How to Encode and Save a WriteableBitmap with Windows WinRT

http://kodierer.blogspot.in/2013/12/how-to-encode-and-save-writeablebitmap.html

Enable IIS and Message Queueing

1.Go to Control Panel
2.Select Programs
3.Under Programs and Features , select Turn Windows Features On and Off
4.Select Internet Information Service to enable IIS, select MSMQ Server to enable Message Queues
5.Click OK, wait until its done 
6.Type inetmgr in Run, if IIS window opens for you, IIS is enabled

7.View Server Explorer to see whether MSMQ is enabled

Could not load file or assembly 'CAPI_PICallback.dll' or one of its dependencies. The specified module could not be found.

Copy the 'CAPI_PICallback.dll' into ur C:\
Using Developer Command Prompt for VS 2012, go to C:\> drive
Type gacutil -I CAPI_PICallback.dll' and press Enter
See whether the assembly is registered
Run the application.
The error will be fixed for sure :)

Cloud Computing and Windows Azure

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture and utility computing.

Pay only for what you use

IaaS - Some vendors provide the infrastructure, we can rent the hardware, configure it, ask for more or scale down as per our needs.

PaaS- Rent a platform where you can deploy your applications without configuring the infrastructure

eg:Windows Azure

SaaS- Rent a service provided by the vendor, configure it using the interface provided by them and no need to think about the infrastructure eg:Microsoft Exchange Online

Terminologies in Cloud Computing

REST (REpresentational State Transfer) is a simple stateless architecture that generally runs over HTTP. REST is often used in mobile applications, social networking Web sites, mashup tools and automated business processes. The REST style emphasizes that interactions between clients and services is enhanced by having a limited number of operations (verbs). Flexibility is provided by assigning resources (nouns) their own unique universal resource indicators (URIs). Because each verb has a specific meaning (GET, POST, PUT and DELETE), REST avoids ambiguity.

The Open Data Protocol (OData) is a Web protocol for querying and updating data that provides a way to unlock your data and free it from silos that exist in applications today.OData does this by applying and building upon Web technologies such as HTTP, Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub) and JSON to provide access to information from a variety of applications, services, and stores.

http://www.odata.org/introduction/

SOA Service Oriented Architecture - It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.

useful links for azure demo:

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/tutorials/get-started/

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/tutorials/web-site-with-sql-database/ 

Windows Azure as an Operating System - It abstracts a set of servers, providing a common platform for building services and applications in a completely virtual environment. 
You work with servers, you deploy an application and no need to configure the infrastructure

Storage - It uses shared storage.

You can not install the Windows Azure locally but you can use the local development environment that simulates the cloud version of Windows Azure so that you can test your solution before deploying them. Windows Azure does not come in a software box nor can you see a demo version to download or try. Everything is in the cloud.

Model - It is a set of rules that the windows azure follows to deploy your application. It is a logical description of an application's configuration in the cloud.

Service - code that can be exposed and used.eg:ASP.NET application, a while block which dequeues messages, WCF service.A service can be hosted in the platform on different servers. A service that runs on on-premises can run in the cloud as well.

Server - also referred as node is based on Windows Server 2008 R2. Each server is a part of server collection that resides in a container.

Container - It is placed in a data center by plugging a giant cable that has network connectivity and electric power.

Deployment requires a name, package location and configuration file (.cscfg) location (Service name and Instances count are only needed)

To Create a new solution
1. Create a hosted service providing the name of the Service, the public URL, and the
region.
2. Upload the cloud service package (the binaries) and the configuration file.

Easy to launch an app, Easy to scale up and down too
Suppose a company decides to launch a new app,the company might buy new hardware, but installing, configuring,securing, deploying, and testing the application on the hardware (in addition to other activities) would take time. Instead, the company decided to host the service on Windows
Azure, so when the application became popular (it was the top-selling app in its category) in
October and November, the company just incremented the number of instances. That took
only a few seconds, and we did nothing but change a number in the model. You can click the
Configure button of the deployed solution to increase the server capacity at any time.
Like wise to scale down the solution too its just a matter of seconds.

APIs to manage the resources.
Every service hosted in Windows Azure can manage the resources exposed by the operating
system using the appropriate APIs.For example, in the service model, you can request 40 GB of disk space for local storage, and then use the RoleEnvironment class to request a file path that you can use to manage that space.Windows Azure can allocate the 40 GBs on a local disk, so you cannot refer to directories and files using the classic path; instead, you have to ask Windows Azure for that location and then use the classic System.IO API, basing the root path on it.You can use this space to cache resources or store temporary files. Don't use it to store store application data, session state, or any other data that you cannot recalculate quickly from the application code.

Environments for a hosted service
Windows Azure exposes two different environments for each hosted service
1.Staging - temporary URL has a GUID followed by your service name eg:http://<guid>.cloudapp.net
2.Production - eg:http://azuresbs123.cloudapp.net

You have to pay to host for both.
You can swap production and staging environments whenever you want—it takes just a moment. Typically, you deploy a new version to the staging environment, test it, and then press the VIP Swap button to move the staging version to the production environment and the old production code to the staging environment. If something goes wrong, you can immediately swap the two environments again to return to the previous situation and investigate the problem. The swap operation occurs in near real-time because Windows Azure fabric just adjusts the internal DNS, exchanging the pointers.

Windows Azure Storage:
The operating system lets you store three different kinds of resources:
1.Blob storage to store files.eg: traditional file system and using blob containers - folders
2.Tables are a type of unstructured entity container. Not RDBMS, just store data in rows and columns
in a table you can store 1MB in one row.
3.Queues to decouple two applications.Communication between roles, between web roles and between worker roles and between a web role and a worker role.
To use these types of storage, you have to create a storage account project from the portal.
Windows Azure exposes the storage account data using Internet standards such as HTTP,
REST, and OData (Open Data Protocol), so it’s accessible by just about any platform in our
galaxy.

Microsoft Web Deploy 3.0: A required certificate is not within its validity period when verifying against the current system clock or the timestamp in the signed file

http://ervinloh.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/microsoft-web-deploy-3-0-a-required-certificate-is-not-within-its-validity-period-when-verifying-against-the-current-system-clock-or-the-timestamp-in-the-signed-file/

Windows 8 Store App development

For creating a package, you build the app with no errors and go to the menu Project ->Store ->Create App Package. Then you are prompted with a window shown below:

Here for creating a package for testing in a tablet, choose the No option and proceed and so you dont need a Windows Store Account.

But for creating a package to upload in store, choose the Yes option and login with your Store account.
After the package is created successfully, it will be created in a folder called AppPackages in ur app. double click it and you will find a file with .appxupload extension, you have to upload that file in the Store.

These links will help u a lot!!

1. Link for installing an app for testing
http://ericnelson.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/installing-an-application-on-windows-rt-for-testing-is-simple-pimple/

2. Link which helps in submission of the App to the Store, here you need a Windows Store Account.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/uk_faculty_connection/archive/2013/06/02/how-to-publish-and-update-your-windows-8-store-app.aspx

3. Tips to get your app certified quickly
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsstore/archive/2012/11/19/5-tips-to-getting-your-apps-certified-quickly.aspx

4. Linking from your App to the review page of the App in the Store (after the app is published)
http://www.sharpgis.net/post/2012/09/11/Linking-to-Your-Windows-Store-App.aspx

Group and Run Automated Tests Using Test Categories

Useful link for Reference

Just add the same Test Category for the test cases
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd286683.aspx