Earlier this week, for the Atlanta chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) I gave an introductory talk on building Metro style games for Windows 8. It was great to see so many folks excited about building games for Windows 8, out...

Today, at the Atlanta Code Camp, I just announced the Windows Phone App Challenge of the day. During the event, between sessions, build a Windows Phone app around the theme of Summer, show it off at the end of the day, and win prizes! Some idea...

If you are passionate about spreading the word about the awesomeness of Microsoft’s technologies, programs and partnership opportunities to IT Professionals far and wide,, have we got a job for you. We’re hiring an evangelist to reach the IT Professional...

One of the key design decisions the design team made when creating Windows Phone was a focus on providing maximum battery life for the end user. And it seems a major contributor to short battery life is having applications running in the background. So...

The best free developer event in town is the Atlanta Code Camp. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s educational, and it’s this weekend (May 19). Join 300 of your fellow geeks learning about the latest developer technologies, techniques...

Headphones on. Tilt the seat back. Just steady codin’ as the keys get tapped. Get ready, because Nokia Developer is about to turn Atlanta ( and other cities ) into Dev City with its Ready.Set () {Code} Challenge . They are hitting the road to...

On Wednesday of next week, I’ll be giving a talk on what’s coming in Windows 8 for app developers and startups. I’ll be presenting this as a benefit to members (current and prospective) of a local coworking facility The Work Spot . So grab yourself some...

Good news, everyone! My colleague Ed Donahue and I have launched a new podcast series called The Campus Coder. The weekly half-hour podcast series features interviews with student developers who have made the leap into professional development with Microsoft...

How does learning about cloud computing while contributing to scientific research sound to you? Join us for @home with Windows Azure to get a solid understanding of the Windows Azure platform while giving back to a very deserving cause. What is @home...

If you have been wanting to learn how to write and publish Windows Phone apps, here’s a great opportunity to get started in the Atlanta area. The Windows Phone meetup here is kicking off off a 7 part series of events that will teach you how to do it....

This is a quick follow up tip to the last one I posted about using Trial Mode with a PhoneGap application on Windows phone. As I mentioned in that article, having your application available for users to try without laying out any money is a great way...

Today the Windows Phone team announced the release of the Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update ! This is a patch for the full Windows Phone SDK 7.1 and includes many new capabilities and features for expanding your apps’ reach to new markets and new devices...

Ready to dive in and learn more about Windows 8 and the developer opportunity it represents?  Then get ready for the series of Windows Developer Camps !  These are free, full-day, developer-focused events featuring a combination of sessions...

When you provide users a way to evaluate your application without any money up front, your app turns into the best advertising for itself. The user can check out your application in a limited feature mode, and when you have them hooked in to the benefits...

Today, the Windows family at Microsoft took a huge leap forward (pun intended). The consumer preview for Windows 8 is now available, and it’s one of the easiest installs of an update I’ve ever encountered. In fact, I was surprised to find...

Lots of things are tough to do in 30 days. Having a baby, building a skyscraper, shooting a movie. One thing that’s dead easy though? Creating a Windows Phone application. To that end, we’ve launched a new campaign designed to help you be successful doing...

What's a Windows Phone Garage? A free, full day event being designed to help developers/designers build Windows Phone applications. Whether you're a seasoned veteran or just getting started with .NET development this full-day event is for you. Not sure...

The industrious developer community over in Alabama has just announced their 9th code camp, taking place this coming March 10th in Troy. If you want a fantastic day of free training, networking with some great folks, and a lot of geek fun, make plans...

If you have been wanting in-depth in-person training on ASP.NET MVC3, HTML5 and jQuery in Atlanta , check out Shawn Wildermuth ’s upcoming class on building applications on the Microsoft web platform. Here is the outline for the class: This workshop is...

Windows Phone has a unique and very handy way of providing multiple entry points into your application. This is done through the use of one or more Live Tiles. The start screen on Windows Phone is comprised of tiles that represent many things – applications...

This morning the PhoneGap community announced their version 1.3 release! This release is special because it’s the first one to include support for Windows Phone. And not just a little support, but all the main PhoneGap features. For those of you with...

One of the downsides of finding videos and articles on the Web is that they can get out of date (to varying degrees) over time. So it’s always exciting to me when fresh material comes around, especially in conjunction with new announcements and...

“So two applications walk into a bar…” One of the user interface constructs that’s unique to Windows Phone is the Application Bar. The App Bar (as we affectionately call it) gives users a standard place to find buttons for commonly used tasks within an...

In this tip, I’m going to show you how to send an SMS message from PhoneGap on Windows Phone using the SMSCompose member of the Microsoft.Phone.Tasks namespace. There are a lot of useful launchers and choosers in that namespace, and I’ll be writing about...

(This post is part of my series PhoneGap on Windows Phone 7 tips .) When you are creating integration points between your PhoneGap HTML5 application and the Silverlight hosting application, there are a few ways you can go about crossing the gap (pun intended...