This article gives us an overview of how to host Web API services without IIS using it’s built in Self Hosting capabilities. Along the way we build a plain vanilla html client to consume our service as well.

A walkthrough of how to sign up with MongoHQ to setup a MongoDB database and then connect to it from an ASP.NET Web API application.

The Windows 8.1 public beta test is scheduled for June 26h, and Microsoft confirmed this upgrade will be free. It seems so soon after the original “8” came out. However, it was obvious to many home and business users that it could stand some room for improvement.

This isn't exactly a "tutorial" but is a part of this 'WPF for the WinForms coder' transitional series. We all know that Visual Studio is extensible, meaning people write extensions for it to give it new or better features. There are a few of these I'd like to point out because I would't want to do without them if I didn't have to. They can be obtained through the Microsoft Extension Library on line. If you've never done this, its quite easy. From your Tools menu select Updates and Extensions. Then Online. Then Visual Studio Gallary The first extension gives us our familiar #region directive from C#, within XAML. XAML gets long and can become confusing because of how so many controls get nested inside other controls. Use regions to lable and compact your XAML lets you find what you want and focus on just what you are working on.

SQL Server 2005 introduced a new TSQL feature OUTPUT clause that allows you to retrieve data affected by insert/update/delete statements easily. The OUTPUT clause returns the data that you've inserted or deleted from the table within the statement.

I'm excited to announce a new set of workshops that I've been planning in collaboration with the folks from the BaltoMSDN user group and the CMAP Code Camp.

For more than one scenario, the developer might want to have access to the pictures stored in the device photo hub. That can be done in two ways - either by using PhotoChooserTask which is the most common way to retrieve the image content, given that the user himself will select the single entity that needs to be read, or with the help of MediaLibrary - an XNA sub-layer that allows direct access to the media directory.