Maria Naggaga

An App-Time Story: Build an App before you go to bed and earn $100 in the morning! The Final Chapter Claim your prize

Maria Naggaga — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:34:27 GMT

Chapter 5: In the Store claim your prize!

Now that you are in the store, you can claim your AppMadness prize. To claim your prize of the $100 make sure to fill in this form!

Note: Please make sure to read part 1 and 2 before you get to this page.

An App-Time Story: Build an App before you go to bed and earn $100 in the morning! Continued

Maria Naggaga — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:27:37 GMT

Chapter Four: Export to Visual Studio

If you are here, I assume you have customized the match template in the previous tutorial. Are you all done changing the imagines and text? It is time to go to Visual Studio 2012. (This section is from Jim O’Neil’s guide From Construct2 to Visual Studio)

This section might seem long but believe me it takes minutes, I promise.

1. Export the project from Construct 2:

2. Select Windows 8

3. Pick a directory to export to.

4. Wait while project is exported.

5. Choose option to open destination folder.

Note: you will need to have Visual Studio 2012 (or Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8) running on a Windows 8 machine to proceed.

6. You’ll see a File Explorer Window open into the directory containing the exported Visual Studio project. The important file is the one with a .sln extension and a type of Microsoft Visual Studio Solution.

7. Double-click that file to open Visual Studio 2012. One of the panels you will see open is the Solution Explorer, shown below. If other files open with Visual Studio too, you can just ignore them.

8. Double-click the package.appxmanifest file (highlighted above) from within the Solution Explorer.

9. In the panel that opens, select the Packaging tab (it will have a red X next to it)

10. On the Packaging tab, click the Choose Certificate button.

11. Then pick Create Test Certificate, and press OK.

12. Press OK on the next dialog (you don’t need to enter anything in the text boxes)

13. You can now run your game as a full-fledged Windows 8 application by clicking the arrow next to Local Machine (below) or just pressing the F5 key.

14. At this point run your game just to make sure it works as you expected. You should check out snapped view (move mouse to top of screen until you see the hand cursor, then drag to middle of screen and then all the way left). Your app will now occupy about a third of the screen.

Depending on options you used while building your game, the snapped view may or may not be usable. If it is not, see http://bit.ly/Zu3KJl for some recommendations.

15. Before submitting to the store you need to provide a minimum of four graphics – three logos and a splash screen. These graphics have very specific size requirements (below) and should be .png or .jpg format. Use MS Paint or other free drawing tools to great these graphics.

Overwrite the existing file in the project directory (filenames below) with your custom graphics.

Asset	Filename	Size in Pixels
Logo	app-logo.png	150 x 150
Small Logo	app-smallogo.png	30 x 30
Store Logo	app-storelogo.png	50 x 50
Splash Screen	splashscreen.png	620 x 300

At this point you will need to have your Windows Store Account active and be able to login with your Microsoft Account ID and password.

16. Right-click on the project in Solution Explorer to bring up the menu, then select Store, and Associate App with Store… On the dialog that results, press the Sign in button

17. You will be prompted to enter your Microsoft account ID for your store account; enter your credentials and press the Sign in button.

18. After you sign in, you’ll see the following dialog. Click the Reserve Name link.

19. You’ll be asked to sign in again.

20. You’ll then see the steps to submit the app to the store.

21. App name: pick a name for your app. It has to be unique among all apps in the store.

Press the Reserve app name button. If the name is already in use, you’ll need to pick a different name; otherwise, continue to 22

22. Press the Save button

23. Continue with Selling details

Pick free, or charge if you like.

For the information on the rest of the page:

Markets:	Pick the United States. You may pick any others except Korea, Brazil, South Africa, and Taiwan (as they have additional external certification requirements for games)
Release date:	Leave as Release my app as soon as it passes certification.
Category	Select a Category (it can be Games, but doesn’t have to be)
Subcategory	Select a Subcategory (not all Categories will have subcategories)
Hardware Requirements	Leave both Minimum DirectX feature level and Minimum system RAM set to Available to all systems.
Accessibility	Leave this unchecked

Press the Save button.

24. Continue with Advanced features, do nothing except press the Save button

25. Continue with Age rating and rating certificates

Select an age rating for your application based on the theme and content.

Then press the Save button.

26. Continue with Cryptography

For Does this app call, support, contain or use cryptography or encryption? Select No.

Then check the checkbox that appears (I confirm that this app is widely distributable to all jurisdictions without government review, approval, license or technology-based restriction.)

