Windows Phone 8 Developer Platform announced

Windows Phone 8 Developer Platform launched! Microsoft are making available the most important advancement of the dev plat to date, including a new Windows Phone SDK 8.0 and a refreshed Windows Phone Dev Center now open for Windows Phone 8 app submissions.

The Windows Phone SDK 8.0 is a full-featured development environment to use for building apps and games for Windows Phone 8.0 and Windows Phone 7.5. The Windows Phone SDK provides a stand-alone Visual Studio Express 2012 edition for Windows Phone or works as an add-in to Visual Studio 2012 Professional, Premium or Ultimate editions. With the SDK, you can use your existing programming skills and code to build managed or native code apps. In addition, the SDK includes multiple emulators and additional tools for profiling and testing your Windows Phone app under real-world conditions.

System requirements

Supported operating systems: Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro

• • Windows 8 64-bit (x64) client versions

• Hardware:
  • 4 GB of free hard disk space
  • 4 GB RAM
  • 64-bit (x64) CPU
• Windows Phone 8 Emulator:
  • Windows 8 Pro edition or greater
  • Requires a processor that supports Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
  If your computer meets the hardware and operating system requirements, but does meet the requirements for the Windows Phone 8 Emulator, the Windows Phone SDK 8.0 will install and run. However, the Windows Phone 8 Emulator will not function and you will not be able to deploy or test apps on the Windows Phone 8 Emulator.

Free ebook: Introducing Windows 8: An Overview for IT Professionals (Preview Edition)

The Windows 8 operating system is the newest member of the Microsoft Windows family. It differs from earlier Windows releases as much for what it does not change as for what it does change. That is, the features that IT pros loved about Windows 7 are still there in Windows 8—just better. The same keyboard shortcuts, management tools, security features, and deployment options are available in Windows 8. But in many cases, Windows 8 improves them in intuitive and significant ways. Some examples are the ribbon in File Explorer and faster disk encryption when using BitLocker Drive Encryption. This book describes these enhancements plus many of the new features in Windows 8.

Download: Introducing Windows 8: An Overview for IT Professionals - PDF ebook

Source: Microsoft Press

Beginning ASP.NET 4.5 in C#

This book is the most comprehensive and up to date introduction to ASP.NET ever written. Focussing solely on C#, with no code samples duplicated in other languages, award winning author Matthew MacDonald introduces you to the very latest thinking and best practices for the ASP.NET 4.5 technology.

Assuming no prior coding experience, you'll be taught everything you need to know from the ground up.  Starting from first principals, you'll learn the skills you need to be an effective ASP.NET developer who is ready to progress to more sophisticated projects and professional work.

You'll be taught how to use object orientation and code-behind techniques to lay out your code clearly in a way other developers can easily understand. You'll learn how to query databases from within you web pages, spice up your layouts using ASP.NET AJAX and deploy your finished websites to production servers.  You'll also learn how to debug your code when things go wrong and the performance and scalability issues that can affect your web projects as they grow.

With you book you can take your first step towards becoming a successful ASP.NET developer with confidence.

What you’ll learn

• Learn everything you need to know to build ASP.NET 4.5 applications with confidence.
• Dive into the deepest, broadest, introductory ASP.NET coverage available.
• Be guided by an award winning author who will steadily progress your knowledge from first principles to advanced techniques over the course of the book.

Who this book is for

This book is ideal for anyone new to .NET development who wants to learn how ASP.NET 4.5 works. No prior programming knowledge is assumed and all concepts are explained from first principals.

Table of Contents

1. The .NET Framework 
2. The C# Language 
3. Types, Objects, and Namespaces 
4. Visual Studio
5. Web Form Fundamentals 
6. Web Controls 
7. Error Handling, Logging, and Tracing 
8. State Management 
9. Validation 
10.Rich Controls 
11.User Controls and Graphics 
12.Styles, Themes, and Master Pages 
13.Website Navigation 
14.ADO.NET Fundamentals 
15.Data Binding 
16.The Data Controls
17.Files and Streams 
18.XML 
19.Security Fundamentals 
20.Membership 
21.Profiles 
22.Advanced ASP.NET Components 
23.Caching 
24.LINQ and the Entity Framework 
25.ASP.NET AJAX 
26.Deploying ASP.NET Applications

Beginning ASP.NET 4.5 in VB

This book is the most comprehensive and up to date introduction to ASP.NET ever written. Focusing solely on Visual Basic, with no code samples duplicated in other languages, award winning author Matthew MacDonald introduces you to the very latest thinking and best practices for the ASP.NET 4.5 technology.

