VS Express New Partner Announcements: Z-Wave Home Automation & Flight Simulator X
Oct 18, 2006
Last week, at Digital Life, we announced **two new partnerships **which expand the reach of hobbyist and enthusiast developers even further than before. ** Intermatic and ControlThink Partnership **Microsoft has partnered with Intermatic to better enable DIY developers to create custom home automation projects using Intermatics HomeSettings Kit. The goal here is to provide the hardware, API, and tools to make home automation easy. In fact, the HomeSettings kit even includes Visual Studio and SQL Server Express in the box :)…more
XNA Game Studio Express - Toronto Game Camp and SpaceWar Webcast
Oct 18, 2006
*Updated to include Seattle Code Camp (per Z-man) **Seattle Code Camp - October 27-28th **There are many XNA sessions including: Exploring the XNA Framework by Mitch Walker * Introduction to the Programmable Pipeline in XNA by Rick Hoskinson * Making an XNA Game for the Xbox 360 by Charles Cox * XNA Balls by Jason Mauer **Toronto Game Camp - November 11th **Daniel Shapiro from Microsoft Canada is hosting a free 1-day Game Camp for students, teachers, and hobbyists in Toronto that will show off how to create games using XNA Game Studio Express.…more
Coding4Fun - Round 1 Voting is in!
Sep 28, 2006
Round 1 of voting for the Coding4Fun Redesign is over and thank you for the 120+ of you who let your opinion be known! **Special Thanks **Before we get started, I wanted to give special thanks goes out to Personify Design, the design and development company that created these very cool designs. **Scoring **Scoring was a little tough and I tried to be as fair as possible. If someone listed a design as “#1” I made that vote count as their vote.…more
Vote Today For Your Favorite Coding4Fun Redesign
Sep 20, 2006
As I mentioned in my previous post, we are redesigning Coding4Fun and we want you to help choose the new design. Redesign Summary The current content on Coding4Fun is disorganized and primarily structured by author or event. This makes it frustrating to find the content on the site. For Coding4Fun v2, we are redesigning the site content into four major categories driven off the Coding4Fun blog: Windows - Utilities, Sidebar gadgets, etc Web - Web apps, mashups,etc Gaming - 2D games, graphics mods, etc Hardware - Robotics, web cams, etc Content is not mutually exclusive so that an article like Dance, Dance Revolution which would be in both the hardware and game categories.…more
Made In Express Winners Announced
Sep 19, 2006
The Winners Are In! Today we officially announced the winners to the Made In Express Contest including the Grand Prize ($10,000 US), First Prize, and Community Choice winners. The competition was tight and the voting even produced a tie for first place. Rather than breaking the tie, we’ve decided to recognize two First Prize awards! Read on to see who Robert Scoble, Phil Torrone and Chris Pirillo voted for: Grand Prize Winner…more
XNA Game Studio Express Download Now Available
Aug 30, 2006
It’s alive!!! Start downloading now. You will need to download Visual C# 2005 Express Edition to build games using Game Studio Express. Support: XNA Forum More info: XNA Blog
Application Development Meets American Idol
Aug 18, 2006
The MadeInExpress entries are in and now the voting starts! While the grand prize will be decided by Robert Scoble, Chris Pirillo, and Phil Torrone, like American Idol, you get to choose who wins the Community Award! See below for more information on these fun, cool, and useful applications! Go here to Start Voting Today **#1 A curmudgeon chat bot **(Sanchez Roman Canlas) #2 AJAX-based IRC client (Chris Fuenty)…more
Create your own Xbox 360 games with XNA Game Studio Express
Aug 14, 2006
Big news, the XNA team today announced a new product, XNA Game Studio Express, designed to enable hobbyists and students create games that target both Windows and the Xbox 360 using the XNA Framework. Why is this Big News? Well, to quote the official press release: In the 30 years of video game development, the art of making console games has been reserved for those with big projects, big budgets and the backing of big game labels.…more
Coding4Fun V2 Plans - Your Feedback Wanted
Aug 10, 2006
I wanted to get community feedback on some of the things we’re thinking about for Coding4Fun V2. Below is a list of changes I sent to some C4F authors asking their thoughts (many of which I’ve added below) and I’d love to hear your feedback: **Coding4Fun v2 Proposed Changes ** **UI Redesign **- It needs to be done or at least refreshed in my opinion. **Content Reorganization **- Right now the content is basically all over the place.…more
Groove is in the Heart - DIY Disco Dance Floor
Jun 30, 2006
File this under the coolest use of C# ever…Clint Rutkas, rock star, built a homemade LED Disco Dance Floor (as seen on Digg) and recently he wrote a “how-to” article on Coding4Fun!! I seriously want to build one of these for my office in my “free” time :) You should definitely check out the collection of YouTube videos and his party pictures to see it in action. The article is great and Clint manages to pull off a mix of Hanselman technical pragmatism, and Rory-esque humor which makes for an educational and entertaining read.…more