Phone Link is testing an expanded view option for the apps section, allowing you to increase the view area while using Android apps on your Windows 11 PC. Phone Link has been toying with several ideas, and this is one of the improvements I’ve been waiting for a long time.

Phone Link has an Apps feature, which allows you to share screen of your Android app to the desktop. The Apps feature is available only on select Samsung, HONOR, OPPO, ASUS, vivo, and Xiaomi devices, and my S1 FE is among those.

The biggest letdown while using the Phone Link’s App streaming feature is the inability to maximize the window.

I have a 2K monitor, and whenever I open an app, it appears vertically with a very narrow width. The appearance looks like a phone screen, but it is difficult to use on a monitor.

I previously used a workaround method to maximize the app screen. To do that, I would rotate the phone screen after opening the app and then use the “Open Phone screen” option.

But that only works for apps that support horizontal layout. Uber, for example, doesn’t support horizontal layout, and I cannot use it in that mode.

To combat this problem, Microsoft is testing a new “Expanded” view mode when you launch apps on your PC. It’s a small icon that appears before the minimize button and stretches the app window for better visibility. I upgraded the app to version number 1.25112.33.0 in my Dev Insider machine, after which I could access the new mode.

When I expanded the Uber app, the screen became wider than before. However, the app window covered two-thirds of the display and had a huge black background on both sides. So, it does expand the app view to some extent, but the overall gain in size isn’t what I expected.

Expanded view needs refinement

Most phone apps are tailored to offer a vertical layout experience, and Uber is no exception. Still, some apps like VLC and Amazon can take complete advantage of the maximized view. When I opened VLC in the Phone Link app, it covered the window and didn’t show a thick black background like Uber.

Another noticeable thing is the slightly hazy appearance of apps in Expanded view. The fonts do not increase in size when you switch to the expanded mode, and reading them can be a problem on the big screen.

The expanded window also auto-aligns to the left side of the screen, which is very weird. You cannot maximize it to full screen.

If I compare it with the default app view, the screen and elements look sharper there. I expect the same from the expanded view mode, or it will be a pain to use for extended hours. There’s huge room for improvement if Microsoft wants to release the new Phone Link feature to the stable edition.

The post Microsoft is making Android apps streaming on Windows 11 more native with expanded mode appeared first on Windows Latest

Adobe has launched Photoshop, Adobe Express and Acrobat inside ChatGPT, giving the AI platform’s 800 million weekly users direct access to its most popular creative and productivity tools. The integration combines Adobe’s image editing knowhow with ChatGPT’s conversational interface, allowing people to edit photos, design content and transform documents simply by describing what they want to do. SEE ALSO: ChatGPT Atlas ranks as the least private browser in new study The new apps are designed to make creativity more accessible, allowing users to edit images, adjust brightness or contrast, and apply effects in Photoshop without leaving the chat. Adobe Express… [Continue Reading]

Overview

Azure Container Apps (ACA) simplifies container orchestration, but capacity planning often confuses developers. Questions like “How do replicas consume node resources?”, “When does ACA add nodes?”, and “How should I model limits and requests?”. This guide pairs official ACA guidance with practical examples to demystify workload profiles, autoscaling, and resource modelling.

Understanding Workload Profiles in Azure Container Apps

ACA offers three profile types:

Consumption

• Scales to zero
• Platform decides node size
• Billing per replica execution time

Dedicated

• Choose VM SKU (e.g., D4 → 4 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM)
• Billing per node

Flex (Preview)

• Combines dedicated isolation with consumption-like billing

Each profile defines node-level resources. For Example: D4 → 4 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM per node.

2. How Replicas Consume Node Resources

ACA runs on managed Kubernetes.

• Node = VM with fixed resources
• Replica = Pod scheduled on a node
• Replicas share node resources; ACA packs replicas until node capacity is full.

Example

Node: D4 (4 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM)
Replica requests: 1 vCPU, 2 GiB

5 replicas → Needs 5 vCPU, 10 GiB

 

ACA places 4 replicas on Node 1 and adds Node 2 for replica 5.

 

3. When ACA Adds Nodes

ACA adds nodes when:

• Pending replicas cannot fit on existing nodes
• Resource requests exceed available capacity

ACA uses Kubernetes scheduling principles. Nodes scale out when pods are not schedulable due to CPU/memory constrains.

