Why? Because I should be able to Get Latest and F5! I think simplicity is a crucial measure of success in all software. I think being able to pull down the source code onto any developer machine and F5 is an important goal to strive for. Removing manual processes and streamlining the development workflow can yield huge productivity gains – especially when onboarding new developers. I believe databases should be provisioned and seeded automatically, all 3rd party libraries should be readily available in the repo, and any manual steps that must be memorized or documented should be avoided at all costs. But this hasn’t been easy on a Windows Phone device The aforementioned goals have been easily achievable in all of my projects except Windows Phone apps. A key component to this workflow is the magical variable known as localhost. When I F5 one...

This morning I received a Microsoft MVP award for Windows Phone Development. I’m really honored to be part of a community that really values knowledge sharing and continuous professional growth such as this. Over the past few years I’ve come to greatly respect and appreciate the vast amount of personal time that many people in the development community (both MVPs and non-MVPs) contribute to help drive our profession forward. I’d also like to offer a very special thanks to the entire Windows Phone Dev community for helping to expand this great platform into the consumer reach that it deserves. There is still a ways to go, but after the impressive world-wide launch of Mango across dozens of countries, carriers, and OEMs on a single day I think we can all agree that Microsoft is taking this seriously. I’m personally really excited to be in on the ground floor this...

TechWeek Chicago Starting today and running through next Friday, July 29th is TechWeek Chicago. TechWeek is a week of conference, expo and events with over 2,000 entrepreneurs, business leaders, and innovators, 4 days of conference sessions, over 150 international speakers, 4 days of an expo hall with over 100 exhibitors, 35 competing tech startups, and over 30 independent off-site events. TechWeek connects the newest web and mobile technologies to thousands of Chicago business, academic, community, art, and media professionals- all within one week. For more information about TechWeek, check out http://www.techweek.com. Windows Phone Unleashed During TechWeek Chicago, Microsoft is hosting Windows Phone Unleashed @ TechWeek. This will be an incredible evening getting hands-on with Windows Phone and you will have the opportunity to work with the Windows Phone and Windows Azure experts to help get your app ideas of the ground. More details for this event is...