Lesa Snider has put together a great course on graphic design for everyone. She’s also put the contents of her course on YouTube. Watch it below.

As a follow up to yesterday’s post about encrypting settings in Windows 8 apps, here’s some double-fisted sample code: how to create your own encryption module and how to implement ROT13 in WinRT. What is ROT13? It’s almost comical to call ROT13 encryption, let alone secure. It’s extremely easy to …

As you’re writing Windows 8 apps,  you’ll no doubt want to preserve your users’ preferences. There’s a very fine API in WinRT to store user settings locally on the machine or roam across devices that follows the user around. Most of the time, settings contains fairly benign information and are …

What happens when you’re a meme-savvy dad and you see this book at your kid’s school?   This happens:

I remember reading about YUI some time ago and thought that was a technology I should read up on. I liked what I saw, but had little use for JavaScript at the time. Now that I came across this post on HTML5Hacks.com about Building Windows 8 Apps with YUI, I’m imagining a whole new reason to take …

Here are two interesting videos on inspiring typography that exists all around us. The first one is from San Francisco and the second, Disney World. Take a moment today to notice all the unique and interesting uses of fonts and typography all around us. You’ll be pleasantly surprised, even on a …

Today’s Bing image is that of a double rainbow and a news story about “Evil Elmo.” What does it mean? Double rainbows! Is there a trademark lawyer in the house? All jokes aside, this Evil Elmo guy seems pretty messed up. Extortion is far worse than charging for soda refills.

After watching this video, all I can say is “wow” and I need to get playing around with some of those toys.

Ahh, the internet age, where a viral photo can spark outrage and a public relations nightmare in mere hours. To add insult to injury, even search engine results seem to mock you. Maybe he was raised by a pack of wild dogs and he really does care about those tacos.

Do you want to see how to build an app end to end with ShaZapp? Watch this episode of Frank’s World TV to see how it’s done:

The goal of this post is to point out just how easy it is to use ShaZapp to create a Windows 8 Store app.   Home Screen When you load up ShaZapp, the home screen comes up. The home screen shows timely and basic information: such as links to the “Cash for Apps” program and links on where to get …

Since starting work on ShaZapp, I’ve been thinking more and more about Meta-Programming. I’ve also had the chance to present on ShaZapp several times to both technical and non-technical audiences inside and outside of Microsoft. Technical folks at first think ShaZapp is some kind of template based …

This past weekend, I took the family to Sesame Place. While theme parks are not known for their fine cuisine at reasonable prices, I was stunned to learn that there’s a new game afoot: soda cups with RFID tags attached. That’s unexpected. Unlimited refills on drinks is one of the last bargains at …

ShaZapp has just been updated to version 1.5. For a complete list of updates, check out the About page.

It’s all about the Images

Great Windows Store apps have great imagery that really make the app “pop” and give an extra kick to the “fully immersive” experience …

Did you ever wonder what a "hack-a-thon" is? Did you ever wonder what goes on at one? Now Frank's World TV takes you on a look at a recent hackathon at MoDev UX 2013. Note the “fancy” #FWTV sticker on my laptop.

As a card-carrying geek, I tend to know a lot about gadgets and shiny high tech toys.  As such, I find myself frustrated at the lack of support (or cluefulness) found at the local cell phone stores. Sadly, this is not limited to just one carrier. A few years back, I went into an AT&T store …

Prior to FOSE, I had the chance to sit down with the folks from FOSE TV and talk about Windows 8 and what it means for our public sector customers.    

Last week while at the FOSE conference, not only did I cover the show for Frank’s World TV, I was also interviewed by FOSE TV. In this interview, I had the chance to show off ShaZapp to a wider, more government-centric audience.   There’s more ShaZapp-related content on the way, but this …