4. Practical Sizing Strategy

1. Identify peak load → translate to CPU/memory per replica
2. Choose workload profile SKU (e.g., D4)
3. Calculate packing: node capacity ÷ replica request = max replica node
4. Add buffer (e.g. 20%) for headroom
5. Configure autoscaling:
   • Min replicas for HA.
   • Max replicas for burst.
   • Min/Max nodes for cost control.

5. Common Misconceptions

Myth: “Replicas have dedicated CPU/RAM per container automatically.” Reality: Not exactly. They consume from the node pool based on your configured CPU & memory. Multiple replicas compete for the same node until capacity is exhausted.

Myth: “ACA node scaling is CPU-time based.” Reality: ACA node scaling is driven by non-schedulable replicas (cannot place due to configured resources). Triggers for replica scaling are KEDA rules (HTTP, queue, CPU/memory %, etc.), but node scale follows from replica placement pressure.

6. Key Takeaways

• Model per-node packing before setting replica counts
• Plan for zero-downtime upgrades (double replicas temporarily)
• Monitor autoscaling behavior; defaults may not fit every workload

7. Relevant Links: 

Azure Container Apps plan types | Microsoft Learn

Compute and billing structures in Azure Container Apps | Microsoft Learn

 

 

Post questions | Provide product feedback

1141. We look at the controversy that caught Stefan Fatsis by surprise when he defined the word "sheeple" for Merriam-Webster, leading to public complaints. We also look at the origin and purpose of the obscure "Backward Index" invented by Webster's Third editor Philip Gove and how quickly Merriam added COVID-related words to the dictionary.

Find Stefan Fatsis on his website, Bluesky or Facebook. 

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When you hit a career roadblock, the methods that worked for you before often stop working. Today, I’m diving into why that happens, and why the first and most critical step in progressing past stagnation isn't doubling down on skills, but clearly defining the problem standing in your way.

Problem Definition As A Path for Career Growth

My goal on the show is to help driven developers like you find clarity, perspective, and purpose in their careers. This episode is for everyone trying to grow, especially if you have hit some kind of roadblock. Most career progression, especially early on, happens somewhat automatically through natural experience, domain expertise, and skill accumulation,. However, as you progress, you will hit missing rungs or roadblocks—things preventing you from progressing in promotions, positions, or specific projects.

When blocked, most people rely on the same things they did before, such as gaining experience, reading blogs, or building side projects, using a "scattershot approach" to try and guess what their managers want,. Unfortunately, relying on activity that previously got you ahead will not necessarily work later in your career,. As you climb the career ladder, the number of positions available decreases (the pyramid shape), meaning that even being highly qualified may not lead to the next role if it simply doesn't exist,.

If you haven't defined the problem, you have no way of knowing whether the actions you are taking will help you progress where you want to go. Instead of continuing the never-ending cycle of self-improvement, you need to step outside your own context and try to see the problem from an external viewpoint, like a consultant. Recognizing the core problem—like a lack of available roles—allows you to shift your focus away from only improving your skill set and toward solving that specific organizational problem, perhaps by expanding the necessary scope for the role to open up,. Redefining the problem may mean shifting your goal from getting a promotion to convincing someone to let you perform the activities associated with that higher role, which is a different process entirely. In almost every circumstance where you are blocked, there is a problem that you need to work on defining better; this is the first step towards moving past the roadblock,.

• Explore why the natural career progression that works early on—driven by experience and skill accumulation—slows down and fails when you hit later-stage roadblocks,,.
• Discover why relying on a "scattershot approach" of extra activity, like reading blogs or building side projects, is often ineffective when facing a structural block in your career path,,.
• Understand that if a desired role doesn't exist within the company structure, becoming more skilled or qualified won't solve the organizational problem,.
• Learn how redefining your career problem—for instance, shifting from needing a promotion to needing permission to do high-level tasks—can open up entirely new pathways for growth.
• Challenge your self-improvement cycle by stepping outside your own context and defining your career roadblock as if you were an external consultant,.

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How is package management changing? Carl and Richard talk with Gary Ewan Park about his view of the package management landscape in the Windows world. Gary talks about the array of open source and free products out there today to do package management - you really have a lot of choice! There are also retail enterprise products that focus on features companies need to support larger numbers of machines, including virtual machines and cloud containers. The challenge of security and supply chain attacks is a key part of the modern landscape - and there are tools to help you get things right!



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