Windows 8 App Development - Part 2 of ?

Installing Visual Studio 2012

Whaddup Internet. 

The next part of my epic app development blog is to set up Visual Studio 2012 which I am downloading from the official Windows 8 developer centre here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps

So anyway I downloaded Visual Studio Express for Windows 8 and ran the installer - Immediately got an error to say my version of .Net 4.5 is not up to visual studio standards... boo!

Found out this is an issue because I downloaded the very latest RTM of Windows 8 I need the visual studio 2012 Release Candidate for Windows 8... I found it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29915

This installed successfully and I am on my way to app development greatness... woot!

OK To start with it looks like you need a Developer License for Windows 8, I presume this is tantamount to getting your Apple Dev license so I just click "I Agree" and MS added one to my live account which expires in a couple of months. If you haven't got a live account by now and want to do the Microsoft thing I strongly suggest getting one.. its pretty painless and you get free hotmail and a SkyDrive account with like 7GB on it so its not all bad... 

Digression: To attach pictures to these blog posts (which I am writing on my Win 7 gaming PC) I take screenshots in Win 8 then save to my Sky drive using the native app and pull it from there into the blog on my other PC.. Sky Drive is super handy (or Dropbox or Google drive or iCloud).

With VS 2012 RC installed and my license set up I can start building my app. first I'm doing some reading on the MS recommendations for app planning. I already have a very good idea of what I am trying to build so I'll hop into it after confirming there's nothing else I need to know or do... 

Next Episode: App Project Planning and Design.

Peace.

Windows 8 App Development - Part 1 of ?

Windows 8 App Development - PT 1 of ?

Whaddup Internet

So this is a multi part blog to follow the development of my first Win 8 app. I thought now would be a good time to start since I am footloose and fancy free. Lets hope Win 8 catches on!

Note I am writing this blog as I perform each task so its a live commentary in a way, If things go wrong then this blog will act as a record of what I did wrong (or right!)

Installing the Windows 8 RTM

The first step is to set up my Windows 8 environment, I have chosen to install the RTM version straight up on my development laptop which is an HP ProBook 6550b, not ideal for this task but its the best I've got since losing my Asus EP121 slate (boo hoo..).

The reason why I'm installing it straight up is that I find VMs ungainly for development (I hate booting to an OS then opening a VM which takes half my resources etc etc) so I downloaded the Win8 RTM from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516 which is a page which SHOULD have everything we need to do this.

The download was 3.3 Gig and came in ISO format, which is nice and easy to burn to a disc using the native Win 7 disc burner.

I tried to then install from this disc a few times but it had issues with reading the copy I burned so I decided it would be faster and easier to use a USB stick to install anyway.

I Googled for a ISO to USB installer and got this handy little utility which converts your ISOs to bootable USB sticks http://www.joshcellsoftwares.com/2012/06/WinUSBMaker.html

That worked perfectly and a boot from USB gets the Windows installation up and running.

I've used Win8 Dev and Consumer previews before so I knew what I was in for but I was curious to see if I found the metro interface awkward with a keyboard and mouse.. The final answer is No it was fine.

The shortcuts I think you really need to know at the start are:

1. To switch between desktop and windows 8 interface hit the ole Windows key... easy
2. If you move the mouse to the bottom left of desktop and RIGHT click... you get a sweet shortcut menu to most of your favorite Windows 7 start menu features like Run, CMD and Control Panel... this is super sweet.
3. Start typing in the Windows 8 (Metro) interface and it just auto searches (like the search bar in start menu does in Win 7) - this is actually the best thing ever, in fact when IT nerds discover this they'll probably stop whinging about Win8 interface.

I still find it disconcerting that there is no way simple way to see everything you have open and close them (especially in the touch only interface) like the old task bar (yes I know about the left hand menu but it's not easy) this might lead to some crazy number of apps being open at one time (which I hate)

Anyway I digress... lets develop! One other thing I should point out is that MS have made it so Visual Studio for Windows 8 only runs on Windows 8... this is quite silly in my opinion but I 'm super keen to use Blend so I'm not using anything but that latest version! lets move onto the next part of this blog... Installing Visual Studio 2012 express for Windows 8.

