dan

Noah Coad: An Overview of Visual Studio Express 2010

Dan Fernandez — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:07:00 GMT

In this interview, we talk to Noah Coad, the Program Manager for Visual Studio Express. We talk about

- Who the customer target for Express is
- What features are and aren't in Express
- Demos of the new IDE features that come in Express.

More info
- Download Express 2010 Beta 2
- Follow the Visual Studio Express Twitter account

TweetCraft - A World of Warcraft Twitter Client

Dan Fernandez — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:43:00 GMT

A gratuitious trailer for TweetCraft, a World of Warcraft Twitter client.

Twitter is open source and includes:
- A Windows client written in C# and Windows Presentation Foundation
- A Warcraft AddOn written in FrameXML and Lua using AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

Swine Flu (H1N1) Tracker Web Slice Released

Dan Fernandez — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:56:00 GMT

The rapid spread of the H1N1 flu virus is obviously a source of concern across the world. To offer an easy way to stay up to date, we’ve just released a new web slice for Internet Explorer 8 that offers the latest updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Check it out, and stay safe out there!

This Week on C9: April Fools Day, open source MVC, ExceLINQ, and cool Silverlight apps

Dan Fernandez — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:43:00 GMT

This week on Channel 9, Dan and Brian discuss the top developer news including:

- Scott Guthrie - ASP.NET MVC now is OSI certified open source, using the Microsoft Public License.
- New Microsoft MVPs announced
- Bart de Smets - ExceLINQ - a prototype of an Excel provider for LINQ
- Scott Hanselman - Paving a machine must-have applications
- Chris Auld - Intergen's TextGlow a Silverlight-based OpenXML document viewer's source code now available
- VSTS Ranger Team - VS Team Test 83 Page Reference Guide available, via Greg Duncan
- TBODA Web Team - 5 Useful SQL Server Scripts
- VB QuickStarts and How-To topics for PRISM available
- Giovanni Montrone - Coding4Fun Article - Silverlight Image Comparison tool (see live demo)

April Fools Day Favorites
- Larry Larsen - The Microsoft Surface Stove
- Brian Peek - TwitterDrive, The Revolution in Cloud Storage
- ThinkGeek - Tauntaun Sleeping Bag (note: TG is now trying to productize this)
- Xbox - Alpine Legend (video)

Picks of the week
- Brian's pick: April Fools Day episode of 10-4 on Sentient DSLs
- Dan's pick: Extreme Sheep LED Art video, via Wes Hutchins

Throwing Ten Thousand bouncy balls down a stairwell

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:40:00 GMT

David Norris and Larry Osterman are classic Microsoft pranksters (watch their original Channel 9 interview for how they pranked Steve Ballmer, among others).

One of their weapons of choice is the bouncy ball and this (now declassified) video from midnight on April 1st, 2006 shows what happens when you throw ten thousand rubber bouncy balls down six flights of a stairwell.

Softies pranking Softies: A step-by-step video for pranking co-workers

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:39:00 GMT

Here at Microsoft, we like to have a little bit of fun, so a couple of months ago, Scott Stabbert built a VB.NET application to prank his co-worker, Xander. Watch and learn how Scott did it and download the project code to prank your own friends.

MIX09 Video Outtakes with Scott Guthrie

tina10 — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:14:00 GMT

A quick video of some outtakes from Scott Guthrie's intro video at MIX 2009.

2nd place - MIX09 Show Off Contest - Creating the Ganassi Racing Sidebar Gadget

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:12:00 GMT

A Vista sidebar gadget was designed and created for the Chip Ganassi Racing team. This video walks through each stage of the process that we used at projekt202 to go from concept to finished project.

Built by:
- Jeffrey McLean (Lead Designer, All development, Video compilation, Video Narration), Linda Richey (Project manager, requirement definition, Race fan daughter), Eric Bear (Interaction consultation), Laura Cramer (Additional visual design), Peter Eckert (Creative Oversight), Jeff Steinberg (Business Side of things)

Tools used:
- Expression Blend, Visual Studio 2008, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Autodesk 3D Studio Max, Expression Design, Pen and Paper

See Honorable Mentions 1, 2, 3, 4.