Finally, press the Save button.

At this point you have created most of the application profile in your Store developer account! Next you’ll go back to Visual Studio to create a package to upload your app to this new application profile.

27. In Visual Studio you should now see the dialog updated to include your new application. Press the Next button.

28. Now press the Associate button.

29. In Visual Studio Solution Explorer, delete the file ending in TemporaryKey.pfx, by selecting it and clicking the right mouse button to bring up the dialog, then clicking delete. DO NOT DELETE the one ending in StoreKey.pfx.

Press OK when prompted to confirm you want to delete permanently

30. Select the Store -> Capture Screenshots… option by clicking the right mouse button on the project in Solution Explorer.

Press OK at the prompt.

31. The Simulator should automatically start and begin running your application. Play the game to some interesting points you want to highlight, then click the Camera button on the right to take one or more screen shots. You will need these later when you finish the application profile in your Store developer account.

The screen shots will be stored by default in your My Pictures library, in a directory called Windows Simulator.

32. Back in Visual Studio, select the Store, Create App Packages… option

33. On the resulting dialog, leave Yes selected and press the Sign in button, to sign into your store account again.

34. Select your app from the list, and press the Next button.

35. On the screen that follows, press Create

36. On the next screen, click the link labelled Output location; that will open a File Explorer window that you should leave open.
You can optionally run the Windows Application Certification Test Kit locally to make sure you’ve made all the correct changes to the template.

37. Continue editing your application profile on your Windows Store account Developer Dashboard. If you no longer have the site up, navigate to http://dev.windows.com, click the Dashboard menu, and then Edit your existing application profile.

38. Packages

Drag the appxupload file from the File Explorer windows over to the Packages field on the web page, and wait for the transfer to complete.

When it’s done, press the Save button.

39. Description

You’ll need to provide description information and graphics for your application listing on the Windows Store; see the table below for a description of these items as well as which of them are required.

Description (required)	A plain text description of your applications
App features
Screenshots (at least one required)	Click the Add image link and browse to the screenshots you took earlier (in the My Pictures/Windows Simulator) directory. You will also enter some short text for each screen shot.
Description of update	Leave blank
Recommended hardware	Leave blank
Keywords	Provide search terms to help users find your app
Copyright and trademark info (required)	Use text like “Copyright 2013, your-publisher-name”
Promotional images	Leave blank
Website	Leave blank
Support contact info (required)	Enter your e-mail address
Privacy policy	Leave blank (unless you have added other features that require one)

Finally, press the Save button:

40. Notes to testers – optional, but you must at least visit the page and click the Save button.

41. You’re done!!! Press the Submit for Certification button.

You’ll get an e-mail confirming the certification, and you should hear within a couple of days (or even sooner) via another e-mail if your application has passed certification!

Don’t forget to submit your app to App Madness you have a chance to win $100.

An App-Time Story: Build an App before you go to bed and earn $100 in the morning!

Maria Naggaga — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:02:52 GMT

I AM A… my App-Time story. I AM A is a simple educational matching game that I built and submitted to the Windows 8 store an hour before I went to bed. In the morning I AM A… was in the store and ready for download. Disclaimer: approval time for Apps may vary.

The game is designed for children just learning to read. The objective of the game is to have the player drag the name of the animal on to the image.

What do you usually before you go to bed; read a book, watch TV, or play a video game? Why not build a game? With App Madness almost at a close why not build a Windows 8 App everyday for the next five days and earn up to $100 dollars for every app you submit to the store. You could earn $500 a week for only 5 hours (probably much less) of work. Build 5 apps by Mar 27th 2013 and another 5 by Apr 11th 2013 and make $1000 in total. Why not have your own App-Time story and wake up with money under your virtual pillow.

You must be wondering 5 Apps, how? In this post I am going to show you how using this template(Match.tmp.capx), openArt, Construct2, and Visual Studio 2012 you can build a matching game in 1 hour. By the time to you build another version of this game it is going to take you 5 – 10 mins! You can use this template and customize it to anything you want and as many times as you would like. For example shapes to name, sport players images to their name etc.

Chapter 1: Get your tools Construct 2 and Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 Use DreamSpark

To get Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 for free signup for DreamSpark. Edwin Guarin put together an awesome post on DreamSpark registration check it and move on to chapter 2.

