Windows to go

As I blogged before, i'm in love with windows 8 I think it is full of features, and opportunities for lots and lots of users, developers, OEMs, and MS partners.
In this post I wanna tell you about one of the features that I highly respect, it is the "Windows to go" feature.
Simply this feature allows you to have your windows on a flash memory, with all your settings, applications and other personalized features, and run it on any other PC that is running on windows 7 or windows 8, at the same time you will not affect this machine's OS by any mean as you are running your windows through your flash memory, not the local hard disk of this machine.

You will just need to choose your flash memory from the booting list while starting the machine you are going to work on, the computer will run the image saved on this flash memory letting you do what you want with it, from changing the settings to changing the apps, working on them, or downloading other applications, and those changes are all happening to the image running on that flash memory.

if you want to know in details how this feature is working and how to start using it yourself I highly recommend you this video from the Microsoft build event.

you can watch the video by visiting this link

Have a nice day :)

Mohanad Mohamad

Windows 8, What i like about it

Four days ago I started using windows 8, I've been reading about it for a while, and I think now it is the time to try it.
first I thought it is gonna be difficult a bit as for the new interface and the new features that I'm not familiar with, but what I've found was that it is so much fun, easy to use, simple, and fast.
Now I'm gonna write down the features I liked the most about windows 8, and will be more than happy to reply to your questions and comments about them.

The new Start menu:

The new start menu is what we can call the tablet view, it is pretty amazing, simple, beautiful and you can pin the apps you use the most to it.
when you pin the apps they are viewable as live tiles like those of windows phone, in a way that you can know the new about this app updates by just checking the tile, which means you don't need to open the application it self to know the updates.

The Lock screen:

a beautiful picture that you chose with the time, date, new E-mails and messages you are receiving, battery state, and Wi-Fi connection state.
nothing to mention about it more than the screen shot below, I like it, no... I think I love it.

The Picture Password:

a new way to enhance your privacy, you have the option to secure your PC/tablet the traditional way using a password or use the new option of creating a picture password.
the picture password lets you choose the picture you want and do three moves on it like a circle, a dot, and a straight line for example, in specific points on the picture, with specific direction and specific sort, when you do this password you unlock your screen.
what is really beautiful about this option is that you now have a more secured PC as the option for guessing your password by others is nearly impossible, at the same time it is a faster and easier way for the user to unlock the screen.... enhanced security, more fun, less time.


IE 10:
I've tried a lot to stick to the usage of IE in general but every time I fail, now with my fourth day using windows 8 with IE10 I've wasted zero seconds thinking about any other browser.
IE 10 with windows 8 is coming with two previews the metro style IE and the classical IE.

Generally both previews are so fast, more productive, more fun, and of course still the best browser when it comes to HTML5 websites.

I know that you will not believe it, but you really need to try it yourself, IE 10 is finally a very good browser from Microsoft.

note: when you start using the new IE10 start pinning your favorite websites to your task bar and try monitoring the change of the theme it is fun ;)




The Touch Keyboard:

usually if I'm using a tablet I hold it with one hand and type with the other one, you do this with windows 8, but if you are a thumb writer and holding your slate with your both hands you can have the keyboard divided to two halves as shown in the picture :) I really love this feature and I guess it is increasing the productivity of writing a lot :D


Old apps are still on:

any application that you used to run on windows 7 is runnable on windows 8, so there will be no problem using the apps you used to use on a daily basis for your work or your daily routine :)


Windows store:

Windows store is going to be your only source of Metro style applications if you want them, you will have free and paid applications to download whenever you want to.

Cloud Services for Windows Phone 7

Have you ever done an application that requires a huge space for your data, and consumes a huge amount of processing power ??

If you did it, or you are imagining that you can do it.... how do you imagine it ??

Client server application ??
for how much and how long you will build this thing ??

if you are doing it the old fashion, then you are wasting lots and lots of money and time.

So what d you think for a Phone application ??
millions of operations and and lots of data to be saved, lots of calculations ......etc.


10 years ago it was impossible.
5 years ago it seemed to be impossible.


But Now ........ it is a piece of a cake :D

This is possible when you are going to build a Windows Phone 7 application using Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud services for windows phone 7, this is what i'm going to discuss in this article, i'll not go very deep in to cloud but i'll try my best to explain the Azure services for windows Phone 7.

we will discuss in this post an over view of the Windows Phone 7 application platform and start a series of posts to explain every thing with Windows Phone 7 and we will be starting with the Cloud Services 

lets talk a little bit about the Application Platform of Windows phone 7 first to get things clear,

The Windows Phone 7 application platform consists of 4 elements : Run time,Tools and support, Cloud Services, and Developer Portal Services.

So what each one of those actually do??
i'll explain this in details in future posts but i'll tell you a brief about each one of those.

1-Run time : is the part you can see on the phone it self the code you write to create a Silverlight application or an XNA Game and the user use it, so simply it is what the user see.
2-Tools & support :  are the tools that you as a developer use to develop the different flavors of applications that you can check it out in my old presentation.

3-Cloud services : the services of by Windows Azure for windows phone 7 ..... in simple words some ready made services on Cloud you call it in your application to use..... not literally but it is like that ..... to give you the chance to imagine it.

4-Developer portal services : after you finish your application you will need the different services that you could use to get you application to the users ..... the market that you will put your application on so that the different users can download and buy.

all of theses are cool stuff and and they all complete each others and integrate completely to serve your needs.

Lets start with the Cloud services :


we can redivide the way we look to cloud services for windows phone 7 in to 3 parts, "Yours", "Theirs" , and "Ours".
what is "Yours" : is that you build, you consume, it is very easy with cloud computing services like windows azure

"Theirs" : is that they have made for you easy APIs that you know, and Windows communication Foundation SOAP.REST.LINQ(WCF)

"ours" : is what they made for us to use which are the services (Notification, Location, Xbox Live, & App, Deployment & Marketplace)

So what are these services ????!

First we have :

Notifications :

To enable efficient, dynamic, and up-to-date information and communication channels, Windows Phone Application Platform provides an API to enable services to notify the user when relevant events have occurred. This eliminates the need for polling and reduces battery consumption.

Row notifications

There are 3 types of Notifications :
1-Tile notification
2-Toast notification
3-Row notification

Tile Notification

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Location and Cloud services:

•The Location Cloud Services will work together with the Location APIs on the phone, making its presence transparent to the developer. The service will use Wi-Fi, cellular, and GPS data to provide a single source for providing position lookup. Assisted GPS (AGPS) is available to improve the fix for GPS.

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Location, Feeds, Social, and Maps Services :

•The extensive variety of web services in the cloud allow consumers to identify themselves, interact with social communities, receive data feeds, and use maps for navigation. Developers can enrich this experience by providing new applications that use these services.

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And finally >> Windows Azure:

Visual Studio 2010 provides the development environment for creating applications using the Windows Azure™ Platform, an Internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. The Windows Azure Platform provides a range of functionality to build applications that span from consumer web to enterprise scenarios and includes a cloud operating system and a set of developer services. Fully interoperable through the support of industry standards and web protocols such as Representational State Transfer (REST) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), you can use the Azure services individually or together, either to build new applications or to extend existing ones

Finally if you want to view a demo that is expalining Push notification application i would recommend one i found on Code project :) Click here 

This was the topic i presented in the Azure boot Camp second day that was organized by the Azure community in Egypt 

please feel free to use or edit my presentation for your own use in the way you like :)

Thank you.