Recently I got certified by Microsoft as Solutions Developer for the Windows Universal Platform by taking two exams that are currently in beta. Because the exams are in beta there is not much guidance to be found online. I noticed during the exams I was being tested on skills not mentioned on the Microsoft Learn web site.

In this article I will cover these differences and how I prepared for the exams so it will be easier for you to get certified.

This is the second part in a series of posts about reducing the amount of data transferred between ASP.NET Web API or Azure Mobile App Service and the (mobile) client.

We will continue where we left off in Part 1: Default Value Handling.

In the first post we managed a reduction of 41%.

Of course, the reduction depends heavily on how often default values are part of your transferred data. But it’s an easy diet on transferred data that the other side can reconstruct on itself.

In this post we will squeeze a little bit more from our Data Transfer Objects (DTOs).

Not long ago I wrote a blog post about Responsive Pivot Headers in Universal Windows Platform apps. Paul responded asking how to change the background of the selected item, just like the example I posted on top of the article.

It is a great question and I am sorry I didn’t cover this so the pivot looks more like the example.

An omission I want to correct with this article.

These days JSON is used a lot. For storing data, for storing settings, for describing other JSON files, and often for transporting information between server and client using DTOs (Data Transfer Objects).

When using an Azure Mobile App Service or ASP.NET Web API you will see that JSON is the default format to transport data. When running apps on a PCs with a fixed internet connection data size might not be a hot topic. But for apps on mobile devices, possibly using slow, limited, or expensive connections you want to save on the amount of data that is transferred.

My PC just got upgraded to the latest Windows 10 Insiders build (slow ring, build 10565) and suddenly a couple of VMs were missing from the Hyper-V Manager.

I first suspected the security settings on the directories were the problem, but my changes didn’t fix anything. After browsing around the internet, I found a couple of fixes that might help you if you have the same problem.