Xamarin Visual Studio extension low profile

Posted on December 10, 2014 by erictummers

Our team is working on a large project that has clients for Web, Desktop, Android and iOS. The clients use shared libraries as advised all over the internet. Building for the mobile platforms is done with Xamarin on a Mac. My machine is a HP Windows laptop and does not contain the Xamarin suite. Whenever I want to view the files for the mobile platforms I have to use notepad or install the huge Xamarin suite.

With huge I mean 5Gb or more that Xamarin hogs on my SSD disk. Together with Windows, Office and Visual Studio the disk is running out of space. I need a small installation of Xamarin so I can view files (no need for compilation) inside Visual Studio. I’ve called it Visual Studio low profile.

The Xamarin installer uses an online manifest file. A google search found it here: InstallationManifest.xml. In there is the direct url to download the Xamarin For Visual Studio installer. That is what I needed.

After installing Xamarin for Visual Studio I can open solutions for both Android and iOS in Visual Studio. Just some messages you need to click away
xamarin.android.sdk.missing
or ignore. I am allowed readonly access and that is what I need.
xamarin.license.needed

The Programs and Features of Windows tells the footprint is 266Mb, the installer talks about a few Kb, the Xamarin folder in program files is around 5Mb and in Explorer the Properties of my Disk report a 1.5Gb size difference before and after the install. Not sure what the required space for the installation is, but it’s a lot less than the full install.

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SDC 2014

Posted on December 8, 2014 by erictummers

The SDN – Software Development Network – is a special interest group for dutch developers. Four times a year they organise an event where people present and talk about their passion.

As a member of the SDN you are aware of the latest developments. You are part of a network of professional developers who assist each other in word and deed. This means there is a technical helpdesk at your fingertips so you can book considerable time savings in solving problems.
sdn.nl with Google translate

This event was a two day conference called SDC. On the first day I presented on Test Driven Development with Visual Studio, but more on that in another post.
Here are the talks I attended.

NoSQL: storage reimagined

nosql

To avoid schema frustration Patriek van Dorp advises the use of NoSQL (not only sql). Main advantage is the scalability. The database types are Row, Key-Value, Graph, Column-Families and Document stores. On Microsoft Azure there are SQL databases, Table storage, Blob storage and documentDb.

Internet of things

wifi_bluetooth

Soon everything will have some sort of sensor that can be read over Wifi or Bluetooth. Internet of things is all about getting data from these devices. Tether a photo taken with a mobile phone right into the input field on your computer … That is what Marco Cantu can do with delphi.

Microsoft Azure mobile services

azuremobileservices

Next up is Roy Janssen who showed a demo app with push notifications using Azure Mobile Service and Windows 8 / Windows Phone 8.
During a coffee break I heard that using this with iOS and Android involves some certificate hassle.

The arguments for still using and techniques for maximizing your value from Microsoft access client software

msaccess

Dick Moffat worked on MS Access. He thinks Access is mature and just works, but the current team disagrees. To avoid further degradation of “his” tool he advises the use of linked Azure SQL Tables. This is least likely to break and keeps MS Access the top tool for office development.

New and better: C# 6.0

csharp

The number of features in C# versions kept dropping because of the complex compiler behind it. With the new Roslyn compiler more features can be added each release. Most new features are targeted for faster and cleaner development. Sander Gerz shows samples. Features for C# 7 are planned already.

Developer Keynote

Marcel Meijer talks about how mobile is the future and the internet of things. A Galileo board will run windows 10.
When Gunnar Peipman takes the stage we hear about his vision on the move of Microsoft to cross platform compiling and the future of dotNET.

Asynchronous programming in ASP.NET

aspnet

Don’t just make everything async in ASP.NET says Alex Thissen. There are two types of threads

  1. CPU bound thread, do this synchronous because it needs the processor
  2. I/O bound thread, do this async as it is only waiting for an event

Build for both

windows_8_logo

Code sharing between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 is doable, but leave XAML out of it. In a demo Nico Vermeir shows that problems with sharing XAML over devices, it is like two XAML files cramped into one. You’ll need different XAML on a mobile than on a desktop.

Chalk and talk secure coding

securecoding

Open discussion with Alex Thissen about

  • Encryption, async (with public/private keypair) and sync (with one keypair)
  • Security scale with CIA (confidentiality, integrity and availability)
  • Authentication, using token providers, basic auth and others
  • OAuth = authorization, it specifies what an app can do

Coded UI Testen

pluralsight

Record-and-playback with CodedUI is hard to maintain or bring under sourcecontrol. Marcel de Vries shows the use of the page object pattern. Combine this with a recording only used for locating the controls and your SOLID.

Final thoughts

Awesome event with top speakers. The presentations are all about current subjects and the speakers know what they talk about. In comparison with Microsoft Techdays you feel more connected.
Got great feedback on my presentation and looking forward to do it again.

References

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Week 49 roundup

Posted on December 5, 2014 by erictummers

Last week recap and links:

Image courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

[update 3 feb 2015]

What are your best reads this week? Leave them in the comments below.

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Basic Authentication on the Mono framework

Posted on December 3, 2014 by erictummers

Use the NetworkCredential constructor with username and password as strings. The SecureString constructor resulted in a request without the password in the Authorization header.

using System.Net;

var url = "http://url_to_file_to_download";
var user = "your_username";
var password = "the_password_as_a_string";
var request = WebRequest.Create(url) as HttpWebRequest;
var cred = new NetworkCredential(user, password);
var credCache = new CredentialCache();
credCache.Add(request.RequestUri, "Basic", cred);
request.Credentials = credCache;
using (var response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse) {
    using (var output = response.GetResponseStream()) {
        // handle the response stream
    }
    response.Close();
}
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Week 48 roundup

Posted on November 28, 2014 by erictummers

Last week recap and links:

Image courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What are your best reads this week? Leave them in the comments below.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment