The Grandest of Canyons
Because our body clocks weren’t screwed up enough. We decided a 5am alarm call was the best course of action, to jump on day long Hummer trip to see the Hoover Dam, and the Grand Canyon . If only there were a Starbucks open at this time of day to get a coffee and breakfast – oh, there are, three of them (sidebar, scary how many people are still up and going at this time of day).
So, into the Hummer and fully caffeinated and off up to the Hoover Damn
Hoover Dam
Then it’s another hour or so in the Hummer up into Grand Canyon territory, not going to recount the history here, but the West point where we were is now back in the hands of the Native American Indian tribe, and it’s fair to say they’ve commercialised it. First stop up there was the Skywalk, not a place to be if you have an irrational fear of heights – ie me!
Don’t look down, I mean it, I couldn’t
The Skywalk is as it looks, a glass bottomed walk way over the Canyon, a bloody stupid idea!
Back on the Shuttle bus to the next viewpoint which included lunch (At the Guano Cafe, a lot nicer than what it’s named after – Bat Poop!), we had a lot more freedom to explore and even allowed to take out own photos – thanks!
Remains of the pulley station used to hoist Guano from a cave on the other side
On the night, which seems like a whole different day, was Boys night (and by definition Girls night), but we failed and all ended up in the same place, a Coyote Ugly bar in New York, New York, however the boys went stereotype and hit Gallagher’s Steak restaurant before hand, we achieved the below;
Before and After, a 22oz Porterhouse 
How Much!
Rounded the night off with a late night dash to Starbucks and Rach scratched a few itches on the roulette back at the MGM, she lost, as did time – 4am seemed a reasonable time to close the day off!
All the Casinos
As true, dedicated culture vultures we decided that day 2 would involve a full tour of the strip and see all the casinos, being that the cruel mistress jet lag had kicked in and I was awake from 4am with just 6 hours sleep in the bag we had enough time – wrong. Think we did manage all the main ones from CSI though, which is as cultured as we are in reality so that’ll do!
Start was our home for the week, the MGM Grande and their breakfast buffet – we didn’t go hungry! Out the door, turn right and up the strip, pop into the Crystal Shops before the Cosmopolitan. Rachel found a dress she liked, just not $308 worth of like – phew!
This could get expensive!
Further down onto the main strip and out tour of the casinos starts in earnest, so I’ll let the picture do the talking;
Glass flowers at the Bellagio
Caesars Palace 
The Outside comes inside 
A hotty in red (well, orange!) 
The Venetian ceiling
And then we ran out of time, too many damn casinos. We did manage a spot of gambling though, the worst group roulette session ever! Technically I won, but I had a wife’s losses to cover, so came out on par as a team effort!
Night time was set for a quiet one as we had 5am alarm calls the next morning, so we headed up to the Fremont Street Experience in old downtown Vegas
Where we jumped from the Slotzilla zoom zip line, google it, you’ll see why we had a light meal and not much to drink
See those wires at the top? Yup, we jumped from there!
Nice moment of calm before hand though, meal and a few craft beers over at the Container Town (everything is in an old shipping container), very chilled and great to sit out, apart from the giant flame throwing Mantis of course!
Noisy buggers these!
Vegas – day 1 (and a half!)
10 hour flights suck, no getting away from it, do not enjoy flying – so glad that’s over and done with.
Landed at about midday local time (7pm our time), and bundled over to the hotel, freshen up then out to be one of those annoying tourists!
$10 later and Rach has picked up the cast of Avengers
Couple of Beers in Hard Rock, and the first of many conversations on tipping etiquette (do you tip the barman each round or when you leave), and then down the strip as far as the Bellagio.
Bellagio Fountains
As sun came down, and hunger kicked in (at this point we were in need of meal 4 of whatever day it was, ($42 for two burgers and chips, and an ice cream and beer float – hint, don’t!), so turned back towards the MGM and ended up in New York, New York.
Dropped about $20 in some machines to get the obligatory Vegas gambling out the way and spent most of the night watching the duelling pianos which was pretty damn awesome – closed off the night with a very nice, and ridiculously expensive Teeling single malt in the Whiskey Bar at the MGM – god this place is expensive
The strip at night
A week till Vegas
In 8 days we’ll be tucked up in the pre-flight hotel, kidless and probably slightly medicated. In 7 days and 12 hours I’ll probably start packing!
This will be sampled - twice!
Build Your First Game with MonoGame: Getting Started
Always fancied creating a computer game? Got a Windows PC or a Mac and a semi logical brain? – Go Nuts ….
