Marc Gregoire’s Blog

The first update for Visual Studio 2012 has been released.
This update delivers bug fixes, but also new functionality. The new functionality in this first update primarily spans four areas: Windows development, SharePoint development, agile teams, and continuous quality.

We can now target Windows XP again with C++ code, and there have been a couple of C++ unit testing enhancements. For Windows Store applications, the update includes support for both mixed-mode managed/native debugging and for native ARM dump debugging.

Get more details about the update.
Download the update.

Microsoft has removed the Beta label from their online Team Foundation Service.
You can get a free plan which you can use for up to 5 users and which can host an unlimited number of projects. Team Foundation Service provides version control, work item tracking, agile planning tools, feedback management, and more.

TFS is thoroughly integrated into Visual Studio.
I’ve personally used the service for over a month (started with the beta) and love it so far 🙂

Learn more about it here.

A while ago I assembled myself a new PC in which I included a Blu-ray burner, so obviously I wanted to use the PC to play Blu-ray movies. The first thing I did was trying to find a freeware player that could play Blu-ray movies. I tried a couple, including VLC, but all of them had problems playing around 50% of my Blu-rays because they didn’t support the format on those discs. Next, I decided to look at commercial solutions and tried CyberLink PowerDVD 12. Installation on my Windows 8 Pro went without any problem. I tried all my Blu-rays and PowerDVD 12 happily played all of them without any issues. Image and sound quality for all Blu-ray discs I tested was great out-of-the-box. I played around with the settings and found a TrueTheater Surround audio option. After enabling it, audio sounded even better.
PowerDVD 12 supports a lot of different formats. Below is a list of the formats supported by PowerDVD 12 Ultra:

• Movies: BD-R 1.1/BD-RE 2.1, BD-R 2.0/BD-RE 3.0, BDROM 2.2, BD-J, BDROM Profile 1.1 (Bonus View), BDROM Profile 2.0 (BD-Live), BDROM Profile 5.0 (BD 3D), AVCREC, AVCHD, DVD-Video, DVD-VR, DVD+VR, VCPS, VCD, SVCD, CD
• Videos: 264, 26L, 3G2, 3GP, 3GP2, 3GPP, ASF, AVC, AVI, BSF, DAT, DIV, DIVX, DVR-MS, FLV, H264, JSV, JVT, M1V, M2P, M2T, M2TS, M2V, M4V, MK3D, MKV, MOD, MOV, MP4, MP4V, MPE, MPEG, MPG, MPV, MTS, MVC, QT, TIVO, TOD, TP, TPD, TRP, TS, TTS, VC1, VOB, VRO, WM, WMV, WTV**
• Photos: BMP, JPEG, JPG, PNG, TIF, TIFF, MPO, JPS, ARW, CR2, CRW, DCR, DNG, ERF, KDC, MEF, MRW, NEF, ORF, PEF, RAF, RAW, RW2, SR2, SRF, X3F
• Music: AAC, AC3, ADTS, AOB, DTS, FLAC, M4A, MID, MKA, MP2, MP3, MPA, OGG, RMI, WAV, WMA

PowerDVD 12 supports Blu-ray 3D, 4K video playback, and HDMI 1.4, and has optimization support for 3rd gen Intel Core processors, and GPU’s from both AMD and NVIDIA. Media can be enhanced in the following ways:

• TrueTheater HD – Upscale SD video to HD quality
• TrueTheater 3D – Watch 2D movies, videos and photo in 3D
• TrueTheater Motion – Up-converts the frame-rate for smoother video playback
• TrueTheater Lighting – Delivers superb colors and improves image detail
• TrueTheater Stabilizer – Minimize the shakiness of your videos
• TrueTheater Denoise – Removes blocky or pixilated effects
• TrueTheater Stretch – non-linear stretches your 4:3 video to 16:9ratio

CyberLink also has an App called “PowerDVD Remote” which allows you to control PowerDVD from your smartphone or tablet. It supports full navigation and playback for Blu-rays and DVD’s. It can also wirelessly play and save videos and photos from your smart device to your PC; turn you smart device into a wireless keyboard and mouse pad for your PC, and it supports multi-touch control to remotely rotate and zoom-in photos. Unfortunately, the App is currently only available on the Apple App Store and on the Android App Market. Since I have a Windows Phone, I was unable to test this functionality. I think the App is a great addition to PowerDVD, so I really hope they release a version for the Windows Phone.

