This is a small guest post on SQL Server submitted by one of my friend Joydeep Das. In this post, he will guide you to understand the basics of Join hint and when to use that.

He will also guide you on various types of Join hint used in SQL Server with algorithm and code example. So, why are you waiting for? Read more to understand the concept from Joydeep and don’t forget to ask your SQL Queries in the comments section.

Few days ago, I started with the Windows Phone 7 tips and published a post on “How to Pin an Application to the Start Screen?” where we demonstrated how to pin an application for easy access.

Today in this post, we will learn how to unpin the pinned application from Windows Phone 7 start screen. So, read on to learn it. Again, this is a beginner level tips & tricks to start with Windows Phone 7 device.

Yippee!!! That’s a very good mail came up in my inbox late night which I read just now in the morning. Yes, I have been re-awarded as Codeproject MVP 2012 for my contribution towards the Codeproject portal. This is the 2nd continuous year when I received this award.

My sincere thanks to all my friends, GIT members of Codeproject for their continuous support through out the year. Also my sincere thanks to my parents. Without those it was very tough to achieve.

It was an awesome moment to speak at “Microsoft Monday” today. I delivered one hour session on “LightSwitch for Business Application Development” in front of a great people of Mahindra Satyam.

In this blog post, I am going to share the slides that I used in the presentation. Those who participated and/or didn’t get chance to attend it, can go through the slides from here for reference.

Here comes this week’s (1st January 2012 to 7th January 2012) news digest on Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, LightSwitch and Metro UI. We have submitted ~63 new article links at Silverlight-Zone.com.

Read more to find out the top 5 posts of the week. Also, find out the daily digest links here. Sharing those here too, in case you missed those it will be helpful. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to get those links directly delivered to your inbox.

Today in this blog post, I am going to start up few Windows Phone 7 tips which will be handy for you if you are a beginner and just started exploring your device.

In this first tips & tricks, I will show you how to pin an application from your application list to the start screen of your Windows Phone 7 device. As I told, this post is absolutely for the beginners.

I received an offer from uCertify to review their Exam Preparation Kit and I have accepted that challenge and now I am reviewing 70-515 Exam .NET 4.0 Preparation Kit (PrepKit) from uCertify. Initially it looks simple, intuitive and very user friendly in terms of User Interface.

As soon as I am done with the full review I will post the review report for you all. But for now, I am sharing some information about the product in this blog post. Continue reading to know further about it.

I am very happy to announce that, www.silverlight-zone.com has completed it’s first anniversary today. We officially launched this portal on 1st January 2011 and continuing our efforts to submit article news daily.

I appreciate the efforts made by the contributors of this community portal and the followers of Silverlight-Zone. Without their support this journey could be very difficult.

This post is not just the celebration of 1 year completion, we are also announcing our first “Contributor of the Month” award. We are happy to see such contributors on-board.

Here comes the “Weekly News Digest” of Silverlight-Zone.com during 25th December 2011 to 31st December 2011. During the week, we have submitted around 43 new posts to our portal by digging through the net.

In this post, find the popular 5 posts of the week, as well as popular 5 posts of the month. Also find the daily digest links at the end of the post.

We have also completed our 1 year today and the anniversary post is coming up shortly. Stay tuned to my blog for details.

Here comes the “Monthly Summary” of posts published during December 2011. I have submitted 16 blog posts on mixed juice. In this post, I will summarize them category wise, so that, you can find them very easily.

December was a great month for me. I started a video tutorial series on Windows 8 Metro style application. If you didn’t watch them, find the links in this post. Follow my blog for latest articles, tutorials, tips and contests. “Like” my Facebook page for all Technical updates. Wish you a Happy New Year.

My friends, sincerely, I will never stop wishing that your journey through this world will be touched by kindness, inspired by wisdom, graced with understanding, and kept safe from all harm.

Wishing you not just happiness but pure joy, not just wealth but Heaven's treasures, not just silence but God's peace. May this new year bring you all the blessings every day in your life. Wish you and your family a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

“Betty Wallpapers” is a small Windows Phone 7 application developed by my friend Jebarson Jebamony (aka. Jeba), Microsoft India. Using this application, you can search and download wallpapers and images from the web. It allows to search images with any key. It also has a settings panel, where you can configure various options related to your search parameter.

The installer of this application is less than 1MB in size and supports Windows Phone 7.5 or higher. You can install the Trial version (which has few settings OFF by default) and if you like it, purchase it from the Marketplace to support the development.

Today I received this “Security Alert” from Microsoft via email and thought to share this with you. If you are using ASP.Net in your server, read this post to know about it to keep your server in good health from this DoS Attack. Sharing the email as it is in this post.

Microsoft is aware of detailed information that has been published describing a new method to exploit hash tables. Attacks targeting this type of vulnerability are generically known as hash collision attacks. Attacks such as these are not specific to Microsoft technologies and affect other web service software providers. This vulnerability affects all versions of Microsoft .NET Framework and could allow for an unauthenticated denial of service attack on servers that serve ASP.NET pages.

In our last video tutorial “What is the Lifecycle of Windows 8 Metro Style Application?”, we learnt how the Windows 8 metro style application life cycle works using a small video demonstration of states.
 
In this video tutorial we will see a practical example of it using the already available metro applications. Continue to watch the video tutorial series.

You might know that, I have been awarded as Most Valuable Blogger (MVB) by DZone in August 2011. Today I received the MVB Certificate from them. In this post, I am sharing the same with you.

And again, thanks to all of you for your continuous support. Stay tuned with me on Twitter, Facebook and my Blog.

“Fun with Silverlight 4” authored by Rajesh Lal illustrates more than 100 features in Silverlight using a simple problem/solution approach. It takes one feature at a time and guides you in progressive journey where you begin by using the basic components, then by creating graphics and animations.

I am feeling Proud to be the Technical Reviewer of the book and will recommend everyone to purchase this book to keep it as reference. In this post, find my review note, link to purchase it from Amazon store and the Table of Contents. Hope, this book will help you in your day to day work.

Here comes the Weekly Digest (18th December to 24th December) of Silverlight-Zone.com. During this week we have submitted 65 article links at Silverlight-Zone on various topics like Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, Metro Style Applications.

In this post, I am going to share the top 5 posts of the week. Top viewed posts were from actuary21c, Evan Hutnick, Glen Gordon, @mbcrump and @kunal2383. Read more to find out the top 5 links. Finally Merry X-MAS to all of you.

It’s Christmas time and I just wanted to say “Thank You” to you for your support and feedback through out the year. It’s been a pleasure to stay tuned with such awesome friends in my life. Though I know many of you virtually over the cyberspace, but we had a great bonding over the past year.

I wish you and your family an wonderful Holidays during the Christmas and a Happy New Year 2012. May god give you all the pleasure in coming year. A small video greetings has been included in this post. I hope, you will like it.

One month ago, I started a discussion thread “What is the Future of Silverlight?” and received a good amount of feedback on the future of the same. Some provided positive feedback and some had negative feedback.

As declared earlier, I am going to announce the Winners name from the discussion thread here, as I wanted to giveaway some licenses to my blog readers on the eve of X-MAS. Click more to see if you are one of the lucky winner to Win Telerik or Pluralsight license. All the best!!!

Today in this Video tutorial, we will learn about the Lifecycle of Windows 8 Metro style application. We will also learn what are the various states available during the Lifecycle.

Let’s start discussion followed by the video tutorial. An easy way of representation has been added in the video. Let me know your feedback. Don’t forget to share this to your friends and ask their feedback too.