• [00:38] Microsoft unveils Xbox One: the ultimate all-in-one home entertainment system
• [02:10] Stay Connected with the Ch9 Events App
• [03:25] Putting the power of Unity in the hands of every mobile developer (David Helgason)
• [04:32] Channel 9 Highlight: Creating the Virtual Experiment Laboratory app with the Visual Studio 3D Starter Kit (Roberto Sonnino, Gokhan Sengun)
• [05:40] Step-by-Step – Making Windows 8 Pong for a complete beginner (Susan Ibach)
• [06:13] OData Apps in Update 2–Querying data from Stack Overflow (Matt Sampson)
• [07:34] Where else is NuGet used in Visual Studio? (Luan Nguyen)
• [09:04] Play with [NuGet] Packages, programmatically! (Ranjini Mathrubootham)

Picks of the Week!

• Mark's Pick of the Week:[09:50] Voice Commands (Mads Kristensen)
• Clint's Pick of the Week:[10:52] AGENT: The World's Smartest Watch (Secret Labs, House of Horology)

Please add your suggestions for awesome Windows 8 apps in the comments section. This week we take a look at:

Star Trek App - ENTERTAINMENT

Box - PRODUCTIVITY

Fling Theory - GAMES

StumbleUpon - SOCIAL

wordBrush- ENTERTAINMENT

Gokhan discusses how he used the Starter Kit as a base for learning about DirectX programming, and demonstrates how he used the Visual Studio Shader Designer to create some of the effects in his app.

• [00:00] - Gokhan and Roberto talk about the app and Gokhan's experiences with DirectX and the Starter Kit
• [10:56] - Gokhan demos the Virtual Experiment Laboratory app
• [14:32] - Behind the scenes - making a dynamic sprite with the Visual Studio Shader Designer
• [18:37] - Behind the scenes - making an animated flame with the Visual Studio Shader Designer

Come watch the Starter Kit and the Visual Studio graphics tools in action to create rich 3D user interfaces for your app.

For more information, you can find Gokhan on Twitter: @gokhansengun.

Roberto is also on Twitter: @robertos_br. Please let us know if you have an app on the Store that uses the VS 3D Starter Kit!

• [2:04] Demo: Control Your App Privacy
• [6:12] Demo: SmartScreen
• [11:33] Demo: Automatic Updates
• [17:31] Demo: Turn on BitLocker

There’s never been a better time to build for Windows!  Join the App Builder Program and learn about the Windows ecosystem opportunity, design and monetization tips and partner development frameworks.

Resources:

• Download the Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation
• Windows 8 Enterprise
• Windows 8 Licensing
• The Springboard Series Blog
• Windows 8 Resources for IT Pros on Springboard
• Resources for Developers to Build Windows 8 Apps
• Windows 8 resources for partners on Microsoft Partner Network

• [01:07] Introducing a new Windows Dev Center experience, Windows Dev Center
• [02:25] Windows 8.1 at //build (Windows Keeps Getting Better) (Brandon LeBlanc)
• [03:25] Channel 9 Highlight: Programming Windows with Charles Petzold (Charles Petzold, Jaime Rodriguez)
• [04:44] MissionControl - A Flexible API for Remote Device Control (Clint Rutkas, Den Delimarsky)
• [06:08] Visual Studio ALM Ranger Solutions Catalog (Willy-P. Schaub)
• [07:30] Testing with Visual Studio 2012 Agile TMap The QUALITY A-Z Roadshow (Clemens Reijnen)
• [08:20] Channel 9 Highlight: Getting started with Cinder for Windows Store Apps (Rick Barraza)
• [09:30] Solving Mazes with AI Pathfinding Techniques: A* vs Tremaux (Kory Becker)

Picks of the Week!

• Mark's Pick of the Week:[12:04] Farticus (Sayed Hashimi, Mads Kristensen)
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[13:27] Blue Screen of Death: Who designed the original Windows Blue Screen of Death? (John Vert)

Windows 8 Platformer Game Starter Kit

Platformer Game Starter Kit(includes 2 HTML5-based examples)

Don't start from scratch. Our Platformer Game Starter Kit for Windows 8 will get you going with full code & free game art.