Chapter2: Download I AM A… template(entitled Match.tmp.capx ) and save it to your desired location

Chapter 3: Making it your own Time

Once you have downloaded the template, open it in construct 2. Select Layout 1 tab run in a browser the app and play the game to get the general idea. Think about your game and start to download 12 images from some art resources listed at the bottom of the page. Have you got them ? Let’s make your app!

Editing the images

1. Right Click on an image and select image Edit Animation

2. Click on the folder to open a new image and replace the penguin. Resize the image to 150 by 150. Do this for all the other images as well.

Editing the Texts.

1. Select the text you want to edit

2. Go to the properties panel on the left

a. Scroll down to properties -> Text

b. Replace text in my case I switched to astronaut. Feel free to change the color and font as well.

3. Do the same for the remaining text.

Game Resources

http://opengameart.org/

http://www.clker.com

http://letsmakegames.org/resources/art-assets-for-game-developers/

http://funplosion.com/free-assets.html

http://www.ironstarmedia.co.uk/resources/free-game-assets/

http://jessefreeman.com/category/game-artwork/

Sound Effects - http://www.bfxr.net/

Tiled/Seamless Textures - http://maxtextures.com/

Royalty-Free Music - http://incompetech.com/music/

Sounds clips - http://soundbible.com/

The story continues click here for the last Chapter 4(Export to Visual Studio) and Chapter 5 Claim your Prize (App Madness)

Announcing: Microsoft Mondays @ Pace!

Maria Naggaga — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:24:26 GMT

Location : 163 William Street, 2nd floor

Date	Event
02/04/2013 Time: 12:25 PM – 1:25 PM	Meet & Greet. Intro to Windows 8 and install fest
02/11/2013 Time: 12:25 PM – 1:25 PM	appLab1: Building Apps with web technologies.
02/18/2013 Time: 12:25 PM – 1:25 PM	appLab2: Windows Phone 8 development
02/25/2013 Time: 12:25 PM – 1:25 PM	appLab3: Building Games on windows 8
03/08/2013 –03/10/2013 Time: TBA	Windows 8 Hackathon
03/ 23/ 2013	Gen App Demo

Apps Made Easy: GameSalad Part 1

Maria Naggaga — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 23:17:16 GMT

Generation App is a fun way for developers to take on a challenge and Gamesalad is a great way to get started! GameSalad is an authoring tool that enables developers to compose games in a drag-and-drop-fashion; with the use of visual editor and behavior based logic systems. If you are non-programmer Gamesalad is a great way for you to get involved with the developer gaming community and bring your awesome ideas to life. On the other hand if you are a programmer, GameSalad is a great way for you to launch rapid-prototypes to test in the store before building in HTML&JS , XAML&C# etc.

The GameSalad Community of which I am member(@LadyNaggaga) of is a wealth of information on how to get started. As I new member I have used

the community forum to learn new techniques, post questions , and answer a couple as well. The Game collection on the Game Salad website is great place to see the amazing game building possibilities that this tool has to offer. I was inspired to dabble in GameSalad after playing Angry Anna 2.0 by geekmentors. An Angry Birds based game Angry Anna is inspired by Kisan Baburao Hazare popularly know as Anna Hazare fight against corruption in India. Who said games can’t be fun, political and educational!

After playing Angry Anna multiple times yesterday, I decide to see how far I could get building my own game today. I decided to start with a basic shooting game based on the GameSalad template Basic Shoot Em up. What I liked about this particular template is it is a quick guide on how to use the actors and behaviors in Gamesalad.

Escape from Mars is a basic 2D shooting game that has my heroine the astronaut fighting the Martians in her quest to return to earth. The player uses the left, right, up and down keys to move their heroine around the screen. The aim of the game is to have the heroine shoot the Martians and finally the orange spaceship to win the game. Once the player has completed their ask the level is complete(please stay tuned for the upcoming levels). The storyboard below was what I was able to develop this Sunday afternoon(1/13/13).

Escape from Mars Storyboard

The last entry for this blog post is going to show you how make your heroine(actor) left, right, up and down across your stage. Before I continue on how to move your heroine(actor), I assume that you have read pages 1-13 of the GameSalad Manual. It is important to understand the use of the library, stage and backstage elements of the tool.

Moving an Actor

Before you start adding rules and behaviors to an actor make sure that you have selected the astronaut. You would have noticed that the backstage section of your tool would have gone from blank to white screen allowing the you create a rule, group or timer.

