Pete Brown's Blog (POKE 53280,0)
Pete Brown writes on a variety of topics from XAML with the Windows Runtime (WinRT), .NET programming using C#, WPF, Microcontroller programming with .NET Microframework, .NET Gadgeteer, Windows on Devices, and even plain old C, to raising two children in the suburbs of Maryland, woodworking, CNC and generally "making physical stuff". Oh, and Pete loves retro technology, especially Commodore (C64 and C128). If the content interests you, please subscribe using the subscription link to the right of every page.
-
In this post, I use the NuGet MIDI Preview package to show in
Windows 8.1 an early look of what we're doing in Windows 10 for
MIDI. I also create an early version of a Launchpad wrapper class
to make it easy to use the Launchpad from your own apps.
Following on from my earlier post on MIDI device enumeration (and
add/remove detection) I've started building the code to
interface with the Novat...
-
Many device-oriented apps (bluetooth, MIDI, etc.) require you to
restart the app when you want to detect a new device. I've seen
this both in Windows Store/Universal apps, and even in big desktop
apps. Instead, these apps should detect changes during runtime, and
respond gracefully.
Example:
You load up a synthesizer app. After it loads, you realize you
forgot to plug in your keyboard contro...
-
A few weeks back, my friend Morten Neilsen tweeted
that he was able to get a .NET console app running on the Intel
Galileo with Windows. I was curious because that's not a scenario
we thought would work. So, I thought I'd try it out myself.
Please note that .NET is not currently supported on the Intel
Galileo, but it's still fun to experiment and see what works and
what doesn't.
To join the...
-
Tomorrow (Thursday) at 3:00pm Eastern Daylight Time (12:00 noon
US West coast time, and 7:00pm GMT) G. Andrew Duthie and I are going
to have the pilot episode of our new independent YouTube show!
We don't yet have a name, but we have enough topics to fill
months worth of shows. In this show and others, we'll talk
everything from microcontrollers, 3d printers, cool apps,
synthesizers, ...
Published
Wednesday, September 4, 2013 |
Tagged:
geek |
-
I've been working with a large number of musicials and creative
music companies over the past two years. One which just launched an
app is Image-Line
with their awesome FL Studio Groove for Windows 8. A question I
see time and again from these companies is related to the Windows
Store app experience, and how something like a hub-based main
screen fits in to music apps. I've explained it...
-
I stopped into Best Buy yesterday and picked up something I had
been considering toying with: a LEAP Motion. This is
an interesting little $79 device which turns the airspace at your
computer into a live space for interaction. It recognizes all ten
fingers on your hands, differentiates between left and right hand,
open and closed, and can read the pitch, roll, and yaw of your
hand, pinc...
-
The Maker Geek Roundup aggregates information of interest to
makers everywhere. Topics include .NET Micro Framework, Arduino,
AVR and other MCUs, CNC, 3d Printing, Robotics, Microsoft Robotics
Studio, Electronics, General Maker stuff, and more. If you have
something interesting you've done or have run across, or you blog
regularly on the topics included here, please send me the URL and
...
Published
Monday, August 5, 2013 |
Tagged:
CNC, Synthesizer, Netduino, Micro+Framework, Robotics, Electronics, 3d-Printing, MakerRoundup, Maker, Arduino |
-
Like many of you, I spend the majority of my day on a desktop PC.
My PC happens to have two 30" displays, neither of which is touch,
and a Logitech Touch Pad that has some basic gesture recognition.
It's a giant water-cooled, overclocked beast that I built in 2010
(and upgraded video since then) and which still beats many new PCs
sold today. This particular PC has been upgraded from Wind...
-
In this post, I'll cover the migration of this web site from a
long history of local hosting to Widows Azure Web Sites.
I've had my own personal domains (GroupLynx.com followed by
irritatedvowel.com followed by 10rem.net) since the mid 90s. Early
on, I used regular hosts. I've run my personal website out of a
succession of servers in my basement for at least a decade. It used
to b...
-
If you're a Windows Phone (or iOS or Android) user and want a
smart watch which you can program using .NET, then get into the AGENT watch kickstarter before it ends in just
4 days.
You may know Secret Labs from their most popular NETMF product,
the Netduino. I've always been a huge fan of their stuff.
Community
Secret labs has always made community a core part of their
pr...