Assuming no prior coding experience, you'll be taught everything you need to know from the ground up.  Starting from first principals, you'll learn the skills you need to be an effective ASP.NET developer who is ready to progress to more sophisticated projects and professional work.

You'll be taught how to use object orientation and code-behind techniques to lay out your code clearly in a way other developers can easily understand. You'll learn how to query databases from within you web pages, spice up your layouts using ASP.NET AJAX and deploy your finished websites to production servers.  You'll also learn how to debug your code when things go wrong and the performance and scalability issues that can affect your web projects as they grow.

With this book you can take your first steps towards becoming a successful ASP.NET developer with confidence.

What you’ll learn

• Learn everything you need to know to build ASP.NET 4.5 applications with confidence.
• Dive into the deepest, broadest, introductory ASP.NET coverage available.
• Be guided by an award winning author who will steadily progress your knowledge from first principals to advanced techniques over the course of the book.

Who this book is for

This book is ideal for anyone new to .NET development who wants to learn how ASP.NET 4.5 works. No prior programming knowledge is assumed and all concepts are explained from first principals.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Introducing .NET 
1. The .NET Framework 
2. The C# Language 
3. Types, Objects, and Namespace

Part 2: Developing ASP.NET Applications
4. Visual Studio
5. Web Form Fundamentals
6. Web Controls
7. Error Handling, Logging, and Tracing
8. State Management

Part 3: Building Better Web Forms
9. Validation
10.Rich Controls 
11.User Controls and Graphics 
12.Styles, Themes, and Master Pages 
13.Website Navigation

Part 4: Working with Data
14.ADO.NET Fundamentals 
15.Data Binding 
16.The Data Controls 
17.Files and Streams 
18.XML

Part 5: Website Security 
19.Security Fundamentals 
20.Membership 
21.Profiles

Part 6: Advanced ASP.NET 
22.Advanced ASP.NET Components 
23.Caching 
24.LINQ and the Entity Framework 
25.ASP.NET AJAX 
26.Deploying ASP.NET Applications

Ivor Horton's Beginning Visual C++ 2012

The only book to teach C++ programming with Microsoft Visual Studio!

There's a reason why Ivor Horton's Beginning Visual C++ books dominate the marketplace. Ivor Horton has a loyal following who love his winning approach to teaching programming languages, and in this fully updated new edition, he repeats his successful formula. Offering a comprehensive introduction to both the standard C++ language and to Visual C++, he offers step-by-step programming exercises, examples, and solutions to deftly guide novice programmers through the ins and outs of C++ development.

• Introduces novice programmers to the current standard, Microsoft Visual C++ 2012, as it is implemented in Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
• Focuses on teaching both the C++11 standard and Visual C++ 2012, unlike virtually any other book on the market
• Covers the C++ language and library and the IDE
• Delves into new features of both the C++11 standard and of the Visual C++ 2012 programming environment
• Features C++ project templates, code snippets, and more

Even if you have no previous programming experience, you'll soon learn how to build real-world applications using Visual C++ 2012 with this popular guide.

C++ AMP: Accelerated Massive Parallelism with Microsoft Visual C++

Capitalize on the faster GPU processors in today’s computers with the C++ AMP code library—and bring massive parallelism to your project. With this practical book, experienced C++ developers will learn parallel programming fundamentals with C++ AMP through detailed examples, code snippets, and case studies. Learn the advantages of parallelism and get best practices for harnessing this technology in your applications.

Discover how to:

• Gain greater code performance using graphics processing units (GPUs)
• Choose accelerators that enable you to write code for GPUs
• Apply thread tiles, tile barriers, and tile static memory
• Debug C++ AMP code with Microsoft Visual Studio®
• Use profiling tools to track the performance of your code

Visual Studio 2012 – Modern app development

Visual Studio 2012 – Modern app development