Visit the PowerDVD website.

Microsoft is organizing a Windows App Day on November 23rd, officially described as follows:

Don’t miss the first Windows App Day, packed with national and international speakers to talk about App Development, User Experience and Design. Our speakers are all actively working on apps and ready to share learnings and best practices.

Your App Day kicks off with a joint keynote with Belgian app cases, by Belgian companies, on Windows Apps.

After the keynote we split into two tracks: one focused on UX, designers and web experts; a second one for developers. You are free to switch tracks during the day to compose the schedule of your taste. Find detailed info on the sessions and our speakers on our Windows App Day page!

Scoop: On the Windows App Day, Microsoft will be announcing a contest around Windows 8 where they’ll have devices as prizes for developing apps, so start thinking about possible Apps that you could develop for the contest. Details about the contest will be made public at a later date.

When: Friday 23 November 2012, 9AM to 6PM
Where: ALM Meeting Point
Filip Williotstraat 9
2600 Antwerp (Berchem)

As promised, Microsoft is releasing out-of-band updates for Visual C++. A preview of the first such update has now been released as the November 2012 Compiler CTP. This is a Customer Technology Preview and does not come with a ‘Go Live’ license, but it allows you to start experimenting and testing new features, and to provide feedback.

This November 2012 CTP contains a lot of new C++11 features:

• Variadic templates
• Uniform initialization and initializer_lists
• Delegating constructors
• Raw string literals
• Explicit conversion operators
• Default template arguments for function templates

More details, including installation instructions and how to give feedback can be found here.

Download the November 2012 CTP and start playing with these new C++11 features.

Herb Sutter’s talk about The Future of C++ is now available on Channel9. If you are interested in C++, you should watch it. A the same time, he announced a couple of major things related to C++:

Interest and investment in C++ continues to accelerate across the software world.

• ISO C++ standardization is accelerating. Major companies are dedicating more people and resources to C++ standardization than they have in years. Over the next 24 months, the plan is to ship three Technical Specifications and a new C++ International Standard.
• C++ now has a home on the web at isocpp.org. It both aggregates the best C++ content and hosts new content itself, including Bjarne Stroustrup’s new Tour of C++ and Scott Meyers’ new Universal References article.
• There is now a Standard C++ Foundation. It is already funded by the largest companies in the industry down to startups, financial institutions to universities, book publishers to other consortia, with more members joining weekly. For the first time in C++’s history since AT&T relinquished control of the language, we have an entity – a trade organization – that exists exclusively to promote Standard C++ on all compilers and platforms, and companies are funding it because the world runs on C++, and investing in Standard C++ is good business.

This is an exciting time to be in the C++ World 🙂

On 28th of September a colleague of mine (Francisco Almeida) and myself participated in a Windows 8 App-a-thon organized by Microsoft. I was pleasantly surprised when I received an email a couple of days ago informing us that we won the first prize in the contest 🙂  The winners have been announced on the Belux MSDN blog. Winning this contest is an extra encouragement to finish the little puzzle game we started and to put it on the App store. If everything goes well, the plan is to have an internal Beta version next week, and to submit the puzzle game for App store certification towards the end of next week or the week after. We have created a temporary landing page for our game which you can find here.
 

Note: see my more recent article “Implementing a Thread-Safe Singleton with C++11 Using Magic Statics” for a more modern solution.