1st place - MIX09 Show Off Contest - Physics Helper using Silverlight

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:12:00 GMT

An overview of the Physics Helper Library, which allows you to draw objects in Expression Blend 2, and have those objects translated directly into Physics objects using the Farseer Physics Engine. This can be a great timesaver for creating games, as it is traditionally difficult to line up underlying physics bodies, joints, and geometries with your Blend artwork.

Built by:
- Andy Beaulieu

Tools used:

- Visual Studio 2008, Expression Blend, Farseer Physics Engine

See 2nd Place Entry.
See 3rd Place Entry.
See Honorable Mentions 1, 2, 3, 4.

3rd place - MIX09 Show Off Contest - Stimulant Surface Applications 2009

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:10:00 GMT

Stimulant is an interaction design and development studio that specializes in new interaction paradigms on emerging hardware.

Microsoft Surface is an important part of our core offering. This is a short reel of our publicly-showable Microsoft Surface projects we created between 2008 and 2009.

Built by:
- Josh Santangelo, Jules Konig, Darren David, Lee Granas, Nathan Moody

Tools used:
- .NET 3.5, XNA, Visual Studio, Expression Design, Expression Blend, Expression Media Encoder, Microsoft Surface Emulator

See Honorable Mentions 1, 2, 3, 4.

Honorable Mention - MIX09 Show Off Contest - Silverlight Commodore 64 Emulator

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:09:00 GMT

Cycle-exact Commodore 64 emulator written in C#, much ported from C++ Frodo emulator. Done just to prove Silverlight can do almost anything. Most C64 hardware is emulated and it’s running off real C64 ROM images. Display is a MediaStreamSource 50fps video I’m generating from raw emulated VIC-II graphics chip output.

Built by:
- Pete Brown

Tools used:
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Silverlight 3

Honorable Mention - MIX09 Show Off Contest - WPF & The Emotiv Headset

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:09:00 GMT

By leveraging the power of .NET combined with the EMOTIV thought control headset soon to be released later this year, users are able to control the WPF application using thought control alone. Navigation and interactions are based on the user thinking the commands directly.

Built by:
- Rick Barraza, Cynergy Systems

Tools used:
- WPF, C#, Visual Studio 2008, .NET 3.5 SP1 (Pixel Shaders), EMOTIV Thought Control headset, Photoshop

Honorable Mention: MIX09 Show Off Contest - Playing in an augmented world

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:08:00 GMT

Realtime interaction with 3D objects using a webcam. Mix of managed and unmanaged code, tacking advantage of multi-core CPUs and GPUs for better interactivity.

Built by: YDreams
- Antao Almada, Goncalo Lopes, Andre Almeida, Joao Frazao, Nuno Cardoso, Amadeu Dias, Fernando Nabais, Ivan Franco

Tools used:
- Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, Microsoft DirectShow, YDreams YVision, DirectShow.NET, OpenCV, Ogre 3D, Mogre, Open Dynamics Engine

Honorable Mention - MIX09 Show Off Contest - Magister 5, a large LOB app in Silverlight

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:07:00 GMT

Magister 5 is a large line of business application for secondary schools in Holland, targeting management, staff, teachers students and parents. It is a 100 % Silverlight application, there is also a mobile version of the software.

Built by: SchoolMaster BV
Siebrand Dijkstra & Fleur van der Laan

Tools used:
Visual Studio and Expression Blend

Q and A with Bill Buxton at MIX09

Dan Fernandez — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:47:00 GMT

Nishant Kothary and Jonathan Carter host a live Q&A from MIX09 with Bill Buxton.

Q and A with Dean Hachamovitch at MIX09

Dan Fernandez — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:19:00 GMT

Mike Swanson hosts a live Q&A from MIX09 with Dean Hachamovitch on the newly released, Internet Explorer 8.