How

---

Feel free to take the examples, mix them up and build your own great game for the Windows Store following these steps:

1. Download your free Visual Studio for Windows 8 for all the tools you will need.
2. Download the Platformer Game Starter Kit.
3. Mix it up and build your own epic game.
4. Open a Windows Store Developer Account.
5. Let us know about it and we can even give you free advice on making it great and help pass store certification.
6. Publish it to the Windows Store.

We know everyone is not a game artist, so we have provided you with some free game art and other places you can find royalty-free art for your game.

Ludus Game Starter Kit

An HTML5 Platformer Game Starter Kit for Windows8 Store

by Christer (McFunkypants) Kaitila http://mcfunkypants.com

Source: https://github.com/mcfunkypants/ludus

Demos: http://www.mcfunkypants.com/ludus

Welcome to Ludus, brave adventurer!

Ludus is a dirt-simple game engine that uses html5 canvas. It was designed specifically for mario/sonic style platformer games but could be used for any genre with minimal changes. It boasts great performance, and requires only free tools.

The word Ludus means PLAY/GAME/TRAINING in latin. The Ludus engine is designed to be a great way to learn to make games.

Sure, there are bigger and more complex game engines.

This one is designed to be easy to play around with.

Why? It was created to run real-world games that have a beginning, middle, and end. It was optimized to run on less powerful systems and touch-screen tablets. It is simple, but goes beyond the level of a "tech demo" to encapsulate all the required functionality you might need to make a polished game, such as GUI and sound.

...

IT'S POSSIBLE TO MAKE A GAME USING LUDUS IN A WEEKEND.

You could make your own game just by changing the artwork: it is possible to make a new game without ever touching a line of code. All you would need to do is modify the .png and .mp3 art assets as well as the level#.js level data files.

The best tool to create in-game worlds is TILED (http://www.mapeditor.org) which exports data in .json format.

Check out the example .tmx source files and see if you can make your own game! Once you've made a level, export as .json and then run the _buildlevels.bat file to convert JSON to JSONP data to a new level#.js file.

The one important thing to remember is that each layer is important. The order matters. The bottom-most layer is for regular world tiles that the player will collide with. The rest are for pickups, bouncy platforms, dangerous spikes, and so on.

Additionally, you should modify the game settings in the MAP MENU -> MAP PROPERTIES dialog. Gravity, speed and the player's starting position are all stored there.

HACKING THE SOURCE CODE

The only source code file you will want to modify, if you choose to start coding, is ludus.js. Inside, you'll notice all sorts of variables at the top which you can modify to your heart's content. Note that some of these variables are overwritten by whatever is defined inside the level data.

With regard to the structure of the code, the most important thing to know is that the game is controlled by STATE objects.

Each state (title screen, in-game, and between level transitions) is a class object that has a .setup(), .update() and .draw() function. You could add new states for things like boss battles, inventory screens or a high score table.

See these class constructors: function TitleScreenState() function LevelTransitionScreenState() function PlayState()

HAVE FUN!

...

Let's take a peek at the two included example games (In Visual Studio of course!)...

Both games ran for me the first time with no issues and were fun (in a platformer kind of way). Sure there's only 3 levels, but hey, if there was too much done it would take all the coding fun away!

So either start from scratch or copy off of these, this kit and the provided free artwork, framework and code will have you building your next great Windows 8 game...