C++11 makes it easier to write a thread-safe singleton. Here is an example. The class definition of the singleton looks as follows:

#include <memory>
#include <mutex>

class CSingleton
{
public:
	virtual ~CSingleton() = default;
	static CSingleton& GetInstance();

private:
	static std::unique_ptr<CSingleton> m_instance;
	static std::once_flag m_onceFlag;
	CSingleton() = default;
	CSingleton(const CSingleton& src) = delete;
	CSingleton& operator=(const CSingleton& rhs) = delete;
};

The implementation of the GetInstance() method is very easy using C++11 std::call_once() and a lambda:

std::unique_ptr<CSingleton> CSingleton::m_instance;
std::once_flag CSingleton::m_onceFlag;

CSingleton& CSingleton::GetInstance()
{
	std::call_once(m_onceFlag,
		[] {
			m_instance.reset(new CSingleton);
	});
	return *m_instance.get();
}

WOWZAPP 2012 is a worldwide hackathon running from Friday November 9^th to Sunday November 11^th 2012. The official description for the global WOWZAPP 2012 event is as follows:

Eat. Drink. Code. And get a chance to win a tablet. Be part of the app revolution. Join thousands of developers around the world as we build apps for the next generation of Windows. There will be dozens of event venues from college campuses to Microsoft offices, all buzzing with energy, music, free food and more. Expert help, free resources. Microsoft app experts, developers and trainers will be available to assist your learning and coding. Take part in the tablet giveaway.

In Belgium the hackathon will be organized on Saturday November 10^th, from 8:08 AM to midnight at the following location:

HUBrussels
Warmoesberg 26
1000 Brussels
Belgium

The hackathon is free for everyone, lunch and dinner is included, and you get a chance to win a tablet.

More information and registration info here.
Hashtag: #wowzapp

Kate Gregory (a fellow VC++ MVP) has published her book called “C++ AMP: Accelerated Massive Parallelism with Microsoft Visual C++”.

The official description is as follows.

Capitalize on the faster GPU processors in today’s computers with the C++ AMP code library—and bring massive parallelism to your project. With this practical book, experienced C++ developers will learn parallel programming fundamentals with C++ AMP through detailed examples, code snippets, and case studies. Learn the advantages of parallelism and get best practices for harnessing this technology in your applications.

Discover how to:

• Gain greater code performance using graphics processing units (GPUs)
• Choose accelerators that enable you to write code for GPUs
• Apply thread tiles, tile barriers, and tile static memory
• Debug C++ AMP code with Microsoft Visual Studio®
• Use profiling tools to track the performance of your code

Find out more about this book here.

A while ago, Microsoft decided to abandon the name Metro. It has been replaced with the following naming scheme:

Metro apps = Windows Store apps
Metro design language / Modern UI design language = Microsoft design style language
Metro style principles / Modern UI style principles = Microsoft design style principles

Note that the casing is also important. For example, the apps in Windows Store apps is with a lowercase a, not an uppercase.

There are a couple of seats left for the Windows 8 App-a-thon that will be held on Friday September 28th at the Microsoft Offices in Zaventem. Register your place now.

What’s in a name? Of course you know hackathons. App-a-thon is your version of the ‘Windows 8 apps hackathon’.

Mark your calendar for 28-9 and spend your day coding/designing at last app-a-thon before GA on October 26th!
Team up with your best UX or developer friend to build a killer team, come alone, sign up with a group, whatever you want!

Hands on. Code. Build. Shine. Totally Windows 8.

There will be 2 coding sessions, 1 for Day Birds from 10AM – 4PM and one for Night Owls from6PM – 12AM. You can join us for one or both sessions.

Build an app, have fun and go home with fantastic prizes!

1st prize: Xbox 360 + Kinect
2nd prize: Deluxe App’ero Bongo Box
3rd prize: Professional Sharp Knife Set

No app idea yet? No problem! We have a bucket full of ideas and scenarios you can use right away to kick start your project!

Questions about UX & design? Don’t worry, we’ve got that covered. You’ll be able to talk to a Windows 8 UX Expert (will be there for 4 hours) and a designer (will be there the entire day!) to help out with logo’s, graphic design, etc.

