Now that Windows 8 Consumer Preview is out we are eager to explore the new framework and the features it offers. While part of it is the good old XAML, there are plenty of other unique features, one of them being the DirectX integration at XAML level. While XAML is a great technology and offers literally unlimited features regarding layout and UI richness, sometimes there are cases where we need to push the framework beyond its limits in order to achieve highly-performing components with responsive and fluid user interaction. Although in most cases writing efficient algorithms and using the proper data structures...

Over the past few months, I’ve judged both the Startup Weekend and ServiceJam in Hong Kong, attended pitch nights, and spoke at some start-up networking events. Almost all aspiring entrepreneurs who I talked to at these events struggled with when was the right time to release V1 of their product. One guy even told me that he was sitting on an idea, an idea that he thinks can be bigger than Facebook, for almost 12 years waiting for patents! My advice to each all of these entrepreneurs is the same: start small and start now. Your best bet if you are thinking about something is to just do it. Many...

Visual Studio 11 Beta has already been around for several weeks and most of you have already tried it. Plenty of different opinions were out there – from praising the cool new features it offers, to grumbling about the surprisingly changed user interface. For all of you who are developing your applications leveraging the cutting-edge technologies on the market, we want to assure you: OpenAccess ORM will not be missing in Visual Studio 11 and you will be able to use it immediately, even in the VS's Beta version. In fact, since there is still a long way to go until Q2,...

The Telerik JustCode 2012 Q1 service pack has been released, and with it comes improvements to help you begin writing JustCode extensions. Project Template Our previous release of JustCode included a project template that included three extension examples for navigation, code marking / fixes, and refactoring. This is accessed from the Telerik menu under Installed Templates when creating a new project. Running this project would copy the assembly to the Libraries\UserExtensions folder in the JustCode installation path. This had the unfortunate side effect of applying the extensions anytime you ran Visual Studio, which would cause the assembly to be locked and hindered the ability...

It is our pleasure to announce the availability of a new version of Telerik CAB Enabling Kit that supports the latest RadControls for WinForms Q1 2012 SP1. This update includes removing obsolete adapters, major refactoring of current Workspaces and creating a new workspace which supports all MDI application scenarios. Here is the list of the available Workspaces: RadDockWorkspace  RadPageViewWorkspace  RadFormWorkspace  RadFormMdiWorkspace  RadTabbedMdiWorkspace  In this release we have also improved the functionality of the UIAdapters and we have increased their number. Now we have a common adapter for all RadControls, which use RadItemCollection.  The available UiAdapters are: sRadCommandBarUIAdapter  sRadRibbonBarUIAdapter  sRadTreeNodeUiAdapter  sRadTreeViewUIAdapter  sRadItemCollectionUIAdapter - (RadMenu, RadStatusStrip, all controls that support RadItem collections) Telerik CAB Enabling Kit is available...