It seems, today, that there’s an app for just about everything we do on our phones – from social networks to jazzed-up calculators. As the mobile market continues to grow, globally, more and more developers are turning their attention to the creation of mobile apps and games.

And one of the best tools to create your own apps is with Xamarin.Forms and Visual Studio. You can find out more through our free online course ‘Build mobile apps with Xamarin.Forms’ over at Microsoft Learn.

What is Xamarin.Forms?

It all starts with Xamarin, a popular .NET developer platform featuring handy tools needed to build all sorts of applications. And one of those tools is Xamarin.Forms. This free, open-source cross-platform framework offers everything you need to create mobile apps on the most popular platforms.

The toolkit deals primarily with user interface (UI) features. Pages, layouts, and controls can all be built using a single API. Given the importance of UI in app design – a bad UI makes for a bad experience, which makes for fewer downloads – this makes Xamarin.Forms an incredibly powerful tool in your arsenal.

But it’s not all about UI.

Xamarin.Forms is packed with loads of awesome extras, like a binding engine and a messaging centre that help make your app work smoothly.

You may also find it worthwhile reading our introduction to Xamarin.Forms before you get started. Here, you can explore the toolkit’s capabilities, as well as tutorials on just about every part of it – ideal for any budding app developer.

What are the benefits of using Xamarin.Forms?

That ‘cross-platform’ promise is a major draw to Xamarin.Forms.

The main problem with app development is that there are two different operating systems for phones – Android and iOS.

Xamarin, in itself, isn’t the silver bullet. You’ll still need to write separate sections of code for the different platforms. However, Xamarin.Forms helps lighten the load by letting you create a shared UI that runs across Android and iOS phones. This leaves you with more time focus on what your app can do, rather than slogging away just to get it off the ground.

When starting your app development, keep two things in mind:

• What operating system you’re targeting
• What you want to achieve with your app

Once you have the answer to these, you can focus on squeezing every drop of value from Xamarin.Forms.

What do I need to get started?

You can’t just plunge right into app creation with Xamarin.Forms. This is a fairly advanced language. As such, before starting your Microsoft Learn course, you’ll need at least a working understanding of C# and .NET (or a friend who knows what they’re doing!).

If this all sounds unfathomable, then have a peek at Microsoft tutorials and information for those only just embarking on their coding journey.

• Check out these C# tutorials
• Find out how to get started with .NET

You should also grab yourself a copy of Visual Studio, in order to complete the free Microsoft Learn courses. That should be enough to get you started. Visual Studio also sets you up with the other tools you need, such as the Android SDK Manager, which you’ll need if you’re targeting that OS.

How do I begin?

Once you’re equipped with the skills you need, head to our Microsoft Learn course ‘Build mobile apps with Xamarin.Forms’. Across 10 distinct modules, you’ll learn exactly how to use C# and Visual Studio to create iOS and Android apps with absolute ease – and don’t worry, you won’t be thrown into the deep end; we’ll start you off with the basics.

Find out more

• Introduction to Xamarin.Android
• Introduction to Xamarin.iOS

The post Coding Week: What you need to build your own mobile apps appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

If you’re even vaguely aware of the internet, you’ll have heard of the terms HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They’re the building blocks of the internet, transforming code into something that’s visual and interactive.

But while they might all play their part in the online experience, each of them are unique.

Before you get started with our Microsoft Learn course ‘Build a simple website using HTML, CSS, and Javascript’ let’s take a look at what they actually, and how they can be used creatively.

What is HTML?

HTML is probably the most familiar of the three, having been cooked up by internet inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee back in the 80s. This is the standard mark-up for websites, and you can see it in action just by right-clicking on any site and select Inspect to see how a webpage is put together in HTML.

To anyone who has no interest in code, it’s a baffling series of numbers, letters, and unknown punctuation marks. Like a foreign language. Which is precisely what it is (HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, fact-hounds).

Each line of code informs the website how it should be structured. This includes the use of HTML elements – think of these as the building blocks of website creation, in which commands are bracketed on either side by <>. This will start the tag. To end it, you’d add a stroke, so the code is </>.

Let’s say you want to tell a website to place your text in bold, you’d use <b>, type your text, then end the bold effect with </b>. If you wanted to turn text or image into a hyperlink, on the other hand, the tag would read something like <a href=http://www.bing.com>. At the end of your linked text, you’d type </a>, to tell the website to end that command.

These tags are then ‘translated’ and displayed on websites.

What is CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet, the brainchild of Hakom Lie and Bert Bos. It works especially well with HTML, but you don’t need to use them together, as it works with any XML-based mark-up language. However, when used together, it lets you tweak a website’s overall design without altering the HTML mark-up on every page, which would be a massive task.

At its most basic, CSS dictates the website’s look and feel, such as the background and font colours. You can also use it to change how a website is displayed depending on the size of the screen – pretty useful in our mobile-friendly world.

So, you’ve got you HTML-coded content, like <H1>My Awesome Website</H1>. On its own, that’s going to look pretty drab on the page. What you’d need to do is dip into the CSS to code a line that looks like: H1 {  color:blue;  font-size:48px}.

Here, the ‘H1’ tells the CSS which part of the website to alter. Both ‘color’ – to ensure your website works, it’s best to use the American spelling – and ‘font-size’ determine how the text should be presented.

But, how do you get this code to complement your HTML?

The first method is to add this directly to your HTML code. However, the downside of this is that the CSS will only apply to that particular line of code. If you re-designed your website, you’d need to go in and change it by hand.