Technical pre-requisites (for developers)
– Familiarity writing either desktop apps, mobile applications or developing websites. Familiarity with either Javascript, C# or C++.
– Bring your own laptop: any device capable of running Windows 8 and Visual Studio Express
– Required software:
Windows 8 RTM via MSDN downloads  (for MSDN subscribers) or Windows 8 RTM via Evaluation Center
Visual Studio 2012
Windows 8 SDK samples

UX designers: Photoshop or your familiar wireframing tool
• Check out the Windows 8 UX Guidelines
• You might want to download Windows 8 Style Apps Assets

The dates for TechDays Belgium 2013 have been nailed down: 5-6-7 March 2013 🙂

The location hasn’t been determined yet, so stay tuned…

The next meeting of the Belgian C++ Users Group is planned for Tuesday October 16th 2012 at 18:30 in the Microsoft offices in Zaventem.

The agenda is as follows:

• Session 1: An introduction to the C++ Network Library (Glyn Matthews)
• Break
• Session 2: Comparison between Unit Test Frameworks (Mark Van Peteghem)
• Drink

Microsoft is sponsoring this event by providing the location, drinks and sandwiches.

The event is free for everyone, but you need to register for it.

On 12 September 2012, there will be a launch event for Visual Studio 2012. You can follow this event from where ever you are. See here for details.

Microsoft has officially announced the launch date for Windows 8: October 26th 2012 🙂

See the official source here.

It was an honor to have Kate Gregory and Rong Lu speaking at our BeCPP meeting. A big thank you to both of you.

If you couldn’t attend the meeting in person, or if you would like to go over the slides again, you can download them from the BeCPP site.

Here are the slides of my presentation I gave on Community Day 2012.

Microsoft has made the Release Candidate of Visual Studio 2012 available for download. The release candidate comes with a Go-Live license.

Read Jason Zander blog post for details of this release.

Get it here.

The third meeting of the Belgian C++ Users Group is planned for Wednesday June 27th 2012 at 18:30 in the Microsoft offices in Zaventem.

There will be two presentations, and we are proud to announce that they will be given by 2 international top speakers:

• Kate Gregory is the author of over a dozen books, and speaks at DevTeach, TechEd (USA, Europe, Africa), and TechDays, C++ Connections (with fellow speakers Herb Sutter and Bjarne Stroustrup), among others. Her speaker ratings are consistently in the top 10%. Kate is a C++ MVP, a founding sponsor of the Toronto .NET Users Group, the founder of the East of Toronto .NET Users group, a member of the INETA speakers bureau, and a member of adjunct faculty at Trent University in Peterborough. Since January 2002 she has been Microsoft Regional Director for Toronto and since January 2004 she has been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional designation for Visual C++. In June 2005 she won the Regional Director of the year award and in February 2011 she was designated Visual C++ MVP of the year for 2010. Kate develops courses on C++, Visual Studio, and Windows programming for Pluralsight and is writing a book on C++ AMP.
• Rong Lu is a Program Manager in the Visual C++ team at Microsoft. She holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from Shanghai Jiaotong University. She is now working on Visual Studio vNext Application Lifecycle Management Tools for C++. Before that, she worked on the Visual Studio 2005 SDK, Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 releases, mainly responsible for designing architecture tools and SharePoint development tools. She has been a speaker at TechEd since 2007

Both are experienced speakers, and it’s a perfect opportunity for networking. If you ever wanted to ask a question to a member of the Visual C++ product team, now is your chance.

The agenda will be as follows:

• Session 1 (18:30 – 19:30): What’s new in VC++11 (Rong Lu)
• Break
• Session 2 (19:45 – 20:45): C++ AMP (GPGPU Computing) (Kate Gregory)
  It is time to start taking advantage of the computing power of GPUs. C++ AMP can deliver orders of magnitude performance increase with certain algorithms by utilizing the GPU to perform mathematical calculations.
• Drink

Microsoft is sponsoring this event by providing the location, drinks and sandwiches.

The event is free for everyone, but registration is required. Register now.
A limited number of seats are available.

( PS: If you know anyone interested in C++, please forward this invitation to them. )