Nov
26
2012
Development | Windows Phone

Issues Installing Windows Phone IsoStoreSpy on Windows 8

Windows Phone IsoStoreSpy is a great utility for interrogating the Windows Phone Iso Store when developing applications. It usually if you want to check to see if files are being created correctly, and identifying what is in a file on the phone’s local store. IsoStoreSpy can pier into both the emulator and physical device. It also provides some other functionality like being able to create ringtones, but I haven’t used that. I had a brand new install of Windows 8 with Visual Studio 2012, and not a lot of old components installed. This was a fresh install, so the most recent versions of most things were already installed. When I tried to install IsoStoreSpy with the ClickOnce installation, it error’d out indicating that version 3.5 of System.Data.SqlCE needed to be installed in the GAC. For some reason it wasn’t, although I would’ve assumed that Visual Studio would’ve had that in…

Nov
25
2012
Mobile Devices | Technology

Twin Cities LTE Performance: Not too shabby

With Twin Cities AT&T customers getting an added Thanksgiving gift of LTE, I decided to run a handful of tests to see what performance looked like. This was performed on a Samsung Galaxy SIII using the app from speedtest.net. The results are pretty impressive.  Almost 40Mb/s down and over 10 Mb/s upload speeds. 

Nov
15
2012
Mobile Devices | Technology

AT&T Rocking 4G LTE in the Twin Cities

Looks like today is the day when AT&T flips the switch on full-time LTE for the Twin Cities.  I noticed back in September that the State Fairgrounds was lit up and providing some nice download speeds.  Also the U of M campus and a few other northern suburbs have been enjoying that functionality as AT&T was going through testing. I can’t find an official release on AT&T’s website, but a few media outlets are reporting this too. heraldonline.com Star Tribune Pioneer Press

Nov
13
2012
Software | Windows 8

Start8 fixes the missing Start button dilemma

I was reading the article: “Will Microsoft restore Start Menu to Windows 8?” in the Tuesday edition of the USA Today newspaper.  This was an interesting headline that piqued my interest given the announcement that Microsoft Windows head, Steven Sinofsky was making a quick escape so close to the launch of Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface. You can read the article for yourself, but I’ll admit that I’m in the same camp of people who aren’t comfortable with the “justified” disappearance of the little button in the corner that got you to where you needed to go.  Tablet or no tablet, this is such a huge change, and for novices and pros alike, the learning curve is very sharp.  My home PC is running Windows 8, while my work laptops are still on Windows 7 due to some software incompatibilities.  There are lots of things that I like about Windows…

Nov
10
2012
General | Performance | Reviews

Running with the Crucial M4 SSD

I decided to do some hardware upgrades this weekend, and as prices on SSD continue to drop, I found a pretty good deal at my local MicroCenter. The Crucial M4 256GB SSD normally retails for $239, but you save $50 instantly, and an additional $20 on a rebate, so you can take it home for $169 all said and done. I installed it into my Dell desktop this afternoon, and thought at the same time I would start with a fresh build from the OS on up. I timed some of these operations just to have an idea of the performance increase you can see when switching from spinning disk to SSD. Of course, this isn’t a full comparison, since I don’t have existing data on these operations, but nonetheless, we all know how long we sit and wait for a new install of Windows or Office. I’m pretty impressed…