WebMatrix & Razor: A new option for beginning developers
Jul 06, 2010
We just announced WebMatrix, a new, simple IDE to build and customize Web sites. As someone who believes we need to provide a better offering for beginners and non-professional developers, WebMatrix, and specifically, the Razor syntax is a huge leap forward. Given that most customers are familiar with HTML and JavaScript, being able to have a concise, lightweight and easy-to-use language (that still has the power of the full .NET Framework) is huge.…more
New Popfly Game Creator Features
Jun 18, 2008
Adam Nathan recently blogged about some of the new features they’ve added to Popfly Game Creator including the color swapper for skinning actors, guidelines and snapping for aligning characters, actor stamping for easier tiling, new events, and the ability to clone a level! All-in-all, this should make building games using Popfly even easier. Check out Adam’s post for the full details.
SQL Server Express 2008: Now in two flavors
Jun 10, 2008
As I blogged about on Channel 9 earlier (I love that we can have text and video posts now), SQL Server 2008 RC0 is now available for download. On the download page, you may have noticed that there are two versions of SQL Server Express SQL Server 2008 Express 2. SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services While the SQL Server 2008 Editions page doesn’t list the “Advanced Services” Express Edition, luckily Mike Wachal from the SQL Server Express team posted a detailed breakdown of the differences on the SQL Server Express blog.…more
Popfly Game Creator Alpha Launches!
May 02, 2008
Popfly Game Creator Alpha launches today and It’s amazing. Kudos to Adam Nathan as he’s really shown how Silverlight can build incredibly rich applications. I can only imagine what he’ll do when Popfly moves to Silverlight 2! Here’s the Channel 9 interview with Adam building three Popfly games from scratch * Here’s how difficult it was to make games before Popfly While Popfly Game Creator is designed for non-developers, I’m sure many developers will also want to have fun with it, so here’s my quick explanation of Popfly for .…more
DreamSpark: Free Microsoft software for students
Feb 19, 2008
DreamSpark is a new program that launched today (Feb 18th) at Stanford Univ. with Bill Gates giving the keynote. If you’re a student you get Windows Server 2003 Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition Microsoft Expression Studio including FrontPage Expression Web, Blend, Design and Media A one year subscription to XNA Game Studio Creator’s club For full information, check out https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/ and watch Max Zuckerman’s interview with Bill Gates…more
MS.com Home Page: Bill Gates, BDLC, and Visual Studio Express
Apr 16, 2007
Kudos to Jacqueline for getting the Beginner Developer Learning Center and Visual Studio Express on the home page of Microsoft.com. Screenshot below :)
Learn HTML for free with For Dummies book on Beginner Developer Learning Center
Apr 06, 2007
Yesterday we officially announced a partnership with Wiley Books, the creators of the “For Dummies” book series, to add 17 chapters from three popular book titles: Creating Web Pages All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies** **– Whether you’re opening an e-business or just want to show off the family reunion photos, here’s your complete toolbox for building great Web sites. HTML 4 For Dummies** **– This friendly book gets you going and shows you how to use the HTML markup language — in plain English.…more