James Montemagno
James Montemagno

Live, Love, Bike, and Code.

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James Montemagno

Live, Love, Bike, and Code.


Azure DevOps Settings for Xamarin iOS 13 and Android 10 Apps

Settings up continuous integration can be tricky when there are new versions coming out. Recently Visual Studio 2019 updated to support Xcode 11, iOS 13, Android 10, .NET Core 3, and C# 8. What a whirlwind of new updates that CI servers got all around the same time! This means that as you were updating your apps your hosted machines also got updated and probably broke your builds :(. My good friend Jonathan Peppers wrote an amazing tool called Boots [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/xamarin/boots-…

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Is the MacBook Pro 16-inch the Ultimate Developer Laptop?

It seems as though Apple has finally fixed the keyboard on the latest MacBook 16-inch and as a bonus, brought back the escape key! This seems to be what everyone is talking about, but what is really important is the return to PRO for the MacBook Pro. What I mean by this is that finally we can fully spec out a MacBook Pro with as much RAM and SSD space that we could ever want and at a decent price. If you head over to the configuration page [https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=…

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Use C# 8 In Any .NET Project Today

C# 8 was officially released in September at .NET Conf along side .NET Core 3 & Visual Studio 16.3 (8.3 on Mac). It is packed with tons of amazing new features [https://docs.microsoft.com/dotnet/csharp/whats-new/csharp-8?WT.mc_id=docs-montemagnoblog-jamont] that truly everyone should be using. However, there is a lot of confusing as to if you can actually use C# 8 if you aren't using .NET Core 3 or .NET Standard 2.1. * Short answer: YES! You can use it today. * Long answer: YES! Y…

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MOK: Brussels Best Coffee Shop & Roastery

In the past, I have talked about my favorite coffee shops [https://montemagno.com/the-best-coffee-in-seattle/] that my hometown of Seattle has to offer. I don't just drink coffee in Seattle, I make coffee a destination in every single city that I travel to. Coffee can bring the best out of a city and turn a gray and gloomy day into a warm and delightful one. On my short stop over in Brussels I took a walk north of downtown to the lovely coffee shop known as MOK [https://mokcoffee.be]. It st…

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Opt-out of Dark Mode on iOS, Android, UWP, and macOS

Everyone can't stop talking about dark mode now that iOS 13 and Android 10 are officially released. To my surprise I have actually really been enjoying dark mode on my desktop and mobile devices. I really want to go through all my apps and add proper dark mode support, however I just haven't had the time. When running apps on iOS 13 or macOS and flipping on dark mode can make your app look.... not so great: This can depend on the framework you are using, hard coded values, or a bunch…

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Xamarin.Forms Design Time Data Tips & Best Practices

One of my favorite features of building applications with XAML is the ability to use design time data to preview it inside the IDE. Recently in Xamarin.Forms 4.0 the team introduced an official pattern to specify design time properties, controls, or just about anything else. It is a really neat feature that I have been using on my live streams and in my apps. There is some really great docs [https://docs.microsoft.com/xamarin/xamarin-forms/xaml/xaml-previewer/design-time-data?WT.mc_id=designtime…

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Free C# and Xamarin for Beginners Videos Series

Last week Hanselman announced [https://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingFreeCNETAndASPNETForBeginnersVideoCoursesAndTutorials.aspx] all of the great new videos that are available at dot.net/videos [https://dotnet.microsoft.com/learn/videos?WT.mc_id=education-c9-jamont]. However, he forgot to mention that there is an entire new getting started series for iOS & Android development with Xamarin! The lovely developer advocate's and friends Matt Soucoup [http://twitter.com/codemillmatt] and…

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James on Tour - October 2019 Europe Edition!

I can't believe it is October already! What an amazing year with so many amazing announcements for Xamarin developers. Between Build, Xamarin Developer Summit, and .NET Conf there truly has been something for everyone. Now, I want to take this Xamarin goodness on the road for a two week Europe roadshow! I worked closely with user group leaders all over Europe to set up a great schedule where I am literally traveling just about every day! Oct 22nd - 23rd - DevReach - Sofia, Bulgaria [https:/…

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