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The last week has been very exciting for Microsoft developers: The //build/ conference in Redmond was full of amazing content including Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 SDK, Microsoft Surface, Xbox SmartGlass, Kinect for Windows and the new language TypeScript.

Unfortunately I hadn’t the possibility to participate at the conference but had some free time during the week-end to watch some of the recorded sessions available here on Channel9: this is really a great resource and I suggest everyone interested in Microsoft technologies to download some videos and have fun with it.

I decided then to take a look at the new features available in Windows Phone 8 and the related SDK: Justin Angel has a great article about this topic in the Nokia Developer Community.

To get my hands dirty I moved then on my personal Open-Source project “Multi-Touch Behaviors” on CodePlex: this is a set of Epression Blend Behaviors for different platforms including Windows Phone, Silverlight and WPF for applying gestures and manipulations (like the one available in the “old” ScatterView control) to generic XAML elements.

The project was not yet updated to Windows Phone 8 so I took this opportunity and experimented with the new SDK: this was really a great experience since I was able to upgrade quickly all my samples to the new platform using the same codebase used for the Silverlight version.

Unfortunately I haven’t the possibility  to test the performance on a real Windows Phone 8 device at the moment but the first impressions are really positive.

I have already checked in the code for WP8 here, I’m planning more testing and development in the future.

Happy XAMLing everyone

Today I’ve been honoured to receive my 4th MVP award from Microsoft for my contributions about Silverlight and XAML related technologies during the last year.

Every new award is always a great emotion; I would like to thank all the people that supported me including the smart guys working in Microsoft, my amazing MVP lead Alessandro Teglia,  the fantastic groups of the insiders lists and the “terrific” Silverlight MVPs. You all rock.

Enjoy and continue XAMLing everyone, big times ahead!

Check out these useful downloads including hands-on labs, presentations, samples and resources from the Windows 8 camps.

More resources available in this post @ ExpressionBlend.com.

Enjoy!

Great days and lot of new tools for Metro XAML developers on Windows 8.

Callisto is a new library of controls and helpers (including SQLite support) for Windows 8 XAML applications (aka Metro style apps) developed by Tim Heuer (@timheuer) and Morten Nielsen (@dotmorten).

Click here to access the project and download the new bits!

Enjoy

The “Windows Runtime (WinRT) XAML Toolkit” is a new resource containing a set of controls and helpers for building Windows 8 Store applications.

Click here to read the details and access the download link on CodePlex.

New to Windows 8 development? Mark your calendars: the new book “Programming Windows, Sixth edition” by Charles Petzold is coming soon!

Happy XAMLing everyone

A new project has been recently announced in the “Silverlight Experts” group on Linkedin by fellow group-member Laith Alasad:

The XAML Project contains “Free vector design resources for XAML-based technologies such as Silverlight, Metro, WP7, and WPF. Search and download pure XAML graphics for your web, desktop, and/or mobile applications.“

It’s a very useful resource, I’ve already inserted it in my favorites!

Happy XAMLing everyone

During the //Build conference in Anaheim the release of Windows 8 Developer preview has been announced: you can download it from this link.

To get started an impressive number of video tutorials is available in the official site of the conference: http://www.buildwindows.com/.

Check out also this great post by Michael for downloading all the Build videos in your pc.

Useful resources are available in the SDK: all the XAML Metro style app samples are available following this link.

It’s possible to install Windows 8 side by side with your operating system using a boot from VHD: I’ve followed the instructions described here by Mister Goodcat and all went smoothly.

Also available for download:

• Visual Studio 11 and .NET Framework 4.5 Developer Preview;
• RIA Services update for //build;
• Windows Azure SDK and tools update.

Lot of news this week!

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 are now available for download here, Jeff Beehler has posted some useful info about this “go live” release.

The new Silverlight Toolkit October 2009 Release is also available on Codeplex featuring Visual Studio 2010 support and various improvements on existing components (like drag-and-drop for items controls).

Read these posts by Tim Heuer and Jeff Wilcox for more details and enjoy!

Read the complete articles here and here.

Direct link: http://www.identitymine.com/windows7/

YouTube videos:

In this excellent article, Rob Relyea describes the new features of XAML planned to ship in .NET 4.