Chris Williams

CODE Author

Chris G. Williams is a Senior Developer for Fluor Government Group, a nine-year multiple Microsoft MVP awardee (VB, XNA/DirectX, Windows Phone) and the author of Professional Windows Phone Game Development.

He’s authored numerous articles on a variety of technologies, led a 14-city speaking tour, and has a series of mobile development webinars produced through DevExpress.com.

Chris is a regular presenter at conferences, code camps, and user groups around the country. He blogs at GeeksWithBlogs (.net) and also manages the MonoGame Indie Devs technical community on Facebook.

Detailed Bio

He’s authored numerous articles on a variety of technologies, led a 14-city speaking tour, and has a series of mobile development webinars produced through DevExpress.com.

Chris is a regular presenter at conferences, code camps, and user groups around the country. He blogs at GeeksWithBlogs (.net) and also manages the MonoGame Indie Devs technical community on Facebook.

Contact Information:

Articles Authored

Building an Alexa Skill with AWS Lambda

Last updated: Monday, April 26, 2021

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2018 - May/June

Your household will never be the same after you get Alexa. Chris shows you how to help her understand your requests by building a small trivia game.
Building CodeTweet for Windows Phone

Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2011 - September/October

In this article, we take a look at what’s involved with building a simple Twitter Search client for Windows Phone. We will cover what tools you need, where to download them, how to design, build and test the app and finally, how to publish it to the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Community Roles

Last updated: Saturday, January 18, 2020

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2011 - March/April
- Community
- Editorials
Dances with Workflows (One Newbie’s Journey)

Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2009 - March/April

Recently I started working with a client that was interested in using Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) in their application.Having never used WF before, I thought it might be interesting to document the experience and my assumptions as I started learning and implementing the technology in production.
- WF
Eight Evil Things Microsoft Never Showed You in the ClickOnce Demos (and What You Can Do About Some of Them)

Last updated: Saturday, January 18, 2020

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2009 - January/February
- Build and Deploy
Embracing Community

Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2010 - January/February

Chris launches a new series about the developer community and highlights some people, organizations, and events that you should know about.What is community?A quick look at the Wikipedia defines community as “a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment” and I think that pretty much nails it. In this new series, I’ll be talking about the developer community as a whole and highlighting some people, organizations and events I think you should check out.
Embracing Community: Becoming a Speaker

Last updated: Thursday, February 21, 2019

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2010 - November/December

Chris Williams embracing community Nov/Dec 10 column.
- Community
- Editorials
Embracing Community: GiveCamps

Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2010 - May/June

What is community? A quick look at the Wikipedia defines community as “a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment” and I think that pretty much nails it. In this column, I talk about the developer community as a whole and highlight some people, organizations and events I think you should check out.
- Community
- Editorials
Embracing Community: More Advice on Running Your Own Code Camp Event

Last updated: Saturday, January 18, 2020

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2010 - July/August
- Community
- Editorials
MVP Corner: Challenging IT Promotion

Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2009 - January/February

Jan/Feb 09 MVP Corner by Chris Williams
- Opinion
MVP Corner: Looking Back on the Great VB/C# War

Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2011 - July/August

Recently, I received an email comment on a blog post I wrote roughly 3 1/2 years ago. I had completely forgotten about writing the post, but as soon as I saw the title I remembered every word of it. It also got me thinking about who the guy was that wrote it... then and now.
MVP Corner: We Are the Masters of the Twitterverse

Last updated: Thursday, February 21, 2019

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2008 - September/October

How did we ever survive without social networks? I asked myself that today and couldn’t come up with an answer I liked. If I need to find contact information for that DBA I worked with three jobs ago, it’s off to LinkedIn or Plaxo. When I’m wondering about that guy from high school who was going to be a world famous rock star, Facebook is only a couple of clicks away. Out of town for a conference? No worries, I just check Twitter to see where my friends are.
New Features in XNA 4.0 and Windows Phone 7

Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2011 - January/February

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about Windows Phone 7. What you may not know is that there are two ways of developing applications and games for this device. Silverlight and XNA are your two choices and in this article, I cover the Games and XNA side of the house.
- Windows Phone 7
- XNA
Programming Alexa Skills for the Amazon Echo

Last updated: Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2017 - March/April

If you’re looking for a way to computerize your home or add voice controls to your apps, you’re interested in what’s happening with Amazon Echo. Chris introduces you to some basic programming skills for the device and points the way to greatness.
Software Archaeology

Last updated: Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2017 - November/December

If you’ve ever had to step through legacy code—even your own—you understand what a mystery some of it can be. Chris provides some tips and tricks for figuring it out.
Starting Your Own User Group

Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2010 - March/April

What is community?A quick look at the Wikipedia defines community as “a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment” and I think that pretty much nails it. In this series, I’ll talk about the developer community as a whole and highlight some people, organizations and events I think you should check out.
- Community
Taking the Mystery Out of Cryptocurrencies

Last updated: Friday, September 3, 2021

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2014 - September/October

Bitcoin has been in the news a lot lately. If you ever wondered how it worked, you’ll want to read what Chris has to say.
- Bitcoin
- C#
- Cryptocurrency
- Security
Use Your Words: Getting Familiar with Speech Synthesis Markup Language

Last updated: Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2017 - July/August

Chris explores how voice-enabled home assistant devices, like Amazon Echo and Google Home, speak to you and how they learn to understand your particular speech patterns.
What’s New in C# 7.0

Last updated: Thursday, May 20, 2021

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2017 - May/June

Just when you think you know what’s up in C#, they release a new version. This one’s got pattern matching, tuples, and local functions along with improvements to existing features. Chris shows you where to dive in.
XNA is Dead; Long Live the New XNA, MonoGame

Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Published in: CODE Magazine: 2014 - November/December

If you haven’t explored the open source implementation of XNA 4.x API called MonoGame, now’s your chance to see what exciting things are in store for you. Chris takes us there.
- C#
- Game Development
- Mono
- MonoGame
- Open Source
- XNA