Frank's World
Online Since 1995. On OrcsWeb Since 2011
2012 Goal Achieved
I’d like to announce that in the past year, I have lost 10% of my body weight – a goal I had set last Christmas. Recent medical research suggests that losing just 10% of body weight carries enormous health benefits. How did I do it? Two words: South Beach. Basically, I removed most carbohydrates …
Know Your Roots: Internet History
The Internet Timeline begins in 1962, before the term ‘Internet’ was coined. 10,000 computers existed worldwide. To us, they would look very primitive. Despite a price tag of hundreds of thousands of dollars, they have just a few thousand bytes of magnetic core memory. Programming them is no easy …
Deep Dive into Native Windows 8 Apps
The last time I did anything meaningful with C++, I was in college and Kurt Cobain was still alive. So, I appreciate any training materials I can get to brush up on this skill set. C/C++ is a bit like Latin: everyone agrees it’s important, but very few people speak it anymore. In this session from …
Creating Your Own Weather Forecast
Not satisfied with the weather your local news stations provide? Think you can do better or just want another opinion? Then check out http://weatherservice.cloudapp.net, which uses the power of Azure to compute weather forecasts. Right now, the process can take up to eight hours, but once the …
Scale of the Universe
It’s Monday morning and to put things into perspective, check out the Scale of the Universe, an interactive tool to explain how things scale up and scale down. Here’s a brain-rebooter for this fine Monday AM: As Keanu Reeves once said, “Woah”
Windows Phone App OData Client Tools
The OData Client Tools for Windows Phone 8 brings OData V3 support to the Windows Phone platform. Specifically, this tool extends the “Add Service Reference” menu item to include support for client-side OData support in Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 application projects. Download the …
More Toys
Santa has a Windows Phone and an app that makes good use of Live Tiles.
Windows Azure Conf Sessions Online
Channel 9 has all the sessions from Windows AzureConf 2012 online. Watch the keynote here:
Funny Internet Explorer Ad
This one made me LOL. Who knew that karaoke has that kind of power to melt hearts of stone? Watch the video to see what I mean.
Cell Phone Numbers in the United States
A brilliant cartoon by xkcd explaining US cell phone number format. Something I wrote back in 2010, explains this quite well: “my cell phone still has a NJ area code and my house has a Virginia area code. Did I mention we live in Maryland? Location and distance ain’t what it used to be.” While xkcd …
Military Research and Development Under the Tree
Interesting slide deck on the long term impact of DoD R&D on consumer technology. I would also add the manned space program as the origin of our everyday tech. 2012 Holiday Military R&D Shopping Guide from AEI
Inside the Windows 8 App Model
In this Channel9 video, Arun Kishan dives deeply into the low level details of the new application model in Windows 8. You Windows 8 PLM (Process Lifetime Management) questions answered: How has Process Lifetime Management (PLM) been reimagined in Windows 8? How does app suspension work, exactly, …
Building Windows 8 Apps on a Mac
If you want to start creating Windows 8 apps, but you own a Mac, you may have asked yourself how to get started. Thankfully, MSDN has a guide just for you. Once you get everything set up on your Mac, sign up at 30 to Launch to get free daily tips on building your app, adding features, and free …
Where No Phone Has Gone Before
The Finnish retailer Verkkokauppa sent a Lumia 920 into space via balloon. They wanted to see how far the device could reach until the balloon burst for it to then travel back down to Earth. The Windows Phone managed to achieve a height of 30km, spending more than 27 minutes in sub-zero …
Sheldon T Shirt Infographic
If you watch “The Big Bang Theory,” you’ve no doubt seen the wide array of t-shirts that one of the main characters, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, wears. Apparently, someone has really been paying attention to them.
Building a Companion WP8 App for Your Windows 8 App
My colleague, Joel Reyes, has put together a great post on building a companion WP8 app for your Windows 8 App.
The simultaneous release of Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 gives developers the opportunity to build apps that reach a customer base projected to be in the hundreds of millions, in more …
Evolution of Windows Phone Memory Management
Speaking of optimization and eeking the most out of a device, here is some great content on the innards of how Windows Phone manages memory. This is particularly useful on low memory devices, which would require further optimization.
Comment Spammers Trying Too Hard
Not too long ago, I blogged about the return of comment spammers to Frank’s World. I pointed out how I moderate the comments and most of them get deleted. Apparently, one of them tried extreme flattery. Wow. Just wow. BTW, comment got deleted anyways. Thanks for playing.
Your Smart Phone is Watching Your Every Move Infographic
Most people know that geo-location services can raise some privacy concerns, but who would think that universities are leading the charge on geo-location services? Maybe the smart phone is a little too smart. Courtesy of: Online Colleges [found via AllTop]
XAML Windows Store Apps Performance Tips
Here’s a great session from Build 2012 on performance tips for XAML based Windows Apps. A must watch for all my XAML peeps.