Now, before you go around saying nonsense, here's the gist of the situation. Windows 8 and Windows RT have Defender, Microsoft's "security essentials" service, built into the OS. This does real-time scanning of files, processes, etc. on your machine. On the desktop, this is nice, because it gives you an integrated anti-virus/anti-spyware system and removes the requirement of needing third-party threat tools (unless you're paranoid or hang out on the darknet).

Windows RT also has this bundled. This is kind of bizarre, actually, as I would argue it's completely unnecessary, as Windows RT is ARM based, and only runs signed code (unless you jailbreak it), so if someone made ARM-based malware, it wouldn't run anyway.

It is theoretically possible that someone could trick you into running a powershell script with admin rights, but that wouldn't be covered by Defender anyway.

Point is, by disabling Defender, you can gain a huge performance boost on your Surface RT. Jesse claims his apps run instantly and without lag. Your mileage may vary, but I'd argue it's a tweak with trying.

Check out the steps over at XDA, and post there or here in the comments if it gives you any sort of noticeable performance boost.

No, this will not make your device insecure.

Took long enough in certification, but it's finally live! LW8 version 1.3.0.0 contains fixes that were created from the day LW8 launched *, and should include every bug fix/change people have personally requested, within the bounds of reason. Here's the changelog:

• Several, several bug fixes. If you were having trouble with it updating, that should now be fixed.
• Updates more frequently when using Weather widgets (was a bug with location service)
• Separate Tomorrow's Forecast and Current Weather widgets
• Fixed a bug with the battery life not displaying remaining days
• Other small fixes

I've also done a lot of work on the backend that's been live for a while. The forecast should be more accurate, and everything should overall work much better now.

So if you're one of those people who tried LW8, had problems, and wanted to try it again once the update was out, now's your chance to give it another shot.

Please let me know of any problems you have, any suggestions, etc. Appreciate it! As usual, it's available in the Windows Phone Store.

Also, as an FYI: "Periodically" is defined by the Windows Phone OS as "every 30 minutes, usually". That's not something I can customize or make more frequent.

* To clarify: I was reading feedback from the day LW8 launched and implemented several bug fixes. Unfortunately, due to some unknown delays in certification, LW8 only passed last night. This post isn't about the store, though, so I'll share my experiences and some tips some other time. Just be grateful it's finally here. ;)

There's been more opposition for this project than with... well, I tried to come up with a good joke, but let's cut to the chase.

I've decided to release a rewrite I made of Notifications. It only works on full unlocked devices. Here's the details:

• This app caches the push notifications sent to your phone. So if someone mentions you on Twitter, and you miss the toast, it will appear in Notifications.
• This app does not cache non-push messages, such as texts, emails, calls, etc.
• Complete rewrite; it works differently than the original Notifications app. No PC tether, no external servers, etc.
• The NC service runs on the device. This is why you need your device to be full unlocked.
• I'll repeat that. It must be full unlocked, meaning you must be able to run EXE programs on it.

The setup is simple. Download and install it to your device. Run the app, and it should take you to the setup page. Press install, then agree to the disclaimer. It will prompt you to reboot. Do so, and with any luck, it'll work.

I'm releasing it without support. Notifications works for some people, doesn't for others. The problem is likely to do with full unlocking. If you have a custom ROM that is fully unlocked, it should work. As for EXE unlocking rooted devices, it may be hit or miss. We'll see on that.

The source is available on Github. Download the XAP here: ncroot1.xap. If you didn't read anything else: You need a policy unlocked or full unlocked device. If your device is not full unlocked, read the instructions appended below.

Also, if you want to test if it works, install SimplePush. It'll send a quick toast to your device.

Other than that, enjoy. I'm curious to see what the feedback is, and whether or not it works in certain scenarios. I don't know what the demand is to keep working on it, but here it is, and with that, enjoy. ;)

Update: Should now work on interop-unlocked devices, provided you use WP7 Root Tools. To do this, install the XAP, mark it as "Trusted", run Notifications, click Install, and reboot your phone. Presto. Do give feedback on whether or not this works.

Quick app today! It's simple, it's called Blur, and it gives you a pretty blurred lock screen effect like the one WP Central showed off Lock Widgets with.

It's a free Windows Phone 8 app and it's available in the store, here. It's free, as it really has no value, but if you like it, I'd appreciate a good rating on it in the store; it would really help me out ;)

Other than that, I hope everyone enjoys this quick little app. ;)

So, if you want to help out WPH in getting new devices to experiment with, do me a huge favor:

1. Download the WindowsPhoneHacker app
2. Give it a good rating!

You can repeat this with the LockWidgets app, too, if you have WP8.

Also, I have a game in the store just for kicks, and you can rate that too if you feel so inclined.

The more ratings on all the apps, the better, so take a minute or two if you will and click the 5-star. It's for a good cause, unless you hate WPH or something.

Thanks!!!

Update: Thanks for the help, everyone! For sake of transparency, here's some details:

• I get points everytime one of my apps maintains 4+ stars at intervals of 25, 50, 100, 200, and so on.
• If we can get LW8 to 50 or 100, and finish up WPH to 100, I'll be able to snag some WP8 handsets without it costing me or you a penny.
• As you can see, every vote counts. It'll take less than 5 minutes, so do it! ;)

But again, thanks for the support everyone!

Bam. Yesterday, I launched LockWidgets 8, a simple lock screen application for Windows Phone 8. I encountered a lot of surprises in the last 24 hours, and as such, I'd like to debrief on them real quick. Hopefully some of this advice will be useful for other developers.

