Comments

@anish: Check this out:

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/727734/unable-to-get-developer-licence-for-windows-8-consumer-preview

I think what works the best is near the bottom ... "just keep hitting retry".

@karthiktl: Admittedly, there are a lot of new resources out there for v. 8, but I still like this series by yours truly   (albeit, for v. 7)

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-7-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners

@RyanCox: Funny    Keep plugging away at it!

@matija4444: First ... shouldn't it be binding, not biding?  (Emphasis on the 'n' in 'binding')

Second ... can you make sure (Ctrl + F) that there's a class called BindingData defined in the project, and that it belongs to the ContosoCookbook.Common namespace?

@Moriarty: If you are experimenting, you already have the mindset of the best developers.  And I'm absolutely NOT a genius -- you just happened to find something you have a knack for -- good for you!  I love that feeling of learning something new and realizing I have a passion for it.  Keep plugging away -- baby steps -- you can't learn it all in a day, but you can learn it faster if you a experimenting, asking "what if I ...?" and then trying to mold and shape the code to do what you want it to.  Good luck my friend!

@Yoonus: Very cool!  Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad it was time well spent for you.  Best wishes my friend!

@Akram: Hi, I may not completely understand what you are asking.  However, I would say just start here and watch them all, and be sure to follow along.  Once you finish this entire series, you'll have the basics and can move on to learn more about (1) composing classes / delegating responsibilities / designing interactions, etc.  (2) the .NET Framework APIs for things like data access, some front end client technology like WPF or ASP.NET WebForms or MVC.  Could you clarify your question?  I'd be glad to point you in the right direction if I can.

@Syed: This is a great opportunity to experiment.  Try removing that statement and see what happens.    Make sure to set a break point and inspect the values as you hit that line / or where you retrieve the line from the text file.

Also, important ... there are probably a dozen or more ways to do this.  The way I demonstrated is NOT the ONLY way to do it ... I was trying to not add too many new ideas in this video, so I kept it simple.  But as some others have noted above, you could do it in one or two lines (admittedly, long lines).  Hope that helps!

@Blaine: Hey Blaine, wow ... thanks for the nice words!!!

Frankly, you can do (and many do) exactly what you suggest.  But do you honestly think they would let me teach you the down-and-dirty way on Microsoft's web site?  

Seriously though, if you're learning, why not learn the correct WEB STANDARDS way.  These standards are there to ensure that everyone's experience is the same, regardless of browser vendor, device, etc.  Sure, in IE9 or 10, <cite> may be rendered a particular way, but you can't always depend on its appearance.  Furthermore, this is more than just how things look -- we don't know what's coming tomorrow.  If there's a search engine for <cite>s, don't you want your content to be included in it?  (Bad example, but the idea is -- keep it semantically correct, don't worry about appearance -- that's what CSS is for ... you'll get to that soon!).  If you take shortcuts, you may be limiting yourself, your client, your user in the future.  I would recommend at least taking a stab at doing it "the right way" first.  When you can't achieve something semantically correct then I would give you a little wiggle room to try something different.

Have I converted you yet?  

@Alexis: Thanks Alexis ... where were you yesterday when I wanted to give up?