What can teachers and students work on now that the AP exam is over? Hunt for the Wombat is a 4-6 week project designed to give AP Computer Science students the opportunity to apply their programming skills, gain broader awareness and understanding of the software development process and have fun along...

If you are among those that don't have an Xbox 360 yet, there is a tool available at http://untitlednet.com that will check the inventory at Best Buy, Circuit City and FutureShop. It's cool because it's cool but it's *especially* cool because it was created using version 2.0 of the .NET Framework. Craig...

In case you missed it check out 2/3 of the KPL team on Channel 9 (44 minutes). Lots of stuff on the next version--nice!

Brian Goldfarb from the ASP.NET team just posted about a new series of "How Do I..." videos . I just watched the " Web parts and Personalization " and if it's any indication of the rest of the series, this is going to be EXCELLENT! Enjoy!

Huh? Mint Source is a cool tool from the UK Developer team--built by an intern actually--that let's you play around with Express to build a system tray RSS aggregator. Fresh... :)

Gosh, it seems like this took FOREVER! Glad that the Visual Studio Express Editions are finally here and REALLY glad that they are available FREE ! :) From Dan Fernandez’s blog : I am proud to announce that today, November 7th 2005, we officially released the downloadable versions...

Nice work by Brian Goldfarb and Carolyn from the University of Washington on their demo during Steve’s keynote speech at the launch kick off in San Francisco. Give it up for Carolyn—student gets on stage with SteveB to ROCK THE LAUNCH! :) I was very impressed at how she handled herself during the demo...

If you’re into application development, of course you know that today is a big day . Especially exciting, IMO, if you’re into Web development. Lots of things are updated; -the Visual Web Developer Express (VWDX) page (I dig the purple—I may have to order this just to have the box...

Maybe you’ve heard of Orange County Choppers , which is the featured bike builder on American Chopper which airs on Discovery Channel. OCC are proud users of Microsoft technologies . They are definitely at or near the top of the list of “cool” companies running their business on Microsoft...

I posted previously about Project Aardvark ; Well the interns have finally shipped their summer project — Fog Creek Copilot 1.0 has shipped ! Congrats to the team! How cool is that for these students? Your Summer internships results in a shipping product…awesome stuff. Although I must say, as a person...

Looks like the team that is maintaining Paint.NET have updated the app. It was created all in C# by some students at Washington State University—mentored by some folks at Microsoft. The app is intended to be an alternative to Microsoft Paint. Some screenshots courtesy of Rick Brewster . Tags...

If you have an MSN Spaces account AND you would classify yourself as an advanced user, you should check out the new Power Toys . From the Power Toys team: “PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after a product has been released to manufacturing. They add fun and functionality...

Thanks to Brian for the head's up on the release of the videos, presentations and demos from the ASP.NET, Visual Web Developer, and IIS talks at TechEd 2005 . Tags: ASP.NET , TechEd

The Coding4Fun guys are at it again . This is about the coolest thing I've ever seen! First it's cool because it's the first video podcast entry (yes, the feed will include a video file in your podcast catcher). Second it's cool because you can combine coding and home automation. Some sample scenarios...

Tom Indelicato , Computer Science teacher from New Hampshire, was kind enough to write up his impressions on the newest version of Visual Studio . Nice quick overview of the key feature updates. Just wait Tom--it's going to get even better! ;) Tags: Visual Studio , Whidbey , .NET , Computer Science

This is pretty cool. Instant J# helps generate J# code from Visual Basic code. Given the huge VB community out there and the plethora of code samples floating around, this could be a great learning tool. For students and faculty looking to bring their Java skills to the .NET Framework. Curious to know...

After much anticipation we've locked down the Webcast calendar over on MainFunction (you'll need to sign-in). All of the pieces have been lined up including our ability to grant continuing education units (CEUs) --we'll be getting things started on Monday August 8th. We finally worked out the schedule...

That includes MSDN Academic Alliance subscribers as well. Download beta 1 from MSDN Subscriber Downloads , check out the Windows Vista Developer Center on MSDN and subscribe to the RSS feed for the latest updates. Tags: Windows Vista , Microsoft

If you're interested in the Visual Studio 2005 and SQL 2005 betas, there isn't a cooler way to get them than this .

Cool video interview on Channel 9 with Chris Jones talking about Windows Vista beta 1 release . You just thought "Longhorn" didn't you? That'll be one quarter please! [:)] Tags: Windows Vista , Microsoft

Still catching up on all of the activity at TechEd. Came across this story on the first .NET Battlebot. Nice touch with the XBOX controller used to drive it! I am a BIG fan of Battlebots and I've had a chance to meet the creators. They are doing some interesting work with robotics in high school curriculum...

Microsoft Learning has just launched a new set of e-Learning products on the Whidbey Developer Center . There's a total of 62 hours of in-depth online training on the newest features of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005, with hands-on virtual labs and offline functionality. By taking a skills assessment...

I said it once when the winners were announced, I said it again when they were featured in their local paper and now I am saying it again... the app from the Virginia Commonwealth team was outstanding . Looks like the TabletPC team agrees with me giving them front page coverage. :)

Project Aardvark is a project pulled together by Joel Spolsky (he of Joel on Software fame). Excerpt from Joel on what Project Aardvark is; "Instead of wasting their talents giving them the usual dull and unimportant tasks of a typical summer internship, we decided to let the interns create a complete...

Most of the important stuff is already posted over on the MSDN Student Flash Blog or captured by the PressPass release . You can see the project abstracts and some pics in the image gallery . Even better pics at the Flickr gallery . Just adding my two cents; The 1st place application was truly...