Store Apps [...]


Jun 04, 2021
Taking a closer look at Universal Apps
Universal Apps were publicly introduced in Microsoft’s BUILD 2014 conference held in San Francisco in April 2014. With Universal Apps, you can develop one code base and [...]


May 19, 2021
Managing application settings in Windows Store Apps
Windows 8.1 applications can save and retrieve settings using local storage in a very straightforward way. In today's blog post, I will guide you through the steps [...]


Apr 02, 2021
Implementing the Search Contract in Windows Store Apps
Windows 8 introduced the concept of contracts. You can think of a contract as an agreement between the app and the operating system (OS). There are a fair number of [...]


Mar 20, 2021
Managing packages with NuGet
NuGet is an open source package manager for the .NET Framework. NuGet makes it very easy for developers to add, remove and update library references in a project. It was [...]


Mar 12, 2021
Development Sideloading of Windows Store Apps
If you want to run a Windows Store App on your tablet or laptop, the normal procedure is to visit the Windows Store, find the app you want and then install it on your [...]


Mar 10, 2021
Prototypal Inheritance in JavaScript
Inheritance in JavaScript is implemented in a quite different way as it is in higher level languages like C# and Java. In today's blog we will dig deeper into how [...]


Mar 04, 2021
Indexed member initialisers in C# 6
The new C# 6 compiler was released as open source on 1st April, 2014 in CodePlex. It was included in Visual Studio 14 CTP 3 that was released on the 18th August, 2014. [...]


Jan 16, 2021
Using cross-domain library with SharePoint 2013 apps
When you create a cloud-based app in SharePoint, the pages of your app will be in a different domain than the app web that contains lists and libraries to be [...]


Jan 08, 2021
Designing business continuity management strategies in SharePoint 2013
In today’s blog, I will talk about high availability in SharePoint 2013. High availability describes the steps you take to make your server farm resilient to hardware [...]


Nov 13, 2020
Using Delegates in .NET
We can think of the concept of delegates in the .NET framework as a type-safe implementation of callback functions. In today’s post, I’ll dig deeper into this definition [...]


Oct 27, 2020
Extension methods in C#
In today’s blog post, I will address the issue of extending an object definition when you don’t have access to the source code or you can’t inherit from the original [...]


Sep 23, 2020
Asynchronous programming in C#
One of the most interesting new features in C# 5.0 is the support for asynchronous functions with the introduction of the new keywords, async and await. Writing [...]


Sep 19, 2020
All about abstract classes in C#
In today's article, I will review one of the most exciting object-oriented programming (OOP) features of C#, namely the concept of abstract classes. An abstract class is [...]


Aug 11, 2020
Synchronising concurrent access to data in C#
It’s fairly straightforward to start new threads in C# to run sections of code concurrently in a multi-core machine. Done properly, multithreading can dramatically [...]


Jul 15, 2020
Cross-site publishing with SharePoint 2013
SharePoint 2013 introduces cross-site publishing as an alternative to content deployment paths and jobs. The cross-site publishing feature enables content to be reused [...]


Apr 30, 2021
Dependency Injection in C#
A very important aspect of software engineering is the maintainability and extensibility of the code base. One way to write maintainable code is through loose coupling. [...]


Mar 18, 2021
What's new in SharePoint 2013 for developers
SharePoint 2013 is the fifth release of SharePoint since SharePoint Team Services and the SharePoint Portal Server was first introduced in 2001. In all these years, [...]


Mar 11, 2021
Monetise your Windows Store Apps
There are different ways to monetise your Windows Store apps. The simplest way is to require your customers to pay for your app before they download it. The price range [...]


Feb 11, 2021
WCF vs Web API. How to choose?
Most applications, especially mobile ones, require integration with external systems. If you are using Microsoft technologies, two prominent options for the back-end are [...]


Jan 17, 2021
Continuous Integration with Visual Studio
Continuous Integration (CI) is the process of automatically generating a build whenever code is checked into a source code repository system. With CI, the developer does [...]


Dec 10, 2020
Deploying Web and Service Applications to Windows Azure
Windows Azure brings an additional option to the old question of where you will host your web application or your services. Traditionally, you would pick the in-house [...]


Nov 28, 2020
What's new in Windows 8.1 for Developers
Windows 8.1 brings in over 5000 new APIs and features. Of course, many of these new APIs are not to be used directly in the code you write, but there is a significant [...]


Nov 04, 2020
Open Code in Visual Studio
Visual Studio 2012 integration with Git is great news for the developer community - not only for the enthusiasts of Open Code but for any team looking for a solid source [...]