Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

The Microsoft Virtual Academy course Building Responsive UI with Bootstrap  covers the framework from the perspective of a ASP.NET MVC developer. Summary of points: + The Bootstrap framework simplifies building web pages with a responsive layout (by scaling for differing device resolutions and sizes. + A big part of Bootstrap functionality involves controlling features through HTML class names & CSS + Bootstrap works on a grid system. The grid has 12 columns + The Bootstrap 3 grid system has four tiers of classes: xs (phones), sm (tablets), md (desktops), and lg (larger desktops). You can use nearly any combination of these classes to create more dynamic and flexible layouts. Each tier of classes scales up, meaning if you plan on setting the same widths for xs and sm, you only need to specify xs. + Any library used in conjunction Bootstrap may break it if it has classes similar to those used by Bootstrap. A workaround is to prefix an unique alphabet char...

Compared to last year, Microsoft Virtual Academy is now buzzing with great new content especially on open source technologies. Here's a list of courses offered on open source tech: -  Introduction to Programming with Python -  Building Responsive UI with Bootstrap -  Building Apps with Node.js Jump Start -  Introduction to jQuery -  Single Page Applications with jQuery and AngularJS -  JavaScript Fundamentals for Absolute Beginners -  Open Source Questions Answered -  Mobile Web Application Development -  The Modern Web Platform Jump Start -  HTML5 & CSS3 Fundamentals: Development for Absolute Beginners I like that they now show the date on which a course was published. Due to the evolving nature of the products, the courses can go stale due to dramatic changes in newer versions and watching out for the date of publication helps in deciding if a particular course is right for you.  I wish the page...