• [00:10] 100 million licenses, 250 million Store app downloads, 400 million active Outlook accounts
• [00:56] Build will release a public preview of “Windows Blue”
• [01:36] Visual Studio 2012.3 (Update 3) “go-live” CTP is now available (Brian Harry),http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=290979, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2835600
• [02:46] Announcing availability of ISOs for Visual Studio Updates (Eric Knox), ISO Recorder 
• [04:12] TFS 2012.2 Power Tools update available (Brian Harry)
• [05:09] Publish Individual Files to your Server in Visual Studio 2012.2 (Rick Strahl)
• [06:18] Announcing TechEd Achievements (D. Begley, Karsten Januszewski)
• [07:18] .NET Crash Dump and Live Process Inspection (Lee Culver)
• [08:42] Windows Store app Development snack: Compress your images! (Robert MacLean )
• [09:41] Channel 9 Highlight: Inside Code Digger (Nikolai Tillmann, Peli de Halleux)

Picks of the Week!

• Dan's Pick of the Week:[11:10] Creative Coding Videos
• Brian's Pick of the Week:[12:03] Unit Test Generator under the bonnet (hood) … aka vsarUnitTestFx (Willy-P. Schaub)

Production Note: Yep, no bumpers... Golnaz wasn't available, leaving Brain and Dan on their own, and well... enough said.

_________________

Abstract:
In Part 6 of of their “Using Windows Azure to Build Back-End Services for Windows 8 apps” series Brian Hitney and Andrew Duthie  explore the world of built-in support for authentication in Windows Azure Mobile Services. Tune in as they quickly demo for us the process of adding authentication for your mobile and Windows Store apps.  Check out the full article here.

Watch Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

 After watching this video, follow these next steps:

Step #1 – Try Windows Azure: No cost. No obligation. 90-Day FREE trial.
Step #2 – Download the Tools for Windows 8 App Development
Step #3 – Start building your own Apps for Windows 8

Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes or RSS

If you're interested in learning more about the products or solutions discussed in this episode, click on any of the below links for free, in-depth information:

Register for our Windows Azure Hands-on Lab Online (HOLO) events today!

• Windows Azure Hands-on Labs Online

Blogs & Articles

• Brian Hitney’s blog
• Peter Laudati’s blog
• Andrew Duthie’s Blog
• Mobile Services Server Script Reference
• Mobile Services user object
• Twitter Developer site

Videos:

• Microsoft DevRadio: How to Get Started with Windows Azure
• Microsoft DevRadio: (Part 1) What is Windows Azure Web Sites?
• Microsoft DevRadio: (Part 2) Windows Azure Web Sites Explained
• Microsoft DevRadio: How to Integrate TFS Projects with Windows Azure Web Sites

Virtual Labs:

• MSDN Virtual Labs: Windows Azure

Please add your suggestions for awesome Windows 8 apps in the comments section. This week we take a look at special apps for Mothers Day:

JustWink - LIFESTYLE

Mom.me - LIFESTYLE

MemoryLage - PHOTO

Shuffle Party - GAMES

Oprah Winfrey Network - LIFESTYLE

• [03:51] - File handling
• [15:15] - Process lifecycle management
• [26:10] - Activating Windows Store Apps
• [33:56] - Site management strategy

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [00:46] - Layout
• [27:26] - Data binding

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [01:12] - XAML Basics
• [25:54] - XAML Code-behind
• [35:55] - Custom controls
• [46:34] - Create a ViewModel

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [07:49] - Intro to Windows 8 platform
• [34:13] - Background tasks
• [44:38] - Windows 8 UI principles

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

  HTML5 Evangelist Jeff Burtoft (@boyofgreen) walks you through the creation of a fun and inventive game called Yeti Bowl, teaching you to build HTML5 games as you have fun playing one.

  HTML5 Evangelist Jeff Burtoft (@boyofgreen) walks you through the creation of a fun and inventive game called Yeti Bowl, teaching you to build HTML5 games as you have fun playing one.

Download the Code Samples:

http://yetibowl.codeplex.com/

Next in series:

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/HTML5-Games-Yeti-Style-Part-4-of-4

  HTML5 Evangelist Jeff Burtoft (@boyofgreen) walks you through the creation of a fun and inventive game called Yeti Bowl, teaching you to build HTML5 games as you have fun playing one.