Steps

1. Click create a new rule.
2. Under When: Drag the Key condition from the library section.
3. Under do: Drag the Move behavior.
Filling in the blanks

We want to make sure that every time the player presses the up key, it is recognized. To accomplish this in the receives a key press text simply press the up key. To move the actor up enter 90 in the move in direction. Click play to test. As you must have noticed as you continue to press the up key, the actor disappears off the screen. Let’s fix that .

Restricting the Actors movement

Drag the attribute condition under the when in the rule.

Filling in the blanks

1. Make sure that the position actor is know. Click on the a drop down box and select

Attributes –> astronaut –> Position –> Y the end result should read self.position.y .

2. Set the operator to < (less than)

3. Make sure that the expression editor is less than height of the scene. In my case my scene is 320 so, I set it 300.

Now do the same for all the other directions and simply change the key stroke, move direction ,and attribute values. Stay tune of shooting and explosions.

Acknowledgement: All art for this game was done by Sara Summers.

Imagine Cup 2013: Student Accelerator Sign up today!

Maria Naggaga — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 04:19:45 GMT

We all have great ideas, what most us tend to is seat on them; put them on the back shelf; think it isn’t unique enough?; and am I really being innovative. That is why I like Mulleweg quote, “Usage is like Oxygen for ideas…” , you will never know how great your idea is until you put it out there.

This is where the Imagine Cup 2013 Student Accelerator comes in. For the first time Microsoft is partnering with Silicon Valley premier accelerators to help you bring your ideas to life!The successful applicants will receive mentoring, workshops, and technical guidance from startups & tech industries in silicon valley at Microsoft’s expense!

Over period of 2 months the successful applicants will spend time with mentors, participate in workshops, receive technical guidance you need to unleash your idea!

Signup today !

The U.S. Imagine Cup Student Accelerator is accepting applications until January 6, 2013. To apply for the program all we need is just an idea and you and your teams background. What are you good at.

Successful applicants will have the opportunity to meet investors and fundraisers; promote and publicize their ideas in tech media such as Fast Company, TechCrunch etc; given money to start their own business; and expert advice from professionals. To find out more please visit Imagine Cup 2013 page.

To be apart of this amazing opportunity make sure you and your team read the rules; fill in the application form; and do a video pitch! Remember this is a skill contest and we just want to see how awesome you are. With your pitch video be creative show your technical skill in a way that is interesting, innovative, shows your idea, and most of all represents you.

Get the ball rolling

The Windows 8 student Holiday App Challenge is a great way to get started. The challenge is to create and publish your Windows 8 app by January 20th and win a $100 gift card. Whether you look at it as developer, design or in a business perspective as Mullenweg said ,”you can never fully anticipate how an audience is going to react to something … until it is out there.” By taking the challenge and signup accelerator program you are creating and increasing the awareness of your brand. If you take the challenge and are accepted into the accelerator program, by the time you are silicon valley you will have a better perspective of what your audience likes and expects. Read more on the Holiday App Challenge here. TAKE THE CHALLENGE!

Imagine Cup 2013: Passion + Creativity + Awesomeness = Amazing Hackathon @ RIT

Maria Naggaga — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 18:33:00 GMT

Last Weekend I spent an amazing time with the students and faculty at the School of Interactive Games and Media at Rochester Institute of Technology.

On the 30th of November to 1st of December, RIT and Microsoft held an 18 hour Imagine Cup workshop and Game Hackathon. I know 18 hours on no sleep, lots junk food and plenty of coffee doesn’t seem like the perfect recipe but, the students at RIT did an amazing job and demo great games !

The RIT Imagine Cup Workshop and Game Hackathon last weekend was my very first event! For those of you have read a bits of my blog, you will know that I just joined Microsoft at the beginning of October after just graduating this year. This event was a BIG DEAL for me! As you can imagine being a newbie I was nervous and excited about this workshop/hackathon. The turn out of this event was pretty amazing we had 49 students come out, and 28 participate in the hackathon split into teams of four.I couldn’t have asked for a more amazing crowd.

The Challenge

The amazing teams had to create an app or game that fell under one of the three competition categories of Imagine Cup 2013: game, innovation, or world citizenship. The final results had run on a Windows: Desktop(Windows 8), phone, or Azure, with the teams using Visual Studio as their primary text editor.

The room was filled with amazing talent ranging from graphic designers, to musicians , and programmers. It was so exciting to see that even with such a tight time frame, this talented group were creating their own graphics, music and learning new ways to develop on the Windows 8 platform. A couple of the students had never used HTML5 & JavaScript or XAML & C# to build an application, and I must say I was blown away by the games that were created by the teams!

