We will be accepting entries until August 12, 2005 and the winners will be announce on Monday, August 15th, 2005.

For more information please review the official contest rules.

Good luck and happy coding!
-Jeff

dahat wrote:

What is the policy on applications that rely on external applications or hardware? Say... a person makes a game that absolutely requires (for whatever reason) a joystick, or another application that requires an mp3 player, webcam or something even more obscure (LCD panel, gps, etc)?
 
Also, is it safe to assume that any judging will be done on Windows XP machines?

Steve411 wrote:

I actually have a finished project in .net 2.0. I could so win this. BUt I wouldn't be able to go.

jeffsand wrote:

The judging panel will test the applications on Windows XP.

The MSI could be zipped up with a screen shot?

Michael McCarthy wrote:

Any way of getting vs2005 beta without having to be an MSDN subscriber or having it sent to you via some sort of message in a bottle, aka snail-mail?

Well, if there's a '2005 Betas Unleashed' event in your area, you can show up and attend that and they'll give you a copy in person.  (and it's not a bad idea in general).

John Fiala

UltraGuy wrote:

We will not be setting up any enhancements, external devices, or installing anything other than your app as part of the testing process.

Can I assume that the out of the box XP SP2 machine that you will test the application will have an NTFS file system? (its the default for XP)


Yes, it will have NTFS

1. When running the solution within the VS .NET IDE please confirm that the port number assigned to the ASP .NET Development Server matches the settings in the Client project settings designer.  For example, in http://localhost:34052/sharewareservice the port number is 34052.  This URL is visible by clicking on the ASP .NET Development Server tray icon once the Web Project is started.  For the Client web services to contact the server web services, the client must contact the services on the correct port.  You may check the Client port settings by selecting properties for the SskWebService reference and viewing the URL. 

Could that be your problem?  Are you sure you're config which defaults to port 1956 is the same as the actual port the web service is running on?

using System;
using System.Net.Mail;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using Microsoft.ApplicationBlocks.Data;

namespace SSK.Server
{
/// <summary>
/// Summary description for SendMail.
/// </summary>
public class SendMail
{

private MailMessage _message;

//constructor
public SendMail() { }

/// <summary>
/// Send an email to the user with their license information
/// </summary>
/// <param name="invoice">The invoice for the transaction</param>
/// <param name="authLicense">The product key generated by the system.</param>
public void SendMailApprovedLicense(string invoice, string authLicense)
{
SqlDataReader reader = SqlHelper.ExecuteReader(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["SQLConnectionString"], "SendMailApprovedLicense", invoice);

if (reader.HasRows)
{
reader.Read();
string body;
string to = (string)reader["Email"];
string subject = "Your product has been activated.";
body = "<table width=\"500\"><tr><td>";
body += "Dear " + (string)reader["Firstname"] + ",<br><br><br>";
body += "Thank you for activating your product. Please make a note of the following information ";
body += "for future reference:<br><br>";
body += "</td></tr>";
body += "<tr><td width=\"500\">";
body += "Product Key: " + invoice + " ";
body += "<br><br>";
body += "</td></tr>";
body += "<tr><td>";
body += "Thank you,<Br>";
body += ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["FromName"] + "<br><br>";
body += ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["FromEmail"];
body += "</td></tr>";
body += "</table>";

try
{
Send(subject, body, to);
}
catch
{
//fail gracefully if the mail doesn't send
}
}
}

public void Send(string subject, string body, string to)
{
_message = new MailMessage();
_message.IsBodyHtml = true;
_message.From = new MailAddress(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["FromEmail"]);
_message.Subject = subject;
_message.Body = body;
_message.To.Add(to);

SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["SMTP"]);
smtp.Send(_message);
}
}
}

PJausovec wrote:

Will there be Office 2003 and/or Outlook 2003 installed on evaluation machine?

joeisadotnet wrote:

Hello, my name is Joe and i am 10 years old, why can't i enter. I could make an realy good program and i would love absaloutly love to go to the PDC 05.

The judges will be running the Shareware Starter Kit service on the local machine, will it be the same service and DB that is available to us all and has been since the start of this contest?

If the above is true, given that it is the same DB, are our apps are to use the same information as the sample client when it comes to those values used to distinguish one app from another in the eyes of the service/DB (ie ProductName, DevID, etc)?

I just want to make sure that I am accounting for any meaningful differences between the machine(s) that my app will be run on compared to those I have already have and continue to test with.

dbates wrote:

Can the application be packaged in a MSI, rather than a collection of binaries and assemblies.

The MSI could be zipped up with a screen shot?

danv303 wrote:

How complete are you expecting the entries to be?  I think I can get my project into a polished beta state - mostly usable but some rough edges.  I expect to be starting the beta testing phase when around the due date - would it reflect badly on my submission?

joeisadotnet wrote:

Can I just watch over the net and get the things their using.

I’m always happy to have the chance to improve my code, but why oh why are you forcing all of this extra time on me?

Add to that a couple of friends pointing out a few typos in the manual, tutorial and EULA and I figured I would take this extension as a blessing (ability to improve), rather than the curse it is too (having to wait that much longer for the final results).

I could be wrong Gary, but I do not recall anywhere in the rules that says anything to the effect of “once you’ve submitted your entry, you cannot modify or replace it, even if such a change occurs prior to the submission end”, I say go for it.

dahat wrote:

I could be wrong Gary, but I do not recall anywhere in the rules that says anything to the effect of “once you’ve submitted your entry, you cannot modify or replace it, even if such a change occurs prior to the submission end”, I say go for it.

Midway through I noticed something, every time I would go back to reedit a previewed post, my uploaded image and zip would be lost. Finally at the end in fact, I accidentally made my post without having my zip or image added, so I went back and quickly made the change.

While I haven’t done so yet (other than after my initial post when I discovered that the files were not attached), you can edit a post, in so doing removing the attached files and be able to add new ones. I also noticed this when I was tweaking my post originally before submitting it, each time you would go back from a preview, I would lose the already uploaded files.

You do raise a good point though... and there is one sure way to find out.

Say Ultra, as the latest ‘Softie to post here and one who seems to have some knowledge with regards to the rules and what not... what would be your ruling on this (or you are not the person to ask, who would be)? Are entrants able to edit their entries after they have already been submitted, just so long as all editing occurs prior to the close of the contest entry time?

dahat wrote:

 

Say Ultra, as the latest ‘Softie to post here and one who seems to have some knowledge with regards to the rules and what not... what would be your ruling on this (or you are not the person to ask, who would be)? Are entrants able to edit their entries after they have already been submitted, just so long as all editing occurs prior to the close of the contest entry time?

To add to that, if between now and Monday at 23:59:59 PDT; should I have a new version of my entry... would I need to have you nuke my entire original entry thread, or can I simply edit my original post and while there upload the new version?

dahat wrote:

Excellent, thanks for the info Michael (now that I know your name).

To add to that, if between now and Monday at 23:59:59 PDT; should I have a new version of my entry... would I need to have you nuke my entire original entry thread, or can I simply edit my original post and while there upload the new version?

Wesner Moise wrote:

Hi, Michael does the contest deadline extension also apply to the Blog contest?

Congrats to kcchesnut and PJausovec!

briant wrote:

This may be late for you guys, but the free hosted service for the Shareware Starter Kit is now up at sharewarestarterkit.com.  Once you create an account a developer token is created.  The site also gives you tools to view the submissions.