Today there was very interesting news. Windows Phone 7 was Released to Manufacturing. This is a really good now because it mean that they are on the good track to release some phone to the market for the holidays.

To read more about the news:
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/.../windows-phone-7-released-to-manufacturing.aspx

Regards
LP

Today is the release of the latest developer tools for Windows Phone 7. And with this release, another step have climb, because the tools are now in Beta. When you look at the release note you will see that there is a lot of braking change. They work a lot in refactoring stuff like merging multiple DLL in a single assembly. The application bar now required a value on the new “Text” property.

It seems that we will now be able to use Expression Blend 4 RTM. In fact, with the tools now provide a new version of Expression Blend 4 that will run side by side with the RTM version. This version is specific to the Phone, so you will not allowed to create other project.

So i suggest that you read the following post about those changes:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jaimer/.../migrating-apps-from-windows-phone-ctps-to-the-beta-build.aspx

You can download the latest version of the Developer tools here: http://www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx?FamilyID=c8496c2a-54d9-4b11-9491-a1bfaf32f2e3

Official blog post from the team:
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/.../windows-phone-developer-tools-beta-released.aspx

And a great blog post from the Expression Blend team on the new feature:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/expression/.../windows-phone-developer-tools-beta-released.aspx

Regards,
LP

Microsoft just launch the latest version of Expression Studio (Blend, Web, Desing, Encoder). If you have an MSDN Subscription, you can now download the latest release.

Expression Blend 4 New Features include:

• VS2010 compatibility
• Windows Phone support
• Deeper Adobe Photoshop import (layer effects)
• New behaviors & conditional behaviors
• Enhanced sample data support
• Listbox path layout for designing with data
• Pixel Shader effects (including animations)
• Easier styling and customization
• Model View View-Model support
• Mockup controls for SketchFlow

Expression Web 4 New Features include

• SEO Reporting from inside of the application
• New extensibility model enables creating add-ins with HTML, JS, and CSS
• New SuperPreview online service beta for browser compatibility testing now supports Macintosh Safari

Expression Encoder 4 Pro New features include

• Live Smooth Streaming (VC-1 & H.264)
• New H.264 encoder from MainConcept
• Enhanced Screen Capture
• DRM (PlayReady) for Live Content

For further, information read the blog post of Tim Heuer or go on the Expression Website:

• http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2010/06/07/expression-studio-4-launch-expression-blend.aspx
• http://www.microsoft.com/expression/

Regards,
LP

 
www.visualstudiomagazine.com

Last month i was interviewed by Kathleen Richards (Executive Editor, Visual Studio Magazine). The interview was for the Cover Story of the May edition titled “Mobilizing .Net Developers”. As the title says, it was focusing on Windows Phone 7 development. So if you want to read a great article about Windows Phone 7, read this one. The article in on pages 16, 17, 18, 20, 21.

Here is the link to access the article on the web: http://visualstudiomagazine.com/Articles/2010/05/01/Mobilizing-NET-Developers.aspx

Note: Special thanks to Laurent Duveau who give the chance to do the interview…

Regards,
LP

Microsoft just released a new version of their Windows Phone 7 Tools. You can download it at http://developer.windowsphone.com

Also if you want to have more information about this release Tim Heuer just post a great article: http://timheuer.com/blog/.../windows-phone-tools-update-april-2010-silverlight-xna.aspx

I’m finishing installing it.

Regards,
LP