Blog

It's exciting to see AngularJS books available even though the documentation is really good in my opinion. I first read Instant AngularJS Starter, which is an excellent introduction to AngularJS. This book, AngularJS, which was published later by O'Reilly also introduces AngularJS, but goes quite a bit further in its examples, discussion, best practices, and workflow. It's definitely a more difficult read and not something you read end-to-end in one sitting, but it tackles a lot more information than the starter book.

I have developed 100's of custom Orchard CMS Modules over the past few years and I have just started to publish the source code on GitHub and the modules in the Orchard CMS Gallery when appropriate. It all starts with baby steps. As of this blog post there are just two Orchard Modules on GitHub and in the Orchard Gallery, but expect this to gain momentum quickly as I begin using GitHub for version control.

I upgraded this Orchard Website to Orchard CMS 1.5 which was just released over the weekend. I am just starting to write Orchard Tutorials on the various new features like Custom Orchard Forms, Admin Content Search in Orchard CMS, and the new pluggable navigation in Orchard. Lots of really nice features in Orchard 1.5.

I've been talking a great deal about responsive web design, and more importantly, responsive web design tools. All my latest custom Orchard Themes and Orchard Websites are responsive so they look good on mobile phones and tablets as well as desktop PC's. Responsive Web Design Tools are important and so I have mentioned quite a few tips and tools like: Responsive Web Design with Adobe Shadow, the new iPad and iPhone emulators in WebMatrix 2, the new Responsive Mode in Firefox, etc. Now I want to mention some really cool features in Google Chrome Canary.

Here is another WebMatrix Tutorial showcasing a really cool feature in the new WebMatrix 2- Image Optimization. Again, this is another feature of the OrangeBits Compiler Extension that has really stolen the show in WebMatrix 2. I already discussed the CoffeeScript, Less, Sass, and Scss Compilation; iPhone and iPad Emulators; JavaScript and CSS Minification; NuGet Gallery Integration; and Publishing Websites to Windows Azure to name just a few of the cool features in WebMatrix 2.

I have mentioned Microsoft WebMatrix 2 in a number of recent blog posts: WebMatrix Supports CoffeeScript, Less, Sass, and Scss; Creating Orchard Themes and Modules in WebMatrix 2; Download Orchard Modules and Themes via WebMatrix 2 Nuget Gallery; Mobile Web Development with WebMatrix 2 iPhone iPad and Windows Phone 7 Emulators; and Installing Orchard CMS as an Azure Web Site. Now I want to mention the ability to minify CSS and JavaScript using Microsoft Webmatrix!

I registered as an iOS developer with Apple and have been building simple iOS apps for the iPhone and iPad for awhile. These aren't professional apps mind you, but apps I develop and install on my own iPhone and iPad for kicks. I've read numerous books on iOS development and recently picked up a new book as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program, called Programming iOS 5 - Fundamentals of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Development.

I've been playing with WebMatrix 2 throughout the day and am amazed at all the new features. Developing mobile websites using responsive web design, Kendo UI, and jQuery Mobile is a big part of my day. I use numerous tools and recently I mentioned Adobe Shadow and Firefox's new Responsive Mode so you can see how your media queries react on difference devices like the iPhone, iPad, etc. Even more amazing is that Microsoft WebMatrix 2 has plugins that include an iPhone Emulator, iPad Emulator, and Windows Phone 7 Emulator!

Microsoft had several important announcements this past week. The main announcements was the new and improved Windows Azure and its support for Web Sites. As an FYI, I created a quick tutorial on Installing Orchard CMS as an Azure Web Site. Another announcement was the release of WebMatrix 2 RC, which includes a lot of neat features including node.js support; HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, C#, and jQuery Code Completion; iPhone and Windows Phone Emulators, etc. I'll talk about those WebMatrix 2 features another time. Right now I wanted to mention the ability to download and install Orchard Modules and Themes via the WebMatrix 2 NuGet Gallery support!

Twitter Bootstrap 2.0.3 was just released with a number of bug fixes and ehancements. I use Twitter Bootstrap as a Default Orchard Theme for Orchard CMS and wanted to mention it here in case you are a web designer or web developer who has not heard of it. Twitter Bootstrap is a free website template from Twitter designed to kickstart development of web applications and websites. It includes base CSS and HTML for typography, forms, buttons, tables, grids, navigation, etc. as well as a number of jQuery Plugins.