Windows Store apps that start up to 60% faster and have a smaller memory footprint – that’s what .NET Native is a about.
.NET Native compiles C# to native machine code that performs like C++. You will continue to benefit from the productivity and familiarity of the .NET Framework with the great performance of native code.
Released in April 2014, you can download the Microsoft.Net Native Developer Preview to get started today.
The developer preview enables building apps for Windows Store on ARM and x64 architectures (stay tuned for x86.) .NET Native will soon enable a consistent and converged experience across devices.
.NET Native continues to provide a first-class .NET developer experience in Visual Studio. You still get a great edit/compile/debug environment with productivity enhancers like Edit and Continue and code refactoring. You continue to upload MSIL app packages to the Windows Store.
Some of the most popular Windows Store apps on Surface devices are already running on .NET Native. This includes applications such as Wordament and Fresh Paint, which are seeing multi-second startup wins.
Have you checked out the Windows Store apps Dev Center lately?
It’s been filled with excellent resources for learning about and developing Windows Store apps. From code, to design guidelines, it’s chuck full of what you need to develop Windows Store Apps.
Feature guide
Product guide
Getting started
Support forums
Design downloads
Our design principles
Index UX guidelines
iPad to Windows Store app
iOS
Android
Windows 8
WPF/Silverlight
Samples
API reference
Downloads
Certification requirements
10/29/2013 Microsoft Press has released the second edition of Kraig Brocksmidt’s in-depth book: Programming Windows Store Apps in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Second Edition.
Ken says: “In celebration of the one-year anniversary of this book’s first edition, I’m delighted to offer you this second preview of Programming Windows Store Apps in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Second Edition. It’s been a huge year for both the book and the platform that it supports. With the general availability of Windows 8.1 earlier this month (October 2013), the capabilities of the Windows platform have grown dramatically, which is clearly in evidence by the expanded size of this second edition! Even in this preview (12 chapters and three appendices), the book is not far from the length of the first edition, and there are still eight chapters (and one appendix) to go. Nevertheless, it’s my pleasure to provide you with a comprehensive volume on Microsoft’s latest operating system.”
Download the free e-book here: Programming Windows Store Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Second Edition
From Wikipedia: “Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines.”
A Parallax can create an interesting visual effect when used for a background in a Windows Store App.
David Catuhe explain how in this blog post ‘How to create a cool parallax background’.
Windows 8.1, a free upgrade for Windows 8 users, has features to make it more familiar to users of previous versions of Windows plus new features and functionality.
The Windows 8.1 update was released last Thursday, October 17, 2013.
It is a free download available from the Windows Store.
The ASP.NET Identity system, new in Visual Studio 2013, is designed to replace the previous ASP.NET Membership and Simple Membership systems. It includes profile support, OAuth integration, works with OWIN, and is included with the ASP.NET templates shipped with Visual Studio 2013.
My experience with it is that it is simpler to use yet provides more options and easier extensibility.
ASP.NET Identity can be used with all of the ASP.NET frameworks, such as ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, Web Pages, Web API, and SignalR.
Check out it’s claims based authentication. It gives you the ability to use more than just roles to grant access/permission to a user.
More….
One ASP.NET - Unifies the experience of using ASP.NET technologies, so that you can easily mix and match the ones you want. Introduced in Visual Studio 2013. Introducing One ASP.NET // Hands On Lab: One ASP.NET More...