-
I've put up a few videos and music tracks lately. Enjoy (view on
my site to see the videos. They don't usually appear in RSS
readers)
Also
"Pete plays with arpeggiators". Video created in After Effects and
Premiere Pro. The background video is a survey of the lights in my
home office one evening.
Inspired
by a little board called the "Tune in Tokyo". Vi...
-
Look what just arrived at the door!
The author copies are usually in the first set to be sent out.
For folks who have pre-ordered paper copies, you should see those
really soon. The ebooks typically show up shortly afterwards.
Yes, this is Windows 8 XAML in Action. We renamed the
book to better cover its ongoing focus.
How to get your own copy
If you're at TechEd NA 2013 th...
-
In the second half of March, I traveled to India (Bangalore,
Delhi, and Pune) to speak at TechEd India and TechDays Delhi about
Windows 8 app development.
I flew from Dulles International in VA to Charles De Gaulle in
France, where I met up with my colleague Nisha Singh, who had flown
from Seattle. From there, we flew Air France to Bangalore for
TechEd India Bangalore, then hopped...
-
The Maker Geek Roundup aggregates information of interest to
makers everywhere. Topics include .NET Micro Framework, Arduino,
AVR and other MCUs, CNC, 3d Printing, Robotics, Microsoft Robotics
Studio, Electronics, General Maker stuff, and more. If you have
something interesting you've done or have run across, or you blog
regularly on the topics included here, please send me the URL and
...
-
A large number of apps in the Windows Store follow the "bunch of
boxes in a GridView" approach to the hub screen.
This can work in some cases, but I encourage developers and
designers to move beyond that look, and consider either evolutions
of it, or completely different approaches.
Boxes 1.0
For many, the basic box layout is a very workable layout. Here's
one of my essential app...
-
It seems that each generation is exposed to more mature or
serious situations at earlier ages than the one before it. There
are a lot more ways for kids to get in trouble online than just
running afoul of the creepily mustachioed basement dweller you see
on "that" episode of Special Victims Unit.
tl;dr: A child was banned from Xbox live and that caused me to
investigate some things ...
-
.NET 4.5 quietly introduced several attributes which are useful
for debugging and error reporting: CallerMemberName, CallerFilePath
and CallerLineNumber, all collectively referred to as "Caller Information". One of those,
CallerMemberName, is also very useful for MVVM apps and other apps
using INotifyPropertyChanged for change notifications.
Getting the calling function name
The Cal...
-
Many developers ask me how to get more visibility for their apps
in the Windows Store. Most do not realize, that even on the public
web, visibility is almost never organic. It's the result of hard
work on the part of all involved. In this first post I'll provide
some observations as to things that I personally think help
increase app visibility, specifically, app quality. In part 2, I'll...
-
The Maker Geek Roundup aggregates information of interest to
makers everywhere. Topics include .NET Micro Framework, Arduino,
AVR and other MCUs, CNC, 3d Printing, Robotics, Microsoft Robotics
Studio, Electronics, General Maker stuff, and more. If you have
something interesting you've done or have run across, or you blog
regularly on the topics included here, please send me the URL and
...
Published
Tuesday, January 22, 2013 |
Tagged:
Commodore, Gadgets, geek, c64, Netduino, Electronics, Gadgeteer, 3d-Printing, MakerRoundup, Maker, AVR, Arduino |
-
A common cause of Windows Store app certification failures is a
missing or insufficient privacy policy. Many don't realize that a
network-enabled app must have a policy, or if they do, don't
realize exactly what needs to go into it. In this post, I'll talk
about some of my observations regarding what makes for a good
privacy policy for a Windows Store app.
IMPORTANT: This is neither...
-
I'm working on a Windows 8 synthesizer app using XAudio2 and a
C++ + DirectX/XAML Windows Store app for Windows 8. As part of
this, I thought it would be fun to add a simple bit
crusher effect with included sample rate reducer. The point of
this effect is to make samples sound like they came from older
machines with lower bitrates and sample depth. To do that, I had to
do two things to ...
-
I recently did some work on my MikroElektronika ARM development
board. This was the first time I fired up the board on my
Windows 8 system. Everything in the IDE worked fine until I tried
to do some deploying and debugging on the board itself. It was then
that I realized the board's driver wasn't correctly installed. I
looked in the device manager and, sure enough, the board had the
lit...