Peace

There is still no business case for tablets in the Enterprise

iPads and android tablets are getting a lot of attention from IT departments at the moment as they creep slowly into the enterprise, usually by executive order from a marketing executive who demands we be as cool as the next guy, but before you go out and buy a bunch of iPads to put your sales force on I want you to stop and really ask 1 question... why?

The reason I want you to ask this question is because I am yet to see or even hear about a truly compelling business case to put tablets into the enterprise, I would even go so far as to say that people are suffering productivity and financial loss as a result of the incursion of iPads to customer facing staff or executives. To put this in perspective I am a huge advocate of mobility solutions and I know it we'll get there as we push into the new era that it doesn't mean you have a good reason to do it yet and last time I checked you should have a solid business case before implementing any new services.

Lets look at some of the touted reasons for iPads and my thoughts on each point.

• We will see an increase productivity

• This is probably the least offered and easiest to debunk with sensible thought. Its very unlikely there will ever be a time that it is quicker and easier to create a document or other file on a tablet than it is to use a keyboard and mouse. A person cannot perform any where near as many actions per minute with one hand and therefore you will never get a productivity increase for people filling out forms or creating documents. I suggest if you want to see a productivity increase then look to your forms or software and see how you can build better UI which if done correctly would see your productivity go through the roof even on your old machines.
• For those who are considering a move to handwriting recognition which always demos quite well when the salesman does it and theoretically can be done more quickly I suggest you take a careful look at the training costs of have each staff member write a small bible before the tablet will recognize their handwriting to a point where its usable.
• Beware data entry elitism in the organisation. I have seen a few times now where slates are brought in as a time saver to senior staff (say doctors or salespeople) but the impracticality of entering data on the tablet means they they are then spending a lot more time filling out the information later or even worse the organisation is hiring new staff to do the data entry for them on the old keyboard and mouse driven systems after the higher staff member has done the easy tablet bit. 

I want to make a special note here that staff with more influence in the organisation tend to win when tablets are brought in as it forces IT to deliver a simplified experience to them BUT organisations without great software or architecture will pay dearly in giving them that experience and the cost/benefit never stacks up no matter how much that person earns. The costs associated with re-architecting your internal systems should always benefit the customer or operations staff first to maximize your ROI so beware the selfish executive.

• We will increase sales

• This is normally just a plain lie made by salespeople to get a tablet device but you may get a benefit from delivering up to date information to them during a presentation... I don't see why this can't be done on their laptop now as the tablet doesn't give them any additional functionality.
• The argument that a laptop creates a barrier between you and the customer is a fallacious as one a salesperson today should probably not sit directly opposite their customer anyway and if they do then turning the laptop to the side removes the issue and can actually be used to focus the attention of the prospect.

• We will reduce cost because tablets are cheaper than laptops

• This is where are a lot of business cases for table devices are won but the practical experience so far is that tablets become an additional device, not a replacement due to the limitations in data entry. If  you need to update then in my view the sensible interim solution is in fact to the "old style" laptop tablets (check out the sexy new ultrabook versions coming soon) as you can begin building your software solutions to support the tablet experience without losing the productivity of the laptop.

• We will enhance our customer experience

• This is absolutely true, you can of course build a great customer experience on a tablet device but this is rooted in having great applications, not the delivery method. Therefore it's another example where you need to re-write your application suite and related processes before implementing these new devices.

Anyway that's enough on this subject for now. I hope you noticed the pattern: In my view the tablet experience is based in the creation of great software and in particular a great UI. If your executive want to go to tablets then tell them you want to start writing applications which will work great on those tablets and require very little data entry first, no-one saw the iPad coming and so there is some catching up to do before we can put them in the field. Otherwise it's a fat waste of cash.

XBMCbuntu let me count the ways...

