The Microsoft journal for developers	March 2013 VOL 28 NO 3

DirectX
Using XAML with DirectX and C++ in Windows Store Apps
Doug Erickson reviews SurfaceImageSource and VirtualSurfaceImageSource, two Windows Runtime XAML types that use the GPU to boost image rendering in Windows Store apps.
Doug Erickson

Data Points: Playing with the EF6 Alpha
Explore new features in the first packaged alpha release of Entity Framework 6, including asynchronous processing and custom Code First conventions.
Julie Lerman

Online-only Features

Windows Store Apps:   Windows Store Apps: A Guide for WPF and Silverlight Developers, Part 2
In this article, Joel Fjordén shows WPF/Silverlight developers how they can implement the MVVM pattern in Windows Store apps without compromising on architecture.
Joel Fjordén

MVVM:   Messenger and View Services in MVVM
This article, the second in a series about using the MVVM model in Windows 8, describes how the different layers of an application communicate, emphasizing communication between the ViewModel and the view using the MVVM Light Messenger event bus for status messages and a view service implementation for a dialog service.
Laurent Bugnion

Patterns in Practice:   Adding Functionality to an Object: Designing the Object Model
Peter continues to explore implementing the Roles pattern to solve a typical business problem: supporting multiple sales options on an order line. This month he develops the object model design.
Peter Vogel

Team Foundation Server:   Agile Project Management using TFS 2012
Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 can help teams plan, manage and track work. This articles explores how to use features such as the product backlog, sprint backlog and task boards in the context of Agile development frameworks.
Suliman Battat

PowerShell:   Managing an Outlook Mailbox with PowerShell
Rules in Outlook are useful for automatically managing e-mail, but it can be difficult to get a single e-mail into multiple folders. Learn how to create a PowerShell script that automatically sends messages to the appropriate folder based on values you assign.
Joe Leibowitz

Features

Microsoft Office:   Exploring the JavaScript API for Office: Data Access and Events
Moving on from covering the basics in part 1 of this series, Stephen Oliver and Eric Schmidt discuss how to access data and handle events in the JavaScript API for Office.
Stephen Oliver
Eric Schmidt

Async/Await:   Best Practices in Asynchronous Programming
Avoid common asynchronous programming errors and master techniques to take full advantage of the new async/await support in the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.
Stephen Cleary

ASP.NET:   Migrating ASP.NET Web Forms to the MVC Pattern with the ASP.NET Web API
Because the ASP.NET Web API leverages the fundamental building blocks of the HTTP protocol, it can provide a way of refactoring your existing ASP.NET applications into an AJAX-enabled, Test Driven Development world.
Peter Vogel

Microsoft Azure:   Moving Your Applications to Microsoft Azure
Azure lets you take advantage of Microsoft’s world-class global infrastructure to deploy your own applications, with the corresponding capabilities to reduce maintenance requirements, maximize performance and minimize costs.
Alex Homer

Data Clustering:   Data Clustering Using Naive Bayes Inference
James McCaffrey presents a clustering algorithm based on a technique called Naive Bayes inference, which works with either categorical or numeric data.
James McCaffrey

Columns

Modern Apps
Data Access and Storage Options in Windows Store Apps
Local or remote. WebStorage or IndexedDB. SkyDrive or SQLite. What's a developer to do? Here's what you need to decide on a storage strategy for your modern app.
Rachel Appel

Windows with C++
Rendering in a Desktop Application with Direct2D
Kenny Kerr looks at the unique relationship between Direct2D and the desktop application window.
Kenny Kerr

Azure Insider
Real-World Scenarios for Node.js in Microsoft Azure
Walk through a pair of real-world scenarios where node.js is used for simple connectivity tasks, leveraging its single-threaded approach and modules created by the community.
Bruno Terkaly
Ricardo Villalobos

The Working Programmer
Noda Time
Noda Time is a powerful, .NET library that can seriously amp up time and date support in your applications.
Ted Neward

Don't Get Me Started
Grieving
David Platt says your software isn’t successful until it’s been used in a way that you never imagined.
David Platt

Editor's Note
Developing Apps for Office
The Apps for Office platform promises to change the way developers interact with the Office suite.
Michael Desmond