Within an hour or two of it being live, WPCentral covered the app. This was a huge surprise to me, as I never really attempted for the app to gain publicity. Huge thanks to the guys there for this, though. Not only did this give the app a good bump, but it allowed me to see what editors and users thought of it, and I found several bugs this way.

Within the first few hours, several unpredictable issues appeared. Fortunately, this application is linked to my server-side backend, which allowed me to evaluate and fix several bugs within minutes, not days. Here's the rundown:

• Images being served from the Bing server were bad quality. I found a better source for them and switched it on the backend, flushed the cache, and voila; instantly fixed for all users.
• I left a "trial version" watermark in the code by accident. WPCentral noticed that one before I did. Again, fixed on the backend.
• NASA images were not scaling correctly. I added a ratio computation to the rendering function, and again, the fix is live.
• I trusted the device region settings to determine whether to use Fahrenheit or Celsius. Unfortunately, many people set their device to en-US to bypass some restrictions, and as such, this was not a safe way of determining the standard unit. I made a fix in the app that allows Celsius override and it's been submitted to the Store for approval. It'll take a few days, but it's done.

Lastly, a bizarre bug occurred where several people saw -273 as the temperature. Chemistry tells us this is absolute zero, so I certainly hope none of my users were living in such conditions. After some sarcasm and playful apologies to users, I added some code to the server to evaluate the problem.

As it turns out, when I requested the C# application to report latitude and longitude coordinates in a string, I expected all to be formatted with a decimal, such as "52.2024". I'm aware this is an American standard, but I didn't expect C# to be smart enough to change the ToString evaluation based on the device region. I was wrong. Long story short, the server was parsing many locations incorrectly. I found a way to correct it server-side, but unfortunately, this was fixed only this morning, and several, several users experienced it, according to my logs.

This is a lesson to be learned. First impressions count. Despite the fact the fix is live as of now, a good percentage of users have probably given up on the app at this point. It's unfortunate, but it's my fault for not testing more thoroughly.

That aside, I'm working on fixing other issues reported and implementing features requested. I'm very heartened by the nice words and enormous amounts of feedback about this app. You guys keep me motivated, and for that, thank you ;) If you have any suggestions, issues, etc., as always, feel free to drop me a comment or contact me directly.

After 10 days in certification, LockWidgets 8 finally got unstuck and is now live in the Windows Phone Store!

I submitted this again due to popular request, and hopefully people will enjoy it.

It's pretty simple. It's a Windows Phone 8 application that allows you to put weather info, battery info, and weather effects on your lock screen, which can be set to NASA, Bing daily, or your own photo. I'm open to suggestions ;)

In the time it took to be approved, a couple of knockoffs have showed up, but maybe my app will still be appreciated. If you like it, it's available in the Windows Phone Store.

It's $0.99 with a free trial; there's no difference between the two versions at this time, but it does cost me bandwidth to run LW8, so if you want to contribute to hosting it (or other WPH projects), feel free to purchase it. If there's too much load on the server at some point, I may differentiate the versions. We'll see.

Anyhow, as you guys requested, LW8 is now a reality. Enjoy, and thank you much for everyone's enthusiasm!

There's really not much to say that the title does not already explain. Heathcliff has announced a triple release wave, featuring WP7 Root Tools 1.1, a new SDK build, and, lo and behold, working unlocks for 1st and 2nd generation Samsung devices.

That means all the people who have been trying to unlock their Omnia W and Focus S's now have a possible methods. This should work on fully updated phones, unlike my dated Windowbreak exploit, which only worked for people who did not receive firmware updates after 7740.

But I digress. The downloads and instructions for all of this is at wp7roottools.com. Big thanks to Heathcliff74 for this one; if you appreciate his hard work, there's a big orange button on his site. Just sayin.

And WP7 lives on.

A lot of gossip has been going on today in regards to a 7.10.8860 update that has begun to roll out. Specifically, the update has been pinned as a fix for the 7.8 tile bugs.

This is not a true statement. Simply put, the 8860 update has nothing to do with the live tile bugs, battery drain, or anything like that. Don't believe me? Here's some points:

• The update files are stamped on January 19th, 2013. Considering that the first reports of the bug were around the beginning of February, aka when people first got the update, specifically Heathcliff's report, it's highly unlikely that this update could possibly be designed to fix that.
• More so, Microsoft's recognition was after user complaints. The statement suggestions the problem may included in a fix update, not that a fix had been created and was ready.
• Microsoft can't ship updates that quickly. They have too much testing to handle, not to mention carriers, OEMs, etc. Again, the update was built on January 19th.
• The update files in question have nothing to do with the start menu.
• I tested it, as seen above. My server is spammed with requests.
• Heath tested it and reports that it isn't fixed.

So, what is the update? I'm not sure. It's 343kb, the largest part being the quartz framework. There are also some provisioning settings in there for syncing Google accounts. Exactly what it's for, or why Microsoft is deploying the update again, I don't know. But it doesn't fix the live tiles, as far as my testing goes.

Update: Update version 8862 is out now (and in SevenEighter), which Microsoft states fixes the tile issue. It was built on February 23rd, so that's a good sign. The update does patch livetoken.exe, so that's also a good sign. I'm waiting to hear from Heathcliff, though, on if it solves his issue. I'm still getting some strange behavior on my end, but it may be unrelated to the tiles. For now, let's assume it fixes the problem, until further notice.

App I made over Winter Break for the WPG contest. Forgot how beautiful it was/is.

The app was made entirely over a remote desktop connection, two thousand miles away from my home computer. I'll say it turned out pretty well.

Any interest in cleaning it up and putting it live? ;)