Network Dashboard version 1.1 was submitted for Windows® Phone Marketplace certification today. The new version brings a much-requested feature: Start Screen Live Tile status support for Wi-Fi and Mobile Data tiles.

Start Screen Live Tile support allows the Live Tiles for Wi-Fi and Mobile Data to display the current state of those radios through a green or red square in the upper right corner, just like the tiles on the Network Dashboard screen. This support comes with a caveat though: in order for this feature to work reliably, the user must only use Network Dashboard to access the settings screen for Wi-Fi and Mobile Data. If the user uses the main Settings menu of Windows Phone to change Wi-Fi or Mobile Data radio state, the Live Tiles will be out of sync until Network Dashboard is run again.

There is a new Settings screen in Network Dashboard with a toggle for enabling and disabling the Start Screen Live Tile feature. An additional change is that the long-press context menu for pinning tiles now is aware of whether the user has already pinned the tile and will offer an option of unpinning if a tile already exists.

Providing there are no issues found during the certification process, I hope that version 1.1 will be in the Marketplace in a couple of days.

I’m proud to introduce our latest Windows® Phone application, Network Dashboard! Network Dashboard is now available for download via the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Network Dashboard provides a quick and easy way to see the current status of your Wi-Fi and Mobile Data features as well as one tap access to configuration options for Wi-Fi, Mobile Data, Bluetooth and Airplane Mode. There is an included status indicator for overall network availability as well. » READ MORE

About a week ago, Target.com underwent a major site update. Unfortunately, in the days since the update the site has been riddled with errors, causing customers to be unable to search for products, access their registries and more. Many customers are reporting on Target’s Facebook page that they’ve had their baby registries completely deleted or products replaced with others.

It would be bad enough that a major retailer like Target was having these types of issues days after a new website rollout. What was even worse, however, was Target’s response to the complaints: Absolutely nothing.

Target has let all the cries for help on their Facebook page go unanswered. They’ve let emails to their customer service department go unanswered. As far as I can tell, they’ve done absolutely nothing at all to correct the issues their site is experiencing nor to communicate to their customers that they’re even aware of the issues. This is social media failure at its highest level.

Microsoft recently began providing some details of the engineering process surrounding Windows 8 at the Building Windows 8 blog. Steven Sinofsky, President of the Windows Division at Microsoft kicked off the blog with a Welcome post on August 15th.

After a couple of housekeeping posts, Mr. Sinofsky provided a post that introduced the Windows 8 team, listing 35 different teams that are building various features of Windows 8. Many of the teams are similar to those from the Windows 7 days, but there are a number of teams that provide some hints about features to come, such as the App Store that has been speculated to arrive with the new version.

The most recent two posts on Building Windows 8 detail the new file copy and conflict resolution functionality in Windows 8. In the first post, Microsoft shows off the new design of the file actions dialog, noting that all file operations will now be displayed in a single window. Additionally, the conflict resolution has been streamlined to make it easier for users to determine which file to keep. The second post goes into detail on the design process of these features, showing various iterations that were tested.

The Building Windows 8 blog is sure to be the place to watch, at least until the Build conference next month where Microsoft has stated they will reveal much more about Windows 8.

This is a quick post to show some code around how to use a PhotoChooserTask for Windows Phone programming:

private BitmapImage OriginalImage = new BitmapImage();

private void OnCameraCaptureCompleted(object sender, PhotoResult e)
{
if (e.TaskResult == TaskResult.OK)
{
OriginalImage.SetSource(e.ChosenPhoto);
// You can then use OriginalImage as you like
}
}