Q and A with Scott Guthrie at MIX09

Dan Fernandez — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:39:00 GMT

Scott Hanselman hosts a live Q&A from MIX09 with Scott Guthrie. You'll hear questions on future features of Silverlight, Silverlight adoption, Expression Blend, ASP.NET MVC, and much more.

Behind the scenes: How Scott Guthrie prepares for his MIX09 keynote

tina10 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:46:00 GMT

Take a behind-the-scenes look at just what goes into Scott Guthrie’s preparation for his MIX ‘09 keynote. We finally reveal the rituals and habits that get “The Gu” ready to deliver his one-of-a-kind keynote, and answer the burning question: Will Scott wear his red polo this year?

Coding4Fun Demo - How to mask your voice using the Skype Voice Changer

Dan Fernandez — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:05:00 GMT

Mark Heath (of NAudio fame) recently published a how-to article for Coding4Fun that shows how he plugged into Skype's audio APIs to dynamically apply different sound effects to the audio stream to mask your voice.

To see it in action, we setup a Skype connection between me and Clint Rutkas. Clint screen captured his PC so you can see the Skype Voice Changer application, while I recorded Clint's voice with the sound effects applied.

Coding is fun :)

Coding4Fun with Brian Peek: WiiEarthVR is a Wiimote, Virtual Earth, WiiFit and VR Glasses

Dan Fernandez — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:45:00 GMT

At PDC, Brian Peek showed off his WiiEarthVR project. Simply, put, the Coding4Fun project is .NET code that combines:

- A Nintendo Wiimote controller to move forward or backwards
- Virtual Earth 3D
- A WiiFit board to "steer" by leaning left or right
- Vusix VR920 glasses that include two 640x480 LCDs

The images are combined in such a way as to provide a stereoscopic 3D-like view.

CodePlex Town Hall at PDC 2008

Dan Fernandez — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:32:00 GMT

At the first ever CodePlex Town Hall, CodePlex community members demo’ed their favorite projects, while the CodePlex team listen to feedback on upcoming feature designs and plans (CodePlex.com homepage redesign and Project Documentation Tab). Thanks to Tamir Khason, Kevin Dostalek, and Joseph Guadagno for volunteering to do the demos!

Celso Gomes: Styling a Silverlight based Twitter application with Expression Blend 2

Dan Fernandez — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:44:00 GMT

This video shows how a designer can have a large impact on the look and feel of an application without having to write a lot of code or interfering with the core logic of the application. To highlight this, Celso Gomes will re-style a basic Twitter application built in Silverlight using only his design skills and the power of Expression Blend 2.

WOMENBUILD : Inspiring Career Paths In Technology

Laura Foy — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:04:00 GMT

While capturing some of the show floor buzz last week at PDC - I made it a point to save some time for the WomenBuild Networking Event. The workshop invited attendees (both men AND women) to collaborate ideas and formulate solutions using Lego Bricks. Clearly, they're not just for kids anymore! As brains melded, ideas flowed and great conversation ensued- there was also another goal of the event and that was to inspire people from all walks of life to get excited by technology and realize the multiple different career paths one can take in the technical field. Asli Bilgin was the lead on this event so I spoke with her and several key players to bring you total coverage. Check it out and learn how to participate HERE.

Coding4Fun with Clint Rutkas: The Segway Skateboard

Dan Fernandez — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:54:00 GMT

Clint Rutkas, our Coding4Fun Content Strategist and Academic Developer Evangelist shows off how he built a self-balancing Segway Skateboard in C#, and with all mad scientist projects, hilarity ensues.

David Pallmann & Mickey Williams: How Cloud Computing will Affect Every Developer

Dan Fernandez — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:50:00 GMT

At PDC, we caught up with David Pallmann and Mickey Williams to share their thoughts on the impact that Cloud computing will have on the different development communities. Whether you're a backend developer or working in an enterprise, you'll hear the different ways that Cloud Computing will affect you in the future.