Learn How to Program - Beginner Developer Learning Center
Mar 01, 2007
As Soma announced on his blog, we’ve now officially released the Beginner Developer Learning Center, the one place designed for learning software development fundamentals. The goal is to address the #1 request from our existing Express customers…**more beginner content (more on that below), but we do this with: * True Absolute Beginner content - True beginners don’t know how the internet works, what a variable is, or the difference between an object or a class.…more
Club Site Starter Kit Project is recruiting
Feb 21, 2007
Zack Owens is looking for volunteers to assist with a new open source CodePlex project that builds onthe existing Club Site Starter Kit. Some of the features he’s looking to add include: Bug Fixes Forums FCK Editor Web Administration Poll Control RSS AJAX Themes Searching CMS-like text editing News page formatted for printing Selectable monthly, weekly, or daily calendar views Calendar pages formatted for printing ASPNETDB.mdf into the main DB Blogs The project is hosted on CodePlex at http://codeplex.…more
Coding4Fun Pushing the .NET Envelope
Feb 21, 2007
Coding4Fun is off the hook lately! Check out these great apps that are pushing the envelope in fun and cool ways Scott Hanselman’s Controlling a Microbric Viper Robot using Windows PowerShell Logo Yeah,PowerShell logo embedded into a Windows Form that can programatically control Robots. (Video demo) Video: Programming Unreal Tournament AI bots Andy Sterland, James Lissiak, and Tom Randell .NET Powered Unreal Tournament AI Bots To show off how easy it is to program Unreal Tournament bots, I created my own “bot” which searches for a player called Dan and kills him on-site.…more
Update: Response to BlueJ Patent Issues
Jan 28, 2007
Update: fixed wrong hyperlink On Friday, an alert reader emailed me about a new article by Michael K_ö_lling, the creator of BlueJ, about a patent issued by Microsoft for features in Object Test Bench that are comparable to BlueJ’s Object Bench. I’ll post the full “anatomy of a firedrill” some time later, but for now we can officially say that the patent application was a mistake and one that should not have happened.…more
Windows Home Server for Hobbyist Developers
Jan 26, 2007
A couple of weeks ago at CES, Charlie Kindel and team launched the newest version of Windows, Windows Home Server (WHS), a product aimed at making it easy for anyone, including mom, to setup an automated way to backup her PCs and to share pictures, movies and more. If you haven’t heard of Windows Home Server, go check out the Channel9 video where Rory interviews Charlie Kindel or read Paul Thurott’s Windows Home Server Preview, which has the following final thoughts:…more
SQL Server Express - Pre-Built Database Designs and Publish To Hoster Wizard
Jan 26, 2007
SQL Server Express Starter Schemas The SQL Server Express team got Barry Williams from http://databaseanswers.org to publish 10 pre-built schemas for common database designs to help ease the pain of working with databases and for users to understand what real-world database schemas look like. This helps in that rather than you having to recreate the wheel, you can take and modify these designs and use them as a good start place.…more
Windows Developer Power Tools Book
Jan 26, 2007
Still catching up on old email, but I did want to post that Windows Developer Power Tools was published last Friday, congrats to Jim Holmes and James Avery on pulling together a great collection of tools (170+ and over 1,300 pages). I personally authored the Visual Studio Express Chapter so I guess I can consider myself a writer now, and frankly I’m in good company in the book with Rob Howard, Sara Ford, Adam Nathan, and many others contributing.…more
Announcing Microsoft Robotics Studio RTM
Dec 13, 2006
Congratulations to the Microsoft Robotics Studio team for RTM’ing! * Non-Commercial Use: Robotics Studio is available for free to download * Commercial License: For commercial applications or business operations, you must purchase a commercial license, available for online purchase for $399. More information on Coding4Fun via Clint or the Robotics Studio Home Page
XNA Game Studio Express RTM'd - Create Pong on your Xbox
Dec 11, 2006
Congratulations to the XNA team for getting XNA Game Studio Express out the door! You can Download Game Studio Express here Clint has a good summary on the Coding4Fun blog XNA Blog Announcement Details To get you started, Coding4Fun’s ZMan has a how-to article on building your firstXNA game, Pong, err, TinyTennis. **XNA Party Tonight (Monday Dec 11th) **Anyone and everyone is invited to the XNA Open House party tonight, in Building E from 6-8pm PST.…more
Holiday Season on Coding4Fun!
Dec 07, 2006
Big props to Brian Peek and Clint Rutkas for some great Coding4Fun holiday content! ** How to create your own Animated Musical Holiday Light Show** Ever** **wondered how to create those animated musical holiday light shows that you’ve seen on YouTube? Now you can with this step-by-step article that shows how to build a .NET animated musical show and be the envy of your neighbors! Coding4Fun Holiday Gift Guide 2006 Looking for the perfect present for programmers?…more