Since Microsoft decided no-one uses Media Centre and removed it from the standard Windows 8 build (it will be available as an add-on) I thought it would be fitting to talk about the potential alternatives for media player computers.

Now, I was going to go through and install a whole mess of different media players and review them here but basically I put XBMCbuntu on a old Asus laptop and it was so good I never even needed to look at the rest. I love this box.. allow me to elaborate;

First off here's my list of requirements on a media centre and gives a clue as to why I don't just go and buy the excellent Western Digital network media player or the like.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. Plays everything with minimal codec installation/downloading required,
2. My wife can use it without hurting me (Intuitive UI)
3. Stable, never crashes.
4. Sleep/Wake via my MCE remote so I don't have to get up to turn it on (particularly annoying when you run a laptop as your media box because you need to open the lid),
5. Runs a SNES emulator for super mariolicious fun from within the interface,
6. Play/Records the TV stream from my HDHomeRun,
7. Gets all my album info from the interwebs,
8. Doesn't require a beastly machine to run it,
9. Has iTunes DJ type functionality (Party Mode).
10. I don't need my mouse and keyboard plugged into it constantly.
11. Remote control from my phone.

OPTIONAL

1. Torrentz
2. Rent movies legitimately (like on iTunes) 
3. Receives Airplay from my iPhone
4. Sound over HDMI (not really required because I plug the audio into an amp anyway)

The reason its such a weird list is because this reflects exactly how we used our existing media box which was Win 7 based, we used iTunes for music and renting movies, uTorrent for Torrents, Media Center for TV recording (which we never used because we had a Pay TV recorder) wzSNES for snes emulation. 

The biggest problem was that I couldn't run it from just a remote so I constantly have a keyboard and mouse plugged into the thing which sat on my coffee table and got in the way, the plus side to that is we could surf the web if one of the 800 other machines were in use.

When faced with the prospect of building a completely new IT solution from scratch my mantra is "always, always, always check out where the Linux based open source options are up to." I suggest this is a very prudent thing to do for any solution especially if you don't want to spend big dollars on IT or if you think your requirements are pretty standard. Even if you know only a little about computers Linux distros like Ubuntu are so easy to use you'd be surprised what you can achieve at the attractive cost of zero dollars... and the pre-built appliances on turnkeylinux.org are AMAZING http://www.turnkeylinux.org/blog/turnkey-12... you could literally run an enterprise IT department on those things. Another plus is that you can Google the answer to ANY issue because all the experts are online, unlike a proprietary solution.

So I picked up a copy of XBMCbuntu (its really important not to forget to type the "b" in "buntu") which is XBMC (short for XBox Media Centre) on Ubuntu from here: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMCbuntu. It's origins are that some clever nerds decided that we really needed a port of the X-Box Media Centre experience to Windows and Linux but it has morphed slightly into just an awesome open media solution.

So here's the first reason I love this thing... I installed it and it just worked.

Not just worked a little bit but did pretty much everything on that list above without any adjustment Googling or messing around, I'm not going to give you a full tutorial on how I set up my XBMCbuntu, there plenty of that on the website but to make it basically PERFECT here's what I needed to do:

1. Install it.
2. Set my music library to to my external HDD and scan the music files into the library, then go into "Library mode."
3. Install the "Rom Browser" add-on so I could launch zSnes emulation (which is just epic AND downloaded the covers and boxes for my game roms)
4. Fixed wake on remote issue by specifying my remote hardware ID using this wiki post: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=134252&pid=1135997#pid1135997
5. Install Web Admin tool which allows me to control it via my phone.
6. Setup the HDHomeRun as a video source.

And that was it... God it's such a good media player, the media format support is off the chart. Plus I can run classic super NES games nights with my mates and it cost me nothing and I never need to plug in the keyboard.

Note I didn't even try to set up torrents (which I know for sure can be done easily) or find a video rental service (which I don't know about but hey... torrents right?)

Now I don't care if Windows don't want to give me media centre, Linux FTW again!