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Developer Challenge

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Host Jonathan Rozenblit goes through the monthly developer news:

• Developer Movement is back - join the Developer Movement to earn points and be rewarded for publishing Windows Store and Windows Phone apps, with bonus points for adding in Windows Azure services.
• Windows 8
  • Celebrate the launch of Windows 8 with Tim Horton's - register for your Windows Store developer account, forward your confirmation email to win8cdn@microsoft.com and enjoy. More details here.
  • Get started building apps - 5 steps to get you going
    • Learn Windows 8 with hands-on labs
    • Start your app
    • Give your app some oomph
    • Check out an app lab
    • Prepare for certification
  • App Labs are starting to fill up fast. If you'd like to give your app a test drive on Windows 8 devices and have access to expert help, make sure to register for an app lab appointment today.
• Windows Phone 8 - The Windows Phone 8 developer platform is here. Get started.

Upcoming Events

• Live from DevTeach Montreal (LIVE, December 10, 6:30pm ET) - Howard Dierking from Microsoft Corp. keynotes DevTeach - Beyond VMs: From Saving Money to Adding Value. Of course everyone wants to save money – right? But how true is this in practice  when it comes to cloud computing? And more importantly, if the cloud is little  more than a bunch of rented virtual machines hosted by someone else, are you  actually saving money? At the end of the day, business exists not to save money,  but to make it, and if you're going to invest in the cloud, you should expect it  to help you make money. Put another way, the cloud should be about adding value,  not simply reducing costs. Come learn how Windows Azure makes the cloud into  something that helps you reach more clients, gain deeper business insights,  and yea, even save some money in the process.
• Office and SharePoint DevCamp (LIVE, December 14, 8:00am ET) - Covering topics such as building apps for Office, SharePoint, and Office 365 using web technologies you already know and leveraging the new Cloud app model, and more.

Be in the know of all developer events happening across Canada. Check out the Canadian Developer Events directory and make sure to subscribe via RSS, email, or iCal to be notified as soon as new events are added or existing ones are modified.

New On-Demand

• Pure Imagination - 4 tracks, 23 sessions covering everything you need to know to turn your idea into the next great Canadian app.
• Rise to the Modern App Challenge - Microsoft and ALM Certified Partner experts explore today's IT reality, modern app development challenges, and how tools such as Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server 2012 can help remedy those challenges.

Watch the full episode >>

Happy Holidays!

From all of us here at Microsoft Canada, happy holidays! Happy New Year! See you in 2013!

D³: LIVE & INTERACTiVE
In case you haven't heard about the show, Developers, Developers, Developers: LIVE & INTERACTIVE (D³) is a monthly show hosted by Jonathan Rozenblit. The show airs live every first Wednesday of the month at 12:00 PM ET and features the latest updates on what's new and exciting in the world of development; featured presentations; and guests. LIVE and INTERACTIVE means that you'll be part of the show – You're invited to interact with us; ask questions and get them answered; and share your thoughts and opinions.

Join the Canadian Developer Connection LinkedIn group 
Follow @devsdevdevs
Like D³ on Facebook
Subscribe to podcasts via iTunes, Zune, or RSS
Download the Canadian Developer Connection Windows Store app
Download the Canadian Developer Connection Windows Phone app

More D³: LIVE & INTERACTIVE >>

Who:  want to develop Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 apps

To:   develop apps for social good

By:  giving them the necessary resources to develop and publish apps (i.e.   Generation App), incentives, and prizes

Because:  Microsoft wants to populate the Windows Marketplace with apps, and use

  them as an example of what can be done with Windows 8 and Windows   Phone 8.

Where:  US

When:  Launch: November 5, 2012 (Channel 9)

  Submission Deadline: February 28

  Public Voting Ends: March 15

  Winners Announced: March 25

Here is a link to MORE INFO

How do you stack up against the coding competition? Play and find out!                              

How do you stack up against the coding competition? Play weekly and find out!                            

How do you stack up against the coding competition? Play weekly and find out!                               

Since the contest’s launch, 131 teams submitted applications. From those, a winner (the “rockstar”) was chosen plus two-runners up. The winning team gets a free trip to Poland for the Imagine Cup, plus $8000 USD. The first runner up earns $4000 USB and the second runner up gets $3000 USD. All winners receive a new Windows Phone, too.

So who won? An app called “Droid,” as it turns out. The app is a game that involves controlling a machine that destroys other machines using the accelerometer. Players can shoot, repair and defend themselves using the provided controls, while making sure their health doesn’t run out.

One of the runners up also built a game, this one with a funny littel guy that moves about a forest, and another built a comic book reader. All of the winners (and other submitters) have impressive offerings, especially considering these are not professionally built games, but those built by students, 16 years or older currently attending either high school or college.

Entries can include text, photos and/or video, and being creative is definitely a bonus. Already, hundreds of entries have been submitted (you can check them out here), so better make yours stand out. The deadline to enter is July 8th.

Four runners up will also be selected and they’ll receive a 16 GB Zune HD.  

While the ads themselves are funny (or perhaps disturbing?) riffs on what visiting ex-boyfriends and online stalkers would be like, the truth is that in real life, most people don’t friend creepy strangers on Facebook. (That was what MySpace was for!) Also, the correct protocol, as everyone knows, is that you “unfriend” your ex upon breakup. Those who don’t do so learn the hard way when the ex takes to posting nasty things on your wall. Believe me, I’ve seen it. So take the ads with a grain of salt, they’re not intended to be taken seriously.