Game development is what got many developers into programming. But how many of us actually ever learned how to create games? Creating games can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be that way! MonoGame is a cross-platform gaming framework based on Microsoft’s XNA framework that’s extremely easy to learn …
Source: Build Your First Game with MonoGame: Getting Started
Simple Cross-Platform File IO for iOS, Android, and Windows
One of the biggest challenges in Cross Platform Mobile App Development is implementing a mechanism of performing simple tasks on each diverse platform, such as reading a config file on app launch, when you know that each platform will store this file in a different location, have a preference for different file formats, and have different permission mechanisms for reading and writing. This plugin helps nail most of those issues.
Most mobile applications need to interact with the underlying file system. Be it building a database or caching data, some understanding of how file systems work on target platforms is required. If you’re working with multiple platforms, not only does this require understanding of how each individual file system works, but also how to work with the file system from shared code.
The File System Plugin for Xamarin and Windows reduces the underlying file system complexities for each platform into a cross-platform file IO API for iOS, Android, and Windows, making it extremely easy to work with the file system from shared code. In this blog post, you will learn how to use the File System Plugin for Xamarin and Windows to create, edit, and delete files and directories from shared code.
Introduction to the File System Plugin for Xamarin and Windows
Similar to desktop operating systems, mobile operating systems each have their own file system. Building applications that target multiple operating system requires knowledge of not just one file system, but the underlying file system for each platform. Another barrier when working with file systems is the inability to use code that talks to individual file systems in shared code. A common solution to this problem is to use preprocessor directives (#ifdefs) to access platform-specific features, but this won’t work with PCLs and results in messier code.
Plugins for Xamarin expose platform-specific functionality via a cross-platform API that can be consumed from a Portable Class Library or Shared Project, such as using device geolocation, sending an SMS, or storing app settings, to help make you share even more code and increase developer productivity. The File System Plugin for Xamarin and Windows makes working with the many different mobile file systems easy with a shared, cross-platform API. You can download the plugin using the Xamarin Component Store or via the NuGet Package Manager.
Exploring the APIs
The IFileSystem interface represents an abstracted file system at the highest level. The platform-specific implementation can be accessed via the FileSystem.Current property. The file system is made up of a collection of folders and individual files, which are abstracted via the IFolder and IFile interfaces. When creating folders and files, we are also given maximum control over collision detection preferences with theCreationCollisionOption enumeration, which allows us do everything from create an alternative name, replace the existing directory/file, open the existing directory/file, or throw an exception. Of course, all of these APIs are also async/await compatible as well.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
// Access the file system for the current platform.
IFileSystem fileSystem = FileSystem.Current;
// Get the root directory of the file system for our application.
IFolder rootFolder = fileSystem.LocalStorage;
// Create another folder, if one doesn’t already exist.
IFolder photosFolder = await rootFolder.CreateFolderAsync(“Photos”, CreationCollisionOption.OpenIfExists);
// Create a file, if one doesn’t already exist.
IFile selfiePhotoFile = await photosFolder.CreateFileAsync(“selfie.png”, CreationCollisionOption.ReplaceExisting);
Renaming and deleting files is also super easy as well:
1
2
3
4
5
// Actually, this wasn’t a selfie of just me!
await selfiePhotoFile.RenameAsync(“groupSelfie.png”);
// It’s a horrible selfie anyways, let’s delete it!
await selfiePhotoFile.DeleteAsync();
Wrapping Up
In this blog post, you learned how to interact with native file systems for iOS, Android, and Windows from shared code using the File System Plugin for Xamarin and Windows. To learn more about Plugins for Xamarin or check out other plugins available, such as geolocation, messaging, and sharing, check out our complete plugin directory. Visit the plugin in the Xamarin Component Store for more documentation or view the source code online on GitHub.
Source: Simple Cross-Platform File IO for iOS, Android, and Windows | Xamarin Blog
Syncing Files Between Devices with Azure File Sync | Xamarin Blog
Where we don’t have to build out some sort of bespoke mobile app sync, this is pretty much the standard way for us to sync files between cross platform and multi platform apps
In a mobile world, network outages are frequent. Devices are constantly moving and connectivity can vary from great to barely connected to offline, with users expecting your app to continue to function properly. For example, field technicians need the ability to log notes in their field service app, no matter the connection state. Apps can support offline usage by …
Source: Syncing Files Between Devices with Azure File Sync | Xamarin Blog
Improving WordPress Performance – Use Azure CDN | Microsoft Azure Open Source Development Support Team Blog
A simple, incredibly cheap, and effective way of improving WordPress performance, especially if you have a global audience
Support for Open Source Technologies on Microsoft Azure App Service
Punishment Driven Development with Louise Elliott on the Hanselminutes Technology Podcast
Been listening to this on the way in to work, am not sure it’s right for the office, can’t decide on which punishments 😉
Scott sits down with software developer and development manager Louise Elliott about her ideas around “Punishment Driven Development.” Why is this such a common way to run a project? Does it work and is it ever appropriate?