Results

The games I saw towards the end of the competition were intuitive, beautifully designed, fun and highly addictive. Each team had a great game concept and I hope see their final products at the Imagine Cup 2013; in the windows store; and as participants in Generation App 30 to launch. Teams were highly resourceful utilizing Windows 8 code samples; JavaScript tools and libraries like Create JS; and cross development tools like Mono Game, and Unity. The ability for the teams to develop such great apps in a short amount time speaks highly to their talents. The fact that the teams were able to develop using a variety of programming languages and tools shows the flexibility of Windows 8 development to work with a developer strengths.

I saw so many amazing games last weekend, I would like to introduce you to the three winning teams. In first place was Dice Deluxe: Jason Mandelbaum, Christopher Chippero, and Brendan George. This Windows phone game allowed its players to access multiple dice at ago. By the end of the hackathon this Game was ready, I can’t wait to see it in the Windows 8 store. In second place was Renu: Amanda Rivet, Adam Ettenberger, Nate Lemoi, and Josh Davis. This Windows 8 application has been designed not only as game but, as educational tool on environmental awareness. I loved how the team thought of creative way to keep their players engaged and environmentally conscious.Renu used HTML5 & JavaScript, and CreateJs. Last but not least was Grid Lock: Daniel Jost, Timothy Reynolds, Sean Brennan, and Mike Nolan. This Windows 8 game is a fast-paced 2D shooter featuring both four player local coop and online multiplayer. It is cross-platform so players can partner up with their friends using their favorite device. Grid Lock used Unity, XAML & C#.

THANK YOU

I would like to say a special thank you to Jennifer Hinton, David Schwartz , and all the faculty at RIT who made this hackathon possible. A BIG thank you to all the students who came out for the event.

A special thank you to colleagues and Microsoft Partners Chris Bowen, Edwin Guarin, and Steve Maier.

Windows 8 Dev: Create, Read, Write, Copy, and Delete

Maria Naggaga — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:48:47 GMT

Requirements: Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012

Sample 1: Access a File

Visual Studio 2012 comes with several different online templates you can download online. You simply access the templates by :

Starting Visual Studio 2012
Click New Project
Click Online in the left hand menu
Click samples
Select from the choices of JavaScript, Visual: basic, C#, C++, and Visual F#

For these tutorials on getting started with Windows Store Apps I am going to be focusing on HTML 5 and JavaScript. After you have created your first Hello World program your next step is to begin understanding how to create , read , write , copy , and delete information to your app. File access sample on the Dev Center windows website is a great start on how to do this; don’t worry C++, C#, JavaScript , and VB.NET developer you were not forgotten click on tabs at the top of this page to get your tutorial.

What you will learn

This sample will enable the you to:

1.Create a file in Doc Library

2.RW text to a file

3.Write and read bytes in a file

4.RW a file using a stream

5.Displays file properties

6.Persisting Access

7.Copy a file

8.Delete a file

Sample Description

APIs Used: Windows.Storage and Windows.Storage.AccessCache.

This sample demonstrates to do steps 1 through 8 to retrieve, track a file; using the Windows. Storage and Windows.Storage.AccessCache.

The sample has been split into 8 HTML and JS files labeled Scenario1 to 8. In this post I will re-using the code used here showing a step by step process on how to use this code on your own.

Lesson 1: Create a File

Start Visual Studio 2012 select a blank template, name the app Create Read Write Delete and click create. Add new folder to your solution by right clicking on your Solution name and select add new folder rename HTML.

Goals: create a generic data file(.dat) in your document library. To complete this demo download the samples and walkthrough the steps.

For this section of the demo you will need to open the Scenario1. HTML and Scenario1.JS in the project solution.

Scenario1.HTML

In the Scenario1 HTML the data-win-control in the <div> is going to jump out to you. The data-win-control enables a div element host the specified window library for a java script control like Win.JS or this case SDKSample.Scenario which the developer created in sample-utils.js (which will be discussed in another blog post).

<div data-win-control="SdkSample.ScenarioInput">

SdkSample.ScenarioInput control inserts the appropriate markup to get controls place into the input section of the page.

and

<div data-win-control="SdkSample.ScenarioOutput">

SdkSample.ScenarioOutput control inserts the appropriate markup to et controls place into the output section of the page.

Scenario1.JS

Create variable

var page = WinJS.UI.Pages.define("/html/scenario1.html", { ready: function (element, options) {….