The best way to get your CSS and HTML to play nicely together is to write your code into a text editor, then save it as a .css document. You can then link to this document in your website’s header section.

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript has its roots in the early days of the programming language Java. If you’ve ever played a game in your browser, or used an app on your phone, then you’ve seen JavaScript in action. It’s a little more high-level than either the design-focused CSS and the structural HTML, dynamically changing HTML and CSS elements on the page.

For instance, if you wanted to add a picture slideshow to your website, them using HTML aand CSS, you’d have every static image displayed on the page at once. But, with the right code, JavaScript then jumps in and says, ‘ok, cycle through all of these images one at a time’. This helps make your website look even more amazing (not to mention professional). It also means users don’t have to keep refreshing the page to see new pictures.

This is the final building block for your website – and arguably the most powerful – but you’ll need to nail down your HTML and CSS before deploying it. Helpfully, though, it can be written straight into your HTML code. And JavaScript isn’t just limited to graphical elements. It also has useful applications such as auto-fill text fields, making it extremely functional in today’s modern web use.

Now you’re ready to begin your Microsoft Learn journey – learn how to combine these three tools to build your own website in our free online course.

The post Coding Week: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: What’s the difference? appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

In the modern digital workplace, a mobile-first mentality sees employees constantly finding new ways to work.

But the more solutions, systems, and data connecting your organisation, the more risk there is to security. And the rise of remote workers, who rely on cloud-based communications, is forcing sysadmins to remain extra vigilant.

Through Azure and Microsoft 365, you’ll possess the best tools to oversee all security threats. Defend your organisation, protect your IT infrastructure, and keep your employees secure, whether they’re in the office or on the go.

Control access

It’s critical only authorised users can access your network. An employee that loses a device or clicks a malicious link can leave your whole business vulnerable.

You also don’t want to leave users in limbo, with offline stacked systems requiring multiple logins – each unable to talk to each other, and each increasing the threat to your security.

Microsoft Azure features an Active Directory (AD). This simplified, centralised identity and access management service offers much greater control over who can access your business apps. It has three main functions:

• Authorise sign-ins
• Protect user identities and credentials
• Enable access to internal and external resources

IT administrators can use this service to precisely control who within the workplace has access to business apps and resources. The Azure Active Directory lets you adds an additional layer of security. For instance, create a requirement that forces two-factor authentication for anyone logging into an app or configure password-less security key sign in.

Through cloud capabilities, the AD also bridges the gap between online Office 365 apps and your on-premises Windows Server AD. The directory automates access to accounts and retaining existing passwords to keep users securely online.

The easiest way to achieve this is to synchronise accounts from the on-premises directory to the Azure AD. While this means that the Windows AD remains the ‘dominant’ source for accounts, Azure authenticates all cloud-based logins.

Detect threats

Cyber-security fears rank high for any organisation. Staying online is crucial and it’s frustrating if a hacker knocks out your systems in a heartbeat. The Active Directory is designed to proactively detect threats and protect all users.

Cyber-attacks take many different forms, from phishing to brute force. The methods may vary, but the result is always the same: information is compromised. And, in the age of GDPR, few organisations can afford that.

So, let’s look at how Azure’s built-in security features deals with one of the most common threats: malware.

The attack begins with malware attempting installation on a user’s device. At this point, multiple tools work together and start to act…

• Exchange Online Protection blocks known malware and viruses
• Office 365 Advanced Threat checks all files sent to the computer for unknown malware
• Windows and Office is then able to update protection against the malware
• Windows Defender Application Guard protects against internet attacks when using Microsoft Edge
• Windows 10 Device Guard lets you define what trusted applications are allowed to run

Should an employee click a dodgy link, it’s still not game over for your IT security. At this point, you can rely on…

• Windows Defender Antivirus to scan for any threats
• Windows Defender SmartScreen to check the ‘reputation’ of new apps
• Windows Firewall to protect access to your device
• Securing Privileged Access Roadmap to show you how to protect privileged access workstations

At this stage, Azure deploys a number of tools designed to keep your data and your digital workplace secure. While Cloud App Security locks down suspicious user accounts, tools like Intune Mobile Application Management and Office 365 DLP prevents data being moved from the digital environment. Azure Information Protection and Azure Rights Management add further protection, encrypting sensitive files. Finally, Azure Backup provides a way to restore your data from the cloud.

At no point during a cyber-attack are you left alone.

Privacy by design

There’s another reason why digital workplace security is important: your reputation. In an age where data leaks and cyber-attacks dominate headlines almost daily, your customers are hyper-aware of data privacy. If you can’t guarantee the security and privacy of their data, you lose their trust and custom.

When implementing any new system across your organisation, start by identifying how you’ll protect all the data you hold. Design your entire infrastructure around this idea. The sooner you develop a system with ‘privacy by design’ in mind, the sooner you’ll be able to work out potential problems

It’s a core part of the GDPR regulations – so not adhering to the ‘privacy by design’ principle means you could earn yourself a major fine. But it’s also plain good business practice.

In our fast-paced digitally-driven world, going ‘dark’ is costs time, money, customers, and your hard-earned reputation. And, for smaller businesses, it’s a death sentence. Reliability counts, no matter what industry you’re in. That’s why Microsoft Azure works tirelessly to protect you. It’s designed for the modern digital workplace and a new way of working – just like your business is.

Find out more

Microsoft Learn: Explore security, responsibility, and trust in Azure

Microsoft Learn: Discover how to secure your organization with Microsoft 365’s intelligent security

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