Download the Code Samples:

http://yetibowl.codeplex.com/

Next in series:

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/HTML5-Games-Yeti-Style-Part-3-of-4

  HTML5 Evangelist Jeff Burtoft (@boyofgreen) walks you through the creation of a fun and inventive game called Yeti Bowl, teaching you to build HTML5 games as you have fun playing one.

Download the Code Samples:

http://yetibowl.codeplex.com/

Next in series:

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/HTML5-Games-Yeti-Style-Part-2-of-4

Continuing on, Joseph explains how Advisor works along with the types of problems that it can detect across the different Microsoft workloads, including Windows Server, Hyper-V, SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync. At [14:30] Joseph shows a demo of Advisor integration with SCOM, including creating an account, configuring monitoring and the proxy server, discovering managed servers, and reviewing alerts and reports (he also provides guidance for how to resolve the alerts).

For more information, visit the System Center Advisor homepage to sign up for free (https://systemcenteradvisor.com/), check out the SCOM team blog (http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/) and download the System Center Advisor Connector for SCOM (http://aka.ms/AdvisorForSCOM).

News:

• [00:35] Join the Windows Azure for IT Professionals Jump Start on May 16^th: http://aka.ms/AzureJS (this link will redirect you to the recording approximately one week after the event)
•  [01:20] Download the System Center 2012 Update Rollup 5 for VMM and SCOM: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2822776
• [01:45] Four new System Center 2012 Operations Manager (SCOM) Management Packs released:
  • Windows 8 Client OS: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38434
  • Windows Azure Fabric (Preview): http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38414
  • SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) Appliance: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38198
  • Windows Server 2012 Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS): http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34765
• [04:10] The System Center Advisor Connector for SCOM preview has just been released: http://aka.ms/AdvisorForSCOM

Connect with the Edge Team: Facebook – Twitter - Email

• [3:05] Demo: Windows 8 File History
• [14:03] Demo: Virtual Machines and Hyper-V
• [22:52] Demo: Windows To Go
• [31:55] Demo: Storage Spaces

There’s never been a better time to build for Windows!  Join the App Builder Program and learn about the Windows ecosystem opportunity, design and monetization tips and partner development frameworks.

Resources:

• Download the Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation
• Windows 8 Enterprise
• Windows 8 Licensing
• The Springboard Series Blog
• Windows 8 Resources for IT Pros on Springboard
• Resources for Developers to Build Windows 8 Apps
• Windows 8 resources for partners on Microsoft Partner Network

Check out Zoo Train in the Windows Store!

Your App Adventure Starts here. There’s never been a better time to build for Windows!  Attend the Virtual Summit on May 2nd and learn about the Windows ecosystem opportunity, design and monetization tips, partner development frameworks, and even reviews from iOS and Android developers. Don’t miss this FREE online event, REGISTER today!

Zoo Train is a fun & educational bundle of games for toddlers and preschoolers featuring two kid favorites: animals and trains! Kids enjoy learning as they play the 5 different games plus a bonus sticker activity. With fun, playful illustrations and animations, original music, and intuitive game play that has been thoroughly kid-tested.

Check out Zoo Train in the Windows Store!

Your App Adventure Starts here. There’s never been a better time to build for Windows!  Attend the Virtual Summit on May 2nd and learn about the Windows ecosystem opportunity, design and monetization tips, partner development frameworks, and even reviews from iOS and Android developers. Don’t miss this FREE online event, REGISTER today!

• [05:25] - Global reach
• [17:39] - In-app purchase demo
• [21:15] - Advertising
• [36:19] - Publishing apps to the Windows Store

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: The Microsoft Design Language
• Mod 02: Less is More
• Mod 03: Navigation
• Mod 04: Layout
• Mod 05: UI Elements
• Mod 06: Snap and Scale Beautifully
• Mod 07: Charms, Contracts and Extensions
• Mod 08: Tiles and Notifications
• Mod 09: Touch
• Mod 10: Animation
• Mod 11: Accessibility
• Mod 12: Globalization
• Mod 13: The Windows Store