WinJS.UI.Pages.define : each page loaded is defined using this method. It allows the app to define what should happen when you navigate to a page.

Create File Function ( createFile() )

In this function I want to you to pay attention to the snippet below
Windows.Storage.KnownFolders.documentsLibrary.createFileAsync("sample.dat", Windows.Storage.CreationCollisionOption.replaceExisting).done(…

Earlier in this post I mentioned that we would be using a couple of Windows.Storage.Api s. Windows.storage.namespace is made of the following types: members, classes, delegates, enumerations, and interfaces.

Let’s take the snippet above find out what each section does

KnowFolders : is a class in Windows.storage that provides access to common locations that contains content.
documentsLibrary: where we want the file to be created.
CreateFileAsync is a storagefolder methods can be creates new file in a folder or group. Before we continue there are two ways this method can be used:

CreateFileAsync(String) – which is used to create a new file in folder or file group.
CreateFileAsync(String,CreationCollisionOption.replaceExisting.done)- as seen in the snippet above creates a new file in a current folder and specifies what do if a file with the same name already exist.

Run code

Results

Lesson 2 – will follow up with scenarios 2 -4

Imagine Cup make your mark!

Maria Naggaga — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 21:19:28 GMT

It time to sign up for Imagine Cup 2013 and make your mark on your community, share your passion and jumpstart your career. All you have to do is registrar for Imagine Cup , form a team and build an app. Registration still open so what are you waiting for!
Imagine Cup is split into three interesting categories: Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship; Your app can be for any of the following Windows 8, Windows Azure , and Windows Phone.

Looking for Inspiration

The hardest part of taking on a project is figuring out what are you going to do. Always start by looking at what inspires you, what your community needs, and where you make an existing process more efficient.

This is my first time being apart of Imagine Cup. After watching the 2012 winners videos , I was so inspired that I began to start on my project of my own . In the following weeks leading up to the deadline, I will be working on project focused on one of the categories.

What’s new this year?

Imagine Cup Student Accelerator Lab! Microsoft Imagine Cup is excited to announce that this year we will be partnering with Silicon Valley’s premier startups accelerators to bring your ideas to life.

If you apply, and are admitted you and your team will receive mentorship from startup and technology industry experts. Find out more and get started today !

Imagine Cup Toolbox

Here are some tools to get you on your way.

Rules

Read through the rules of the competition.

Register now for Wowzapp 2012!!

Maria Naggaga — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:08:34 GMT

Re-blogged from Ed Donahue! :)

NEW YORK COME JOIN US LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY BROOKLYN

Be part of the app revolution

Join thousands of developers worldwide, November 9-11, 2012, for Wowzapp the worldwide hackathon for Windows and build apps for the next generation of Windows.

There will be dozens of event venues from college campuses to Microsoft offices, all buzzing with energy, music, free food and more. New venues being added daily – check back to find the event near you.

Expert help, free resources

Microsoft app experts, developers and trainers will be available to assist your learning and coding.

Get the app

Download the Wowzapp app (created by students!) to use throughout the weekend. You can post questions for other Wowzapp attendees, stream tech talks happening at other locations and score points through the app to compete against other attendees!

Locations in East Region

Wowzapp is happening all over the world in 100+ locations. Here in East Region there are several events being held. They don’t all start at the same time, so be sure to click through to the registration page.

Getting Started

Get Windows 8

Remember, to program for Windows 8 you have to have Windows 8. You can buy Windows 8 online from the Microsoft Store, download a 90-day Windows 8 RTM evaluation or download it through an MSDN or DreamSpark Premium subscription.

Get the Development Tools

Don’t forget to grab a copy of the free development tools! You can download Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8 for free or download one of the full versions if you have an MSDN or DreamSpark subscription. You can also sign up for a 90-day trial of Windows Azure if you plan on using cloud services for your app.

Start Learning

Jumpstart your Windows 8 development skills so you can hit the ground running at Wowzapp!

Windows 8 30 to Launch – Tips, tricks and resources to take your app from idea to store.
Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript – I blogged about this free Microsoft Press ebook that provides comprehensive coverage of programming for Windows 8 Apps, by Microsoft’s Kraig Brockschmidt. This book is about writing WinRT apps using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.
HTML5 Game Starter Kit for Windows 8 – with the HTML5 Starter kit, how-to instructional video, along with the step by step guide, users will be able to set up a new Windows 8 game project with ease. This content was developed by Petri Tapio Wilhelmsen (@petriw) who also has a great blog.