However, I think this is an interesting idea for a contest and one that will likely appeal to the youth demographic on the social network. Facebook, unlike Twitter, MySpace and others, is a site where most people connect only with actual friends and family members instead of with random strangers who share their interests, or, as mentioned above, those who virtually stalk them.

With Facebook’s built-in networks that help you find high school and college friends as well as former colleagues, it’s easy to reconnect via Facebook with those friends you may have lost touch with over the years. How nice would it be to actually get to go see them in person? I know I’d love the opportunity to catch up with my hometown friends and college buddies, who now live all over the U.S. That would be a great roadtrip! I wonder if I’m eligible for this contest? Hmm…

Another fun way to browse through the photos comes by way of Bing’s Visual Search gallery. Here, you can sort through the top entries, filter them by state, school, theme, etc. As for me, I’m happy to see that my home state, Florida,  is a finalist with an entry featuring the Everglades. I think that will be my pick. 

The 4.3-inch touchscreen isn’t the only compelling feature on the HD2. It also has a 5-megapixel camera, a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 3G data/Wi-Fi access, GPS and a microSD slot, too.

If you want to learn more about the device or enter the contest, visit the Facebook page here.

Besides the grand prize, the top winners from four age groups (ages 5-10, 11-13, 14-17 and 18+) will also win a trip to Microsoft where they get to participate in a Bing editorial meeting where they pick future homepage images. All winners will also receive equipment from HP and Canon. Specifically, HP will be providing the winners with HP Pavilion desktops and a monitor.

In addition to the contest participants, those voting on the images can win, too. From April 13th to the 19th, Bing will give a $5.00 GivingCard for DonorsChoose.org to the first 20,000 people who vote each day. This money can be spent on classroom projects (like math, science, art, reading) at local schools. In total, Bing will donate up to $100,000 a day to help schools across the U.S.

You can find out more about the contest, its requirements, and the submission information here: http://earthdayphotocontest.com.

Starting on November 27th, the Bing Cashback Holiday Gold Rush promotion brings you great deals from online merchants. In the list below, you can see the Cashback merchants and their associated increased Cashback percentages, courtesy of the Bing Search blog:

• AT&T/MEC: 35%
• Barnes & Noble.com: 14%
• Best Buy: 10%
• Buy.com: 5%
• Circuit City: 12.2% (search) and 8% (Bing shopping)*
• Dell: 20%
• drugstore.com: 20%
• eBags: 30%
• eBay: 10%
• Endless.com: 20%
• Foot Locker/eastbay: 25%
• Home Depot: 8%
• HP: 20%
• Kohl's: 10%
• Lenovo: 20%
• Macy's: 10%
• Overstock.com: 15%
• Sears: 13%
• Sephora: 20%
• Shoebuy: 20%
• The Gap: 10%
• TigerDirect: 12.2% (search) and 8% (Bing shopping)*
• T-Mobile: 35%
• Walmart: 15%

The Cashback team is also hosting another promotion beginning on the 27th called the Holiday Trivia Sweepstakes. To play, follow the @bingcashback Twitter account and watch for the posted trivia questions. After the question goes up, you have an hour to search for the answer and then tweet it back to @bingcashback, including the hashtag #Bingholiday in your response. Selected winners will play for the chance to win a $250 Master Card and, on the contest’s 12th day, a $500 Master Cash. 

At the time of writing, the current bid stands at $7400 but Beatles fans still have plenty of time to place a bid themselves – the auction will continue for a week.

In addition to the console, Microsoft has also released the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” as a downloadable song through Xbox LIVE for 160 Microsoft Points. Proceeds from the song also go to the same charity and your purchase will register you to win one of the limited edition Beatles Xbox 360 consoles (yes, there are more than one!) and a Rickenbacker 325 replica guitar controller.

The other finalists’ photos (and the honorable mentions) were pretty amazing, too. I wouldn’t mind having some of those pictures as my desktop wallpaper. I hope the photographers will decide to share their photos on the web. 

The other contest, which just launched, aims to help parents and kids with their back-to-school needs. Thanks to Bing Cashback, seven lucky winners will receive a Bing-branded backpack that includes a $500 Visa cash card which can be used for new school clothes, supplies, or anything else you want. This contest, which begins on July 23rd, is being held exclusively on Twitter. The @bingcashback Twitter account will tweet a Bing-related trivia question daily for a week and everyone who answers correctly via an @reply will become eligible to win. All the correct answers are easy to find using Bing, specifically Bing Shopping and Bing Cashback. To participate, follow @bingcashback on Twitter.

Applications in the Economy category should help people deal with the worsening global economy in some way and the applications in the Ecology category should help improve the ecology of planet Earth. The applications can be either web applications in the traditional sense or they can be “mashups.”

To sign up, just enter your email address on the Will Code for Green site to get started. Winners will be announced at this year’s 2009 Gnomedex technology conference. If you’re in the Seattle area, you can attend a “Will Code for Green” hackathon on June 27th hosted by Microsoft. More details here.

If you haven’t already heard, Windows SideShow is a new technology that lets Microsoft Windows send data to devices that could include, but aren’t limited to, mobile phones, digital picture frames, displays embedded in keyboards, front-panel computer displays, and displays attached to a laptop. Think you have a great idea for a gadget? Study up and get to work - the contest ends July 18, 2008.