There is an old joke: "But enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?" A more serious description would be “ Find out what people are saying about you on the web ”. IMHO this is the ultimate vanity app that a lot of people would want to use. It is not just “about me...

News Flash: All inbound data transfers for both peak and off-peak times will be free for all billing periods that begin on or after July 1, 2011.   This can represent very significant savings if an application currently has substantial amounts of inbound traffic or if you have large quantities...

Microsoft has won the Best Cloud Service award at the 2011 Cloud Computing World Series Awards. Having been judged by an independent panel of industry experts, the awards was presented to attending winners at the 3rd annual Cloud Computing World Forum on June 21st in Olympia, London. Since the Windows...

Please blog/twitter/facebook about this and forward a link for this to anyone who might be interested in the latest news and useful information about emerging Microsoft technologies. Note that they can subscribe to the full Ignition Showcase blog posts or just to the weekly summary newsletter . Important...

We have announced the release of the Windows Azure AppFabric June CTP which includes capabilities that make it easy for developers to build, deploy, manage and monitor multi-tier applications across web, business logic and database tiers as a single logical entity on the Windows Azure Platform . See...

Have you ever played Rock, Paper, Scissors? Then you already know how to play the game. Now’s your chance to code your own player “bot” and test your skills online against players from seven countries. The Grand Prize tournament winner will take home $5,000, Second place wins $1,000 and the 10 runners...

Activist, actor, author and philanthropist Eva Longoria invites you to celebrate the amazing work of student humanitarians by voting for the Imagine Cup 2011 People’s Choice Video Award. The videos in this post are by many of the 2011 Worldwide Finalists who imagined a world where technology helps solve...

With 600 million users, even marginally successful apps and promotions need massive scale.  Learn how to do so here.  Then get your own no-cost Azure account CODE webcastpass, and deploy your 1st app in as little as 30 mins Facebook welcomes 750k new users per day. Consequently, it's not unheard...

The Ithaca College Imagine Cup team is heading to NYC for the worldwide finals in mid-July.  They were profiled recently in an Ithaca Times article: Ithaca College students competing in worldwide game design finals This July, four Ithaca College students will head to New York City to battle other...

Please blog/twitter/facebook about this and forward a link for this to anyone who might be interested in the latest news and useful information about emerging Microsoft technologies. Note that they can subscribe to the full Ignition Showcase blog posts or just to the weekly summary newsletter . Important...

Microsoft designed the Windows Azure Platform to make it very easy for you to move your app to the cloud: use the tools you know, deploy your app on multiple instances without having to worry about servers, VMs or load balancers and enjoy the peace of mind that someone is minding the security patches...

So, you’re building phone apps for Windows Phone 7 –maybe even iPhone/iPad – and you’re curious about what the cloud can offer.  Is it possible to deploy scalable, mobile Web applications on Windows Azure? How about storing data in the cloud?  Is it possible to use the cloud for push notifications...

For some excellent Windows Azure guidance from the Microsoft Patterns and Practices Group don’t miss: Moving Applications to the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure Platform Developing Applications for the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure™ Platform And for a free Windows Azure Pass cloud account...

Fujitsu Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. have announced that the first release of its Global Cloud Platform service powered by Windows Azure, running in Fujitsu’s datacenter in Japan, will be launched in August 2011. The launch of this service is the result of the global strategic partnership between Fujitsu...

Try a free Windows Azure Pass cloud account (CODE: webvisions), and put up your 1st Windows Azure app in as little as 30 minutes . The new MyToDo app posted on CodePlex works with your free Azure Pass to give you a quick introduction to Windows Azure. Unlike most trial procedures that start with developing...

Rascal Flatts , Jason Aldean , and Ronnie Dunn have different prize packages just waiting for you. Go to these links and follow the registration instructions. You’ll need IE9 and Windows 7 , and the contest payoff could be big for the country music fan. Each artist has their own contest and they have...

The next version of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit—version 6.0— is now available for free download. To participate, register for the MAP 6.0 Beta Review Program at Microsoft Connect. Planning your journey to the cloud just got a bit easier. The next release of the Microsoft Assessment...

Please blog/twitter/facebook about this and forward a link for this to anyone who might be interested in the latest news and useful information about emerging Microsoft technologies. Note that they can subscribe to the full Ignition Showcase blog posts or just to the weekly summary newsletter . Important...

Ignition Showcase is a site focused on building and enhancing the vibrant ecosystem of Independent Software Vendors and start-ups on the Microsoft platform. The goal of Ignition Showcase is to bring together the right people and experiences from across Microsoft to provide ISVs with the resources they...

This blog post is the first installment of what promises to be an excellent series of articles on building a Microsoft based Private Cloud.  Starting with the National Institute of Standards and industry accepted definition of Public and Private clouds the author goes on to cover the five essential...

If you are a software company or a new startup and want to get $250 for Completing your FIRST Windows Azure Application all you need to do is Register your application at the Microsoft Platform Ready web site When it is live go into that site and mark it “Compatible” This short video describes the process...

One of the things I hear from startups occasionally is, how come I never hear what’s going on with BizSpark? Well, I have a couple of answers that I usually give. First, you can visit BizSpark.com and you’ll see a list of our latest BizSpark Blog and news posts. Members of the Microsoft Emerging Business...

  NOW AVAILABLE: New Windows Azure Platform Pricing Calculator The Windows Azure team has announced the availability of a new Windows Azure pricing calculator to help you select the right Windows Azure platform offer and estimate your monthly costs.  It will provide you with an estimate of...

We have  the first verified Guinness Book World record hosted on Azure!  This week Ortsbo set a world record for the most nationalities hosted in a live chat event. Ortsbo allows you to talk to anyone anywhere in any language. They needed attendees from 50, but had participants from over 100...

This is a series of 15 short, episodic videos that demonstrate the basics when working with SQL Azure.  The videos begin with walkthroughs of working with SQL Azure and user data to more technical aspects such as migrating from Microsoft Access or SQL Server.  ·         ...